Agony of Defeet

If you know me and see the date of this post, I'm sure you are expecting an expression of agony concerning my beloved Buckeyes! While that may be good therapy today, I don't believe it has much eternal consequence at all. Actually my foot is in agony. I had a callous on my toe and last week I decided it had bugged me enough, so I started to pick at it to remove it, unfortunately I removed too much and now my left and only big toe is real sore and is healing too slow!

The wound is not that big, but the discomfort is. It is kind of like what James wrote about the tongue. It is small but has great power. Like a rudder that steers a ship or a spark that starts a fire. Small stuff can have huge influence on us. Think back to grade school when someone teased you...you may still carry a scar from that. But the truth is that we can decide what we let bother us. We do have a choice! So why do we choose what we choose? Because every one of us, whether we sense it or not has a sort of compass; a value system that determines our reaction to what life throws at us. It may be a sore toe, a bad job, a recent break up, a bad diagnosis, or a BCS loss, but I propose that we respond based on what we value most. When what we value most is all powerful, all loving, and everlasting it puts everything into the proper perspective. Knowing who I am and what I mean to the God of the universe trumps anything this world can dish out. God didn't write it but I think he dwells in this phrase: "Don't sweat the small stuff!"

If I think about, I brought my sore toe on myself. How often is our hurt brought on by ourselves? When our value system is not based on TRUTH, I'd say 100% of the time. Because, when someone hurts our feelings, it is because we value their opinion or acceptance more than God's. No one can choose a value system for you. And the beauty of it is, there is a God who loves you more than you know, even when you get side tracked and value Him less than you should.