Family Friday

National S’mores Day! Wow, I’m learning more and more new things every day. I had no clue this was a thing! But, to celebrate, here is a link to some fun S’mores you can try with your family: https://www.today.com/food/best-s-mores-recipes-national-s-mores-day-t114786

This unexpected holiday gives me the opportunity to share with you something that’s been on my mind for a few weeks now.

My pastor always likes to start out his sermons with a little fun fact or demonstration. He’s like me and loves food. So, oftentimes this part of the sermon involves food of some sort. I love his Delivery and segway into the sermons.

This particular Sunday, he shared about a family night he had with his wife and 5 boys-yes 5 BOYS! He wanted to use the night to teach them about how you can’t always tell the heart of something by how it looks.

They set out to make S’mores that weekend only he laid out unsweetened Bakers chocolate instead of the typical sweetened Hershey’s chocolate.

From looking at it, you could just see chocolate and wouldn’t know the difference by just glancing at it. However, once they took a bite of the unsweetened chocolate, their reaction was quite obvious that it wasn’t what they expected!

How about you?

Do you find yourself putting up a front to where you look like something you aren’t? If someone had the ability to look into your heart and soul, would it be as sweet, generous and caring as you try to make yourself out to be?

Or, are you like the unsweetened chocolate? Perfect on the outside but can leave a bitter taste once you break that shell and reach the inner layers?

I know this demonstration had me thinking inwardly…and still thinking. 

If I am completely honest, there are definitely days where I am bitter on the inside but still keep a friendly smile on my face. I try to convince myself it’s okay and that nobody can tell if I’m secretly cussing them out in my mind or judging them inside. (imagine that person who cut in front of you in the 10 items or less checkout line with oviously 3924 items in their cart!)

When our outward actions don’t match our inner-voice, we have a problem. We aren’t being real. We aren’t being true. God sees our inward self. We can’t fool Him into thinking we are something better than we are.

1 Samuel 16:7 says, “But the LORD said to Samuel, “Do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.”

When our heart doesn’t match our actions, we need to stop and figure out why.

We need to try to realign ourselves with the truth and change our hearts to reflect the person we want to be.

I want to be the type of person who is caring, giving and kind. Most days, this is true. But, I am guilty of this not being the case in my heart every single day. I do fall from time to time and let those bitter thoughts take over me.

My goal going forward is to tame the bitter thoughts that can overwhelm my mind some days.

When I catch myself having these thoughts, I am going to pray for not only the person I’m bitter towards, but for MY HEART as well. I am going to pray that my heart can change in that moment to be a reflection of my outward smile.

This is something you can examine as a family even. Use the S’more activity as a way to bring up the subject with your kids/spouse. As we see Summer coming to an end and Autumn beginning, this is a great time for us all to look at ourselves with the excitment of starting fresh and new.

Do you find yourself struggling with your actions not matching your inner thoughts?

I’d love to hear from you and how you overcome this. Please leave a comment below. You just never know whose heart you may help in doing so!

With Aloha,

Lacy

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Click here to check out how others responded to today’s daily prompt: Delivery

Here are some of my favorites today:

https://jamesclarkthenextiteration.wordpress.com/2017/08/11/his-knock-knock-is-no-joke-part-1/

https://wordpress.com/read/feeds/58893190/posts/1556530873