When it comes to your faith, beware of the “one size fits all” mentality.  We're all saved by grace, but we each have a different journey: a personal one pre-ordained by God.

So here's the scenario: I'm listening to a news report.  I'm reading a text message.  I'm overhearing a conversation at church.  I'm replying to an email.  I'm talking to a friend.  And even though none of those instances are directly related, there's this uncomfortable synergy lining them up and placing each one of them side by side.  The point of connection?  The season of struggle is upon us...

Bea Arthur . . . David Carradine . . . Dom DeLuise . . . Danny Gans . . . Farrah Fawcett . . . Paul Harvey . . .Michael Jackson . . . Billy Mays . . . Ed McMahon . . . Natasha Richardson . . . Gale Storm . . . Fred Travalena & countless others who had little to no media coverage; different people with different contributions to our society.  With all that has transpired in the past couple of months, I wonder if anyone has given any thought to what their lives signify.

Up until my mid-20’s, I perpetuated a very ungodly disdain for my biological father.  The gravity of my sin didn't manifest itself until after he was murdered.  In the aftermath, I wrestled with admitting to myself that I exhausted an excessive amount of emotional energy by attempting to keep him in the prison of my resentment.  In my estimation, he forfeited the honor of “Dad” because he did nothing to earn it.  I felt like in his abandonment of our family, he was partly to blame for us having to struggle so much.  But I learned the hard way that even though my feelings of exasperation were valid, life is too short to completely right all my wrongs.

Imagine having everything you could ever dream of wanting?  The highest luxury the world had to offer.  TV shows and movies can paint this fantasy for all of us that we might find ourselves daydreaming in at times… but for a cat named Solomon it was no dream – this was reality.  He was known as the wisest man that lived during his time.  Historians look at his life and calculate he was the wealthiest man to ever live.  They’ve even calculated his wealth into today’s economy and say that he was 8-10 ten times richer than Bill Gates.

I grew up in a single-parent home with my mother and 3 brothers.  Money was often scarce, but we made do with what we had.  To get the most bang for the buck, my mother would stretch a dollar until George Washington would beg for mercy!  And in the process, she taught my brothers and me to shop comparatively.  I vividly remember once when my athletically gifted older brother needed some football cleats that were in my estimation overpriced.  When I asked my mother why she didn’t purchase the less expensive cleats, she replied, “You never buy cheap shoes for your children because the long-term effects will be detrimental.”  Many of us have unknowingly utilized mediocre translations of the bible, and like those cheap shoes, the consequences resulting from long-term exposure will be detrimental.

An acquaintance recently approached me seeking advice on how to handle a potentially volatile situation.  She saw a leader in her church make disparaging comments to a person in such a way that it commanded lots of negative attention.  After praying about it, I told her to “encourage this leader by praying and specifically ask God to send conviction that would result in repentance.”  She had difficulty understanding how praying for conviction would be an “encouragement” to him.  I quoted the words of evangelist R.A. Torrey: “The chief purpose of prayer is that God may be glorified in the answer.”  When God is glorified, our corporate encouragement is a natural by-product (see Nehemiah 8:10).  Today, the Apostle Paul is going to help us to better understand the richness of encouragement.

If you exercise, what you consume turns into energy.  If you don't exercise, it turns into fat.  And believe it or not, that same truth applies to spiritual food.  Many of us are consuming a lot of Bible input.  We're full of sermons, CDs, DVDs, radio programs and Bible studies.  Unfortunately, the harsh reality is we're just accumulating information.  The result?  God has a lot of spiritually overweight children who are overfed & undernourished because we don't consistently put into practice what we're learning.

For years, I’ve subscribed to the belief that God has a sense of humor.  How else would you explain things like the multi-cultural church that now meets in a place that used to house KKK meetings.  Or what about the lady that prayed to find a new jaguar in her driveway?  She found it alright . . . it just drove off after the person in it realized he was at the wrong house! (By the way, these are both true stories.)

The difference between wanting to get something done and actually getting that something done is similar to the difference between priority and importance.  Matters of priority carry a sense of urgency that get addressed immediately.  Matters of importance are significant, but there’s not always a sense of urgency.  If you’ve never been told this, let me take this privilege to speak into your life today: your public life is important; your private life is priority.