Tag: people

Picked By God

Jennifred Jones

Everyone of us peoples… if you are alive then you are a people, has been created, not just made, but created…thought up, thought of, pondered over, uniquely, individually, skillfully, wonderfully (don’t stop reading because of the word ‘wonderful’…it’s true about you) created by the hand of God, Himself, who does not make any mistakes, is un-bribable, doesn’t change His mind mid-stream, or quit when things are difficult.

If you are reading this, and even if you are not reading this, you are in the ‘picked by God’ category.

God picks us and then gives us the choice to pick Him back.

The Bible says many are called but few are chosen. It is not up to us to decide who is and who is not. Our decision is to choose back– in accordance with God’s first choice—that He picked us, gave us the ‘want to’ to seek and find Him and say, “Yes, God, here I am. I want to be one of your chosen and live in your camp and be one of your tribe.”

And He will say back, “He that comes to Me, I will not cast away.” We may be cast-a-ways to the world, but not to our great big wonderful God. He has a secure fishing net that can draw us in out of the shipwrecks of our lives and place us on an island of safety that has a lighthouse on it so we can climb up and look out for others who might need help.

In this world of many men and women and too little of God, we need to know the power and love of the God who created, called and picked us. Sorry…we can’t get any credit for being good enough to get picked by God. He picked us because He made us and wants us and loves us, just like an earthly father would pick and love his child, because he came from him….not because of anything the child did, but just because he belongs to him.

Let God pick you. Then pick Him back, and live safe on His island in this world.

What I See in You

Jennifred Jones

This phrase has revolved in my mind many times over the past several years while thinking about different people in my circles. What if I wrote each one of them a short note telling them specific things, qualities I see in them that are praiseworthy, helpful to others, things unique to them that are of benefit to others. Yes, I have told some of them these things, but could it be more meaningful to have it in print so they could refer to it in times of self-doubt and uncertainty that seem to strike us all in times of weakness and pain?

What has prevented me from writing these notes to others? Fear that they would think I was trying to ‘butter them up’ for something, or that I was being ‘dishonest’? Fear of the personal-ness associated with genuine feelings being shown towards another human being that I maybe don’t know all that well? Fear that maybe these were just fleeting thoughts and weren’t really true at all…thinking I’d made the whole thing up?

Perfection is part of the ugliness involved in this equation, I think. Sometimes I have stopped from saying or doing something because it wasn’t true 100% of the time, and I didn’t want to be a phony or mislead anyone…because they probably don’t exhibit this behavior 100% of the time… just like I don’t exhibit good behavior 100% of the time. We are all flawed creatures, yet every one of us has good things about us that sometimes only another person is able to draw out. Every little seed has great potential—if it is watered and tended to.

Could I be a waterer and tender of others…pointing out their growth and good characteristics, encouraging them to continue on developing and doing those admirable things that are unique only to them?

Am I willing to turn over my fears (aka criticisms) that something good might not develop and allow myself to be stuck in the poison of perfectionism?

Can I take the leap of faith to choose only to see and speak the best in others no matter what they are currently doing, because they need someone to believe in them and speak good about and to them, and let that seed sown develop, however slowly (perhaps without me ever seeing it grow) and turn into something lovely in their life?

I will write one praiseworthy note to someone today.

Contagiously Good!

Jennifred Jones

Are you contagious? Would people be able to catch what you’ve got? Do you have anything worth catching? Is what you’ve got worth spreading?

Or have the antibodies of sameness, uninteresting, usual, boring, predictable, been working on you so long that they have killed off all your desire to be different? To be different in a good way! To be so radically good that it catches others off guard!

That’s how God wants us to be…going about wherever we go doing good, in whatever way or means the situation calls for. Be it unplanned, unexpected, unusual, or different, God will use you, if you’re open, to do good to somebody in your life each and every day. And it will be one of the most exciting things to happen to you! To be used by Almighty God to make a difference, a lasting difference, for good in the life of someone else.

Your smile at the right time can bring a ray of joy to a person you don’t even know, who is going through a very difficult time. Your ‘Hi, how are you doing today?’ said to a complete stranger can cause them to come out of their shell and begin to experience life in a new way. Your stopping to pick up something that the person in front of you dropped and didn’t see it, restores faith in people and God and His goodness once again.

Like the Starbucks stories we’ve heard about where one person pays it forward and starts a chain reaction to many people in line behind him, that one random act of kindness snowballs into an avalanche that causes good to many, many people.  So your good deeds, your good words, your helpfulness causes a reaction for good even if only in the other person’s heart, who then takes it home and is nice to his family, or the driver ahead of him.

One good deed is very contagious!

Let that good deed be yours:)