Kill Them With Kindness

You can get more with honey than with Salt
Kill Them With Kindness

Last Sunday we had one of the dynamic, engaging and most spectacular Methodist Pastor that I have ever had the priviledge of hearing preach… Reverend Walter Kimbrough. From the time he steps onto the stage until the time he closes the bible and the preaching part of the service is over, he will have you so mesmerized with his message and the way he delivers it that you don’t want to take your eyes off the pulpit even to take down a few notes. Nevertheless, I was able to gather a few as I feel it is very important to not just listen, but to also take notes and embrace and understand the message the preacher is trying to get across.
We were very honored to have Reverend Kimbrough speak at our church on Sunday because as you can probably guess, he is busy, busy, busy. However, because my pastor is a mentored of Reverend Kimbrough’s he takes time out of his busy schedule every so often to give us a word. I have never been disappointed by any of Rev. Kimbrough’s messages. They just seem to just naturally flow out of his mouth and right to our ears.
In this particular Bible Reading and message, he focused on the words written in Kings2 6:8-23. What I got from the sermon is that first of all, when there are more of you than there are of an opposing group, why would you worry about them hurting you? If you actually outnumber them and are in the majority, you have practically nothing to worry about. Unless, you are fighting a fight you should not be fighting to begin with. You see, sometimes you will be somewhere you should not be, doing things you should not be doing, and that could cause you to lose the fight.
During that time, there were a lot of fighting among different groups and different cities. You can kind of compare it to the fighting that goes on today amongst not only countries, but among different religions, different schools, different cliques at school, and dare I say, even sometimes among church members. Thank God we do not have that problem at our church. I have been a member of this church for about two years and I have had the pleasure of watching its attendance. Now, we have grown by 28% and we are still growing. The word is out; Leland Qwest Methodist Church is the place to be!
Sometimes you will be asked to do something that you feel in your bones is wrong, but you do anyway because your superior told you to do it. Therefore, for fear of losing their job, they do as told. In essence, they are like robots. They don’t use their own minds and own brains, they just wait for orders and do as told. This may surprise you, but there is a higher power than your superiors. If you are asked to do something that you know in your heart is unethical, then you need to pray to your Lord God for guidance. I like to think of things this way, will what I have been asked to do or will do be yet one more thing I have to explain to the Lord at the Judgment Gate? I know he forgives our sins, but that doesn’t mean we should just go around and keep committing wrongdoing even when we know it’s wrong just because we don’t want to get fired and we know He will forgive us .
Something else I wonder about too is this, how long is my “good deeds” list compared to my “you should not have done that” list. I sure hope to God that my good list is a lot longer than my bad list!
Once you develop a close one on one relationship with the Lord, you will become more aware of what you should and should not do. He tells you when to go and when to stay away. As you grow in your one on one relationship, you will receive revelations numerous times and you know that it isn’t just a dream or just a thought that popped in your head because you have cultivated your relationship with the Lord and you now know how to listen out for him. Sometimes we do not get our blessing or make mistakes because we were too busy talking to the Lord and asking for things instead of just waiting to hear his responses. One word that I hear a lot when I pray sometimes is “Be Still”. At first I had no idea that it was coming from him or what it meant but overtime I learned. Basically it means “Be Quiet, Listen, and do not act yet”. Great advice.
Did you know that sometimes God will send you your enemies directly to your path even though you may be trying to avoid them? The question here is, “What are you afraid of”? As long as you have that connection with the Lord, you have nothing to worry about. God always has your back. When you see those people in the hall who does not like you, don’t turn your head----smile at them, ask them how they are doing-show some compassion for them because they obviously need Jesus. Turn the tables, treat them like a friend….a friend with a big “caution sign” on It, but treat them with sugar. Who knows, they may have thought you didn’t like them, or it could be some other silly reason, but as a Christian, you ignore all that talk behind your back. You try to win them over for one reason and one reason only; you want them to see what being God’s child and having a close relationship with him will do. They may think you are crazy because they know you know they don’t like you, but that’s their issue…not yours. As long as you do what you are supposed to, all will be well.
Well, that’s it for now. All of the information above was thoughts, ideas, and some were even direct quotes from the awesome Reverend Kimbrough himself. Let me also add, that although this particular blog entry focused on our guest speaker, Reverend Kimbrough, I still have to express my love and admiration for my pastor, Pastor Ted Rollins. He has done a lot in changing meand some of my ways. Pastor Rollins and the church congregation that has reached out to me (you know who you are) has helped me in my journey to obtain a close relationship with my Lord. I came in a lost and slightly confused babe, and now, even though I have this rare cancer, I have not lost my religion. I believe that even the cancer may have brought me closer to the Lord. All I know is, I pray all the time now, I listen for him to speak to me now, and I try to get my children to participate in church activities. My husband and I are also active members and have been for two years, although because of my illness we are not able to attend as many meetings or outings or volunteer work we would like.

