Keys to the Kingdom by Carolyn Tucker

Woody Woodpecker

I grew up in an era when cartoons were simply silly entertainment. Woody Woodpecker was an animated screwball character created in 1940 to join in with Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. By the 1960s (when I watched cartoons) several more comedic characters had been added to the cast. Since I have plenty of trees, I was extraordinarily surprised to discover that a woodpecker had made a 1” x 1” hole in the support beam of my porch. Just how big of a goofball do you have to be to peck a lifeless/bugless wooden beam rather than live trees? Mr. Woody had all the trees he needed at his disposal, yet he pecked on a dead post.

According to scripture, believers have everything we need in Christ. “My God will liberally supply (fill to the full) your every need according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19 AMP).  And yet we are often guilty of seeking help, advice, and direction from ungodly sources (which is comparable to pecking on a dead piece of wood expecting to find something to eat).

God’s purpose in sending the Holy Spirit (a divine Personality) to live in us and be in us is a grand benefit. Jesus said, “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Advocate (Comforter, Encourager, Helper, Intercessor, Strengthener, a Standby, Counselor) who will never leave you. He is the Holy Spirit who leads into all truth.” (John 14:16-17 NLT). Christ followers don’t need any more than that! It’s good to ask someone to pray for you when you’re in a mess. But don’t ever forget that on the inside of you there’s a Helper ready, willing, and able to work on your behalf.

The Holy Spirit lives within us to also guide in the affairs of life. “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are children of God” (Romans 8:14 NLT). Sometimes when believers come to a fork in the road we really don’t know which way to go. It’s a biblical truth that we are moved by the impulses and promptings of the Holy Spirit. One day I called a friend because I’d been thinking about her for a day or two. I finally took the time to call and when she answered she began to cry. She said, “Oh, I just prayed that God would have you call me.” (She was feeling down in the dumps.) “I told Him that if He loved me He’d tell you to call me.” I didn’t know anything about her prayer, but the Holy Spirit did and He prompted me to reach out to her.

As you go through life‘s journey, remember you’ve got a Friend in the Holy Spirit. He will help you know what to do in every situation in life if you‘ll be quiet enough to hear what He speaks to us. Honestly, my patience is tried during these times because we all want the solutions to problems solved a lot sooner than they are.

John Whitefield (1714-1770) itinerant preacher and eloquent evangelist said: “I pray to God this day to make me an extraordinary Christian.” All believers should have a burning desire to be extraordinary representatives of our Savior and Lord. It all starts with listening and obeying the divine Personality living in us. We must pay attention to our spiritual heart which is where the Holy Spirit dwells. If your heart has an uneasy feeling about a decision, that’s a red flag. If your heart has a velvety feeling, that’s a green light.

The Key: Let’s not doubt or complicate the job of the Holy Spirit. He lives in all believers as our personal Helper. Just don’t ignore His promptings.

Keys to the Kingdom by Carolyn Tucker

4-Barrel Carburetor

I really enjoy walking down memory lane at car shows and looking at the gorgeous classic ‘50s, ‘60s, and ‘70s cars on display. I have personal fond memories of these powerful beauties because the first car I remember my folks owning was a ‘59 Chevy Impala. And later, when I was in high school, I was permitted to drive their ’68 Chevy Caprice SS. Wowie zowie; this car was so classy she even wore skirts! Something unexplainable happened to me during those years that caused me to fall in love with glasspacks and 4-barrel carburetors.

As opposed to a 2-barrel, a 4-barrel is a more-complex carburetor commonly used in high-performance engines. It uses two primary and two secondary barrels to supply air and fuel to the engine which results in increased horsepower and performance. Only the primary barrels open at idle and low-rpm driving, but the secondary barrels open up during high-rpm driving, e.g., passing vehicles or just flooring it for the fun of it! Modern cars don’t have carburetors; they’ve been replaced by fuel-injection systems. Ah, for the good ol’ days when you ran out of gas and had to save a little bit to pour into the carburetor. They just don’t make ‘em like they used to!

