Better Than I Deserve

I was in the doctor’s office the other day and he quizzed me on the three things a man needs when he wakes up in the morning. Now guys, I’m keeping it clean here. Anyway, I responded with my top 3 needs when I first wake up: use the bathroom, get something to drink and go back to bed. Absolutely! Don’t you feel like staying in bed some days? Wouldn’t it feel better to blow the day off? Some days don’t you wake up feeling tired or in a bad mood? Just this morning I got up at 5:00 am and my wife, Sandra started talking to me(it’s a proven fact that women speak about 25,000 more words a day than a man does, so she was just getting an early start on hers) and I snapped her head off. She snapped back, “What’s your problem?” To which I replied, “I just don’t want to be talked to!” Lucky for me she went back to sleep for several hours and forgot about the whole incident. At least I think she did. No repercussions yet and she’s not one to strategically wait on a good time to express her feelings. Well, anyway, if you are like me and you sometimes wake up on the wrong side of the cave and want to just crawl back under your rock until a better day, I’m here to help us all.

 If you are a Christ follower, then you can just get over your feelings. I don’t say that in a sarcastic sense. Really, I don’t. I’m just saying that we shouldn’t allow our feelings to govern our attitudes. Our emotions shouldn’t toss us to and fro. We constantly stand on a foundation of blessings. Such that when someone asks “How do you feel?”, you should respond, “Blessed”. “How are you doing today?” “Blessed.” “How’s life treating you?” “Blessed”. Or my personal favorite to that question, “Better than I deserve.” This foundation of blessings comes from the fact that no matter what happens to us as redeemed followers of Jesus Christ the victory has already been won for us. Our eternity in Heaven is secure. Jesus Christ climbed the hill with the cross on His back, suffered the spikes in His hands and feet and the spear to His side and before He died He cried out, “It is finished.” He took the punishment and death we all deserved for our own wicked ways. Then 3 days later He did something to prove that He was no ordinary man. He walked out of the burial tomb. No other religion’s god has ever done that! He overcame sin and death and in the process gave all of us the opportunity to be overcomers. “This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life.” (John 3:16, The Message). Believe in Him and what He says in the Bible and what the Bible says about Him. That’s it. There’s not one thing we can do beyond believing that will help us. He did the work and then said that it was finished, completed, done, that’s a wrap!

Jesus said that He came for us to have life and life to the full. (John 10:10). To settle for anything less, to pursue anything less is like saying, “Gee, thanks Jesus for all that you did, but it’s just not enough for me.”

I think I’m ready for a nap…