Full or Empty House

Have you ever wanted to be or have more than you are or have at the moment? Have you ever pretended to be someone or something else?

Proverbs 12: 9 TPT (The Passion Translation)

Verse 9 – “Just be who you are and work hard for a living, for that’s better than pretending to be important and starving to death.”

Mic drop! Enough said! LOL To me, the biggest thing about following what God has for us, being in a relationship with Jesus, and just being blessed beyond measure – is we need “truth”. We need to know it, live it, say it, be it. If we have a hunger and a desire for truth, we will then seek out what God says and wants for us and our daily living.

Oh yes! I have pretended to be someone I wasn’t. It was SO hard to keep up the lie! Like this verse says, we may not know what is really going on “inside” of a home verses what we see on the outside. True, we can be good hard workers, and still suffer. However, the ‘self-infliction’ brought on by living a life that is not true, we can suffer greatly.

This really rung true for my Hubby and I when we delivered Thanksgiving Baskets one year to families in need. As we pulled up to one home, the outside looked as if they “had it all”. Nice house, couple of cars in the driveway, in a really good neighborhood… (yes, comments were made as we approached that were a bit ‘judgy’) One of the young teen boys met us at the curb, instead of waiting for us to come to the door. (yes, that seemed odd) But when he saw the amount of items we had, and the weight of one of the boxes, he agreed to let us “help him to the house”. Well, to our shock and surprise, the inside of the house was almost totally empty! There was a card table in what should have been the dining area with folding chairs, but only 2. There was a small TV on top of some wood and bricks. There were several people there, older parents, then another teen, and a couple of younger children. They were VERY humble and even embarrassed as they talked when we came in. Then, as the Mom was unloading the boxes with the help of a younger girl, we saw that they had nothing, I mean NOTHING in their frig and cupboards. Maybe 2-3 cans of something, and what looked like a carton of milk, that was it! (oh my heart!) The man was explaining his work situation, and how the lack of work has caused them to lose nearly everything. We prayed for them, his work, the Lord blessing them, before we left.

As we walked to our car, my Hubby was SO humbled, and felt the need to express his sinfulness and ask for my forgiveness. As we approached, he was grumpily and saying unkind things about them “mooching” off the church… stuff like that. He confessed that he went in with a bit of a hardened heart, because of what we saw on the outside. Then when we saw the “truth” – he was humbled so much, that if he had a job for this man, he would have offered it to him! Of course, we prayed again, asked for forgiveness from God and each other, and then went on to the next deliveries with a totally different heart! This was such a lesson to both of us, to “not judge a book by its cover”.

These verses reminded me of this family, which as I am typing, I am praying for them. I have no idea if they are still in that home or anything, but I know God knows, and He took care of them then, so He will take care of them now. There must be a reason why that moment in time popped in my head. Could be to pray for them. Could be a reminder to work hard at my job, and not pretend to be someone I am not.

Today, if you are living a lifestyle on the ‘outside’ just to “keep up with the Jones’” – stop it! You’ll just get deeper and deeper in debt, and end up going hungry just to “look good”. God will honor and bless you for being yourself and working hard at what you do. If you are “being yourself” and working hard – then yay!! You will be rewarded and blessed, I am sure of it! Keep it up. You never know who you will be a witness to around you. I pray you see, feel, and hear the Lord today. Be well, be safe, and BE blessed!!