Not the flower guys.
-Focus on what you were given
-Thanksgiving for what your were given
-Dedication on what to do with what you were given
1 Cor 12 Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I would not have you ignorant.:
Don’t take what you have been given for granted. First we have to focus on what we’ve been given.
Focusing on what we’ve been given is mindfulness. That’s mindfully considering God’s great gifts to us and being in the moment with them.
For example, I hate hotel rooms. They’re lonely and sterile. I miss my wife, kids and friends and despise TV so it’s worse.
1) Focus on the benefits, forget about how depressing it can be
-You have a place to stay and to rest
-You have time to be alone with God and to hear Him. To be in His presence
-You aren’t living on the street. Lots of people in Miami are.
-You are here to have an important surgery. Without which will get worse until you are crippled.
2) Thanksgiving. Be thankful that I was given health, a wife that loves me, a ministry of people who miss me and appreciate me. A God who is madly in love with me.
-God in His mercy saved me. I don’t have Mrsa like this little girl named Connie (pic below). I had it. It was excruciating. I wish I could do more for her than pray for her. To get her healed. Winnie and I both had it, it was miserable. We want to get her out of pain and out of the dump. To get her out of the squalor.
-I am thankful to get the children that I can help fed, educated and clothed. Get them set up with the Nica government. We are ALMOST legal as an ong/ngo again. No big deal, the Nicaraguan government has been more than patient and kind to us. We had the wrong people trying to ‘help us’ by stirring the pot but as soon as we fired them things calmed down.
-I am thankful that God let me win the demographic lottery. Born healthy in America with average health and mental capacity where I can actually do something for others.
3) Dedication. Dedication means you intentionally recognize what God has given you and purposely use it as a way to bless others and to be a good steward.
-Nothing drives me crazier than someone who says all the great things they’re going to do when they win the lottery. If you have 100 dollars and aren’t tithing or at least spending 10 or twenty bucks to help someone else out, you will not do it when you have a million. Just a fact.
-Someone who has been blessed and then thinks it’s for him and turns greedy.
-When you have been blessed with gifts recognize that they are not yours, that they are lent to you to bless others with. Use the focus and the thankfulness to God to keep you dedicated humble and on the right track
1 cor 9:26I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air: