Spring Cleaning
You might be wondering why would a Christian devotional talk about spring cleaning?
Well, today we are going to talk about cleaning out your sins and forgiving those who have done you wrong.
Alright, we might have been a little tricky with the title of this devotional.
But hey we got your attention right!
Let’s dig right into the cleaning.
Do you have your gloves because this is going to get a little messy? You might even want to get your Boggs on because we are going to be trudging through some messy stuff today.
Has anyone ever done anything wrong to you?
Every day, right!
Have you ever done anything wrong to someone else?
Hopefully not every day, but chances are that if you dig deep enough you will find plenty of instances where you could have handled things differently.
It might be as simple as you got mad at a telemarketer, or blamed the police officer for giving you a ticket or even lied about something.
God wants us to forgive those who do bad things to us.
That is one of the hardest things that i have ever done.
I have to tell you a story.
At one of my previous jobs, i didnt get along with this one person. I mean we didnt get along at all. You could have called us enemies.
She would do anything to get me in trouble. Even exaggerate stories, or because she was a superior tell me to do something, then blame for doing exactly what she told me to do when it was wrong.
To say the least we didn’t get along.
God kept putting us together in work situations though.
Then one day I read the verse above. Then he guided me to John 8. (The story of the woman the Jews wanted to stone.)
He told me that before he would grant me peace with my coworker I had to fully forgive her.
Not just kind of forgive her, but fully forgive her from the bottom of my heart.
I had to not talk bad about her, ever, no matter what she did or said about me.
I had to take a guinea interest in her life.
He never told me that I had to like her, just forgive her.
So I prayed so much.
When I prayed I would ask that he would soften my heart and help to forgive her.
It didn’t come overnight, but eventually, I could do it easily.
Guess what happened next?
NOTHING!!
That’s right nothing. I stopped getting aggravated when she would do things that weren’t right. I would automatically forgive her the second it would happen. I would say to myself that she didn’t know what she was doing.
The best thing was that it didn’t bother me anymore.
Shortly after that, I left that job for another one.
Still to this day I use what I learned. I tell myself that if my heart can be softened to forgive her for everything that happened, then God can do anything.
The thing is that forgiving is not easy. But really who does it hurt the most?
It doesn’t really hurt the person you haven’t forgiven, it hurts you so much more.
You are the one who is really suffering and taking the beating for not forgiving others.
So put your headphones in, crank up some great Christian music, slap some gloves on because this is going to get messy, you might even want a respirator because some of the things you are about to forgive are gonna stink.
But it needs to be done, and the longer you wait the worse it will get.
Now get out there, dig deep and start forgiving everyone who was ever done wrong to you.
Prayer
God today we come to you with an open heart. We know that you forgive us when we do wrong. So help us to forgive those who do things that aren’t nice to us. Help us to forgive as easily as you do. God today I would like to pray your prayer. “‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, you will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. Amen
Will you pray with us?
Mankind throughout the world throughout our current situation
All Law enforcement and emergency response personnel
For all military personal serving our country and their families
Those in Leadership positions throughout the world
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
