Wednesday, March 9, 2016

“Make a pact with yourself today to not be defined by your past. Sometimes the greatest thing to come out of all your hard work isn't what you get for it, but what you become for it. Shake things up today! Be You...Be Free...Share.” 

― Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free

DEUTERONOMY 8-10

17For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes. 18He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing. 19And you are to love those who are foreigners, for you yourselves were foreigners in Egypt. 20Fear the Lord your God and serve him. Hold fast to him and take your oaths in his name. 21He is the one you praise; he is your God, who performed for you those great and awesome wonders you saw with your own eyes. 

MARK 12:28-44

41Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. 42But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a few cents.

43Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others.44They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on.”

JOURNAL

It's not the outcome but the doing that matters. I have been struck by the truth in this..and really it can be said that it is not the doing but the heart in the doing that matters. When I think about what I do and why I do it, I am often struck by how my mind often wanders to the outcome and then I judge that potential outcome. In doing this I tend to encounter all types of fear and shame and toxic mixes of all of it. Obsession with outcomes has been a driver for limiting myself and or overextending myself in ways that take me out of my ability and my God-Given talents.

If I take these passages to heart then my only concern will be acting and giving all of myself in obedience to God. Regardless of the outcome. This is terrifying! For it guarantees nothing in this world other than the joy of obedience and in honoring God. Yet when I really think about it the alternative doesn't either and it has the extra baggage of robbing me of joy.