At my age, I’m pretty much considered a “classic” because I’ve noticed that when I wake up in the mornings, I just don’t feel like I used to at 22. I’m basically just idling on a 2-barrel carburetor for several minutes. But as I meander to the kitchen, I know I’ll be strengthened, encouraged, and reinforced with power once I read my Bible and devotional books. As I spend time with my heavenly Father, He begins to pour fuel into my 4-barrel which enables me to get started and have the power I need for the day. Dad used to say, “You never know what the day holds when your feet hit the floor in the morning.“ And I might add, “So you better take time to fill up your spiritual gas tank so you won‘t run out of power.

Apostle Paul wrote that we believers are in a race. So we can think of ourselves as driving a race car. Every day we run laps, around and around, and it takes lots of focus, determination, strength, and power. So it makes sense that every morning we need to get our jump-start from Jesus (and a cup of coffee) to get us up and running at full throttle. Every believer finds his/her source of power in the Father, so we can commit our prayers to Him in confidence. Apostle Paul wrote a letter to the Church of Ephesus and surrounding area churches: “May He grant you out of the rich treasury of His glory to be strengthened and reinforced with mighty power in the inner man by the Holy Spirit Himself indwelling your innermost being and personality” (Ephesians 3:16 AMP).

There’s power in a 2-barrel, but I would most-certainly choose the mighty power of the 4-barrel. As Christ followers, it’s our choice. So why be puny when you can be powerful? The “inner man” is the true and enduring self — who we really are. So we need to keep our heart (inner man) tuned up so we can accomplish our calling and participate in the race of life at full power. Thankfully, we don’t have to try to live our lives on our own strength. “Now all glory to God, Who is able, through His mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think” (Ephesians 3:20 NLT).

The Key: In the words of Tim “The Tool Man” Taylor, choose more power.

One week before Charlie Kirk’s death, I mentioned to a family member that if I could have lunch with anyone, it would be Charlie.  His death left me in tears.

As a former high school debate coach, I was awestruck by his ability to express his opinion, showing respect for his opposition while imparting unique, masterfully-crafted arguments that I never had considered. Who was this man?

I mean, I am fairly knowledgeable about the Bible, but Charlie had a way of synthesizing scriptural positions in a way I failed to anticipate.  “How did he come up with that?” I would ask my husband, or whomever was in listening position.  “That’s a brilliant argument,” I would say to myself.  Like I said, who was this man?

Regardless of what you think of Charlie Kirk, I hope you consider his assassination a grave injustice.  Instead of facing off with this man-of-faith to discuss their differences, Tyler Robinson premeditatively chose to put a bullet through his adversary’s neck.

Today, while driving to work, I listened to the radio as the detective assigned to the crime discussed how Robinson begged the arresting officers to be gentle with him, not to cause him harm by sending a SWAT team to bring him in. Basically, to treat him with a dignity he did not afford Charlie Kirk.

And I thought…that takes some nerve. How can someone who offers no mercy expect to get any in return?

Matthew 18:23-35 confronts that issue. Jesus’ parable addresses a king who decided to bring his accounts up to date with servants who had borrowed money from him. One who could not pay owed millions of dollars. His master ordered that he be sold—along with his wife, his children, and everything he owned—to pay the debt.

The man fell down and begged his master to be patient; he would repay it all.  The master, pitying his servant, forgave his debt.  When the man left the king, he met up with another servant who owed him a few thousand dollars, grabbed him by the throat and demanded instant payment.                                                                                                                   

Just like the servant with the king, this man fell down and begged for clemency.  “Be patient with me, and I will pay it.”  Instead, his creditor had the man arrested and jailed until he repaid the debt in full, a lack of mercy that upset the other servants who witnessed the injustice. They went to the king and told him what had happened.

The king responded by calling in the servant he had forgiven and said, “You evil servant! I forgave you that tremendous debt because you pleaded with me. Shouldn’t you have mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had mercy on you?” Payback time. The king sent the man to prison to be tortured until he had paid his entire debt.

