Watch As Well As Pray

Which deserves the most attention, watching or praying? Which stands tallest in your life? In the last 10 years or so people have given the most attention to the subject of prayer, when to pray how to pray, why to pray. What we have learned is that there are many opinions on the subject of prayer. To me what counts most is that we make it a lifestyle. A consistent prayer life keeps us grounded. We are told in scripture to watch as well as pray.

Watching on the other hand is a subject to which I, in this venue will deal very lightly. I loved the story of Gideon when growing up as a child. One of the things Gideon watched for while selecting a small yet courageous army for the Lord, he watched the men while drinking. The select group drink-ed from the water source and watched everything that moved around them, much like dogs do when they drink. The significance was most people when enjoying some type of activity will relax and not watch the things around them. The example is a picture of those who are alert even when it is a time to relax. We as people will only watch when we are told that it is time to be attentive.

As you know the blogs in this series of blogs are about relationships as I think in my inner being.

There is no time to relax in relationships. There is always something going going on in the mind of the other person. Many marriages and relationships fail when one of the individuals stop watching. They say that, "I didn't see it coming". Watching deserves the same amount of attention as praying.

Love Don't Act Like That

Have you ever wished that you never said what you said or did what you did? Do you have any regrets for doing the wrong thing at the wrong time?

Sometimes you wish that you could take things back. Like it is said, it is like a stone thrown. The force of the throw will cause the stone to go further than intended. Anger causes us to do and say things that we would not otherwise say. Yes, we loose control, the things that we would not possibly say out of our mouth pour out like a sieve. Where is the governor? It is lost in the anger. Why do we allow the things to take control of the things that we can just keep to ourselves? This is the the beginning of the end when we say thing to purposely offend the other. Why must we continue to act like children. Actually children do not act like that. Then the question becomes why must we as adults act like that in the name of love. That can't be love. Love "does not" behave itself in an unseemly way. Love does not testify against itself as couples do. Love can not be just the feeling of attraction that we feel for each other when we are drawn to each other, but even when we do not feel the attraction love must continue.

Love is many things to many people, but it cannot be an act, but rather an action in favor of the other rather that the self. It must be a denial of the self and an exalting of the other. The practice or life style of love is a determination to esteem others higher than your self. Yes, there is self love. And there is love that satisfies the self for a moment, but that love is incomplete without the object of another. It is lifeless and selfish. Again the stress here is "relationships". Relationships are never just focused on one, but rather the focusing on the unit as a whole. It is what is good for the whole. Love doesn't act, it responds, but moreover it anticipates the need of the other. It seeks the need of the other for the nutrition of the whole.

A Snake Is In The Building

I work in a warehouse, and just the other day a rat-snake entered into the building. To me, it was very shocking to see a four foot snake in the building. Especially in a building where a dozen men were working and the loud noise of gas fork lifts were roaring about.

It just so happened that I heard the boss calling out as if someone was hurt. In an industrial environment you drop everything that you are doing if possible to answer the cry of distress.

I came running to see what the ruckus was all about, only to see a large snake crawling along the floor. My first instinct was to kill the snake, but the security guards had another plan. They would capture the slithery creature and set it free in an adjoining open field. I ran and got a push broom to hold the snake in place while someone figured out how to pick it up and put it in a bag.

One of my coworkers kept playing with the tail of the snake. The snake looked as if to say, "don't do that". The coworker kept agitating the serpent. It became very angry and went from fear mode to attack mode. I told the security guard that "I am not going to hold this snake any longer". He took the broom and let the pressure off of the snake. The snake jump up in the air about three of four feet. I stood back at a distance. The snake moved under a stack of parts. We could no longer find the snake. A lady from another building came to search for the snake. She informed us that she had handled snakes before. She searched for about and hour and a half and found the snake. She grabbed it by the tail and while another person help put the snake in a bag.

