Skip to main content

Today's Devotion

Today's suggested reading: Proverbs 14





I Am Not Always Right Sometimes.



Brian Vasil, Media Pastor




“Arrogant know-it-alls stir up discord, but wise men and women listen to each other's counsel.” Proverbs 13:10 (TM)


I only fight when I have to. I don’t like discord, disunity, disagreements, or disco. Basically anything that involves fighting, yelling, or platform shoes. Never have. When my brother and I would fight as kids, I’d usually win just because I was bigger than him. Now he is 6 foot 4 and that doesn’t work so I have to out-think him. I have to convince him that I know it all. I have all the answers…I have it all figured out.



Of course, I really don’t, but you’d never know it by the way that I fight, though. Have you ever been in an argument or fight and realize halfway through that you are TOTALLY wrong? You know…that thing called pride kicks in and we are fighting for its own sake. Why do we do this to ourselves? Has arrogance or pride ever helped to solve a conflict? I don’t think so. In my years on the planet, I have figured out 3 truths that have made life easier (and helped me to deal with fighting):



1. Conflict is inevitable and sometimes healthy for a relationship to grow.2. I don’t know it all.3. If I listened to the other person before I fought with them…I could keep my pride in check.



That’s it. No secret formula. No 300-page tome about counting to ten or deep breathing. It’s simple. I have to get over myself…lose the pride…and listen to the other person first. That’s what today’s verse is talking about. If you can digest and follow it, God will transform you from prideful combatant to patient listener, guaranteed.



1) Does my pride get in the way of my ability to listen to others in conflict?



2) When you fight with others…does there always have to be a winner? Why?

Labels

Labels:

Comments

  1. AnonymousSeptember 14, 2007 at 3:12 PM

    Pasor Arturo, Our family has enjoyed you as much as Pastor Troy this week.You are a very talented man as well as very funny.You are correct there is a big differnce between cuban food and Mexican food, but it is all good !!!!
    My husband has missed seeing you at the Mens group on Monday nights.
    From
    Frank and Samantha Alvarez/Miami
    HHSamantha@aol.com

    ReplyDelete
  2. Arturo de la MoraSeptember 14, 2007 at 7:37 PM

    :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousSeptember 17, 2007 at 3:15 PM

    Pastor Troy should use you as an example of commitment in his next teaching! I am in awe that you and your wife are sacrificing five weeks of your personal life to do this for us at FRC! What a blessing to have you at our church!

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousSeptember 17, 2007 at 10:18 PM

    Me and my wife where prepared before the series to start, to make this commitment. For me is a privilege to be part of what God is doing on the life of many trough this project.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Thanks for taking a time to drop a comment!

Popular posts from this blog

Truth or dare?

One of the things that is surprising to me today, is the low value that many people assign to their own promises. Teenagers don't believe their parents, because they never fulfill their promises; Couples say "I'll stand by you forever" and few months later they walk on the opposite direction; politicians make promises to earn votes, and once the election is done, they forgot about it. I remember one of the first things I learned from my grandmother it was the value of my word. "A gentleman always fulfill his promises, a man with no word has no honor" and I learned to live by that principle. Few weeks ago, I was having a discussion with one of the leaders on the youth ministry at Flamingo Road Church about some technical difficulties we were experiencing during the broadcasting of our Student Service online, and I challenged him to fix the failures, so if he would complete the task with no errors, I will do my hair like him... (He had a Mohawk haircut with ...
37 comments
Read more

And they lived happily ever after...

This is where most fairy tales end. The prince and princess marry and ride off into the sunset to begin their new life together as husband and wife, a life full of promise, romance, and above all, love. (Check out Shreck, Sleeping beauty, Snow White and others...) But no one has ever told us how this is supposed to happen, or why it succeeds if it does. How a marriage can be a fairy tale come true, and how to "happily ever after" happens? That is only the beginning... Today, I went to the Pete and Julie's wedding... awesome... a dream come true... great service, great sermon by Pastor Garland, a lot of wishes, toasts, music, joy, party and fun... but... that is not and Happy Ending... is just a great beginning. The Best Man said few words, but the most wise words he mentioned was... "I hope you keep Christ as the center of your marriage, if you do that, I'll warranty you a happily ever after life" That's a true that we have to keep in mind not just at th...
1 comment
Read more

The Saints....

According to the Catholic tradition, all the Christian names have a saint, so when you baptize an infant you must give them one saint name to be accepted by the priest. All the saint names are distributed all over the 365 days of the Gregorian calendar and when a new saint is approved by the Vatican, a celebration day is assigned. Why am I explaining all of this? Just because yesterday, was the day of “Saint Arturo”, and immediately I received a phone calls from Mexico, from my sisters, my big brother and two cousins. I used to celebrate my “Saint day” with a big party, and in order to be invited to the celebration, you had to call me by phone, congratulate me, and there you where invited. I was used to receive between 80-120 calls… The first one it was always my mom, I loved that call… I missed that call yesterday. After that, call, after call, and my answer, was “thanks for remember I hope to see you tonight after 9 p.m. will be fun” I used to had live music and some times there was...
2 comments
Read more