Jesus had one last message for his crowd: “That’s what my heavenly Father will do to you if you refuse to forgive your brothers and sisters from your heart.”  If only Robinson would have done that with Charlie!  He who couldn’t find any mercy begged for kindness and compassion when arrested.

So, what are we to take from this message?  We are not to respond as Robinson and the king’s servant did and seek vengeful payback, as much as we want to do so.  After all, God will be the final judge. Should Robinson not repent, his eternal punishment from the King will be much worse than any we can inflict with our lack of mercy.

As is true as that is for Kirk’s killer, so it is for us as well. Are we showing the same mercy to others as we want in return?

Most of us do not like change. We get comfortable where we are and lose our sense of adventure and exploration. We keep the same job, the same friends, the same house, the same favorite restaurant, the same vacation destination, the same exercise routine (if we have one at all). Recently, when Cracker Barrel announced that it would change its logo, customers rebelled.

The company saw severe backlash over its plans to modernize and simplify its nostalgic logo, an overall-clad man—said to represent Uncle Herschel, a relative of Cracker Barrel’s founder—leaning on a barrel, with the words “Old Country Store” underneath. When stocks fell, the company reversed course.

I get it. Change is hard. New technology brings with it the word “Smart,” and that adjective alone makes my blood pressure rise. When Dave and I bought a house in Las Vegas, we had no idea what angst a “Smart House” would bring us. We had to hire a technician to teach us how to turn on our television, and when the thermostat needed adjusting, we considered selling.

Yesterday, in my classroom, I needed to show a Power Point on my television. First, I had to “mirror” my laptop to the t.v., insert the code the television gave me into my computer, and go from there. I had written down the steps preceding the “mirror” part, but something went wrong. The little circle thingy kept spinning—not something students want to stare at for 52 minutes.

I walked across the hallway to ask a seasoned teacher for help. He apologized but had no idea. He, too, was of the “old school” and found all the new techniques draining. Thank goodness, another teacher (a younger one) offered to help, and after he turned my laptop off-and-on a few times, it did what it was supposed to do. (Where is a chalkboard when you need one?)

Mind you, a month before school started, I spent most of my days designing clever power points for my lectures and downloading (uploading?) them onto a thumb drive. Searching the internet, I found funny photos to complement my lecture. But something happened when I inserted my thumb drive into the school computer. Of course, I didn’t know that until I started my lecture and photos were upside down, on their side, or covering my words. And yes, I probably should have checked that out ahead of time instead of assuming…well, anything.

Yesterday, in theater class, I was showing highlight clips with Harvey Korman and Tim Conway. Suddenly my screen began projecting a physics’ lecture. My students told me that sometimes the airway paths of two classrooms get confused. Physics vs. comedians. What a breath of fresh air for those physics’ students, I thought. The point is, technology is moving fast. And I’m not. I miss the good old days.

So did the Pharisees. They had their laws (613 of them!), and by golly, no one was going to dictate to them that, perhaps, there was a better way. Certainly not some nobody from Nazareth. When “an eye for an eye” became “turn the other cheek,” enough was enough! Everybody knew that obeying the laws was the ticket into Heaven, so who was this 30-year-old, parable-speaking man, telling the crowds that he was the only way? That answer became clear with the miracle of the resurrection.

If ever a change were worth adopting, I vote for that one.

Keys to the Kingdom By Carolyn Tucker
“I Wanna Talk About Me”

In 2001, country music artist Toby Keith released a comical music video perfectly illustrating selfishness. The song, “I Wanna Talk About Me,” is about a man’s huge frustration in his inability to pleasantly converse with his girlfriend/wife who only wants to talk about herself. Being selfish is natural — just watch a two-year-old pitch a fit to try and get his/her way. Little people learn this all on their own; no one has to teach them how to throw a tantrum. With both of my kids, I discovered what the parenting books called the “terrible twos.” My son was probably the best worst example of the “TT” simply because his fits were thrown in public and my daughter’s were hurled at home. Aaron wasn’t too bad to shop with until we got to the checkout counter where the candy was displayed. Of course he wanted all of it, and of course he couldn’t have any of it. So the selfish fit began and all I could do was pretend to be deaf while he continued on and on even as we exited the building. However, his life took a different direction once we got home. He finally learned that he didn’t like what happened when we got home.

