Today’s Devotion: “Day 10- Seeing The Big Picture Genesis.50:20 ‘But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive.’
I believe I can say with certainty that Joseph had no idea of all the adversity that his dreams would take him into & if he had of known I’m not sure he would have even began the journey. But as it is with any dream it will take great faith to walk it out. The things that he faced, the rejection of his brothers, sold into slavery, accused of adultery, cast into prison, would be enough to make some of us quit before we ever got started, but as it is with most things in life we don’t necessarily control everything that happens & I believe that is where the sovereignty & the providence of God comes in. If we will continue walking toward His purpose no matter what trouble we encounter we will eventually run into our destiny. This is exactly what happened with Joseph. His ability to stay faithful to the Lord in every trial eventually exalted him to second in command in all of Egypt & the purpose of his promotion was bigger than his life alone. Some of the things you’re walking through may not make any sense to you either but like Joseph you have to stay faithful in the journey. Open your eyes today & begin to See the Big Picture.”
I can empathize with Joseph. I’m sure we all can. “Dreams” very rarely include the nasty bits of reality that come along with achieving them. The recent college grad doesn’t think about the menial, mind-numbing tasks they’ll be given at their first job. The desperate “wannabeamom” doesn’t focus on morning sickness, or the complete lack of sleep after the little one comes, or “Baby’s First Blowout in the Bathtub”. The new groom typically doesn’t stand at the end of the aisle thinking about the fact that someday, he is going to see his blushing bride on the crapper--she may be 30, she may be 90, but it WILL happen. The new entrepreneurs don’t think about the hours they’ll spend fending off advertising offers and requests for donations, or screaming at Quickbooks for generating duplicate entries, or trying to figure how many “servings” are in a head of lettuce *raises hand*. At some point on every journey, there comes a moment, however fleeting (or not fleeting) of, “OMG…why did I do this to myself? This was my DREAM! This was SUPPOSED TO BE FUN!!! WHAT WAS I THINKING???” And in those moments, it can be near impossible to think about the Big Picture. That each little crappy thing that happens to you is part of a bigger Plan. That each of those crappy things changes you, in a way that you will need for the future.
As the second season of having The Scoop nears (assuming it ever warms up), I feel those knots re-tying themselves in my stomach. I think about all those un-fun moments that are surely waiting for us: unexpected equipment failures, employee call offs, purchase orders, finding a new food vendor, and customer complaints and customer “suggestions” (‘I realize you only have this 500-square foot building and no extra space anywhere, but maybe you should get an oven bake your own bread, and get a giant ice cream maker, and you should probably install a drive thru on this building you don’t own, and maybe make your own waffle cones by hand, one at a time as people order them while you have a line out the door...’)… okay, maybe my thoughts on that one are transparent. It weighs on me a lot. But I know that God never gives us more than we can handle, so whatever His will, as long as I keep the faith, he’ll bring us through it.
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Breakfast: Smoothie, made from strawberries, banana, blueberries, orange, pineapple juice, and spinach. Yes, this would be a pretty spot on representation of the “Christmas Poop” smoothie I mentioned the other day. But don’t judge by the color—it’s actually really tasty.
You can see now why I cried.
Lunch: Vegan Minestrone
Dinner: Trivia night again! I tried to pick up some brown rice veggie sushi rolls for the Hubs & I, but when I got to the market they were already shut down and there weren’t any in the case. So the Hubs (being the wonderful man he is) brought me some chips & salsa & a banana from home. Then we split an order of herbed fries at trivia.
Best Fries On The Planet. Thank you Finnegan’s Wake!
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Woo—over halfway through!!!
Today’s Devotion: “Day 11: Enduring Mercy --Psalms 136:1 ‘O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good: for his mercy endureth forever.’
If you look up Endure in Webster’s dictionary you will find that it means to continue in the same state; to last; to abide; to submit; to sustain; to bear; to undergo; to tolerate; That is an amazing fact especially when we are talking about the Mercy of God. His mercy is able to tolerate whatever foolishness you get yourself into. Mercy is “not getting what you deserve.” Now that is good news, not that you are living your life in foolishness, but that even in times when wisdom is not employed the Lord’s mercy never changes. His promise to us is that he will never leave us nor forsake us. We need to be thankful for his great mercy & allow that same mercy to flow out of our lives to others.”
Mercy is a true blessing. We’ve all needed it from time to time, whether from God or from others. I am the first to admit that I am flawed, however well intended. One only need look as far as this morning, when I accidentally dropped an F-bomb while grabbing hot bread from the toaster. If we tried to keep track of all our shortcomings throughout the day, we’d end the day feeling like utter failures. But just as the troublesome screaming toddler is still loved by his stressed-out mama at the end of the day, God still loves us too, no matter how bad we screw up. I’ve heard some agnostic/atheistic people state that “God” is just a substitute parent for immature & emotionally needy adults, because the God/Follower relationship so closely mimics to that of a parent/child relationship. But the Bible states that “we are made in His likeness”; it just makes sense that our most hard-wired, intimate human emotion-- the unfailing love of a parent for a child (no matter how demanding & seemingly unreciprocated at times)-- would be the same that God, who created us, has for us. Perhaps that’s circular logic, but it makes sense to me. As teens, our parents are uncool and overbearing…but as we grow, we realize just how wise they truly are, and just how forgiving they’ve been to us. So we try to show them more appreciation, and try to love them as hard as they love us.
Breakfast: ½ whole wheat flatbread + 1 tbsp natural peanut butter, and an apple
Lunch: I had high hopes of getting a brown rice veggie sushi roll at the local supermarket….but alas, the Sushi Dudes told me they were out of brown rice. They politely pointed at the brown rice rolls that were already out on display, but all of them contained meat. BOO. So it was a salad bar instead, with some Greek dressing with no sugar that I found after several minutes of searching (seriously…nearly all dressings seem to contain sugar. Even the “olive oil & vinegar” dressing I picked up. Stop with the sugar!)
Dinner: Salsa Rice!
This is probably the ONE dish that we’ve had since on the Fast that was already a regular in my repertoire. We LOOOOOVE this dish. So fresh and still filling. And here, you get a little glimpse into my Typical Thursday evening routine—looking through the sale ads while we chow down. I know, I know…our lives are uber-glam.
$1.68/lb for asparagus? Looks like I’m cookin’ some asparagus next week!
So…tomorrow….Valentine’s Day!!! (…???) Perhaps you’re wondering how we’ll navigate the Day of Chocolate & Champagne & Oysters & Cheese & Other Delectable Non-Fast Friendly Things? ….Yeah, us too! Tune in & we’ll see how it goes!
