God Never Gives up on You!
“But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law.”
Galatians 5:22-23
WOW those are some pretty powerful words. Jesus speaks about how a tree can only bear good fruit or bad fruit. It can’t bear both. When he talking about this he wasn’t talking about a real tree he was speaking about people. When someone has evil in their heart they don’t have the ability to allow God into their hearts. It happens to all of us at times. There have been times in my life where I have been overcome with jealousy, or envy, or just wanted to make more money. I’m not proud of those times and I’m definitely not bragging about them either.
Can you think of any of those times in your life? Times where you didn’t bear good fruit.
Even through those hard times did God give up on you when you lost your way? NO! He never gives up on us. He asks that we don’t give up on other or ourselves either. That’s part being a person that bears “good fruit”, not giving up. We can’t give up because someone hurts us. We continue to forgive them and in the end it makes us better fruit.
Last week we talked about how God has a plan for all of us, and how he knew us before were ever born. I believe that God also knows when we will stumble. He uses that as a way to help us know that he is in control of everything. God wants all of his children to bear good fruit. Think back to when you were a child (I still am according my wife, lol). Do you remember having to learn a lesson the hard way? Oh man do I ever. I had to learn lots lessons the hard way. There were definitely times where I did not bear good fruit for God. Does that mean that I can’t bear good fruit now? No it doesn’t. Because God knew before I was born that I would mistakes, just like you, just like your neighbor, just like the rest of the world. He knew that we would struggle. That’s why God sent his son for us, to atone for our sins.
Prayer
God we would like to thank you today for never giving up on us. Like a farmer never gives up on his crops, or parents never give up on their children. We thank you for taking time to help us bear good fruits. We know that life can be tough, you never said that it would be easy. We know that you are here for us and that you help us when we need it. God Thank you for the opportunities that you give us to share our good fruits. We pray that you would help us to realize when we are starting to get “rotten” before it’s too late. God we pray that you help us to share love, give joy to others, seek peace in conflicting times, show kindness when we are struggling, be good to others, always be faithful to you, have genital hands and gentle words, and above all else have self-control in every situation. We thank you for never giving up on us. .
Amen
Prayer
Lord, today we come to you with HAPPY hearts. We are so grateful that you give us the opportunity to change the lives of those around us. We are grateful that you give us the wisdom to change our lives and the lives of those around us. And you make it so simple. We can do it with a single smile. God today I would ask that you help us to smile more. The next time we see someone down, help us to smile for them. The next time we are down, help us to remember that you gave us the best gift ever. The ability to know you, your son, and the holy spirit. God, we are so grateful for everything you give us.
We ask all these things in your Precious Son's Name
Amen
A Little More
The other day I got a call from one of our clients.
I love talking to our clients so I always smile when I answer the phone.
“Hey Dan, one of my drivers is pulled over and they are saying that our permit doesn’t cover what we weigh. Isn’t that why we hire your team to make sure that these things don’t happen!”
My smile immediately vanished.
I was shocked because my team is amazing. and it’s not like them to miss something like 20,000 lbs on a permit.
So, I asked him, “Who have you been working with, and who was the one who called our team to get the permit?”
To get to the bottom of the problem I needed the details.
They gave me the details.
My next call was to my team. Then after I got the details I got them started on getting new permits to get the problem fixed. I’m a solutions guy, not an excuses guy.
But I NEED to know the real reason why it happened so that we can fix the issue.
My next call was to the driver so that I could see exactly what happened.
I knew he was going to be upset. He was pulled over and they were going to give him a HUGE ticket. I wouldn’t be happy either.
so……
I made sure not to smile when I made the call. I had a serious look on my face. As we chatted I learned that he was the person who gave his weight to our team. I asked where he got the weights from and how in the world they were off by over 20K lbs!
That’s when he told me that he might have gotten the wrong scale ticket from the weigh station where he originally weighed.
Immediately my heart leapt with joy, this is NOT our fault!
Now to get the problem resolved and get this driver back on the road was my only goal. I was not going to assign blame or make anyone feel bad.
Hey, we all make mistakes. I do it multiple times every single day.
The owner of the company shot me a text. I'm getting permits from the big guys. They won’t make these mistakes that cost me time and $$$$$.
No problem. Let me know if you need anything. We are here to help.
Well……..
After they called the “BIG Guys” they called me about 30 minutes later.
Hey, we can’t get an Idaho permit until Monday. It’s Friday night. And we need to drop this load off tomorrow afternoon.
I told him that I would NOT make any promises.
But my team went to work!
Guess what????
We got the permits that the “BIG Guys” couldn’t get.
My team had the Idaho permit in less than 20 minutes. For the right weight this time.
Here’s the point of all this.
When things don’t go right, smile. I have taught my whole team this.
That right there is how we got the permits. They smiled as they worked and it didn’t take any time at all.
Ok, there might be a little knowledge that went into this too. Lol
Next time you need anything DOT, don’t call the “Big Guys” , call the team who can get it done!
Dan Greer
