When We Seek Advice...

The Potter’s House, shared this tweet quoting Dr. Shane Perry Sr.

 "Never take advice from people who haven't been where you are going!"

 I haven't gone back to watch or listen to a replay, but this is a pretty powerful statement.  I think you might also say, "don't take advice from folks that have never walked your path."  Think... getting parenting advice from singles that have never had children, are maybe only children, and won't even offer to watch your children so you can have a date night.  I'm not sure they should be offering parenting advice.  Or even getting marriage advice from folks who have no clue what is really going on in your life or have never been married or have a marriage that you are not interested in emulating.  Everyone is a know-it-all, but not many folks have traveled your same path.     

 But wow... "Never take advice from people who haven't been where you are going."  To me, this says.. in the natural, who do you know that has victory in their lives?  They trusted God and overcame.  Isn't that where you want to go?  Go to them for advice.  You are headed to victory and those that have worked for their victories will be more than happy to pray with you and encourage you.  

 Of course we need to see the Lord's counsel and guidance with His helper the Holy Spirit.  We hope that those we approach for guidance, in the natural, did the same.  
If you are going through a tough time, TRUST GOD.  Memorize scriptures for those moments that your mind wanders from Him and speak them, out loud if you can.  Always use your truth meter and remember what God's Word says.  Never forget how much He loves you.

I think I'll need to find this sermon and listen.  I am almost certain that I am way off out of context of what Dr. Perry intended since it's only 1 sentence that I saw on Twitter.  Perhaps God wants me to hear the sermon and that is why that sentence struck a chord.   
I'd love to pray for you.  Feel free to let me know how.  

Where God Closes a Door...

Welp… the main reason we moved to the north Georgia area has just been removed from our future plans.  Don’t get me wrong.  We love where we live and although the house we are in is a bit of a fixer upper, it’s where God wants us.  How do we know?  Well, lots of prayer during the process.  We prayed for the 2 years before we started working with an agent and continued to pray for the right agent, the right house, for God to close the door if we picked the wrong one (many opportunities for God to close a door during a home purchase process).  He never did stop our purchase or move.

Let’s back up to about 4 years ago… Bj started teaching adjunct at a north Georgia college and loved it.  Talks began about making him the chair of a new minor degree.  It would be ideal as he was looking to retire from teaching social studies for a local county alternative high school.  As we were still young in our love relationship, this spurred things on as far as planning a future.  We both were drawn to the mountains and weekend dates usually entailed long drives to the north Georgia mountains and what we called “daydreaming”.  Daydreaming meant we were checking out local towns as our possible future home after we got married.  After all, he was going to eventually be teaching full time at the college and me being almost 20 years younger, would commute for a time and eventually find a job closer to home. 

Well, God has other plans.  Although a part time teacher at this college, the school suddenly cut his pay back to adjunct and won’t return numerous calls in an effort to correct this or find out what happened.  Since Bj has over 40 years of experience in this field, working for basically minimum wage as a college teacher, is not really an option.  It is no longer an investment in his future as the minor degree has stalled and the college isn’t really growing in that field.  It’s sad and a bit discouraging to both of us actually. 

I’m here to encourage and love on my husband though.  Sometimes we need to close a door before another one can open so I’m believing that this door closing was necessary.  How else are we going to find out what God really has planned for us up here?  It’s obviously not what we were planning on.  God’s sense of humor is fascinating, isn’t it?  But He loves us and we are to live our lives for Him, not us anyway. 

I can’t wait to see what He has planned.  

Photo by Kelly Rayborn
on one of our "daydreaming" trips