Yet God

I ticked someone off this morning by 7:30 and it wasn’t even a family member. I took Murphy to the dog park early and as we entered a lady and her dog stopped walking and waited. As we got closer she said: “I’m going to walk with you so the dogs can play”. I quickly responded something like “No – he doesn’t do well with another dog”. Now Murphy used to be a pain with other dogs until I cut his manhood out, but now he’s just fine… so I used him to get out of walking with this lady. When we passed them on the back side I tried to be pleasant and say something about the weather, but she gave me the stink eye and so we ignored each other the rest of the laps. My MO at the dog park is head down, get around as many times as possible and get out… especially when it’s -5. I do often use that time to pray, so how ironic as I basically told her “No I can’t show you the love of Jesus this morning because I am praying!” #fail

#fail and #faithful – do you ever keep track which one you have more of during the day? Ignoring someone at the dog park probably isn’t a huge thing – hopefully God has someone else lined up to show her the love of Jesus today, and I’m not going to share my deepest fails on a blog… but I am thankful for these 2 words:

Yet God

What do you think of when you hear or read those words?

Does the song Alive by Big Daddy Weave come in your mind or how about But God by Isaac Carree &  James Fortune

Two words with a huge impact. Two words that change lives.

I was selfish… yet God

I was a mess… yet God

I was lost… yet God

I was abandoned… yet God

I was stuck in the muck… yet God

I thought I had life figured out… yet God

Two words that save lives

I’ve read Ephesians 2:4-5 many times before, but last Sunday God spoke to me about them. See there are times when I think about people in my life who I love and who I worry about how they are living and how far away they are from God. I’m always thinking and praying that they gotta clean up their life to get back to God. But these verses say the opposite, it says even when we were dead in sin, He makes us alive. Even when we were straight out sinners… God rich in mercy rescues us. It doesn’t say “He waited until we lived better than He saved us”.

He comes to rescue us out of that rotten, selfish, idolatrous life we lead

It gave me a renewed hope in praying for the ones I love

It gave me a renewed belief in the saving love of Jesus

It gave me a deep sense of God’s mercy and how deep it runs

But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, ⁵ made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. Ephesians 2:4-5