Selfishness is a real problem in our culture today. Many people seem to have little regard for other individual’s feelings. The entire push in the world today is “self.” But being selfish is not all it’s cracked up to be! Jesus was a lot of things and selfishness was never anything He exemplified. Christ followers say we want to be like Jesus, walk like Jesus, love like Jesus, and think like Jesus. And that’s exactly right — He’s our example. So can we put our money where our mouth is?

To be a follower of Jesus, we have to dethrone ourselves and enthrone Christ. God can’t do all He desires with us if we’re still calling the shots. If we’re still pitching fits and wanting our own way, we really need to grow up spiritually. One day Jesus called the crowd to join His disciples and said, “If any of you wants to be My follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross, and follow Me” (Mark 8:34 NLT). Jesus made it plain that we must follow Him, smash selfishness to smithereens, shoulder our own cross, and humbly follow His leading.

Those who live a life of self-indulgence are basically wasting their life away. “Don’t think only of yourself. Try to think of the other fellow, too, and what is best for him” (1 Corinthians 10:24 TLB). It’s simply not possible to have yourself on your mind all the time and be happy. Happiness comes from being good to others — it’s a ricochet effect.

“Be devoted to tenderly loving your fellow believers as members of one family. Try to outdo yourselves in respect and honor of one another” (Romans 12:10 TPT). Competition often brings the worst out in people, but this scripture would be an exception to that thought. Getting caught red-handed in doing loving acts of kindness would be something to celebrate!

Selfishness has been a huge problem since Adam and Eve. God warned them not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but they disobeyed and ate it anyway. Their selfishness brought sin into the world, introduced suffering and death, and severed their close and beautiful relationship with God.

The Key: It’s time for believers to pitch a final fit and smash selfishness once and for all.

Busyness is a thief.  It is. For too many of us, we allow it to dictate our schedules, proudly taking on more than we should, loving the bragging rights we have when we can share just how crazy our lives are.  We fancy the praise when others tell us they don’t know “how” we do it.  Crazy, isn’t it?

Crazy enough to die for our efforts.  After all, our value is based on how fast we pace ourselves, right?  Researchers estimate that long, working hours contribute to 745,000 global deaths from stroke and heart disease annually.  The real thief is that we cannot get back the hours we spend keeping busy.

We must learn the power of the word “No!” when pressed to dig deeper, answer the imperative, fulfill the obligations placed on us by others (and ourselves).  Researchers call it the “mere urgency effect.” We’re biologically wired to prioritize urgent over important.  In studies, people consistently chose time-sensitive tasks with small rewards over important tasks with bigger payoffs. Our brains literally sabotage our priorities.

The important stuff gets lost in our busyness.  The important—our health, our relationships, our long-term goals, our personal growth—sits quietly in the corner, patiently waiting for us to find time to prioritize our lives.  But do we pay any attention to it?  Do we care what really matters enough to give our time our “first fruits”?

Until we put down our cellphones (let’s say, all day Sunday, every meal, morning and nighttime, whenever we have quality time with our family) and heed our loved ones’ needs to be heard, we are risking them resenting our lack of attention and importance.  Yesterday, I was talking on a Facetime call with my daughter-in-law Kristen.  I asked her what she and her girls were doing all day, and she said they would start by “cleaning the house.”

Tatum, the three-year-old, was listening.  I asked her if she was going to help.  She was.  When I asked “how” she was going to help, she said “I’m going to play.”  She meant it, even though her mother had something different in mind.  Tatum ran to her dad’s office and came out with her play broom to show me how cooperative she could be.

