641 ZIP That Lip

How hard is it for you to bite your lip, hold your tongue and keep words from spewing out of your mouth? How often do you make things worse by the words you say? We have on average 40,000 thoughts per day. Of those, 80% are negative and 95% are repetitive thoughts. We are literally recycling the same negative, life sucking, fear driven, mindless thoughts over and over again. And what happens with those thoughts … they come out of our mouths in complaining, bickering, picking, and negativity. But it doesn’t have to be this way. God has given us power over our thoughts and our tongues. Proverbs 21:23 “Those who guard their mouths and their tongues keep themselves from calamity.” How many of us remember the last family roadtrip where the kids were driving you crazy with the repetitive question of “are we there yet?” Then what follows that question? Another question. What is it? Come on you know it …. “How much longer?” Kids just want to be there already. It doesn’t matter where they’re going, let’s just get there. It’s all about the destination for them. And aren’t we much the same? We’ve now moved up to the front seat, sometimes even the driver’s seat, but we still fail to enjoy the journey as we should and become hyper focused on the destination. We too just want to get there already. And I’m not talking about roadtrips to sandy beaches and turquoise waters. I’m talking about life. We want to “arrive”. Arrive at our goal weight. Arrive at that happily ever after state. Arrive at that stage where little people aren’t fully dependent on you. Then we get our little people all grown and out of the house and what are we wanting … when will they come home to visit … when will they bring us the grandbabies. Think about it, we’re on a perpetual really long trip of wondering how much longer. Are you enjoying this journey? Your entire life is one big journey. We reach those milestones and destinations only to find there’s now something else to worry about and somewhere else to go. And if we’re not careful, we never enjoy a darn bit of it. And what’s worse is, we complain about it. If you’ve been listening to the BIG Life Devotionals for long, you know I love to study the story of the Israelites traveling from Egypt where they were slaves, to their Promised Land flowing with milk and honey. What was between slavery and the promised land … desert. Lots and lots of desert. Oh the same is true for you and I. Our journeys take us through our fair amount of deserts. It is in the desert we are tested. It is in the desert we are reliant upon the provision of God. It is in the desert our God proves himself faithful to provide in ways only he can. Just as he rained down manna from heaven to feed the Israelites, He will provide for you in unspeakable ways. Unspeakable ways sometimes means a you find a $20 bill in your pocket just when you were out of gas money. And sometimes unspeakable ways means doing things you just didn’t imagine you would need to do to get by. Now, don’t miss it, that is God’s provision too. That is God saying, here use what I have given you, be creative, do what you can do, and I’m going to take care of the rest. AND STAY GRATEFUL. This is the key my friends. Stay grateful. Often times in our deserts of life, where everything is taking longer than we imagined and harder than we were prepared for, we lose our gratitude. We become hyper focused on what some refer to as “reality” and we miss the miracles in it all. You are alive aren’t you? You’ve made it another day, right? You didn’t starve yesterday. God has been faithful and he will be faithful again today. Enjoy the journey.