Skip to content

Can’t see the Forest…for all the Trees

Can’t see the Forest…for all the Trees!
By Dontwobears

Ephesians 4:26-32 – “Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: Neither give place to the devil. Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers. And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.”

You know we all have the Euphemisms in life, “Life is like a box of chocolates” (Tom Hanks as Forrest Gump)! And we all know life is not like that at all, life can be harsh, breaking people left and right, we THINK it is one thing and find out later, we were wrong in our thoughts. The Penalties in Life can be harsh enough to render any sane individual, a mindless derelict! The biggest part of that, is when we realize life was not for us to decide, but for you and I to look to the Lord and to live according to HIS Divine Plan.

When a person chooses to live according to this world, that person looses, because we are only meant to live here 70-80 years and that’s it. When people spend more time chasing things like money and stuff, we show arrogance to the Lord, that Loves us. Kind of like, that little kid, that builds that most unusual ladder of stuff, to get the cookie on the top shelf. That kid gets up there, wobbling about dangerously, to find there is no cookie up there to begin with! Most never get that high, instead they come crashing down, never being the same again and then they blame everyone else…for their Failures! “Responsibility…is for everyone else! I will not be held accountable to anyone, when all I want is to have fun”, what’s that saying “Girls just want to have fun!” “It’s all about ME!!” It must be understood, when you raise yourself so very high, you must make sure you never fall, it’s a Long way down! As my Dad used to say, “People do not die from the fall, they die from the sudden stop!” So we can then understand, the higher you are, when you fall, the harder the stop.

I Love to watch babies as they begin to walk, a few steps here and a few steps there, then boom, they fall back on their butt, diaper and all. As thick as those diapers are, you would think this would be sufficient protection. Now, try that yourself, stand up and then fall back, landing in the sitting position, your legs out in front of you, like that toddler did. Or better yet, don’t do that as an adult, I will promise you some major suffering if you do! Suffice to say, there are somethings that we should leave to the very little kids, experience should be our guide. If not experience, then we should rely on the Lord for HIS Wisdom and Discernment, it doesn’t mean we won’t fall, it means we wont get hurt as bad. We need that fall in some cases, but the difference is, how far are we meant to fall and how bad will we land?! It is truly one thing to fall on concrete, as compared to falling on a Trampoline, right?! Correct me or not, we make falling into a swimming pool…a Blast! At least we will land softly and pleasurably in extreme heat! So why is it, we never think to be the exact same way, in all things in our lives, could we be stupid or something?

Here let me give you a perfect example of falling. In my Medical life, I was making better than $50.00 an hour, oddly enough, my Wife was always making more than I did! And she had a lot less education than I! How is that possible?! Anyway, we were racking it in, in those days, yet, we had more financial problems, how is that possible? You would think it would be the other way around, right? So anyway, we grew tired of all the hard work, the long….LONG days! We decided to take up a Friends offer to work at his company. We both dropped in income, to around $20.00 an hour!! “Ye Gods and little Fishes!!” That was half of what we were used to making! The Lord must have decided that we needed to learn a lesson here, it’s the only thing I can come up with, but we were still doing alright. “So what’s the lesson here Lord?” And HE must have said, “just a second…let me show you!” The worst sentence HE could have ever said! “Hold on to your shorts, cause we are about to go on a ride!!”

So here we are, at one time making better than $50.00 an hour each, down to $20.00 an hour each and then the lord pulls the rug out from under the business and it fails altogether! Now you must understand, our Friend was a Multi-Millionaire! (Friend, multi-Millionaire, we make $20.00 an hour each, is there something wrong here?!) Now we made $0.00 an hour!! WHOA!! Back the boat up here! You remember that earthquake in Chile?? That was our knees hitting the floor!

“Your Will FATHER…NOT ours!” We said in prayer! My Wife got a job and I HAD to go for Social Security Disability, Bad Diabetes, Bad hands, Bad knees, I quickly became a mess. Suffice to say, we were happy with my Wife making $16.00 an hour! It was three (That’s “3”) years later I finally got my Social Security. I could no longer stand at the Surgical table and with my hands, I could no longer use the instruments!

Today, we make a WHOLE LOT LESS than before! If you look at the ocean carefully, you can see, just my nose above the water! YET…we have no other bills than utilities and food. We are happier now than we have ever been in our Lives and we owe this to the Lord! Always and Forever, HE is greater than our ANYTHING in this life! There is a lot to be said about the difference between “Quantity of Life and the Quality of Life” and Praise to the Lord, we are experiencing both.

We now walk through life, smelling the flowers and never picking them, they belong to the Lord! We walk about and smell the Pine Scent and we see these beautiful trees and we KNOW we are in the Forest and the Lord walks with us all the time, not part time, ALL THE TIME!! So what is there for us to fear? Nothing! If I do not go in the Rapture, it’s because I have the pleasure of lying down in this forest and passing away. “Absent from the Body is to be Present with the Lord”! It does NOT get any better than that, as the saying goes, “Been there and done that”, except now I can say “It is and always will be…the Lords Perfect Will”.

Philippians 4:4-7 “Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say, Rejoice. Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand. Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”

“What shall I fear…when the Lord is near?? Nothing I say…Nothing at all” (by Me)

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

All emboldened Scripture is by the author for emphasis.

Back To Top