I loved watching her “sweep,” until Paige, her five-year-old sister, found the toy mop.  What started out as cleaning, quickly turned into a sword fight…broom vs. mop. Not unlike how I work.  I start off on one task (like writing this article) and get side-tracked.  Don’t I need to clean out my refrigerator?  Is that a cobweb I see?  How about that thank-you note I forgot to write?

The most successful people aren’t the ones doing the most.  They are the ones doing the right (i.e., meaningful) things successfully. The world won’t slow down for you or me. If anything, it speeds up. Every day brings more notifications, more demands, more opportunities to say yes to things that don’t matter.

Colossians 4:5 simplifies what our goal should be: Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. I mean, seriously…what’s a cobweb or two between friends?

Keys to the Kingdom

By Carolyn Tucker

Pigpen Shenanigans

On the morning of July 5, my son Aaron, daughter Mariam, son-in-law Levi, and I made plans to go car shopping for me. While Mariam attended to the outside morning chores, the rest of us were just shooting the breeze as we waited for her. Pretty soon, Mariam walks into the living room and joins in on our conversation, although she doesn’t take a seat. I was distracted with the idea of shopping and didn’t really think about the unique artistic design on her t-shirt until her husband and brother asked, “Is that mud on your shirt?” “Yes,” she answered. (I don’t think she even rolled her eyes.)

Mariam explained that she’d previously separated the momma pig from the baby pig because it needed to be weaned. Therefore, the sow and boar were together in a separate pigpen and the big-fat baby was in her own pen. However, during the evening of the 4^th of July, the baby got scared out of her wits and managed to escape and crawl into the parent’s pigpen. So, Mariam had fallen down in the muddy pigpen trying to grab the baby so she could put her back where she belonged. Needless to say, we spared no high-spirited laughter as she told her pigpen story in detail. Even though we’re a close-knit family, not a one of us had any compassion or sympathy for her!

I love a good story when there’s ample details to envision what’s being told. Many times Jesus used parables to explain life-changing lessons to His listeners. Perhaps one of His most-popular parables was about the “prodigal/lost son” in the Book of Luke. A man had two sons and the younger one wanted his inheritance before his father died. The father agreed and a few days later the son went to a distant country and wasted all his money on wild living. When he ran out of money, a terrible famine hit and he began to starve. He found a farmer who agreed to hire him to feed his pigs. When the young son became so hungry that he wished he could eat the pigs’ bean pods, he finally came to his senses. Welp, better late than never.

“So he returned home to his father. And while he was still a long way off, his father saw him coming. Filled with love and compassion, he ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him. His son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you, and I am no longer worthy of being called your son.’ But his father said to the servants, ‘Quick! Bring the finest robe in the house and put it on him. Get a ring for his finger and sandals for his feet. And kill the calf we have been fattening. We must celebrate with a feast, for this son of mine was dead and has now returned to life. He was lost, but now he is found.’ So the party began” (Luke 15:20-24 NLT).

The choices we make can either “make or break” our life. The #1 choice is to choose to follow Jesus. The prodigal son chose to take the money and run from his loving father. This turned out to be a poor choice because the son wasn’t mature enough to wisely handle life. But the good thing is that he later made the right choice to return to the love and care of his father. As long as there’s breath and an ounce of sense, there’s hope in God’s open arms of mercy and forgiveness for our sins and stupid choices. No matter what you or I have done, the Father is waiting and watching for us to come back home.

The Key: It’s not over ‘til the fat piggy sings.

If you ever have had your trust in someone broken, chances are the wound of betrayal took some time to heal.  Repairing the damage will not be done overnight.

I know two individuals who had their companies stolen from them by underhanded co-owners; both ended up claiming bankruptcy. Some of my friends have caught their spouses in adulterous relationships.  Death, they say, would have been better.  Recently, I sat with a friend who shared that she caught her employees stealing from her.  When she confronted them, they lied about it.

