Don't Let Your Efforts Cloud Your Judgment

September 26, 2004 | Link To Us | Index | This sermon is for your spiritual edification and to spread a little hope and cheer. Ecclesiastes 2:17-26

I wonder, if I jumped up and down really hard right now, would that make me a rabbit? Of course it wouldn't but yet, people quite effort at doing same thing over and over again expecting a different response. It's like a fly hitting the glass over and over again and expecting to find an exit at the same point it has hit over a hundred times.

Do you feel like the fly? Do you feel yourself efforting, not realizing or maybe realizing that the same thing is happening again and again. Then maybe it is time to reevaluate your course of action. Maybe it is time to seek guidance from another source. That source is God.

Now some of you non-believers out there are of the assumption that things in life just sort of happen, that there is no clear cut way of doing things. You want things to happen but they don't.

I remember hearing so many times from my parents that they had to learn to do without when they grew up. You see, they were Great Depression-era babies. They learned at a very young age that they would have to go without. The things that we may see as absolute necessities today, they saw as extreme luxuries that were simply not affordable.

So what does that mean for today's society? It means that we are so used to having our way, and quite often getting what we want with less effort. Technology has allowed us to soar beyond and see what can be accomplished with the smallest of effort. We have forgotten what it is to really go after something.

Now a lot of you are probably thinking that you work very hard and that you got to where you got from pure blood, sweat and tears. You feel like the popular saying that states, "Success is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration." Now I am not discounting how hard you may have worked to get where you are today. But really think about how much easier technology has made it on you. Give yourself a chance to really absorb what the advances of our day have benefitted you.

I remember my mom telling me of her older brother when he was young and how he wanted to build himself up. In other words he wanted muscles. He evidently wanted the confidence that he would have after he got that muscle. So what did he use to make the weights? He couldn't go out and purchase a barbell set, like it so easy to do today, because during the depression, money was very tight. He got a strong branch from a tree. Then he acquired two potato sacks, filled each up with sand and dirt and attached one to each end of the branch. Hence this became part of his daily workout.

In other words, he took the resources that were available to him and came up with a solution that didn't cost him anything monetarily and he got the job done.

Now I am not suggesting that other people do the same. But quite often what we are searching for may be close at hand, possibly under our very noses. We may not see it because we are so busy trying to figure out how to live our life that we can't see the eggs below the chicken. We know they are there, or at least we think we do. But instead of lifting the chicken up or just reaching below the chicken, we map out an extensive plan of action basically making a mountain out of a molehill.

It is not enough for us to just do the job, we have to make ourselves better people, or so we may think, by mapping out a better way of doing something. In other words we are making the simplistic seem more difficult than it really is. This is a time when we need to step back, pray, and let God be our guiding light to a more hopeful tomorrow.

It is so easy in today's hectic daily experience to forget life. And in so doing we may forget our true nature and not realize that a solution is just around the corner rather than hitting the glass a hundred times, like the fly, until we pass out from exhaustion.

So next time, when you are feeling like life has doled out to you many humiliating moments, look to God for answers. He is waiting to help you, around every corner. So why not give Him a chance to make you a better citizen.

Prayer: Dear Lord, help me to wake up and smell the flowers. Give me the insight I need to understand what I need to accomplish in life. Thank you for helping me in so many times past. Help me now to seek your guidance, and your peace. Lord, I thank you for all your many blessings. Amen.

Benediction: Now, Lord, Bless us in our daily lives. Help us to smell the roses whenever possible, to shine our light on those less fortunate than us, and lead us in the path we should go. For you are the light that keeps our path well lit. Help us to follow it, until we meet you, in a land where milk and honey abound, a place where our most wonderful dreams are fulfilled. Amen.

Hi, my name is Bryan, a messenger of hope who would love to hear from you. God Bless.

© 2004 Bryan Hill