It's a well known fact that yardsales was invented by Rednecks. It's probably one our greatest contributions to society.Whenever we get low on cash, or we need to clean out the spare room for cousin Maybell to move back in, we have a yardsale. Now the beautiful thang about a yardsale is that their so easy to do. All ya need is your yard, a few tables to set the stuff on (or old cars work too), and a bunch-a-junk to sell for a quarter each. And my opinion, up until last saturday, was that there wont no need to change the system.

Well apparently, somebody saw things different. You won't never believe this but this past saturday I woke up, looked out my window and there was a yardsale in OUR front yard. Some folks just pulled up in front of our trailer, whipped a table out the back of their truck, and setup a yardsale.  Looked like they were selling halloween decorations and christmas ornaments but I couldn't tell for sure at that time.

I didn't know what to do except laugh. It was just funny to me that they had the nerve to setup in our yard without even askin!  I stood there for a few minutes tryin to figure out what to do, and finally just decided to let em stay cause it would be a good excuse to get outta cuttin the grass.

Well the more I thought about it I realized that these folks might be on to somethin. This could be the bigginnin of a whole new era. What if we all started doing this and instead of calling them "yardsales" we could call them "notmyyardsales" If ya live in a place that's difficult to find then you could just drive around until ya find a better yard, and then POW! You setup a yardsale in their front yard! These folks were geniuses, they were thinkin outside the box. They had revolutionized somethin that I had just took for granted all my life.

Well, I was standin out there lookin at their merchandise when God spoke to my heart. He said, "BillyRay, there's a lesson to learn from this experience".  Now I'm used to God speakin to me in strange ways, but I just couldn't see how this could relate to me spiritually.

I said, "God, what kinda lesson could this possibly teach me"
God said, "BillyRay, there's thangs in your life that you take for granted, you do em outta habit cause they seem normal to you, and you dismiss other folks for doin things different than you."

Then God brought to my mind what He was tryin to show me. See there's this church down the road from mine. Instead of singin traditional hyms they got lights flashin on the stage, people doin drama dances, and the music is real upbeat with electric guitars and stuff. The folks that go there are kinda wild lookin, some of em even wear shorts to church. On the other hand my church is real traditional and we don't do that kinda stuff. I had always kinda looked down on that other church. I hadn't never expressed nothin verbally but in my heart I had bad feelins toward them.

I said, "God, your right. Theres folks that go to that other church that my church won't never be able to reach."

God said, "Uh huh, that's why I allow for variations like that so everybody can hear the Gospel"
Then he brought this verse to my mind

So I just wanted to encourage everybody out there. Start thinkin outside the box when it comes to ministry. Don't be scared to try something new. That idea you got in your head for ministry might be God tryin to reach a group of folks that would otherwise be forever lost. God bless.

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