Tag: Galatians 6:7

Posted in Family, fear, forgiveness, Grace, gratitude, life, loving others, prayer, school days, Scripture, thankful, Trials

It Was an Accident

Posted on by Dewayne Taylor

Don’t be deceived: God is not mocked. For whatever a person sows he will also reap.” Galatians 6:7

I’m sure the doctor just rolled his eyes.  When I was eleven or twelve, you know about sixth grade, my Daddy and Momma got me one of the coolest Christmas presents ever.  Most of you have seen the movie “A Christmas Story” about a kid who wanted a Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas. Well, this story isn’t like that, but it’s about something even better than a Red Ryder BB gun.  That year, wait for it, they got me a Daisy double-barrel BB gun.  It was designed after a real double-barrel shotgun.  It had two barrels (you probably figured that out), two triggers, and even broke in the middle to cock it. It was amazing.

I can remember going outside to shoot that gun…there was not another one like it in the whole neighborhood.  I wish I could tell you how well I took care of it…especially since, if you can find one now, they would sell for well over a thousand dollars.  But honestly, it was well used, and under cared for, and one day one of the barrels stopped working.  Well, I always enjoyed fixing things, so I just started taking things apart to work on it.  I figured out that the left barrel wasn’t working.  So, I took the “BB thingy” inside the barrel out, cleaned it good, oiled it, and then stuck it back in.

After I put everything back together, I cocked the gun and pulled the trigger, but as far as I could tell it still wasn’t working.  I decided that I would put my finger over the bad barrel to see if I could feel any air coming out.  Now, I know that sounds like a really, bad idea, and it was.  I know it was not smart or safe.  I know it was just pure old dumb.  But, regardless, I did it.  I sure wish I hadn’t.

Well, things wouldn’t have been so bad because as it turns out the barrel wasn’t working.  The problem was that I had my finger over the wrong barrel and pulled the wrong trigger and as I squeezed that trigger, the gun fired, and a BB went right into my finger…clear to the bone.  Oh, and yes, that was a dumb idea, and yes, it did hurt…boy, did it hurt.

I put the gun down and ran into the house holding my throbbing and bleeding third finger on my right hand.  Momma didn’t have time to give me a lecture or even holler at me.  We headed straight to the emergency room.  After checking in we saw the doctor who when he heard the story gave me that, “what a really a dumb idea” look. After numbing things up, he proceeded to dig around with a medical tweezer until he found the BB, got ahold of it and pulled it out.  Shot or no shot—it hurt.  I got a nice bandage and the opportunity to make a story up on what happened.  I wasn’t about to tell the truth…that was way too embarrassing.

If you look on my right hand and at my ring finger you can still see to this day a nice little dimple where the BB went into my finger.  It is there to remind me not to stick my finger over the barrel of a BB gun…or any gun for that matter.  It is there to remind me that there are consequences when we choose dumb over smart, or wrong over right.  It reminds me of that part of the Bible that says the rules of God are always right…whatever you plant, you harvest.  Do dumb and you get dumb consequences…every time.

I hope this Grits will help me and you both to think before we act…you know, to think things through.  Fortunately, God is more than ready to help us make the right decisions if we are willing to ask.  Uh, I didn’t ask that day and when we just don’t get around to doing that…well, He is still there to help us deal with the consequences too.  I’m glad He doesn’t act like the doctor, rolling His eyes at my mistakes.  No, He is too loving to do that.  In fact, if you listen, you will hear Him say, “Don’t worry, dumb or not, I’ve got this.”  Bro. Dewayne

Posted in Family

Songbird Stubbornness

Posted on by Dewayne Taylor

Don’t be misled—you cannot mock the justice of God. You will always harvest what you plant.” Galatians 6:7

Some people…some things are just slow learners.  A while back, my wife Judy was “grand-dog” sitting for our daughter Jennifer and tribe.  It was a great opportunity to sit back and relax and have some space.  She read, she walked, and she just did Judy stuff. I was back home going to work so it is possible there was just a little jealousy on my part.  It just sounded like she was just having more fun than I was.

Where the tribe lives there is plenty of country and plenty of wildlife.  Deer are frequent visitors to the backyard with an occasional skunk, raccoon, and possum.  Oh and every once in a while, Bigfoot stops by for short visit.  There was one rather intriguing friend who showed up every day and did the craziest thing.  You see, there was this beautiful bluebird that would spend a large portion of the morning and a chunk of the evening sitting the patio.  There was food there, water was also available, so it was a good gig.  But that wasn’t the crazy thing…this was.

