People First

Matthew 5:7-9

You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you:
"These people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
They worship me in vain;
their teachings are but rules taught by men."

Good morning Zebras,

One of the things I really admire about Paul’s life is that he did what God asked of him. If you read Acts you will see that he always inquired of God before he went somewhere and he was always open to God changing his plans.

That’s how I want to be.

It is my plan every day before noon that I sit down and write a z-mail and most days that’s God’s plan too. But not always. Yesterday was one of those days.

My mother-in-law had a small crisis. Her water heater developed a leak. The plumber and water damage crew came and her house was filled with fans that were making her cat crazy. She needed help to capture him and take him to the vet for boarding.

I could have told her I would help later and that I really needed to get my z-mail done, but I remembered the scathing little talk Jesus had with the Pharisees in Matthew 15 about honoring parents that ended with today’s verses. And I knew I needed to go help her.

This morning the second phase of her crisis continued. The insurance adjuster was coming to see if they would pay the claim and she needed someone to keep her company and give her moral support. So I went again.

This afternoon things have finally calmed down and I have time to write, but I was going to just skip it and take a nap, but once again God had different plans. So, here I am.

There was a time when I would have told my mother-in-law to wait. I would have said I was too busy with important work for God to go and help her. And I would’ve expected her to understand, after all, shouldn’t God come first?

But ministry is not God. God is God and He thinks people come first.

It is so easy when you are involved in running a ministry to forget that. There are always a hundred things that need to be done. But none of them are as important as the one person who needs to know the love of Christ.

Love,
Jill