So the other day me and mi linda esposa, Jenna, were at WalMart to get a couple picture frames and a B-day card for Chris–his birthday is next Sunday!\u00a0 Anyway, we also were thinking it would be nice to have a couple new pillows for our bed. (You know how pillows get flat and hard after too many years of use?)\u00a0 So while we were looking at pillows, we also looked at sheets.\u00a0 We had 1 set of bedsheets that we use all the time, and they have always been a tight fit on the mattress–they barely cover the whole side of the mattress. \u00a0 So we figured, ‘We’ve got a little extra in the household budget, let’s get some new sheets.’\u00a0 The really nice 400 thread count, Egyptian cotton sheets were on sale for $35.\u00a0 So we got ’em.\u00a0 With the taxes, they were a little less than $40.<\/p>\n
Pretty exciting, right?\u00a0 Ok, here’s where the plot thickens:<\/p>\n
This lady starts checking me out…because we had taken all our stuff to the checkout lane.\u00a0 Anyway, she bags everything up and and we cart it out to the car.\u00a0 But something wasn’t right.\u00a0 The total on the receipt was less than what I thought it should be–by about $40.\u00a0 So we took a closer look, and sure enough, somehow the sheets never got rung up at the register.\u00a0 So now I’ve got a choice to make; do I keep the sheets as a gift from the benevolent WalMart corporation that was kind enough to put them in a nice plastic gift bag for me…or do I go back in and pay for what the checkout lady missed?\u00a0 As soon as I asked that question, I already knew the answer.\u00a0 My conscience told me the right thing to do was to pay for what I wanted to keep.<\/p>\n
I grumbled about it.\u00a0 Even as I walked back into the store, I thought about how much I was spending on being honest.\u00a0 I wondered how much difference this would make.\u00a0 $40 is didley to a multi-billion dollar operation like WalMart.\u00a0 They certainly aren’t going to notice or care about what I was doing.\u00a0 I wondered how much it mattered to God.\u00a0 I know he always wants us to do the right thing.\u00a0 But was this something he’d be really happy about or simply satisfied that I did what was right?\u00a0 I didn’t do it for a reward or for recognition, but I did plenty of bad things in my life B.C. and it would be super cool to know anytime that I did something to really make God happy.\u00a0 I would pay way more than $40 anytime I can make my relationship with God closer.\u00a0 The more I hear from him the better my life gets. So my real question was, did I gain anything for being honest–besides bed sheets?\u00a0 What does $40 worth of honesty get you?\u00a0 You can’t buy God–he owns the universe.\u00a0 His law says to be holy, so being honest was simply my duty to him.\u00a0 But does the fact that I was faithful in this small matter help connect me any closer with my Savior?<\/p>\n
I shared all these thoughts with Jenna on the drive home, and she pointed out the fact that actually listening to and obeying God’s leading on my heart would promote more leading from God.\u00a0 Jesus said “Those who love me are the ones who keep my commands.”\u00a0 And he said when we are faithful with the small things he asks us to do that he will bless us with bigger things.\u00a0 So listening to the still small voice of God’s Spirit in my heart, and doing what was right, demonstrated my love for God and proved to him that I was faithful in this way.\u00a0 So he now has that much more reason to bless me with more of his trust.\u00a0 What a cool thought–something as small as that could improve my relationship with the Almighty!\u00a0 Not that he ever loves me more or less, but to prove my faithfulness in service to God–even in a small way, just makes me feel good all over.<\/p>\n
God has blessed us with more than enough to get by.\u00a0 We can sleep on Egyptian cotton sheets.\u00a0 When most of the world lives on $1 or $2 a day, I feel extremely blessed.\u00a0 So we prayed in the car, on the way home that God would help us to always be as honest as he has been generous to us.\u00a0 He has given an overabundance to us.\u00a0 So we can give an over abundance of honesty and faithfulness to his commands.\u00a0 In the grand scheme of our lives $40 is a tiny drop in the bucket.\u00a0 But the priceless rewards for righteousness are worth more than any bank could hold in its vaults.<\/p>\n
I thank God for the opportunity he presented to make that choice to pay for the sheets or not.\u00a0 It was a great chance to stop and think about all the blessings God has given us and how much doing the right thing is really worth in life.\u00a0 May your life be filled with moments of doing the right thing in big ways and small.\u00a0 And may you know an abundance of God’s blessings through your faithfulness!<\/p>\n
PS. My father-in-law pointed out that if you want God to bless your marriage bed, you shouldn’t sleep on stolen sheets!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
So the other day me and mi linda esposa, Jenna, were at WalMart to get a couple picture frames and a B-day card for Chris–his birthday is next Sunday!\u00a0 Anyway, we also were thinking it would be nice to have a couple new pillows for our bed. (You know how pillows get flat and hard […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[21,24,22,23,20,16,18,17,19],"class_list":["post-64","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-day-in-the-life","tag-blessings","tag-choices","tag-gods-blessings","tag-gods-voice","tag-grumbling","tag-honesty","tag-marriage","tag-money","tag-stealing"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pastorfrog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pastorfrog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pastorfrog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pastorfrog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pastorfrog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=64"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.pastorfrog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67,"href":"https:\/\/www.pastorfrog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64\/revisions\/67"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pastorfrog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=64"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pastorfrog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=64"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pastorfrog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=64"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}