"Casting all your care upon Him, for He careth for you." I Peter 5:7
Why does it always seem to happen to ME? :-)
After church Sunday evening, we decided to go out for an ice cream at an area
Baskin-Robbins.
Paula was driving, I was in the passenger seat and Jacob was in his car seat in
the back. That seating arrangement is going to be important in a minute. Watch
closely.
We arrived at the window to receive our ice cream cones and Paula handed me hers
to hold while she paid for the order, then mine - well, for me to eat.
Then, the fun began.
Instead of turning around and handing Jacob's ice cream cone to Jacob, Paula
decided to hand it to me. Of course, with three cones, only two hands, and no
free place to sit anything down, I had to attempt to balance it all.
Keyword here is "attempt."
I didn't get far.
As I tried to balance two of the cones in one hand so I could take the third,
one of them slipped out of my hands and fell back onto my shirt.
Face down.
Half of my Chocolate Mousse Royale was now decorating the front of my shirt.
It gets better.
As I was trying to pick the spilled cone back up, I turned one of the other ones
a bit too much and the entire dip of ice cream FELL OUT of the cone and onto my
lap!
Half of my wife's Pralines and Cream was now decorating the top of my pants.
At which point I said, "Quick, Jacob grab your ice cream before daddy drops it
on my head!" LOL
As much as I tried spilling that last one, I actually managed to get it into his
hands intact.
Oh well, two out of three ain't bad, right? :-)
I had too much to handle, and ended up making a great big mess.
As we all had a good laugh over the situation, it reminded me that - spiritually
- we need to be careful not to take on more than we can handle.
Many Christians struggle with saying "No," myself included at times. Even with
"good" things like ministry and serving in the church.
I remember several years ago I was on just about every committee in the church,
taught a Bible lesson, led the music, worked with the youth and played a major
part in VBS.
.it was more than I could handle!
The point I want to make is this: I'm convinced that while God wants us to serve
to the very best of our ability, He doesn't want us to burn out because we took
on too many responsibilities . More than He had planned for us.
We are a PART of the body of Christ . Not the ENTIRE body! Each of us have our
roles to play, our functions to perform.
The heart shouldn't try to do what the lungs do . What a mess that would be!
Christian, it's important that we only take on what we can give our very best
towards. Certainly, we want to make every decision a matter of prayer, and do
whatever God leads us to do. But, at the same time, I don't think God would ever
expect us to do more than we could give our best effort towards.
If we have so much to do that we begin to be half-hearted in those things and
unable to give our best for Christ, then we likely have taken on too many
things.
Maybe today is a good time to spend some time with God and evaluate all of the
things going on in your life.
Do you have too much to handle?
Jimmy D. Brown
support@Living4Jesus.com
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