The Penny

Everyone has found a penny on the side of the road. Well what does that make you think of? Before yesterday I would always think of the little poem "find a penny pick it up all day long you'll have good luck." Well yesterday I heard this amazing story. 

Several years ago, a man and his wife were invited to spend the weekend at his employer’s home. The boss was very wealthy. He was quite generous as a host, and took them to one of the finest restaurants.As the three of them were about to enter this exclusive restaurant, the boss was walking slightly ahead of them. He stopped suddenly, looking down at the pavement for a long, silent moment. The wife wondered if she was supposed to pass him. There was nothing on the ground except a single darkened penny that someone had dropped. Still silent, the man reached down and picked up the penny. He held it up and smiled, then put it in his pocket as if he had found a great treasure. How absurd! Thought the wife. What need did this man have for a single penny? Why would he even take the time to stop and pick it up? Throughout dinner, the entire scene nagged at her. Finally, she could stand it no longer. She causally mentioned that her daughter once had a coin collection, and asked if the penny he had found had been of some value. A smile crept across the man’s face as he reached into his pocket for the penny and held it out for her to see. She had seen many pennies before! What was the point of this?

“Look at it.” He said. “Read what it says”
She read the words “United States of America.”

“No, not that; read further.”

“One cent?”
“No, keep reading.”

“In God we Trust?”
“Yes!”
“And?”

“And if I trust in God, the name of God is holy, even on a coin. Whenever I find a coin I see that inscription. It is written on every single United States coin, but we never seem to notice it! God drops a message right in front of me telling me to trust Him? Who am I to pass it by? When I see a coin, I pray, I stop to see if my trust IS in God at that moment. I pick the coin up as a response to God; that I do trust in Him. For a short time, at least, I cherish it as if it were gold. I think it is God’s way of starting a conversation with me. God is patient and pennies are plentiful!"

So my new challenge for you is to put your trust in the Lord find those pennies and see how much the Lord is blessing you.

Water It!

Remember just a few weeks ago when I was talking about all the rain that we were getting? Well it has been hot for about a month now and the farmers, and the lawns are beginning to suffer. We were doing some service and in comes the husband conversationally he says I don't know what is wrong with my lawn I have all of these brown spots. My first thought was well are you watering it? His response to that was "well we've had so much rain." Well sure, but when the days have been hot since then and you are seeing the dry patches i think it might be time to water again. Now in stark contrast, the family that we live with were watering even when it was pouring down rain.

The Lord has said that we must drink from His waters for He is the living waters. “Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst” (John 4:14). Can we simply take a sip from the waters and walk away? I don't think so. I believe that we need that consistent flow, just as the grass does. The Savior has the well and we have the cup, IF we choose to come to Him he will keep that cup full. If we choose to walk away from the well we can no longer gain access to that water. We must pair the love and mercy of the Lord with out own willingness to come unto Him and do as He asks.

Are You Protected?

So we went up to Huckleberry Pass for the fourth of July and we had a great time! We had a snow ball fight in July, we took tons of pictures, saw some sweet sights and without even noticing I got a whopper of a sunburn. It was a pretty warm day but with all the fun we were having I hardly even noticed it. Even when we got home I didn't feel like I was all that burned. I woke up the next day and my face hurt. I was thinking about how subtly it all happened and how if only I had remembered to put on sunscreen that morning I would have been fine.

Our lives are the same way, Satan comes into our lives in subtle ways and we don't even notice it till it is too late. Just like the protection that sunscreen would have afforded me, we have the armor of God to protect us. We need to put on the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shoes of the preparation of the gospel of peace, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit. When we do this we become protected as it says in Ephesians "Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil." If only I had put on that sunscreen I could have stood against the wiles of the sun. Don't get burned by the "fiery darts of the wicked" put on the whole armor of God.

Wise Wildlife

When I was growing up we had a giant old walnut tree in our backyard My brothers and I used to go out and pick the unripe walnuts off the tree. We had to get them early or the birds and squirrels would get to them first. So when they were still green we would pull them off the tree. Once we had a nice little cache of walnuts we would tear into them trying to get to the precious center of the nut. We always hoped to find that nut. Most of the time we were picking way too early and we were getting nothing but green fingers for a week. So we began to let them stay longer on the trees, however the wildlife would then get to the nuts before we would. I never understood why they would want that bitter green husk of a nut but they were always gone before they were ripe.

Just the other day I was told that you can pick walnuts when they are green and save them till the green shell starts to come off. Then within is a ripe walnut. Imagine my surprise when I realized that those crafty little critters knew what they were doing. Sometimes we expect to get things in the time that we are looking for them not in the timing that the Lord has for us. "To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven" (Ecclesiastes 3:1). If we exercise a bit of patience perhaps the outcome will be to our benefit.

I believe that the Lord knows what he is doing even if it may be hard. If as a child I had merely picked the green nuts and stored them away for a time when they would be ripe, we could have had a barrel of walnuts.