OPEN...closed...

Surely you have seen those OPEN signs in stores. With the internet purchases most businesses are literally OPEN constantly any day of the week.

I began to think last night that I have a sign like that too. I can be open to what God wants me to do, I can be open to meet new people and I can be open to allow people to see me as I really am. There is a problem with this lifestyle. God will fill me no matter what but people will always hurt me. Someone may just hurt my feelings without intention, but some people choose to hurt me by choosing to use my realness as a vulnerable place to hit me.

I don't always understand how someone can choose their own selfishness or their own motives in order to push people away. The interesting thing to me is that what God has set in motion is OFTEN that the person they are pushing away can offer them so much more than the selfish choices they are making.

In so many situations we do not always understand how God has built our lives on people and circumstances that will all cross paths at some point in seen and unseen ways. Sometimes we see this easily in meeting someone "out of place" and claiming "it's a small world" but often we fortget. We forget just how the one drop of rain can leave a ripple even on a windy day. If we choose to live our lives in a way that only pleases our immediate desires we will eventually be surrounded by people we have hurt and we will always be more miserable in the end.

I pray that God gives me the strength to see through the pain and seek His guidance on how to love people without letting them in my life. I can not be OPEN to people who desire to see me in pain...so God will make a table for me in front of mine enemies, but I will not have to serve them...My God does not tell me to host events for my enemies...NO, He will host the event...I do not need to interact with my enemies until He calls me to the feast...instead, He has called me to show them Love...which I understand will be to not allow them to go hungry, go cold in the streets, to be thirsty when I pass them by...but I will NOT continue to show them my openness into my inner vulnerabilities. I pray that God will guard my heart, take me to the refuge and allow the enemy to destroy themselves with their own greed and selfishness. I pray for protection and I ask that God shield my home from the wrath of these people that seek to defeat my God's will in my life. Amen.