God heats up our world w/suffering, mixes in nasty-looking grounds, then presses us down, slowly, severely until the foreign particles are cleaned away, leaving us closer to Him & ready to help others.

How much our life is like a French Press! God heats up our world w/suffering, mixes in nasty-looking grounds, then presses us down, slowly, severely until the foreign particles are cleaned away, leaving us closer to Him & ready to help others.

God's way is always better than our way. But if we decide to pick our way, although it'll hurt a lot more, he will still turn it out for our good in the end because he loves us too much to do otherwise.

Expectations are dangerous. Not getting what you expected can set off a chain of events that lead to discouragement, depression, arguments, and actions that you'd later regret. It's important to manage our expectations with wisdom. When I'm expecting a check in the mail and it doesn't come, I feel dissappointment which can lead to worse feelings and potentially foolish decisions. But if I didn't expect it, when it arrives I'm full of gratitude. If it doesn't arrive, it has no effect on me because I didn't expect it in the first place.

I read this morning how the disciples got angry when a woman "wasted" an expensive bottle of perfume on Jesus' head (Mat 26:6-13). But Jesus wasn't offended at all. In fact, he knew this was burial perfume, preparing him for the grave.

Jesus knew he was born to die. He knew he was sent to earth to be treated as a sinner so sinners could go free. Although this expectation did not take away sorrow, temptation, and troubles, it put everything else in a different perspective. It's hard to disappoint someone whose expectations are not to be served but to serve. His expectations never expanded beyond what God promised and neither should ours.

This struck me as I thought of Jesus' command to lay down one's life and to take up one's cross and many similar passages calling us to die for the sake of others. If I can start my days with this thought: my expectation is that I get to lay down my life for others, anything I receive beyond that will be unexpected blessing.

Thoughts from Richard Rohr: The primary thing we are attached to is our self image. Ask someone to describe himself. Our attachments reveal our deeper attachment: the way we want to view ourselves.

When we get offended it’s because our manicured self image has been offended or criticized. We are constantly manicuring our self image.

Jesus offers a whole new kind of image, one that refinds its identity in him, as he restores us to what we were created to be...which is to delight with all our hearts in God.

A recent study reported that the average five-year-old child laughs out loud approximately four hundred times a day, while the average adult laughs out loud only fifteen times each day.

Invest. Everything in life has some value. But not everything has equal value. I want to spend my life investing in those things that are the most valuable.

Jesus said the greatest commandment in the entire Bible is this: “Love God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.” So above all things, loving God, investing in my relationship with him has the greatest value of all.

Jesus said the 2^nd greatest commandment is this: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” My neighbor is any human being I encounter, from the employee at the gas station to my neighbor across the street, to my son Josiah. Each of these people matter infinitely to God, so I should treat them like I want to be treated.

I love how simple the Bible really is: invest in your relationship with God and invest in your relationship with people. On the day when we stand before Jesus, nothing else will have mattered.