Northern Georgia just had a pretty rough ice storm and inevitably our power went out and I became obsessed with the battery percentage on my phone. I woke up with it on 16% and the power still was still out. So I became desperate and went to my car and roughed it out to charge my phone. As I was sitting there looking at all the ice covered nature, my mind began to wonder and God began to speak. I looked our butterfly bush in particular and began to think of us as that bush. In the spring time when the weather is warm and all things are good the bush is beautiful and it’s the coolest place to hang for the butterflies after butterfly school or whatever they do, But as I looked out this morning at the bush, and the ice completely overtook it and almost all the branches were lying on the ground. God began to show me that this is how we are sometimes in our walk with him. When things are going well in our lives and everything is lining up, we have our hands extended and lifted up high praising God but when the hard cold times come we tend to magnify all of the problems in our lives and get bogged down with sorrow. We let the ice come and gather on our limbs to where we can’t praise God anymore. It took me a while to realize this but God is still the same God whether we are going through a storm or coming out of one. We often think that the choices we make don’t affect anyone, but that’s the farthest from the truth. I saw so many trees down today that were blocking the road and it hindered the course of where I was trying to travel. I strive in my life to not let my limbs fall into someone else’s path. I don’t want to be a stumbling block, I want to be a stepping stone. I encourage everyone to not look at the storm in your life as a never ending time in your life because here’s the beauty of this story, as the sun began to shine and the ice started to melt the limbs started to raise back to their original state. This thing we call life is full of ups and downs and it doesn’t take someone to tell you that. We’ve all experienced it. What we have to realize is that God is still right beside us rooting for us. He wants us to prosper! He wants good for his people! Open up and let the sun melt the ice off your branches and raise your praise. Hebrews 11 talks about faith and how all these Saints of God lived by faith and realized that they were only strangers in this life. They were seeking a country, a heavenly country, and if they had been thinking of the country they left they would’ve had opportunity to return but they didn’t look back they kept their eyes on the prize which is their eternal home in heaven that God prepared himself. At the end of the day all that ice doesn’t matter. Sure we all have some ice in our lives that get us down and we can dwell on that for a moment but lets take a step back and look a little higher to the promise God gave us. The promise of a heavenly home! I love you guys!