Our three sons are in the restaurant business.  Jeff, the eldest, runs them. When they first started out, Jeff was warned by other owners in the dining business about how easy it is to have inventory stolen.  It took Jeff little time to find out just how true that was.  When Debbie, my friend in Mazatlán, Mexico, bought a restaurant, she was shocked at how much of her inventory ended up in employees’ car trunks.  Only when a parking lot security guard told her what he saw late at night did she have reason to fire her workers.

Debbie’s friend Lisa, another restaurant owner, told Debbie that she had a chicken disappear every day for a year.  When she finally realized that her head chef left work every night with his chef’s hat on, she demanded he remove it.  Sure enough, there sat a frozen chicken, resting atop his head.

Whom do you trust? My daughter-in-law Kira is a flight instructor in the Colorado mountains.   A couple of months ago, she was teaching an older gentleman how to fly.  Part of the instruction is that the pilot has to stall the plane mid-air and then bring the plane out of the stall (one of several reasons I have no desire to get my pilot’s license).   Kira teaches her students the proper technique, but this man failed to do what he had been taught.  Kira had to take over to prevent a crash.  The gentleman seemed unbothered and later said that he trusted that if something went wrong, Kira would make it right. Fortunately for him, she did.

If we’re going to trust, that person needs to earn our trust.

My daily Bible reading is in the book of Job.  We all know him as the man who lost everything…except his nagging wife and three, know-it-all friends.  Job questions God, imploring Him to explain why this has happened to him.  In Job 29, he reminds God (and his “friends”) that he is a good man.  He has helped the poor, the fatherless, the widow, the blind and the lame, and now they all have turned against him.  God remains silent, even when Job’s buddies remind him how he obviously has done something to irritate God.

For 38 chapters, we read the verbal tug-of-war, and then God speaks.  He doesn’t answer “why” Job was asked to endure what he did.  He simply reminds Job of Who He is, of what He is capable of doing, and how no one should contend with him.  In chapter 42, God admonishes the three friends for their lack of trust in Him and reminds them that Job has remained faithful.

God does not need to answer us when we question His ways.  He has a greater plan and purpose that we may never understand.  When I am tempted to ask the “Why” questions, I need instead to trust that His ways are not my ways.  They are far greater than anything I can imagine.

Rom 11:34-36 is confirmation: “Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor? Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him? For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever.  Amen.

People will fail us, but God never will.

Keys to the Kingdom By Carolyn Tucker

Shin Goose-Egg

I’m old enough to remember when handheld hair dryers were nonexistent. And what a happy happy day it was when I purchased my first one! You’d think by now that I’d know how to properly handle this appliance, but the other day I was lacking some skill in stowing the electrical cord. When I finished drying my hair, I began to wrap the cord around the dryer and, for whatever reason, the ground-fault circuit interrupter banged against my naked shinbone with a mighty blow. “Oh, oh, oh,” I felt like I was impersonating a silly Jerry Lewis movie complete with his crazy antics and crossed-eyes! A couple of minutes later, I inspected my injury and discovered a hefty goose egg on my shin! The only goose egg I’d ever seen was on the forehead of my little nephew Dakota.

I most certainly did not intentionally hurt myself. When an unfortunate incident happens unexpectedly or unintentionally and results in damage or injury, it‘s considered an accident. Have you ever said something accidentally that hurt someone’s feelings? Or have you ever had someone say something to you that hurt your feelings? As Christ followers, we need to give the individual that hurt us the benefit of the doubt. Apostle Paul wrote that believers should bear with others and make allowances for them because we love them. “With tender humility and quiet patience, always demonstrate gentleness and generous love toward one another, especially toward those who may try your patience” (Ephesians 4:2 TPT). This is when we want to say (but only think): “I’ve got one nerve left and you’re on it!”

Don’t be tempted to take something that’s said to you the wrong way — especially if you’ve got years of beautiful history and memories with the individual. We’re to overlook an accidental insult and love family and friends in spite of the stupid things they may say. “Hatred stirs up trouble on purpose; love overlooks the wrongs others do” (Proverbs 10:12 CEV). Love overlooks; love covers “word accidents.” You never know what troubles an individual might have on his/her mind. We simply must cut them some slack if we consider ourselves to be a Christ follower.

