2014-03-19 - Leftovers
Whether its the holidays or any other time of the year we all have
a personal opinion when we hear the word leftovers in a sentence. In part
it would be of more interest to you if the meal was something you enjoyed
the first time. And there are some people who are just not interested in
eating the meal more than once before waiting at least a week before having
it again. Personally I love most leftovers and I dont view them as
a fallback when I dont see anything else suitable to eat. My Mom also
loved leftovers. In fact she would often look forward to a specific item
in the refrigerator when she came home on her lunch hour. I remember the
occasional disappointment when someone else thought of it first and she came
home to find her idea had been consumed. I fall from the same tree of the
less common when it comes to liking leftovers.
Whats more common of food that was from a meal the day before is it
being last resort meal. I wondered if we sometimes give people we claim are
important to us our leftovers. If youve ever felt like
you were with someone who wasnt really in the room with you then
youve gotten leftovers. If you got the call that someone wanted to
spend time with you when it turns out everyone else was busy youve
gotten leftovers. If you felt more like the call you received was a courtesy
call than a conversation from someone youre supposed to know then
youve gotten leftovers. If someone tells you they miss you, yet, while
being many places and with you is not one of them then youve gotten
leftovers. I dont know about you, but I am not fond of this type of
leftovers at all. While realizing we all make mistakes and dont always
give people our best and our full attention there does need to be a line
we dont continually cross or let others cross when they are considering
themselves important to us and likewise us to them.
Although I am not in the habit of making others a reason or excuse for my
behavior, I am realizing that some of the patterns I have developed responding
to others is a result of a leftovers unwritten rule that sort
of took the place of giving others our best. While part of a life group study
I learned that quality time was tied for the top of my list of things that
matter the most to me in relationships. I later realized that because of
that fact I would often be willing to accept the leftovers instead of sharing
how important the actual time with someone was to me. Id gotten used
to it and any time at all was better than nothing at all. The product was
often unending frustration with some relationships and I could not get past
them not changing for the better. And some of those people really arent
ones I should be spending lots of time with so I just pray that I have the
discernment to know the best course of action to take in order to develop
the right relationships and move through the others for the intended purpose
of them and not my own agenda. To quote the movie line in Bruce Almighty:
Who knows what they really want anyway? What we want is often
not what is good for us in the first place.
Most importantly, I dont want to give God my leftovers. He always gives
his best even when I dont deserve it. After thinking about how it makes
me feel when it happens to me I got extremely sad about how it might make
Him feel. Or how it might make someone else put in my life feel if I do that
to them. We cant give everything to everyone and it was never intended
we should. Yet being wise and thoughtful and prayerful about little things
like actually being in the room with people when were engaged
in an activity or being fully engaged in the conversation right in front
of us and not on the cell phone unless its an emergency. I remember
some years ago someone I knew for several years would have this habit of
calling me on the phone and then talking to everyone who came into the room.
The first time or two to answer a question didnt bother me, but after
a while it was as if I wasnt even in the conversation and I was supposed
to be the person she was talking to. When we dont value people enough
to get beyond giving them whats left over when we had once offered
them our full attention then eventually there will cease to be a relationship
beyond acquaintance. And this always makes me think of a Richard Paul Evans
quote I love so much. We do not neglect people because we cease to
love them; rather we cease to love them because we have neglected them.
In this society of merciless multitasking remember you dont win by
having the most toys or doing the most tasks at once at the time of your
last breath. It wasnt true thirty years ago and its not true
now. Choose carefully.
And thou shalt love the Lord thy God
with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with
all thy might.(Deuteronomy 6:5 KJV)
But take diligent heed to do the commandment and
the law, which Moses the servant of the Lord charged you, to love the Lord
your God, and to walk in all his ways, and to keep his
commandments, and to cleave unto him, and to serve him with all your
heart and with all your soul.(Joshua 22:5 KJV)
No man can serve two masters: for either
he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one,
and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
(Matthew 6:24 KJV)
Deborah Durrett
cfpraydeb@gmail.com
http://www.cfdevotionals.org
All scripture references are from the New International Version (NIV)
unless otherwise noted. Ephasis in the verses is from the devotional
author.
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