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| Mind Tricks |
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As I sit here and look out my office window, I can see three squirrels across the street running quite strangely. I am curious as to what they are doing. Are they playing? Are they fighting over food? Are they scared by something? Are they just being squirrels? I can pick any of those options and determine it to be the truth. However, I will never know for sure what those crazy things are doing.
We do this a lot. We make assumptions about what is going on around us. Whether it is the way someone looked at us, something someone said, or something someone did to us. We don't know why they did it or what they meant by it. We are left to determine what we think they meant. The problem is, we may be wrong. We may assume that something said to us was meant to hurt us, but that may not be true. We may assume that what that person did was meant to be rude and vindictive, when the reality is that they may have been clueless as to what was going on.
6:14 Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness;
Usually we connect this to the truth of the Bible. Granted, that may be part of it, but the Bible later comes in as the "sword of the Spirit." So, we can assume that the belt of truth may reflect a different angle. I believe it is truth, in general. The belt would help keep the soldier from tripping over his own clothes. Without the belt in place, the soldier may fall flat on his face.
Do we walk in the truth? We would like to think so. However, how many times do we trip over ourselves and fall flat on our faces because we believed what we thought was the truth rather than finding out the truth?
The next time someone cuts you off in traffic, will you assume that they were rude and knew they cut you off, or will you consider that you may have been in their blind spot and they felt bad because they did not see you?
The next time someone at church says something to you, will you let your feelings be hurt when nothing harmful may have been intended by the comment?
Will you take that look by another person to be a critical look or consider that maybe they are fighting a stomach ache and the look had nothing to do with you?
You say, "Well, how am I supposed to know what was meant?" Here's a new idea - ASK! That is certainly better than walking around bitter and with hurt feelings when there may be no good reason to do so.
Here's another point - for the other side of this issue. Be careful about your words! Be careful to not let your words be misunderstood. Think before you speak and ask yourself how the other person might react.
Walk in the belt of truth. Assumptions will make you fall flat on your face. So, I guess I will chose to not make up my mind about what those crazy squirrels are doing. |
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| To add a comment to "Mind Tricks" |
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| September 25, 2007 |
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Anything that uses squirrels to make a biblical point get's my star for sure! Nice work!
By the way, them squirrels was probably working the street dealin nuts, trying not to attract attention by the fuzz! LOL |
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| September 25, 2007 |
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| Spook, that there is good man. God bless. |
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| September 25, 2007 |
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I thought for sure it was gonna be a post about "Star Wars".
There's a similar idea in a song I heard on the radio recently by Sawyer Brown
A mother riding on a city bus
kids are yelling kicking up a fuss
everybody's staring
not knowing what she's going through
somebody said don't you even care
and do you let them do that everywhere
she slowly turned around, looked up and stared.
She said, "Please forgive them
they've been up all night
their father struggled
but he finally lost his fight
he went to heaven
in the middle of the night
so please forgive my children
they don't understand."
Chorus:
Everybody's busy with their own situation
everybody's lost in their own little world bottled up, hurried up, trying to make a dream come true
they don't understand
everybody's livin' like there ain't no tomorrow
maybe we should stop and take a little time
cause you never really know what your neighbor's going through
they don't understand.
A man driving on the interstate
slowing down traffic making everybody wait
everybody's staring not knowing what he's going through
somebody honked from the passing lane
yelling out the window "hey I ain't got all day"
the old man looked around and he caught his eye.
He said, "Please forgive me
you know it's been a long life
my wife has passed away
and my kids don't have the time
I've been left all alone
and it's getting hard to drive
so please forgive me, children
they don't understand."
Repeat chorus
A man hanging on a wooden cross
giving everything to save the lost
everybody's staring
not knowing what he's going through
somebody said "you don't have a prayer
if you're the king come on down from there"
the man just turned his head
looked up and stared.
He said "please forgive them
for they have not seen the light
but they'll come to know me
when I come back to life
and go to heaven
to make everything all right
so please forgive your children
they don't understand.
Repeat chorus
A mother riding on a city bus
kids are yelling kickin' up a fuss
everybody's staring
not knowing what she's going through.
An article about the songwriter can be found here
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| September 25, 2007 |
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Rich - LOL!!!
Growing - I love that song! |
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| September 25, 2007 |
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"We may assume that something said to us was meant to hurt us..."
Don't we though? Even when we know they didn't mean it, there's always that nagging feeling that maybe they did. Well I'm glad I learned to ASK! (when I can, although it's tough when they're in traffic!) ~mike |
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| September 26, 2007 |
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Spook that is so true! Great blog!
And Growing that's a great song, I like to listen to that one! |
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| September 27, 2007 |
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Tropical - I totally agree. Putting on the armor is putting on Jesus Himself. I think the armor is such a powerful imagery because it gives us specific examples of what it looks like to "put on the Lord Jesus Christ.
Thank you, brother! |
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| September 27, 2007 |
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| It's always a blessing whe someone explains things applying the Biblical truths to our every-day life. Thanks and God bless you! |
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