Monday; June 30

How many problems do we have in our lives?  Now, before you answer that question, let me ask it in another way: how many problems do we have in our lives and how many inconveniences do we have in our lives?  I believe that, too often, we look at the things that don’t go the way we want them to go and consider them problems.  In other words, I think we talk our way into feeling challenged by the inconveniences.  Several years ago, I became familiar with the term “First World Problems”.  These are things that bother us merely because we are blessed enough to have those things in our lives.  Take for example: having to use a five year old iPhone or having to plug in an aftermarket Android Auto dongle because our car doesn’t come equipped with the app pre-installed.  Concerns such as the presence of crabgrass and dandelions in our lawns or the resort we booked not having an outdoor kiddie pool.  If we allow these things to bug us, they can; but honestly, if we compare our issues with those facing most of the rest of the world throughout history, it’s pretty small stuff.  In fact, I know a lot of people who would gladly trade their trials for our inconvenience. 

I don’t mean to belittle our concerns, but the next time we feel bummed out by something that doesn’t go our way, let’s ask ourselves if it really is all that big of a deal.  Who knows, maybe by periodically being derailed by some of these inconveniences we just might be reminded of how blessed we really are.

Think About It!  

Popular posts from this blog

Friday; April 4

Since baseball season is officially off and running, I thought it was time for a quote by one of the great minds of baseball – Yogi Berra.  Now before we open up the words of wisdom, I want to remind you about the guy.  Berra wasn’t just some ballplayer, he was elected to the Hall of Fame – not as a “character” but as a star.  As a career New Yorker, he had a batting average of .285 and hit over 350 home runs.  He was an 18-time All-Star and won ten World Series Championships as a player and three as a coach.  Not bad for a kid who grew up in The Hill in St. Louis.  Yet, maybe one of the least known facts about him was that he was married to his wife, Carmen for 65 years.  (Maybe that qualifies them for the Marriage Hall of Fame.) Okay, enough of the serious stuff.  According to Sage Yogi, “The future ain’t what it used to be.”.  Now, before I let that sit a bit, I want to point out that even though on the surface it might seem nonsensical, I...
Read more

Friday; April 19

Sometimes words just don’t seem to make sense.  Take today, for example.  Many people call the Friday before Easter “Good Friday”; but how on earth could there be anything good about it?  After being rejected by some of His closest disciples, “When they came to the place called The Skull, there they crucified Him and the criminals, one on the right and the other on the left.” (Luke 23:33).  Within a matter of a few hours, the perfect Son of God would be dead – executed for the sins of mankind!  It would take deception, hatred and evil to make it happen; but they got it done.  How could anything good come out of that? In all honestly, the thing that makes that Friday good is what happened on the following Sunday morning.  The event that made anything positive on that Friday was the fact that Jesus was raised from the dead.  Had He remained in the tomb, that day would have been the darkest day in the history of mankind, but when Jesus walked out of ...
Read more

Tuesday; April 15

The other morning I was driving to work listening to a gospel music show on the Bluegrass Channel when I heard the song, “Broad Minded” by the Louvin Brothers.  Basically, the song lamented how, in the interest of progression, we have gotten soft on sin.  The catchy phrase of the song basically says, “The word broadminded is spelled s-i-n.”  I realize that in our modern society we like to think of ourselves as forward thinking, but there are times when we can get too far ahead of ourselves … or even of our Lord.  In an effort to accommodate different kinds of people and different kinds of lifestyles, we tend to erase boundaries.  Modern society has done its best to convince us that it is bad manners to try to restrict any behavior; but the truth of the matter is that there are some things that are just flat-out wrong.  There is s-i-n in the world.  Interestingly, this is not something that is just from our modern times.  Charlie and Ira (the Louvi...
Read more