This bluebird would fly into the glass of the bedroom window by the feeder. It wasn’t a mistake, it wasn’t bad navigation…it was intentional. He would take off, fly straight into the window, bounce off and then return to his perch.  He would then do it over and over again.  Fortunately, and apparently, he didn’t have time to build up a lot of speed so there was no damage to the window and little to him…though he certainly had to have a splitting headache.  And the truth is if you were to go to their house this morning that little bird would be doing the same thing today.

This obviously caused Judy and I to try and figure this all out and I think we finally did.  You see, the window has a film on it that can make the window somewhat like a mirror.  The best we can tell, in the reflection caused by the window, he saw what he thought was another male bluebird and that was just not going to cut it.  So, he decided to do something about it and flew over to “take care of business.”  How about that?

There are two lessons in this little story and if we learn them, we should all be grateful to the little bluebird.  First, don’t think that everyone or, in his case, everything is your enemy.  It’s too bad that our friend didn’t think to have the bird in the mirror over for lunch.  He would have quickly learned that what he thought was an enemy…was himself.  It has been said, and it certainly is true, that sometimes we are our own worst enemies. And, hey, when the enemy is a reality, go ahead and extend just a little grace. After all, you catch more flies with sugar than salt.

The second lesson is more personal and personally profitable.  Our friend never seemed to figure out that the bird in the window wasn’t real.  Over and over again, he banged into the window appearing not too smart and getting a whale of a headache in return.  You see, it just doesn’t make sense to keep doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.  Paul, one of the heavy weights who wrote a lot of the New Testament said, “God won’t be mocked.  Whatever a person sows, he will also reap.”  Paul was right.  If you want a different result…you must do something different.  God advice…good advice.

So this week as you journey, if you find yourself tempted to fly into a window or a wall, hit the pause button. Ask yourself if the collision is going to be worth it.  Ask yourself if this headache is worth a bigger one!  Oh and just in case you find yourself doing something over and over again with the exact same result…maybe, just maybe, you should try sometime different. After all, if you want something besides corn, you gotta sow some different seed.  And if all else fails, well, you can always ask the Dearest Daddy of heaven for some advice.  I think you will find His way is always best.  You know, “He’s always got this.”  Bro. Dewayne

Posted in Family, fear, forgiveness, Grace, life, love, loving others, Scripture, Southern born, thankful, Trials

It Was an Accident

Posted on by Dewayne Taylor

Don’t be deceived: God is not mocked. For whatever a person sows he will also reap.” Galatians 6:7

I am sure the doctor just rolled his eyes.  When I was eleven or twelve, you know about sixth grade, my Daddy and Momma got me one of the coolest Christmas presents ever.  Most of you have seen the movie “A Christmas Story” about a kid who wanted a Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas. Well, this story isn’t like that, but it’s about something even better than a Red Ryder BB gun.  That year, wait for it, they got me a Daisy double-barrel BB gun.  It was designed after a real double-barrel shotgun.  It had two barrels (you probably figured that out), two triggers, and even broke in the middle to cock it. It was amazing.

I can remember going outside to shoot that gun…there was not another one like it in the whole neighborhood.  I wish I could tell you how well I took care of it…especially since, if you can find one now, they would sell for well over a thousand dollars.  But honestly, it was well used, and under cared for, and one day one of the barrels stopped working.  Well, I always enjoyed fixing things, so I just started taking things apart to work on it.  I figured out that the left barrel wasn’t working.  So, I took the “BB thingy” inside the barrel out, cleaned it really good, oiled it, and then stuck it back in.

After I put everything back together, I cocked the gun and pulled the trigger, but as far as I could tell it still wasn’t working.  I decided that I would put my finger over the bad barrel to see if I could feel any air coming out.  Now, I know that sounds like a really, bad idea, and it was.  I know it was not smart or safe.  I know it was just pure old dumb.  But, regardless, I did it.  I sure wish I hadn’t.

Well, things wouldn’t have been so bad because as it turns out the barrel wasn’t working.  The problem was that I had my finger over the wrong barrel and pulled the wrong trigger and as I squeezed that trigger, the gun fired, and a BB went right into my finger…clear to the bone.  Oh, and yes, that was a dumb idea, and yes, it did hurt…boy, did it hurt.

