Signs Matter

Key Verse: “The wisdom of the prudent is to know their way.” Proverbs 14:8 (KJV)

I did it again.

I hung my All About Me sign on my door. It crookedly covered up the letters to my Everyone is Welcome sign. It wasn’t at all pretty.

I’m not sure how long it had been hanging there and it took someone else to remind me to take it down.

As I pulled through the drive thru line, I smiled when the young cashier handed me my order and told me there was no charge. The person in front of me had generously paid on my behalf.

My mind was a whirl as I drove off. I thought how sweet they were for thinking of me. I thought how much I had needed to be thought of on this particular morning. I thanked God. I felt I was finally being seen. After all, life was hard right now. If I could have, I would have struck up the angel choir to help me celebrate.

As I handed my husband’s food to him when I got home and proceeded to tell him how someone else had paid for it, he simply asked me, “Did you pay for the person’s order behind you? Did you pay it forward?”

The celebration was over. There it was. My All About Me sign was firmly staring me in the face. It hung there like a wreath with a bright red bow. A big red bow called conviction.

His words hit me like a ton of bricks. Honestly, it had never even entered my mind on this particular morning to pay it forward. I just knew that other women would have thought to do that. Thoughtful warm hearted women would have thought of the person behind them. All those shiny women on Instagram would have thought of someone else besides themselves. Ouch.

It is amazing how God can use the ordinary everyday things in my life to teach me scriptural applications. The thing was it wasn’t just about the whole pay it forward thing. There were a lot of things I had made just about me lately.

I could have easily argued that life was hard right now and that I had a lot on my plate. But so did other special people in my life. Making it all about me was making it harder on them. And God was getting ready to show me that it was actually making it a whole lot harder on me too.

It would have been nice if I could have quickly hung a Bless this Mess sign over my All About Me sign. But me and the lord had some much needed work to do. And no quick fix was going to cut it.

So what’s a daughter to do when she messes up? She goes home to her heavenly Daddy for some much needed advice.

Proverbs 14:8 says, “The wisdom of the prudent is to know their way.” No better place to start than in God’s word.

I also found that in Philippians 2:4 (Message) God tells me, “Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand.” It is hard to help others when your hands are full of yourself. They can’t truly reach out always reaching in. Plus when I walk around with my heart and hands all closed up with all the “me stuff”, they aren’t open to receive all the new and beautiful things God has planned for me.

God never means for me hide how I feel and just forget about me. God never intends for me to pretend either. There were some things I needed to deal with and work through. Honesty, I needed healing. Nothing can eat away at your joy and peace more than the disease called “self”.

I got on my knees and bowed my head to pray. I needed to truly surrender some things I had been holding back.

I talked to God about me and asked for both forgiveness and that healing I desperately needed. I also asked him to replace that feeling of being reluctant to give with willingness. I had lost that somewhere along the way and I had to go back and find it.

I needed it to finish my course with that joy Paul talks about in Acts 20:24 (KJV) that says “But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God.” I can’t let the things I go through move me away from the true purpose God has for my life.

Living the abundant filled life I truly desire really is about putting God first and others second. Putting me first just creates an emptiness inside my soul that can’t ever be filled.

I’m finding that even though I gave my heart to Jesus years ago I have a tendency from time to time to take it back again. So I gave my heart back to the Lord. Again.

It would be the first step taken toward that healing I desperately needed. I knew this would be a process of taking one step at a time and giving myself some much needed grace.

I reminded myself that even though it felt I was the only one who would ever fail like this, I know I am not the only one. All of us from time to time go a little off course.

We like sheep are all prone to wander that’s why we have a Great Shepherd. He never allows us to go too far before he will try to gently lead us back to the fold. He will even leave the 99 in the wilderness to come after one of his sheep that has gotten completely lost. I’ve been that sheep too a couple times in my life.

So the next thing I did was take a big dose of courage the Lord offered me. I then stepped out in faith and took my All About Me Sign down.

I replaced it with a Thankful and Blessed sign. And you know something? It looks so much better.