Pulling up weeds

I was out running a couple days ago and saw a man picking weeds out of his yard. He was pulling them out by the roots so that they wouldn't grow back again. The day after that it was beginning to drizzle a little bit and then today we had an amazing rain. I'm hoping this is the beginning to the ending of our drought. I thought back to the man picking his weeds, by pulling up the weeds by the roots ahead of time, the man saved himself a lot of time later on. It's not the weeds will never grow back, but my guess is they will not be as many or as big.

It got me to thinking about our lives. I wonder if sometimes God doesn't give us "droughts" so that we can pull up the weeds in our own lives before the rain comes. Sometimes it is easier to acknowledge our need for God in the hard times of life, then when we become busy because of all of our blessings He has given to us. So maybe that is the reason for droughts in our lives, that we can make preparations, stop the old bad habits and start good habits now when we feel more dependent on Him so that it will carry through when He has blessed us so richly that we become engrossed in what He has blessed us with, that we might not forget His goodness.

Something I love about God is His ability to bring good out of everything in our lives. Often we just have to look past what we might think is a bad situation to see the good that is there. It's not always obvious, but it's there.

  "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose." Romans 8:28 (NIV)

importance of the righteous

I've been reading a lot about the kings of Israel and Judah lately. It is so interesting how one man can make such an impact on a nation of people in his lifetime. (As a side note there is a great need to pray for the leaders of our nation because of the impact he/she makes.) For each king a reference was made for his character, whether he followed the laws of God or not and the nation followed his lead. More often than not if he did follow God's laws, the reference was something to the effect of him serving the LORD "as David had done." God Himself describes David as "a man after His own heart." Can you imagine having God say that about you?

I think it would be incredible! I believe this nation needs leaders who are righteous who will do everything the Lord commands, but I don't think it is simply up to the leaders of our nation. I think it can begin with us. It amazes me who God uses in the Bible to carry out His great plans. He chose Moses who believed himself to not be eloquent of speech to lead a nation of over a million people. He chose Jonah who was unwilling (at first and had to have a change of heart himself) to change the heart of a huge city. He chose Joseph who was hated by his brothers and sold into slavery to save Egypt and the surrounding peoples from 7 years of famine. He uses the strong and the weak to accomplish His will. Maybe we weren't put here to do anything on that grand of a scale, but I believe that the stand of the righteous is effective through Christ. Just one righteous person can make a difference, a town can do a lot, a nation can change the world.

We've been talking in class about Satan being the ruler over darkness and Christ being the light. I got to thinking that light always dispels darkness. If you light a match in the darkness, it is no longer dark in the area that the light touches. Only when the light is hidden or turned off can the darkness prevail. The same is true in our own lives.

"After removing Saul, he made David their king. He testified concerning him: ‘I have found David son of Jesse a man after my own heart; he will do everything I want him to do.’" ~Acts 13:22 (NIV)