The Amor of God

James 1:6-8

“Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11 Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. “

Ephesians 6:10-11

What do you see as the armor of God?  Not only that how do you put it on?

To me the armor of God is his protection against the evil one, satan.  It is what he gives us to help protect ourselves against the most evil thing in existence. 

Have you ever heard of a 30,000-foot view?  It is a term that is used in business quite often.  It means that you need to look at the bigger picture.  It’s kind of like the phrase, “You can’t see the forest for all the trees.”  It means that you can’t see the bigger picture because you have been surrounded with details.  If we as people can have a 30,000-foot view what is God’s view? About a 100million-foot view? 

The point is that we don’t always see the bigger picture when it comes to why we should have on God’s armor every day we wake up. 

Over the next couple of weeks we are going to be talking more in-depth about God’s armor, what we can use it for and why we need it. 

Before we get into the nuts and bolts we need to understand that God is our father.  He loves us more than any one person ever could.  As a parent that’s hard to believe.  God loves my children more than I do.  Doesn’t sound possible, but its true.  That’s why he gives us his armor every day. 

He is fighting a fight for us that we will never understand.  The fight against satin.  It’s a battle that if we look closely we can see bits and pieces of.  Thankfully, he doesn’t throw us into the heat of it.  He is protecting us and we don’t even know it.

Here is our challenge to you.  Go to Ephesians 6 and read it today.  Think about why God is giving you the armor he is.  Think about what it means to you that he gave you these tools.  Last of all, thank him for being there for you and protecting you from the bigger fight.  Thank him for seeing the bigger picture and allowing you to live the life, you do.

Prayer

Lord we come to you today with thankful hearts. We are thank full that you love us as your children. We are thankful that you never give up on us even when we stray from time to time. God we thankful that you can see the big picture, and we pray that you help us be ok with feeling lost in the forest sometimes. Lord we know that you give us exactly what we need when we need it and we hope that you help us to trust in your ways. Especially when we don’t see how they are guiding us. Again, we know that you can see the bigger picture and we are thankful for that. God we pray that you help us to wake up every morning with a renewed spirit and willingness to preserve on in your name. We pray that you will help us to be understanding and to use the tools you give us. We thank you for being our father

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