Milk the Cow...... AGAIN!

It's late and I find myself reflecting on nine years of pastoral minstry... There are men with far more experience than me, but I feel like I've heard my fair share of off-the-wall stories. At the top of the list are the reasons people typically give to validate their bad attitudes, while harboring bitterness and offense.

Sometimes all you can do is laugh at the way we process things: He said, she said, I did, they didn't, should have, would have, surely they could have!

But to tell the truth--in my opinion--most people who are offended, first wanted to be offended. I've often found that people wrestling with offense were first seemingly waiting for someone to display an action towards them that would give them a reasonable excuse to display hateful feelings. Many times the feelings were obviously locked up long before the actual event in question transpired.

Take a word of advice from someone who has had the root of bitterness plucked from his heart on more than one occasion: LET IT GO!

Think about it for a moment... Is it really worth it? Do you really want to go through the details of your petty indifferences at the Great White Throne of Judgment. After all, finger-pointing will be null and void at that moment. You will answer for you and you alone.

Now answer this question again: IS IT REALLY WORTH IT?

Choose to laugh rather than cry. Choose to forgive rather than begrudge and to smile instead of frowning. Move
forward through life with humility and cast down the pride that fuels the foundational stages of offense to begin with.

As one farmer--stepping into an unexpected, sudden flow of milk from an overturned pail--told his bitterly arguing, finger-pointing children, "One thing is settled: the milk has been spilled. Now stop whining over the fact that it happened and just go milk the cow again!"

However Jesus said it better, "Take up your cross--DAILY-- and deny yourself!"

I'll do my best to come with you as we strive, together, to be less like us and more like Christ. May we decrease, that he may increase.

Greater things are yet to come. Don't miss them because you're curled up in the defiled bed of bitterness... :)