Duck Feathers

 There are times in each of our lives that we are on the receiving end of harsh words, or we are the ones dealing the harshness. We have to waddle around with what people say and how it is spoken to us. Do we allow what is voiced, to sit and fester with bitterness and resentment building up? Tucking it away for another day?

We need some duck feathers!

Have you have ever observed a duck in the water getting wet? Water droplets bead up on it’s back and simply roll off. My prayer the other day was, “Lord, let the unkind words spoken to me just roll off my back. Give me some ‘spiritual duck feathers’ to protect my heart. In Your name, Amen”

Do you need to ask the Lord for a set of duck feathers?

If we allow the yucky, messy, gross, and putrid bitterness to turn into rottenness, what do we expect is going to come out of our mouths and our hearts? It won’t be good!

We don’t need to hold all of the resentment and bitterness inside. Let’s ask God to get it out so that our hearts don’t spew putrid bile on our loved ones. Get away from that habit.

Proverbs 4:23 NIV says it so plainly,

“Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.”

So, let’s have God clean out what is in there already and pray for some duck feathers to protect our hearts from what will be said in the future.

(Maybe I should have prayed for the shell of an armadillo! Then again, maybe not, as they have leprosy. Eeew. )

Duck feathers my friends!

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Finders Keepers!

My kids are always yelling “Finders Keepers” around the house when they find money on the floor, or something their sibling has but secretly they have wanted.

How often do we leave our prized possession, our heart lying around on the “floor” waiting for someone to grab it up and say “Finders Keepers”?

Proverbs 4:23 reads “Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.” Our hearts are where the wellspring of life flows from. If we carelessly throw it out there for people to use and hurt, then we are losing something so precious!

Have you thrown your heart out for people to use? Have you tried picking up the broken and shattered pieces of your heart only to realized if you had listened to the Holy Spirit in the first place, you would not have been hurt at all?  This was a toughy for me as I have looked back at my life and realized that I wasted so much time and effort worrying about what people thought of me.  I wanted to do what I could to please them. I forgot that I don’t have to please people, I need to please God. Romans 15:13 encouraged me because there is a renewal and an overflow available :).

The Holy Spirit can refill my heart that I emptied out many years ago and even recently on worries, people, and relationships that never should have been. So my prayer for today is Romans 15:13 NIV  “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”

Have hope, and keep your heart safe from being foolishly emptied out. Don’t allow people to find and keep your heart. Leave it safely where God put it. Inside YOU waiting for Him to ask you to use it for His purpose.