Messing Up On The Boil

Whoo, our first snow of the season has arrived and....aaugh! Boil over on the stove! Yes, my attempts with olden-style oatmeal is not without the occasional mishap. Barring any further interruption, I'll see about the devotional for you. I don't even have a good working title for this morning. Yeesh, bit of a mess in there. I guess I have my first morning cleanup task already slated for today. The watched pot may never boil, but the unwatched oatmeal sure makes a fine mess. Simmering is easier to control, maybe that is why some of us tend to stay there in life.

If life for Jesus should be a full rolling boil, then mine must be characterized as a simmer. Life on the full boil can make a mess, so I become fearful of the boil. Just slow things down for me so that I don't mess up! I ask of the Lord. Yet, I know from baking and cooking that many of my first attempts do end in failure. So, why worry about it? If the first attempt at a simmer is no better than that of the full rolling boil, might as well get the mistakes out of the way and get on with life. So easy to write, a bit more difficult to perform.

However, I am not alone. One of the more common statements from God in the Bible is something like: I will go with you, or, I will be with you. We read it in our study this morning. Look to Abraham, Moses, Jacob, the disciples, and many other stories and we find the same statement. Each of us is worried about the mistakes we may or may not make on our own. Perhaps a more common statement from the Bible than the last is: do not worry. If we place those common statements together, we have a reassurance that we need every day: Do not worry, I will go with you. Coming from God, that is a reassurance we can count on in every situation and circumstance. Great things came from going with God, and yes there were mistakes along the way. Moses, David, Solomon, we can read of the great mistakes made by the greats of the Bible too. Want to write your name on a page of history? Go with God and make a great mistake or two. Why worry about it? God will get us straightened out in short order.

God's love and grace to you,
Bucky