Daily Thought for Monday,. September 19th

September 19, 2011

The Funnies – A Series

A Look At The Sunday Comics

And How They Might Be Applied To Our Spiritual Lives

“But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;”

1 Corinthians 1:27

“People only see what they are prepared to see.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Comic One  “Garfield” by Jim Davis

Today’s Application:     Patience and Endurance So We Can Go the Distance

“I shut my eyes in order to see.” – Paul Gauguin

Today’s Thought:

“A handful of patience is worth more than a bushel of brains.”  – A Dutch Proverb

Today’s Quote:

“I used to have a handle on life, but it fell off.”  – Garfield

Today’s Question

Do you ever find it difficult to endure the wait for patience?

Today’s Bible Verses:            Hebrews 6:10-12, 2 Peter 1:5-8 & Matthew 10:22

For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love, which ye have shewed toward his name, in that ye have ministered to the saints, and do minister.  And we desire that every one of you do shew the same diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end: That ye be not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge;  And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity. For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake: but he that endureth to the end shall be saved.

Today’s Spiritual Thought:

“But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.” – The Bible (Isaiah 40:31)

“Garfield’ may seem like an unlikely choice, to some, to use as our first comic strip to apply to our spiritual lives.

But since it is one of my favorite characters – I ask for your indulgence.

Garfield is by nature lazy, egocentric, self-serving, indulgent and occasionally mean spirited.  He may have a lot in common with many Christians you have encountered on your journey of faith.  Garfield seems to believe Jon, his owner, is there to serve his every whim and fancy – much like the attitude many Christians have towards God.  Garfield thinks Odie, the family dog, is primarily there for his entertainment: as do many feel the church is responsible for keeping them entertained.

Now least you get the impression that Garfield is a dastardly little orange fur-ball with no redeeming qualities, I will say for the record, at least in my opinion: he is not – but I will leave you to pursue the research into finding his finer qualities on your own.  That might help you attain some of the patience and endurance we are about to talk about.

What Garfield teaches us, as Christians, is that in order to love our neighbor as ourselves we are often going to require a vast amount of patience and more than a parcel of endurance to demonstrate our love for God by actually being able to keep His commandments.

Along the road of life and sadly even on the spiritual stretches of this highway of life, we will find people who are not all that they should be and some of them may even push us to outer limits of patience and endurance at times; yet they still are souls Jesus died for and lives in need of His love, mercy and grace.

Like ‘Garfield’ people will rub us the wrong way and not always treat us properly, but our duty and obligation as Christians is to find and nurture the good in them and to help nurture and hopefully help, with God’s help, that goodness within them to grow.

“He that can have patience can have what he will.” – Benjamin Franklin

If Garfield were to have anything to say on this subject, it might be something like this, “God grant me the patience and endurance so I can go the distance – because these folks round here sure don’t make it easy.”

May God grant us each patience and endurance to go the distance for His glory.

Today’s Prayer:

Father, grant me patience to endure the trails and persecutions of life with grace and to embrace the blessings with gratitude and meekness.