July 26th, 2013
Hey, everyone!
Hope you’re having an awesome day! Hope you’re having an awesome, more-relaxed-than-usual summer day! “Cause you can feel it coming…”Back-to-school!” days! Vacations done! Pools drained! School bell ringin’! Bands practicin’! Wow! That happened fast!
I remember “back in th” day” when I was one of seven kids in a C-house with one bathroom trying to get out the door for school! My dad never understood why the shrubs outside the backdoor never grew well…
Hello!!
Every first morning of school, it was always breakfast of sizzlin’ bacon, eggs, and pancakes! “This year, we’re doing this every morning! The most important meal of the day! To be your best in school, you gotta…” You can finish the speech yourself. By Day Two, we were staring at… and munching sleepily with… our ol' pals Cap’n Crunch and the Alpha-Bits bear…
But it must have been unbelievable trying to get seven kids combed, brushed, and ready for the school bell to ring! So…
What would you do if you had 10,024 kids!?
One of my all-time greatest heroes was a guy named George Mueller. He began orphan homes in Bristol, England back in the Oliver Twist days of the 1800’s. when there were thousands and thousands of orphans living in the streets When he started, there were only places for 3,600 orphans to live in all of England. Twice that many under the age of eight were in prisons! He inspired so many people that fifty years after he started, there were homes for over 100,000 orphan kids! Besides raising 10,024 orphans in the “Mueller homes”, he preached 10,000 times between 1830 and 1898! When he turned 70, he started traveling to preach in other countries…42!! A sermon a day ‘til he was 87! Over 3 million people heard him! Before microphones were even invented!
And he got thousands of kids ready for school…before Cap’n Crunch was even born!
He must have been a busy dude!! How do you do all that stuff? How do you get everything done?!
He had a secret! Before he would start looking for kids’ schoolbooks, lunch money, his list of “to do-s”, or sermon notes and train tickets, he’d look for one thing first…his joy!! Wasn’t ready for the day ‘til he found it!!
George Mueller said that he discovered that his most important duty, job, whatever you wanna call it…was each day, to “get his heart into a happy state…”
He’d wake up, brush his teeth, open the Scripture, find some reasons to praise God, do that, and stay at it ‘til his heart was filled with joy! Then he was ready for the day!
Check this quote...
“While I was staying at Nailsworth, it pleased the Lord to teach me a truth…the benefit of which I have not lost, though now . . . more than forty years have since passed away. The point is this: I saw more clearly than ever, that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was, to have my soul happy in the Lord. The first thing to be concerned about was not, how much I might serve the Lord, how I might glorify the Lord; but how I might get my soul into a happy state…
… According to my judgment the most important point to be attended to is this: above all things see to it that your souls are happy in the Lord. Other things may press upon you, the Lord's work may even have urgent claims upon your attention, but I deliberately repeat, it is of supreme and paramount importance that you should seek above all things to have your souls truly happy in God Himself! Day by day seek to make this the most important business of your life. This has been my firm and settled condition for the last five and thirty years…”
Wow!
That is awesome!!
“Above all things, see to it that your souls are happy in the Lord!”
That’s one of those things you could write over your door and smack it on your way out of the house like football teams do with the sayings that they have painted over the exits from their locker rooms on their way to the field. You know how they have their favorite saying over the door and as they run out, they all reach up and smack it? Like…
""Play as hard as you can for as long as you can."
Smack! Smack! Smack!
Or…"Hustle, hit and never quit!"
Smack! Smack! Smack!
How 'bout the one down the road?
"I will give my all for Tennessee today!"
Smack! Smack! Smack!
Or this famous one up north somewhere…
"Play like a champion today!"
Smack! Smack! Smack!
Well, why not paint this inside your house above your front door and smack it in the morning when you leave?
“Of supreme and paramount importance, see to it that your soul is happy in the Lord!”
Smack!
Or (if that one won't fit) …"First thing, get your soul into a happy state!"
Smack!
Or maybe…"Above all things, happy in the Lord!"
Smack!
Or…"“A Heartful of Joy in Jesus…Don’t Leave Home Without It!”
Smack!
Only thing…If you wait 'til you're leaving your house to remember it, you’re too late! You’d have to go back inside ‘til you find your joy!
Maybe you should paint it inside the bathroom just above the bathroom door, or maybe above the fridge, so you see it first thing in the morning…
Somethin' like…"First, some coffee or tea, then joy in Thee!"
Smack!