Today's Devotional

 

June 3, 2008

                                                                                         

Subject:  Turn Your Curse Into A Blessing 

Deuteronomy 11:26  "Behold, I set before you this day a blessing and a  curse;"

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I was quite bitter that the man who came to grind my pine tree stumps had left tons of pine tree shavings where the stumps once stood.  I thought that surely after all of the work that I had done to cut down the tree, chop it up into small pieces and then to burn it all to dispose of it, that getting the remaining stump out of the way would be a cinch.  As you would have it, the shavings have created five times the work that I had before.  A single stump could cost me two to three hours of raking and gathering the wood shavings so as not to inhibit my grass growth in this field.  I had about 30 stumps too.  About a month or two ago when I first started gathering up the shavings I had an idea.  While I was complaining and moaning, I decided that I could probably make use of these big shredded pieces of pine wood.  The area directly in front of my house, which we've yet to landscape, gathers a lot of water when it rains.  "Uhm, I could put the shavings there and the wood would absorb the water," I thought to myself.  Additionally, the wood would act as mulch.  In fact they sell pine bark mulch.  A neighbor came by and saw what I had done and seeing also that I had mountains of the pine shavings sitting in the back and asked if she could have some and of course I gave her a hearty, "please, take as much as you can."  I now gather the shavings with a different sense of the worth of the effort.

Today every "curse" in your life is an opportunity for you to be blessed or to be a blessing.  We have to change our attitude about the curse though.  It's really just a matter of perspective.  If we are into doing God's will and living His life, even the curses are a blessing.    

Carlen