BBQ potato chips & water?

Needing a salting snack, I went to the cabinet and got out the bag of BBQ potato chips. It had already been opened and I knew that Eric & Abbie had had some the day before. When I reopened it, however, the half full bag was mostly wet. After questioning Abbie, I came to find out that she had put water on the chips, in her words, "because they were too hot." Well, that made alot of sense to a 4 and half year old child. Things are hot, you drink water to cool your mouth.

So, in many things in my day, I found a lesson from God. And you can look at it in two different ways and still find the Lord.

1. When we do something, with the best of intentions, but it turns out to be a real misjudgement: "I have a problem and I will fix. I do not need someone to help me with this. I know what to do." When you dump water on your bag of chips (to fix the problem), I think God just shakes His head and thinks: I love them but I want them to ask me for help. If only they had asked first, I could have helped them.

2. When God does something or makes something happen that doesn't make any sense to us, we question Him. Sometimes we have NO CLUE what is going on or is about to happen and, then, we question our Maker as to why. Why, why....because He knows better than we do. Maybe, He put the water (insert form of protection) on the hot chips (insert situation/problem)because He knew we were greedy and would get a big mouthful and be totally unprepared for the tongue burning that was to come.

Sometimes, God puts up road blocks as road blocks and sometimes they are just detour signs. A while back, Eric and I decided to trying to get a small loan to pay off a bunch of smaller bills. Well, for one reason or another, the loan didn't happen. We couldn't understand. We aren't buying heroin....we were trying to pay some bills. Why wouldn't God be on our side for this? ***There's that "why" again.*** It didn't take but a few short days for something big to come along that needed that money to go towards it. God knew better than we did. It wasn't a road block to stop us, it was a detour to make us go in a slightly different direction.

It's completely possible that none of this makes any sense to anyone else but it connected in my mind.

Recently, I had a discussion with a friend of mine. I love talking to this friend. I know him well enough to speak openly and yet not well enough to bore each other. It is always inspiring to hear him and his thoughts. We were talking about watching people age and how hard it is to watch people, especially people you are close to, change into someone else.....due to illness, age, etc. We talked about how it shouldn't be scary to think about dying but frequently it is. I, for one, am NOT afraid to die....eh, let me rephrase that. I am NOT afraid of being dead, a little concerned as to how I will get there...HA! HA! When, I wake up dead (again, HA! HA!) I believe, I KNOW that I will be in Heaven. There is no fear of what is after this life. When we were preparing last summer for our vacation trip, in a plane, our the ocean, my thought was not that the plane would go down....I would just be screaming as I prayed. My thoughts were, if that happened, what would happen to my children, who would raise them, would they remember me, would I see them in heaven someday? Our conversation then went like this. The Old Testament is full of talk and prophesies about Jesus and the New Testament is full of those prophesies coming true and Jesus' life & death, all the while people were being converted and becoming believers and followers. However, as far as numbers go, the majority of the people effected by the love and life of Christ has happened SINCE He died. So, from this I can gather that if I have lived the life I should have, taught my children about Jesus and His love, then even if something happens to me, I WILL see them again. If you live in such a way that is pleasing to God, people see it.....strangers, family, friends & your children. Long after you are gone, they will remember how you were, what you thought, and what you believed in.