Let the Dead thing go!

Not long ago, during some at home time with my family, we watched a cartoon call Frankenweenie. This is a story about a young boy, named Victor, who wanted to be a scientist, so he spent all his time in his laboratory with his best friend, his dog Sparkie. The climax of the movie happens when one day after being encouraged to try something new by his father, the young boy goes to play baseball with some neighborhood kids. Since Sparkie is so used to playing fetch, when Victor hits the ball into the street Sparkie runs after it and is hit by a car…he doesn’t survive. At this point Victor becomes very sad and eventually sets out to bring Sparkie back to life, and finally he does! Here is where I became inspired to write this article. See once Sparkie dies instead of moving on with his life Victor, becomes obsessed with bringing Sparkie back. Once he does bring him back he never notices the Sparkie was not the same, he was actually meant to die when he did. Victor goes though a lot of trouble creating the machine that brings Sparkie back, he then has to hide Sparkie the risen dog because he knows people will not understand or accept what he has done; but he doesn’t care. It is more important to him to hold on to the dead dog than to go on with his life. Do you know anyone like this? Are you like Victor…holding on to a dead thing, refusing to let go even though you should? For instance a dead relationship, that you know wasn’t working anyway but you don’t want to be alone so you...hold on to it? Or perhaps you are holding on to hurt feelings for longer than you need to because you just don’t want to move on? Psalms 94:19 says, “In the multitude of my anxieties within me, your comforts delight my soul.” So no matter what old things you are holding on to, delight in the Lord and let that dead thing go. Think about it!

"DON'T do it yourself!"

Recently, while watching HGTV, I saw a show called “House Crashers.” On this show the host goes to a local home improvement store like Home Depot, in search of someone who is in desperate need of renovations. If they are willing, he will follow them home and renovate one room in their house free of charge, and a room of their choice! “I wished he would come to Carrollton and find me!” Anyway, this particular episode, he ran into a female make-up artist. She was preparing to renovate her kitchen. Once they got to her home she decided she would rather use the freebie to get the bedroom oasis of her dreams. Okay, enough background; let me get to the point. This lady, who, considered herself to be “crafty” had in my opinion, and the opinion of the host, the weirdest so called “home improvement,” decorations ever! She stated how much she loved to decorated herself and improve her home. This chic had plastic ivy running up and down her bathroom walls, very eccentric art pieces to say the least. She even had plastic bugs snakes and spiders hot glued to her walls, and boy was she proud! The host instantly wanted to change a lot about her home, as a matter of fact so did I! to make a long story short, at the end, though he wanted to change essentially her entire house, he only got to change one room. The rest were left with her continue to “do it herself,” in my opinion, with unflattering decorations. I said all that to say this; sometimes in our lives, situations need the hand of a professional, namely, Jesus! Though, we are free moral agents, if we didn’t need Jesus and the Holy Spirit, He would not have come, bleed, died and rose again for us all! No matter how good of a job we think we can do in our lives on our own, sometimes we need to “not do it ourselves.” Instead we need to look to Jesus to renovate our lives for the better! Hebrews 12:2 says, “Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. To sum it up, step back and look at the “rooms,” that make up your soul. Those rooms can be your relationships, your emotions, and even your attitude. Could any of those use renovation? Well don’t do it yourself, allow Jesus to help redecorate your life! Think about it!