Tag: bad

The Cheerful Giver

Jennifred Jones

It’s been said true giving is a sacrifice, it should be hard, something you don’t want to do… give something you don’t want to… or aren’t really able to give….to prove you are a sacrificial giver.

Yet — giving is really a heart thing!

You can’t make someone love another person. You can’t make yourself love someone you don’t.

You can’t make yourself want to want to give.

If we give something and we don’t really want to is it a good thing? Is it an acceptable ‘sacrifice’? Does it make it worthy and acceptable because we gave against our will?

I think God is more interested in our heart than he is in our gift—to him or anybody else!

It’s a pliability of our heart where God will give us a thought to do something for someone, send a care package to a friend, bake a dish for a neighbor, buy the meal for the car behind you at McDonalds….and you have almost an ecstatic feeling to do it.

That’s the cheerful heart I’m talking about.

That removes us from the ‘works’ category… doing it ‘because I have to’, or ‘it’s my duty’ … a drudgery type ‘giving’.

This cheerful heart and willing-giving will come as we change how we see the world, other people, even ourselves.

Oh God, help me see the good instead of the other…

You Provoke Me!

Jennifred Jones

I heard several versions of this phrase repeatedly growing up… ‘Stop provoking me!’, ‘Don’t provoke me!’ It was usually a result of an antagonistic action. When we kids were being sassy and rebellious, mother would say, “Stop provoking me!” In other words, ‘you’re asking for it…shape up or you’re going to get it!’

What does that strange word mean? Well, it rhymes with ‘poke’… could be almost restated, prod, goad, maybe even push or stir up….(’I’m going to stir up some batter and cookies are going to come out of it.’)

To provoke someone means you are intending to generate a response…a reaction.

It’s interesting though, God uses the word provoke in a positive sense. He says, ‘provoke one another to do good works.’

That caught my attention the first time I saw it.

To me, it meant I could do or say something, all by myself, that could cause, encourage, ‘incite’, wake –up, provoke! someone to do good! That was powerful to me!

I could be a force to ‘incite’ good, to help other people want to do good for their benefit and their family’s good.

Much today tries to incite people to do bad, think bad, be bad, treat other people bad, treat themselves bad… but I, (we) have the same amount of power to incite (provoke) people to do good!

That really is revolutionary!

I am just me! Little ole’ me, yet I can be a provoker of good and be an influence wherever I go to ‘poke, prod, goad, push, stir-up, incite, wake-up, encourage, provoke, make them want to do good!!!

No rallying speech necessary… just live my life before others… happy, free, smiling, encouraging, helping, thanking, praying,  building people up in whatever their current state of affliction might be…saying something that might help them see their situation from a different angle so they don’t  give in to despair.

We can be the counter-balance.

In spite of all the provocation to do ill towards others, we can provoke others to want to do good.

Who will you provoke today?

 

 

Antidote for People-Pain

Jennifred Jones

There is a cure, a genuine–yes it will work–cure for people-pain. It is not easy to take, but after you start taking it, it becomes easier and easier and you begin to feel better and better!!!….literally you will FEEL BETTER!

I don’t know how it works, but it does…actually it’s because we’re wired that way, by God Himself Who knows just what we need.

Who would have thought…it goes contrary to all popular opinion and human reason. Yet it will work.

What is it?

Do something good for somebody…anybody, it doesn’t matter if it’s the one who hurt you…sometimes that person is long gone, perhaps even died, but we can still do good to someone and watch how it transforms us and others.

If we can just remember that– it will save us a lot of sorrow, grief and wasted time!

Instead of returning evil for evil, bad for bad, trying to get even, we start a new trend to conquer the bad, by doing something good!

If you’ve had a lot of bad done to you, or even seen a lot of bad done, you can change the temperature in your world just by doing something good….a smile, holding the door open for someone…(ladies there is nothing wrong with us holding the door open for a man), letting another driver go in front of you in traffic, baking muffins for your neighbor, writing a letter of encouragement, calling grandmother, even pulling a weed out of your neighbors sidewalk!

Doing good overcomes bad. Doing good multiplies good. Doing good makes you feel good, and there is nothing wrong with feeling good about doing good.

We were not made to feel miserable, but to have joy, peace and happiness in our lives. It begins and continues by doing good.