Thankful For The Spankful

To My Dear Chocoholics, Looking back to when I was a kid it seemed that I was spanked constantly! I’m sure that 99% of my spankings had to do with my mouth…now there’s a shocker. If you ask my mother, she will say that I was such an easy baby and a really good girl. I was not a problem child. However, from my perspective I got spanked so frequently that sometimes in the morning just after waking up, I’d wonder what my mom thought of in her sleep that she forgot to mention the night before- that I needed a spanking for. Isn’t that ridiculous? There’s a Christian comedian named Mark Lowry that I got to see as a high schooler. He told this story of how he had really messed up and he remembered this college student telling him “Mark, when you know that you’re going to get a spanking what you’ve got to do is Bite The Blanket. Ok girls I’m here to tell you personally that biting the blanket to get through the pain of a spanking does NOT work. And, all it does in the long run is make you cough up a bunch of dry, scratchy, fur balls. It’s like how some people think that God is waiting for them to make a mistake so that he’ll be able to hammer them like it’s a favorite past time! Here’s a truth for you: God has never, isn’t, and will never sabotage you…ever. He isn’t interested in your failure. If he wanted to marvel in your failure he would have never sent his son as a love offering for our sin. What needs to be said though is that there are times when we know better and make the choice to do something wrong anyway. And, because of His great love for us, he allows our own consequences to remind us of how human we are and we get the spiritual spanking (the conviction of the Holy Spirit on our hearts). There are times when I am off the beaten, narrow path, when I realize that I’m going to need a correction of thought. But you know what? That’s when I really understand that God loves me a whole lot. Jonah is a perfect example. He actively disobeyed the Lord about witnessing to the Ninevites and as a result God placed him in the belly of a great fish!! Although in the short-term situation he may not have seen the benefits of being in that whale, hopefully down the road, he would have been grateful for the 3 day spankful. See, God loved Jonah so much that he insisted on keeping Jonah on track even if it meant a first class trip in a fish. And, God loved the Ninevites so much that he wanted to send the Good News to them! God’s primary message will always be a love message. God is no respecter of persons and because he is the same yesterday, today, and forever, the way that he wanted to love on all of those people and keep Jonah on track in his spiritual journey, he absolutely wants to give that to you! During a time of tough transition when you feel as if you’re in the belly of a whale, allow the Lord to love you where you are and let’s attempt to be grateful for the spankful that way, we’ll be able to be just like him down the road. Amen! Now, I want you to read Jonah 2:all and Jonah 3:all. Here are the verses to meditate on: Jonah 2: 7 and 9 “As my life was slipping away, I remembered the Lord. And my earnest prayer went out to you in your holy Temple. Verse 9: But I will offer sacrifices to you with songs of praise, and I will fulfill all my vows. For my salvation comes from the Lord alone.” God bless each of you as you approach the day of Thanksgiving. Love, Dede