I put the gun down and ran into the house holding my throbbing and bleeding third finger on my right hand.  Momma didn’t have time to give me a lecture or even holler at me.  We headed straight to the emergency room.  After checking in we saw the doctor who when he heard the story gave me that, “what a really a dumb idea” look. After numbing things up, he proceeded to dig around with a medical tweezer until he found the BB, got ahold of it and pulled it out.  Shot or no shot—it hurt.  I got a nice bandage and the opportunity to make a story up on what happened.  I wasn’t about to tell the truth…that was way too embarrassing.

If you look on my right hand and at my ring finger you can still see to this day a nice little dimple where the BB went into my finger.  It is there to remind me not to stick my finger over the barrel of a BB gun…or any gun for that matter.  It is there to remind me that there are consequences when we choose dumb over smart, or wrong over right.  It reminds me of that part of the Bible that says the rules of God are always right…whatever you plant, you harvest.  Do dumb and you get dumb consequences…every time.

I hope this Grits will help me and you both to think before we act…you know, to think things through.  Fortunately, God is more than ready to help us make the right decisions if we are willing to ask.  Uh, I didn’t ask that day and when we just don’t get around to doing that…well, He is still there to help us deal with the consequences too.  I’m glad He’s not like the doctor, rolling His eyes at my mistakes.  No, He is too loving to do that.  In fact, if you listen, you will hear Him say, “Don’t worry, dumb or not, I’ve got this.”  Bro. Dewayne

Posted in Family, Grace, gratitude, life, loving others, Scripture, thankful, Trials

Songbird Stubbornness

Posted on by Dewayne Taylor

Don’t be misled—you cannot mock the justice of God. You will always harvest what you plant.” Galatians 6:7

Some people…some things are just slow learners.  A couple of weeks ago, my wife Judy was “grand-dog” sitting for our daughter Jennifer and tribe.  It was a great opportunity to sit back and relax and have some space.  She read, she walked, and she just did Judy stuff. I was back home going to work so it is possible there was just a little jealousy on my part.  It just sounded like she was just having more fun than I was.

Where the tribe lives there is plenty of country and plenty of wildlife.  Deer are frequent visitors to the backyard with an occasional skunk, raccoon, and possum.  Oh and every once in a while, Bigfoot stops by for short visit.  There was one rather intriguing friend who showed up every day and did the craziest thing.  You see, there was this beautiful bluebird that would spend a large portion of the morning and a chunk of the evening sitting the patio.  There was food there, water was also available, so it was a good gig.  But that wasn’t the crazy thing…this was.

This bluebird would fly into the glass of the bedroom window by the feeder. It wasn’t a mistake, it wasn’t bad navigation…it was intentional. He would take off, fly straight into the window, bounce off and then return to his perch.  He would then do it over and over again.  Fortunately, and apparently, he didn’t have time to build up a lot of speed so there was no damage to the window and little to him…though he certainly had to have a splitting headache.  And the truth is if you were to go to their house this morning that little bird would be doing the same thing today.

This obviously caused Judy and I to try and figure this all out and I think we finally did.  You see, the window has a film on it that can make the window somewhat like a mirror.  The best we can tell, in the reflection caused by the window, he saw what he thought was another male bluebird and that was just not going to cut it.  So, he decided to do something about it and flew over to “take care of business.”  How about that?

There are two lessons in this little story and if we learn them, we should all be grateful to the little bluebird.  First, don’t think that everyone or, in his case, everything is your enemy.  It’s too bad that our friend didn’t think to have the bird in the mirror over for lunch.  He would have quickly learned that what he thought was an enemy…was himself.  It has been said, and it certainly is true, that sometimes we are our own worst enemies. And, hey, when the enemy is a reality, go ahead and extend just a little grace. After all, you catch more flies with sugar than salt.

The second lesson is more personal and personally profitable.  Our friend never seemed to figure out that the bird in the window wasn’t real.  Over and over again, he banged into the window appearing not too smart and getting a whale of a headache in return.  You see, it just doesn’t make sense to keep doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.  Paul, one of the heavy weights who wrote a lot of the New Testament said, “God won’t be mocked.  Whatever a person sows, he will also reap.”  Paul was right.  If you want a different result…you must do something different.  God advice…good advice.

