Nuggets of Wisdom

     This morning at church, I picked up several nuggets of wisdom.  It started with the praise service.  After a few songs, our worship leader shared about one of the stories from The Story for Kids he and his wife are reading with their child.  In the creation story it was said that with all the incredible things God brought into being, He loved us best.  He would move Heaven and Earth to show us His Love.  I needed to hear that today.  It was reinforced when I read a quote posted on a friend's Facebook page.
   "God loves us as if there were only one of us." -St. Augustine.,
    Our pastor is going through a series called "The Story," which goes through the entire Bible looking at the Word on a human level (what happened) and on a God level (how His plans are carried out).  Usually, I copy one or two quotes down and make notes in my Bible besides the verses we're studying.  We were in II Kings, chapter 21 mostly, this morning. This is basically describing the kings...good(too few) and bad(several) and the effect they had on their people.  There were several nuggets I wrote down and want to share, so here it goes:

• It's not age that will determine your fruitfulness, but your faithfulness that matters most!
• The measure of a man in his last days can be more defining for his legacy than the miracles in his early days. (This was during our study of King Hezekiah, who although he started out following God, in his last years not so much) This resonated with another friend, who posted on Facebook: "Great service today...Gotta work on my legacy." Made me think of a well known evangelist who made it in the news for a not so good reason.
• The discipline of God is a gift to us- not to get us back, but to get us back (to Him). I had to re-read that a couple of times.  Discipline is designed to bring us back to right relationship with God.
• God will not call for us for Him until he calls us to Him.
• You are not in control of your fruitfulness, but you can control your faithfulness. Our pastor mentioned Jeremiah.  We also studied Jeremiah in Bible study on Wednesday.  This reminded me of what we learned about Jeremiah not being called to be popular or prosperous.  God called Jeremiah to be obedient.
• An African proverb: If you think you are too small to make a difference, try spending the night in a closed room with a mosquito. This was discussed as we saw some of the kings taking power at early ages.

Okay...I'm done.  I just wanted to share.