Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Today I will be hooking up with Tuesday Muse, Transformed Tuesdays, Titus 2 Tuesday, and Tending the Home Tuesday.  I will be able to share what God’s Word is revealing to me along with sharing photos of His creations.  Each day this month I will be posting a floral photo along with a scripture verse.

Butterflies flutter about my backyard as I sit on my deck working on this post. I’ve seen some small ones that were either all white or all yellow, larger ones that were black tinged with blue. I have my camera sitting nearby in hopes of capturing a few photos to share with you.  However, this may prove more difficult than it sounds, because they are about as still as a toddler.

For do I now persuade men, or God?  Or do I seek to please men?  For if I still pleased men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ?  Galatians 1:10

At first glance this verse seems simple enough–obey God, not man.  Actually it is pretty straight forward, obey God’s will.  That’s it, nothing more.  However, the trouble lies with men.  Since the garden, men have been going their own way. As human’s we have inherited a sin nature that makes us want to do things our way.  It may not be that we want to disobey God, it’s that we believe we know what’s best for our lives.  Or perhaps, it’s just selfishness–we want to do, what we want to do.

If you are someone who hates conflict (a peace keeper) you will avoid conflict at all cost.  Inevitably a peace keeper will cross paths with someone who has a controlling personality (controller). Controllers have to control everyone and everything in their environment in order to feel safe and secure–they love to be in control. If they are not in control, they can make the lives of people around them uncomfortable.  Sometimes a peace keeper will fear a controller more than disobeying God.  The  peace keeper may reason that the Lord will be more understanding than the controller, therefore, they chose to disobey God in order to make the controller happy.

I have experienced this personally.  I was heavily involved in serving outside of my home.  I had heard the Lord telling me for over a year, I needed to scale back. I was fearful of disappointing or upsetting others who would be effected by my decision to cut back.  I just kept ignoring the Lord’s will for me to reduce my outside activities and eventually He had, had enough.  Over the years I have battled with depression, the Lord used my depression as a means to get my attention.  After going through some difficult months struggling with my depression, I have learned to obey God, not man.  I still struggle with peace keeping, a lifetime of pleasing others is a hard habit to break, but the Lord has shown me who I need to obey.

If we want to please God we must obey His will, not mans.

This was the only photo I was able to capture for you.  I’ believe its a month rather than a butterfly, but still a lovely creature.

The following photos are butterfly pictures I took a little earlier in the week.

Count blessings, Kasey