Inspiration from a Lamb

1 Peter 2:2 – 3, ESV ² Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation— ³ if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.

As a kid, I grew up on a little farm in Minnesota.  I cannot tell you that I loved it.  This last statement will be at the disappointment of my step father, but I am just being honest.  I just didn’t look forward to picking rock in the summer, plowing the fields in the fall, or planting in the spring.  But there is one memory I have about that little farm that I can never forget.  In the early years on the farm, we had sheep. 

During the declining daylight in the autumn, the sheep would start the process of increasing their population on this earth.  If you do not understand what I mean by that, you can call me and we can have a chat.  When the newly born lamb was brought into this world, it was cold outside.  The conditions were so cold for the new lambs that we would lay a bunch of hay on the ground, and turn heat lamps on to ensure the new lamb would be warm.  For a kid that didn't like working on the farm, these conditions were not conducive to me enjoying it any further, yet, I LOVED this experience.

One of the chores we had was to give the new born lamb milk from a bottle.  We would fill the glass bottle with milk and put on the artificial nipple.  When we touched the lips of the lamb with the bottle, they would hungrily suck milk as fast as they could.  They would suck so fast and so hard, it seemed that just as much milk was falling on their face as was going down their throat.  Every morning was like this.  I would put on my jacket with excitement, go prepare the milk bottles, sit under the heating lamp with a lamb, and feed that greedy little lamb.  That lamb would drink until it was gone, and to be honest, never looked satisfied, it looked as if it already anticipated my coming the next morning to drink greedily from the food source provided to it every morning.

I asked myself this morning, and hopefully inspire you to contemplate, have I experienced this type of thirst?  Do I wake up in the mornings, just like the lamb, and anticipate God’s Word?  When I wake, are my thoughts captured in a prayer to God to sustain me throughout the day?  Do I put trust in God that He will come and feed me throughout the day?  When I read the Word of God, does my thirst cause me to read so much that I consume just as much as I don’t understand, only not to care, because I will wake up the next morning and read it again?  1 Peter 2:2 – 3 says ² Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation— ³ if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.

I have indeed tasted the Words of God.  I have indeed been inspired to begin my days not in anticipation of what I will do today, but in anticipation of what God will tell me today.  I do indeed wake up in prayer and talk with God throughout the day.  I indeed have tasted the Lord and I can honestly say the Word of God, trust in God, praise with God, and prayers with God are good.  One only needs to make the habit of not picking up their cell phone in the morning and looking at their emails or checking the numerous notifications, but meditating on the Verse of the Day.  Subscribe to YouVersion on your mobile phone or Bible.com on your desktop.  Wake up and read the verse of the day and have a conversation with God.  Start your morning in prayer and thoughtful consideration with God.  Like the lamb, once you have tasted, you will notice your anticipation increase.

Dear Yahweh,

My god and my Father.  You are a wondrous and great god.  You are the beginning and the end.  Help me to wake up every morning and continue to thirst after you like the lamb of my childhood.  Help me to see what you have planned for me, and to walk the path of your will.  I ask you LORD to be with anyone who has read this message and are praying with me today, to hear their prayers and direct them to Your Word.  We know our food has been prepared for us, and all we need to do is eat it…AMEN!

God’s Peace and Blessings – Joshua

Colossians 3:17 Whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.

Minnesota Nice or Spiritual Purity

(Matthew 18:9, ESV) ⁹ And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire.

Minnesota nice, can it really be defined?  Many people who are not from Minnesota that eventually make their way to the frozen Midwest talk about how friendly we are.  When walking on the street, you’ll hear a “good morning” and a polite smile from a total stranger.  When on an elevator, you’ll find yourself having a conversation with someone about how cold it is outside and how much we can relate.  We are just a friendly people, right?

After leaving the Purity conference, one analogy stuck in my head.  Men are visually stimulated.  Throughout the day, living out my Minnesota Nice character, I smiled at people, had conversations with strangers, an outgoingness that was probably spent on getting everyone to like me.  Because I am a man, I figured that all out on my own, I, too, am visually stimulated by those things with which I surround myself.  I am visually stimulated through commentary on the radio, because of experiences I have had in the past.  I am visually stimulated through the smile of the stranger, the billboards that are on the side of the road, the TV shows, and movies that I watch.  A specific takeaway for me after the Purity conference was to work at starving my senses.

Starving your senses would include making sacrifices in your life to help drive yourself toward becoming what God has asked us to be, and that is spiritually pure disciples.  As I walked around the “Land of Beautiful People”, Target, an individual is surrounded by a culture that fills your eyes, and I found myself incorporating the starving your eyes technique, which looks like a data scientist that works for the government.  My head is focused on the floor in front of me, I am hugging the wall looking socially disinterested, where I recite Bible verses and use this time to meditate on what God is asking me to focus.  My Minnesota Nice mentality was struggling with this:  “People think I am being a jerk. … They must think I am unfriendly,” I thought. These were things constantly going through my mind.  Dang it, this struggle between wanting to be Minnesota Nice versus working on my Spiritual Purity is driving me crazy!  But then God hit me with a verse that highlighted the weightiness of making this decision much easier.  (Matthew 18:9, ESV) ⁹ And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire.

“Joshua, are you telling me that I should gouge out my eyes?”  YES! ... no, wait … no.  Put it this way, 1 Corinthians 6:12, NIV says: “¹² I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial.  “I have the right to do anything”—but not everything is constructive.   When it comes to our life, we do have the right to do anything, we have freedoms like no other country.  We have choices we make on a daily basis that will affect what God thinks of us spiritually.  My choices to cut things like Facebook, Clash of Clans, TV shows, the radio in my car, are all rights that I have in my life to do, yet, they were not beneficial to my spiritual purity.  “Man, this guy sounds like a prude!” is the non-verbal message I am receiving in my head from you right now.  Well, I would rather give up my “Minnesota Nice” mentality and develop spiritually pure disciplines than gouge my eyes out.  I may be a prude, but I am being a prude for purity sake.

Dear Heavenly Father,

As I continue this journey towards spiritual purity, I ask that you guide my heart, mind, body, and soul to make decisions in my life that are beneficial for Your purpose in me, and not my selfish ambitions that I cannot take with me.  Help me to live out your love, truth, honesty, and spiritual character in other ways in my life, than just the “Minnesota Nice” mentality.  Help me to be a guide for my children, a honoring husband, and a pure spirit for You.  You have my attention, and hopefully others will find it too. … Amen

God’s Peace - Joshua

And remember, “Everything you do, in word or deed, do these things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.” (Colossians 3:17)