Are you Leaving or Staying?

Moving away or staying where you are does not change the outcome of a relationship! The only thing that will change and needs to be changed is you! If you haven’t noticed, Jesus is omnipresent; which means He is everywhere! You cannot escape Him! You still have to deal with you!

Relationships today are seriously dysfunctional! The “Truth” cannot be altered. An egotistic mind, like the fallen angel (Satan) was deceived too! Jesus is “Truth” and the “Light”! So anything that you receive outside of the Word (Truth) is false teachings; or Satan’s way of deceiving you into believing his way is better!

A gentle answer turns away wrath, But a harsh word stirs up anger. (Proverbs 15:1 NASB)

If you are angry, don’t sin by nursing your grudge. Don’t let the sun go down with you still angry—get over it quickly; ²⁷ for when you are angry, you give a mighty foothold to the devil. (Ephesians 4: 26-27 TLB)

We can’t sleep around, constantly abuse each other, or destroy the lives of those around us. It only leads to more hurt and destruction. The thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy! (John 10:10) How much more deterioration will it take for America to realize, “A change has to come”! Will we fall like Sodom and Gomorrah? (Genesis 19)  It’s not too late to repent and become a Nation of believers, and don’t take too long ~ Judgment day is near!

^1-2 Then the Lord spoke to Jonah again: “Go to that great city, Nineveh,” he said, “and warn them of their doom, as I told you to before!”

³ So Jonah obeyed and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very large city with many villages around it—so large that it would take three days to walk through it.

^4-5 But the very first day when Jonah entered the city and began to preach, the people repented. Jonah shouted to the crowds that gathered around him, “Forty days from now Nineveh will be destroyed!” And they believed him and declared a fast; from the king on down, everyone put on sackcloth—the rough, coarse garments worn at times of mourning.

⁶ For when the king of Nineveh heard what Jonah was saying, he stepped down from his throne, laid aside his royal robes, put on sackcloth, and sat in ashes. ⁷ And the king and his nobles sent this message throughout the city: “Let no one, not even the animals, eat anything at all, nor even drink any water. ⁸ Everyone must wear sackcloth and cry mightily to God, and let everyone turn from his evil ways, from his violence and robbing. ⁹ Who can tell? Perhaps even yet God will decide to let us live and will hold back his fierce anger from destroying us.”

¹⁰ And when God saw that they had put a stop to their evil ways, he abandoned his plan to destroy them and didn’t carry it through. (Jonah 3 TLB)

In the Flesh or Spirit?

In 2011 I decided to pursue a new career; something more adventurous and exciting – so I filled out an application to become a flight attendant!

The airline notified me that I was picked along with 20 other applicants; but I had to go through 6 weeks of class and the “hangar” (a large metal building used to store air crafts) two days a week around 2 or 3 am. All potential flight attendants had to wear black skirts and blazers if you were a woman; with a white blouse, pantyhose, and black heels no higher than 3 inches – If you were a man, a black suit, white shirt and black dress shoes. (During the hangar, you could wear street clothes) Once you pass the class, you received one uniform courtesy of the company. If you needed additional ones, you purchased them yourselves. 

Not knowing what was expected, it devastated me, during the hangar, of what little room we had to sit and stand. So imagine pretending your class mates are the passengers and you are serving them drinks and a snack. Maneuvering the cart down the tiny isle back and forth took skill. Everything on the commuter planes was uncomfortably small.  

Now he told a parable to those who were invited, when he noticed how they chose the places of honor, saying to them, ⁸ “When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in a place of honor, lest someone more distinguished than you be invited by him, ⁹ and he who invited you both will come and say to you, ‘Give your place to this person,’ and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place. ¹⁰ But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when your host comes he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at table with you. Luke 14:7-10 ESV

Talk about thinking more highly of myself than I ought to! (Romans 12:3) I quickly found out that all flight attendants start out at the bottom and work their way up; and it doesn’t happen as quickly as you would like. Beginners might not get called but once or twice a month; so the experience needed to advance, in some instances, takes commitment and determination. However, many stick it out and prevail; and some get weary and quit.

Each week we had a written test and you had to receive a 90 and above to continue the classes. I passed the first five weeks of test with a 95 or better; whereas, the last test I received an 88. You could only retake the test once before you were let go. Guess what? I missed the exact same answers the second time! Yep! After seeing the film on turbulence, over 90% of the injuries received are flight attendants. That's where I lost all confidence and concentration.

It didn't take me long to realize this was not the career for me! I pursued this egotistically and felt I had the credentials needed to become a flight attendant; and I did, but I leaped before I looked. The bumps and bruises I received after the fact, could have been avoided, if I would have prayed about it first!

Then the mother of Zebedee’s sons came to Jesus with her sons and, kneeling down, asked a favor of him.

²¹ “What is it you want?” he asked.

She said, “Grant that one of these two sons of mine may sit at your right and the other at your left in your kingdom.”

²² “You don’t know what you are asking,” Jesus said to them. “Can you drink the cup I am going to drink?”

“We can,” they answered.

²³ Jesus said to them, “You will indeed drink from my cup, but to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared by my Father.”

²⁴ When the ten heard about this, they were indignant with the two brothers. ²⁵ Jesus called them together and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. ²⁶ Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, ²⁷ and whoever wants to be first must be your slave— ²⁸ just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Matthew 20:20-28 NIV

Stinking Thinking?