Thank you all, for praying for me, and for keeping me going. Thanks to Reverend Kimbrough for making me realize all of the above through his sermon. Thank you, Pastor Rollins for praying for me, encouraging me, and helping me to find my way back to the Lord. Good bye for now. I love you all. Good Night.

15 Minute Religious Challenge

Most of you who frequently read my blog may be insulted by what I am about to say, but I feel it necessary to set the record straight. As you know, I am a mother, wife, entrepreneur, soccer mom, sometime girl scout leader, and I am fighting a very rare cancer. I am also, for those of you who do not know, a Christian. A devout Christian and I love worshipping the Lord. I am not a Saint, by no means, but I do try my very best to live up to His expectations. I am telling you all this now because my Pastor has issued a challenge to us. My pastor has asked us to start giving the first 15 minutes of every day to the Lord. Give our maker, our forgiver, the one who gave us His only son to deliver us from our sins, 15 minutes a day to just be still, pray, talk to Him, and truly listen. When my pastor first asked us to do this—to accept this challenge—I was a little taken aback. I did not fear the challenge itself, but I was afraid that I might not be able to sustain the challenge and let myself down, my church, my family, and Lord. Then I realized this…These 15 minutes are strictly between me and my Lord. No one else needs to know anything about my daily conversation with the Lord. So if I go a day or two without keeping this commitment, the only people I would be letting down are me and the Lord Himself. I would never intentionally do anything to let my Father down, that includes my father in the living flesh, and especially my Father up in the Heavens. With this in mind, I decided to accept this very important, yet slightly intimidating challenge.

I have “signed on” for quite a few challenges before (including weight loss challenges), but I never won. Part of the reason why I never won was because I could never follow through to the end. For one reason or another I would always drop out of the challenge. I made excuse after excuse for why I could not continue in the challenge because I was so ashamed of falling behind. It was not until I began thinking about this 15 minute challenge that I realized that the only person I ever let down was myself. I may have fooled a lot of people, but the only people I really hurt and really let down was myself and the Lord. He has always had faith in me even when others did not…even when I did not. This time will be different. I am telling you all this, because my blog will no longer be strictly limited to parenting success anymore. From this day forward, you will start to see some blog posts regarding my 15 minutes with the Lord. This include articles, excerpts from our conversation, quotes from the Bible, etc. If you are not a Christian or do not believe the Lord is our Saviour and that God gave his only son (Jesus) to us for forgiveness of our sins (past, present, and future), then you may not like my blog as much anymore. I hate to lose any readers but I do understand if you are offended by religious posts that you will no longer continue to read my blog. Hopefully there won’t be too many of you leaving. For those of you who are staying, please feel free to ask questions or make comments about anything you see or read. I promise to publish all comments or questions to the blog so that everyone will know what everybody else is thinking or feeling.

The blog posts that pertain to the Bible or the 15 minutes I spent with the Lord will start off with the subject line of, “Toni’s Interpretation of the Bible -------“ For example, my blog post today would read, “Toni’s interpretation of the Bible—Psalm 3:4 which reads “With my voice I cry to the Lord, and He hears and answers me out of His holy hill. In this portion of the Bible, King David is between a rock and a hard place. David has to decide between losing his kingdom AND his life, or he would lose his son. He seeks help and advice from the Lord. I have been in situations similar to the one King David is rustling with. They might not be as crushing as David’s, but in my heart I was torn between what to do. What I need to remember and never forget is that I should always seek guidance from the Lord. I should take my problems to the Lord and truly believe in my heart of hearts that He will tell me how to handle the situation. The trick here is , YOU MUST BELIEVE. You cannot have any doubt, you have to truly believe that once you take your problem to the Lord and lay it out on the table, you are done. The Lord will handle that problem or He will tell YOU how to handle that problem IF you believe in him.

Let Go And Let God
Have a Happy and Blessed Day, and Enjoy Your New Year. May all your wishes come through in 2010.

Sincerely,
Toni