New Blog Post: Beware of land mines in your way!

So, this morning I awoke to a cold crisp January morning here in the Piedmont of NC. I slept in a bit and headed directly for the kitchen to brew up some coffee. My immediate plans were to have my coffee and sit and read in a devotional book that has been a blessing to me over the years. Its a 90 day plan to praying through the Scriptures by Ken Boa called Face to Face. If you don't have it, get it...its amazing. Nothing but Scripture to pray.

Now I know that distractions are a part of the Christian walk and overcoming those can be a challenge. That's where discipline comes in for sure. Most of the time my distractions like yours are usually the calender or the to do list. Those little things that wedge their way in between us and God. They become so urgent that we say, "I don't have the time to sit and read and pray this morning".

I find that on those days, I REALLY need to sit and pray...taking the time to really hear what God wants from me and what I need from Him.

But today was different, coffee in hand, my mind fully bent on devoting a few quiet minutes to just me and Jesus; before the house comes alive with teenagers who by their very existence can be a distraction!

I sit, open my book and always just take a deep breath just to relax.....ahhhhhhhhh. But today as I took a long drink of life giving air in through my nose something was wrong. There was a distinct smell.

I thought, "Man, is that me? I know I showered last night!"

I put my book down on the arm of the chair and looked around on the hardwood floors of my office. Sometimes my little Havanese dog, Sophie, will sneak in there and leave me a surprise. I like to call them "land mines".

I couldn't see anything, but the smell....oh Sacajawea!

Usually when Sophie leaves me a surprise its noticeable. Her surprises are usually a distinctly different shade of brown that my floor. But today, nothing!

But then I looked at my shoe and you guessed it smeared all over the bottom was a peculiar substance that gave off a tremendous odor. It happened to be exactly the same color as our hardwoods. Evidently Sophie had eaten something off her normal diet of Pedigree Dog Food. She had deposited her leftovers direclty in front of my quiet time chair.

My shoe was covered in it. I thought, oh crap! Get it?

I immediately looked around and noticed beside my chair, behind my desk and several spots around the room where I had effectively distributed this amazingly distracting stuff all over my office.

I took my shoes off, put them outside, got the paper towels and began the clean up barefooted. Wrong answer!

Yep, there was more, on my bare feet feeling slimy. Tammy joined me for the celebration! If you know her you can imagine how excited she was to have the honor of washing the morning surprise off her husband's bare feet. We had us a good old fashioned foot washing right there! That ought to tell you alot about the character of my wife.

The moral of the story....the enemy will do anything to keep you from spending time with God, to include leaving a "land mine". So clean it up and get back into the Word, pray and get your day started!

That's what I'm going to do!

All for now...more to follow!