This story reflects how strange things can enter into relationships without invitation. It is there to sir up trouble. I learned from this incident is that we should deal head-on with things that come to bring trouble in our relationships. If we let troubles just have its on free course there could be real trouble ahead. The woman who handled the snake represents relentlessness to resolve the issue right now. The gentleman who taunted the snake represent people whom we allow to speak into our ears of to stir in the problems. The are many keys in this story to me about resolving issues in our relationships. We must not let it pass us by. We must act now. We must develop a plan. We must never allow a snake into our relationships.

Pressing Forward Even Harder

To achieve the goal that is set before me, I must not have any reservations about it. There are things that are in front of me that would make me shake if I give into my fears. I can not give them value. Have I changed from the past? Am I any different from the way I used to be? No, not really. I am not doing anything different. I just have a different resolve. I view things slightly different. I only have one life to live and I want to live it to the fullest. That does not mean that I am ignoring anything that is before me. I just view it as a step between me and what I want to achieve.

At 51 years old, I have learned that no one is going to do it for me. What I mean by that is that others have opinions of the way that they think things should be. But, for me they can not make decisions. They are not concern about the wealth of my life. They are only concerned about their own, and rightly so. There was a old spiritual song that went, "If I die and my soul be lost, it is nobody's fault but mine". To me that means I am responsible for my own destiny. I am accountable for my own decisions. I can't now blame others for what God has given me the necessary tools to acquire the things that make me successful.

Relationships are built on emotions and that is on so many levels. Yet their are many things that has to be investigated on so many levels. I am not speaking on levels of distrust. I am speaking on levels and terms of what it will be for you in the future. It is the reason that we have parents. They at the beginning taught us that we should have used better judgment in bad decisions that we made as children and adolescents. That, in itself was a call to look into the future with the insights that we were given and decided to do or not to do a certain action. It is not that we can not see the obstacles before us, but what will we do with those obstacles. Well as an older man I choose to use those things before me as steps to where I want to go. It may well be that others have opposing agendas within their plans of action. Again I must take those things into consideration. I am the choice make of what I allow to go on in my life. Some things I can control and somethings I can not. The things that I have direct control over is how I respond to things around me and things that confront me. The illusion that others want me to have is not the thing that I should focus on. My focus is upon the goal that I have set. Isn't this the reason for Christian faith? That is, depending on God to see the things that we can not see and know the things that we can not know.

This thing of which I speak of is sometime hidden for others unless you are involved in a relationship. Pressing forward to do the right thing even if the other does not do the right thing. I am held by a higher standard than others. When I stand before God some day, I want to hear him say well done. not because I allowed things to just happen, but I made things happen by pressing forward harder. This has been a lesson that has been hard-learned over the last six months

The Old Unseen Block

The time it takes a couple to get over an impasse is just wasted time. Why so many many divorces in our land? Why so many struggles in marriage and relationships? What does it take for a couple to see that these roadblocks are very straining to a relationship? There is never an "I'm right", only a bad understanding that it takes to to make it in a relationship. Compromise is never a counting contest to see how many times you or your mate gave in and was wrong. If we are to make it, it is by first, God's grace, secondly and understanding that we must work at breaking down the unseen road blocks. The need to be right is often a symptom of unresolved history. Perhaps a learned behavior. We must work very hard on seeing ourselves as people that need to constantly work on ourselves.

Too Much Talking Not Enough Praying

I recently experienced the putting of marriage on the shelf. It is not because I don't want the woman or it is not that I don't want to marry the lady. It is that we spend to much time talking about things that we can not control. I am committed to doing the right thing. No one pleases me more than she does. And wow, no one can make me as angry as she does. Nevertheless I do love her. I take the time to listen to her as she listens to me. There is yet a time for talking and there is a time for praying. Prayer in and of itself is a comfort. Yet it does not always change the circumstances, but it sometimes changes you in the circumstance. I wont make this blog longer that it has to be. I will shorten it by saying that prayer is talking to God. I hope that he never tire of talking or listening to us. I know that he is concerned about everything about us. I feel that we should talk to him more because he is that one that can do much more that we can. Sometimes we just waste too much time talking about things that we just can't control