So, this week as you journey, if you find yourself tempted to fly into a window or a wall, hit the pause button.  Ask yourself if the collision is going to be worth it.  Ask yourself if this headache is worth a bigger one!  Oh, and just in case you find yourself doing something over and over again with the exact same result…maybe, just maybe, you should try sometime different. After all, if you want something besides corn, you gotta sow some different seed.  And if all else fails, well, you can always ask the Dearest Daddy of heaven for some advice.  I think you will find His way is always best.  You know, “He’s always got this.”  Bro. Dewayne

Posted in Family, food, friends, Grace, gratitude, life, Scripture, thankful, Trials, wisdom

Cooking Class: Beans & Burns

Posted on by Dewayne Taylor

Don’t be misled—you cannot mock the justice of God. You will always harvest what you plant.” Galatians 6:7

It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.  Oh wait–that opening line has already been taken. Well, it was just over twelve years ago now, but I well remember the night. Judy was out of town, and I was at the church.  We were sponsoring a dinner for the football team.  I wanted to help but, well, it didn’t go to well.  It is a known fact that I can’t be trusted with a power tool of any sorts.  It just doesn’t go well.  Apparently, you can add all things kitchen to that list.

I love being a fixer.  When one of my grandkid’s toys would break, they would bring it to Papa—their fixer.  I love being the hero. And I love to help. It’s in my DNA. WelI, that night I volunteered to help the head cooker person get a large pan of baked beans out of the convection oven at church.  It was in one of those pans made of formed aluminum.  When I volunteered, I could see the concern in the head cooker person’s eyes. For an expert this was no deal…for a preacher who wasn’t allowed to use power tools—it was Death Valley.

“Dewayne”, she said, watch the bottom of the pan—it can collapse if you aren’t careful.”  She went on, “You might want to put a sheet pan under it for support.” Well, Mister “I -Know-It-All” said, “No deal, I can handle it.” So, I reached up, I lifted it and in a moment of time…a moment that will live in infinity…the pan collapsed, and my lower left arm was baptized in a tsunami of scalding, hot baked beans.  The pain was instantaneous, and it was intense. Can someone say “ouch?”

Well, I immediately used my other hand to wipe some of the beans off (not too smart since I burned that hand too) and ran to the sink and started running water over it.  The bottom line is I ended up with second degree burns, a working knowledge of how not to take beans out of the oven and several other good life lessons added to my repertoire of knowledge. You might say I have “bean” educated.”

Perhaps the first lesson is this.  No matter how well you do something the wrong way, it probably isn’t going to work out for your benefit.  When King David and his crew were moving the ark in the Old Testament, they decided to use a cart instead of doing it God’s way.  The result was the oxen stumbled and a man reached out to steady the ark and was instantly struck dead by God.  Now don’t blame God—the rule was you don’t touch the ark.  Period.  But when you do something in a wrong way you open yourself up to a whole bunch of circumstances.

Second, listen to the experts.  The head cooker person I was helping was a professional cook.  She knew the danger–I didn’t.  I was a he-man, bean toting pastor–that is until “I spilt the beans” (pun intended!) I thought I could handle it—and I could not. I’m not sure why we wrestle this around but isn’t it funny how God, the ultimate expert, offers us advice–and we tend to ignore it.  And the pain that it causes can rival or exceed second degree burns. Listen to God.  He knows best.

Finally, get ready for the lasting effects of the consequences.  I burned my arm on a Tuesday and it took days, lots of days, to even begin to feel normal. Oh, and did I mention that I didn’t go to the doctor because I was going to tough it out? You see, pride is a bad deal.  I guess I was embarrassed enough, and I just didn’t want to explain to the doctor about how unwise I was.  So, I just dealt with it.  Fortunately, I did bump into him later and he saw the bandage, checked it out, asked the inevitable questions, and gave me some awesome medicine for burns. It did heal and left only minimal scarring to gently remind me to listen before I act. It taught me that whatever you sow…you reap. It taught me that—every bad choice we make carries some sort of consequences.  Choose wisely, my son, choose wisely.

So, twelve years later, there is still a twinge of regret over that fateful Tuesday night.   I still shake my head and wonder how in the world I could do something so, so, stupid. Every once in a while, when we are having a dinner at church, I will say, “Hey, head cooker person, do you remember…” and before I can finish the sentence, we both nod knowingly.  I was afraid I was going to swear off bake beans forever but that that didn’t happen, but I will never look at a pan of beans the same way.  And I will forever have a greater respect for an oven set to 350 degrees.

As you journey along and you are faced with decisions and crossroads and someone suggests maybe going this way or that or doing it this way or that—take a moment, pause, and listen to their advice—especially if it involves baked beans.  And if that voice is a gentle whisper from the Whisperer, definitely stop and listen.  He will probably be helping you avoid some needless pain or letting you know you can rest in Him.  He will be whispering, “I’ve got this.” Bro. Dewayne