Good morning and happy Wednesday, 45 degrees, cotton ball clouds are lazily drifting across the backdrop of the indescribable blue sky, the sun is just beginning to peak atop the mountain, a mild breeze is brushing against my skin, the birds are chirping in harmony...a perfect morning for me with one exception...I forgot to buy coffee yesterday so my pot sits empty this morning:) I have choices, am I going to go inside, get dressed (out of my sweats, no I am not sitting naked), back the car from the garage, drive to the market and purchase coffee or am I going to go to the fridge, and get my second choice, diet pepsi, and resume in the yard where each morning I sit and enjoy the world awaking? Am I going to put off the things I get most pleasure from to accommodate my need for coffee, am I going to say it is a horrible morning because one thing out of the rest is askew? How many times have I said..."it would have been perfect, BUT"...."IF only..., it would have been perfect" If we lived in a perfect world, why would we have need to desire our final resting place to be in heaven, why would we try and live Christ like if things were so perfect here? As long as we are here on earth, there will be circumstances that will be less than perfect, there will be times when nothing seems to go right, there will be days when the covers over your head will be much more appealing than the alternative of getting up and facing the day! We will run into brick walls, we will be deterred by road blocks, we will come to mountains that we will have to climb to continue on our way. No one is exempt from these things, no one was given the "perfect" pass, we are here to learn, we are here to make choices, we are here to figure it out, we are here to validate ourselves in God's eyes. He needs to see how we are going to handle adversity, he needs to see how tough we are, he needs to see who we are! So instead of allowing myself to become upset this morning, I took my second choice, I am now sitting, writing this message with my diet pepsi by my side and am still enjoying the wonderful morning that He has made for me! The way I look at it, satan wanted me to become upset, he wanted my love for the morning cup to overpower my prayer time, he wanted to deter me from my morning chat with my Father in Heaven, why???? firstly he does not like me chatting with him as I do, secondly, each day I depend upon God to give me a message that will touch a heart in need, if satan could deter me this morning, he may have stopped me from doing this! How many times do you get up on Sunday morning intent on going to church only to be hit from all directions with reasons not to go???? How many times have you bowed your head to pray and found that your mind was running so fast there was no way you could quiet it long enough to chat with God? How many times have you sat down to read the bible only to find that there are a thousand things that need to be done right then and the bible gets closed and pushed to the side until "later" how often are you prompted to call and check on someone, or to stop by to see someone and other things come up and you put it off? I cannot tell you how many times in the day these things happen to me, but when they do happen, I just laugh because I know that I am heading in the right direction and satan is going to throw anything he can find out there to stop me. So I continue on my way, I literally will stop what I am doing and ask satan to get away from me, to leave me alone, I profess to him, I am not interested in you, I do not want you in my life, I will not allow you to take me away from God so your time around me is in vane! After I do this, I find that my time gets quiet, that I am able to concentrate on my desires and I am able to hear the still quiet voice. Everyday we will be faced with pushes and pulls, we will have to decide how we are going to handle interruptions, we will be tested as to how we react when things are not "perfect" Negative and Positive will be within our reaches and we will have to choose which one we will use. If the negative always had an electrical shock waiting at the end of it and you knew it was going to knock you to the floor, would you continue to grab it? If there were definitive roads signs one pointing to heaven the other to hell, would you have to stop and think? In the mormon faith, there is a symbol CTR, which stands for" choose the right", if we choose the right, good things will come of it, and naturally if we choose the wrong, well we all know how that ends up! This day I pray that we are all given a strong sense of right and wrong, of positive and negative, of attitude! Today I pray that we will be faced with the same challenges that we always are but that our attitudes are focused on the good and not the bad, that when satan comes calling God will be the one that answers the door, I pray that we are mindful of the fact that unless satan is allowed in by us, he cannot penetrate our "bubble" I pray that you recognize when he is working his hardest on you and that you deny him entrance into your life. God is amazing, he will never guide us down the wrong road, he will never leave us on the wrong side of the tracks, he will never turn his back on us and he will never ever give us anything but love. May this day be the day we are all aware that if we choose the right, when we get to heaven's gate it will swing wide open and we will be welcomed with open arms. Love to you in the name of our savior Jesus Christ:)
