Thirsty Thursday - Jesus in a Speedo!

Our youngest daughter, Sarah, is on the swim team. She loves it! She wears her swimsuit to church (under her dress), and she wears her fins (you and I call them flippers) around the house. I have even come in occasionally to find her watching TV while wearing her goggles! She can’t wait to get to swim, and she never fusses, even when she swims a mile (with very little rest) during practice. She just can’t get enough.

She has two new swim suits that she just got this month. Every time I see her standing up there in her blue Speedo suit, with her little pink goggles and swim cap, I can’t help but see Jesus, because, you see, Jesus gave her the wonderful new blue Speedo. And while, in her mind, she just got a new groovy swimsuit, in my mind, God taught me a wonderful lesson. He taught me to truly understand the concept of giving and receiving.

2 Corinthians 8:15 says, “The one who gathered much did not have too much, and the one who gathered little did not have too little.” I have experienced the receiving half of this verse, but now I desire to experience the giving half the way it has been shown to me.

In the last 3 months, God has given us so many blessings, from money for a mission trip, to family blessings, to …. yep, you guessed it - a Speedo! God showed us, through a precious family who gave us a TON of clothes (that they could have sold for a lot of money), how to TRULY give. On a beautiful Thursday afternoon, our three girls were able to find clothes, shoes, swimsuits, jackets, jammies, etc, enough to make a new wardrobe each (literally). Through that sweet family, God taught me the principle of giving. Not just the “collect our OLD things and put them in the drop box“, but to really give. He has stirred in me the desire to be able to give the way this precious family has done - and more!

Thank God for all of our blessings - especially the blue Speedo!!

Thirsty Thursday - "Jesus on Top Shot"

When I’m looking, God shows up in some of the craziest places. His latest appearance was last week on the show “Top Shot.” It’s a reality show with marksmen competing for $50,000 and the chance to become Top Shot.

One of the competitors is a Christian counselor named Dustin. He’s vocal about his faith (not in an obnoxious kind of way, but they know what he believes), and he doesn’t have anything after his name as a title like, “All Time National Champion of the World of Guns” or anything like that. So the team saw him as their weak link, and voted to send him to the “elimination challenge” (if you lose this, you have to leave). The comments before the challenge showed just how confident everyone was that he wasn’t gonna be coming back. Dustin was feeling the pressure, and even he seemed a little uncertain. I felt badly for him.

…….the dramatic cliffhanger before the commercial and thennnnnnnn….. The Challenge……

Dustin “smoked” his competitor. The crowd goes wild!! It was the upset of the day. He shot 24 of the targets and she only got 11. He had everything going against him, according to “the world” - He is a Christian, he is a Christian counselor, and …well, no title, so everyone expected him to lose. But that’s not how my God works!

God’s M.O. is to bring beauty from ashes, so what Dustin and everyone else (including me) thought was a bad thing (the elimination challenge), God used for His good. At the end of that night, all the teammates were praising his shooting and had TREMENDOUS respect for him. God took this little Christian counselor from underdog status to a respected member of the team. With comments like, “I didn’t know just what a strong shooter he was,” Dustin secured his place on the team. Now he will be able to continue to influence his teammates (and the world) for Christ in his gentle way for another week.

I love the way God works in ALL things for those who love the Lord and are called according to his purpose.

Did you see Jesus in any little, out of the ordinary place this week??