In 1977, I gave my mom the classic book entitled, “Wings of Silver.” I’m sharing three  quotes from this great little wisdom book:  “Be sure of this: you are dreadfully like other people.” “No person can ever be a complete failure, for he may serve as a horrible example.” “Nothing will make us so charitable and tender to the faults of others as to thoroughly examine ourselves.”  No one is perfect, so we all need to extend a gentle hand of grace to all who’ve proven to be flawed human beings.

A good-natured person can be described herein: “Love is large and incredibly patient. Love is gentle and consistently kind to all. Love is not easily irritated or quick to take offense” (1 Corinthians 13:4-5 TPT). Believers need to develop thick alligator skin and not go through life with overly-sensitive feelings. Walking in love means we do our best to overlook offenses and focus on the positive attributes of the individual. Since I’m guilty of occasionally sticking both feet in my mouth, I can certainly overlook that same  malady when someone else sticks their foot in their mouth.

The Key: If someone accidentally kicks you in the shins, just smile and try not to cross your eyes.

Keys to the Kingdom By Carolyn Tucker

What Size Pizza?

My daughter, son, granddaughter and I were sitting at a pizza restaurant in Kansas City.   We noticed that the menu listed the pizza sizes as S, M, L, G. We started guessing what the “G” represented, which caused an explosion of laughter as we guessed all kinds of silly things including “ginormous.” Upon further investigation, we discovered that it meant “Gigantic” and the price was $70.00. We were all hungry, but not that hungry!

The storms of life are comparable to pizzas — some are small, medium, large and some are gigantic. But whatever size storm you find yourself in, remember this: “He will not abandon me or leave me as an orphan in the storm — He will come to me” (John 14:18 TLB). If we truly entrust our storm to God, we’ll have to deliver it to Him, ring the door bell, and just walk away. Much of our faith walk consists of letting go of the things that are beyond our pay grade. There’s a rich comfort in placing our personal storms into God’s loving hands.

When I’m anxious about my own personal-pan storm, it does me good to pray for  someone who’s enduring a bigger-size storm than me. We should consider the gigantic storm that Job endured. He was in the worst of the worst situations, but when he prayed for his friends, God healed him and blessed him with more than he had before the storm.

Apostle Paul experienced adversity and God encouraged him with these words: “But He said to me, My grace is enough for you [sufficient against any danger and enables you to bear the trouble manfully]; for My strength and power are made perfect and show themselves most effective in your weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9 AMP). My father and late husband were strong men and both of them made me feel loved, cared for, and safe. Even though I’m a woman, I really appreciate the meaning of bearing the storms of life “manfully.” Since God’s grace is the believer’s strong enabler, we can do what we have to do by the strength and power that dwells in us. But we have to act on God’s Word in 2 Corinthians 12:9.

The Army has a motto, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” And God has said, “See, I have refined you, but not like silver; I have tested you in the furnace of adversity” (Isaiah 48:10 NRS). No Christ follower is going to stand in line and sign up for adversity. No one wants it, no one likes it, and everyone prefers to be excused from it. But as long as you’re alive, you’re going to have it, whether it’s S, M, L, or G because it‘s part of life on planet earth. Gospel singer songwriter Andrea Crouch composed “Through It All” in 1971 while struggling with the devastating loss of his father, mother, and brother within two years. Verse 3: “I thank God for the mountains, and I thank Him for the valleys, I thank Him for the storms He brought me through; For if I’d never had a problem I wouldn’t know that He could solve them, I’d never know what faith in God could do.”

Before it became illegal, tourists from all over the world came to Pebble Beach at Pescadero, California to collect the round beautiful stones. These stones endure relentless  waves which cause them to be slammed together and ground against the cliffs. Without this adversity, they would be ugly and ordinary. God desires believers to be beautiful and extraordinary. Polish comes through trouble.

The Key: If  you’re being beat up by a gigantic storm, just hold your ground and stand on God’s gigantic grace.