Literally a heart attack on a bun
I've been listening to a book on tape by Jon Acuff called Quitter. The book came highly recommended by Dave Ramsey, and I like Jon (Plus I got the audio book free from audible.com). Quitter is all about going after your dreams, and chasing that thing you are most passionate about. I highly recommend it.
At one point in the book Jon Acuff talks about, "morning" and, "nighttime Jon." He said that his morning self hated his nighttime self. Mainly because his nighttime self was a jerk. It stayed up late reading about sports and watching movies. Morning Jon would always wake-up dragging and angry at nighttime Jon.
I can relate to that problem amazingly well, except I stay up watching Dr. Who reruns, surfing Stumble Upon, and playing Draw Something. Regret begins when I set my alarm and realize I only have 5 hours to sleep. OUCH!
Would this work for you?
This morning I woke up to find that another person had some type of heart attack while eating the Bypass Burger at The Heart Attack Grill. I'm just riffing here, but If you're morbidly obese, smoke, are a heavy drinker, and over forty, as this woman was, I'm guessing the Bypass Burger isn't for you. Two people have fallen out from that beast in two months. It's official, that burger is more dangerous to fat people than sharks.
I'm sure that when the woman woke up in the hospital the morning after the heart attack she was hating her nighttime self. Regret and shame were probably there to greet her. And if she wasn't feeling those things when she woke up, I bet that hospital bill is going to make her feel something. On second thought, with her heart condition, she probably shouldn't look at the bill. It was for sure the most expensive burger she ever ate.
Paul really let the Corinthian church have it in 1 Corinthians for all the wrong things they were doing. By 2 Corinthains they had turned it around. Paul is proud of them, and like a father he explains his discipline to them:
I'm glad—not that you were upset, but that you were jarred into turning things around. You let the distress bring you to God, not drive you from him. The result was all gain, no loss. Distress that drives us to God does that. It turns us around. It gets us back in the way of salvation. We never regret that kind of pain. But those who let distress drive them away from God are full of regrets, end up on a deathbed of regrets. 2 Corinthians 7:9-10We have a choice to make. We can let life's bad circumstances drive us away from God or, like little children, let them move us to God. Pain is never fun, and sin always leads to regret the next morning. May the circumstances you go through push you closer to God. Christians, if someone is going through a hard time with sin don't curb stomp them when they're down. Help restore them.
In my devotion this last week Rick Warren wrote this:
You might be in a situation right now where everything is going wrong and you can't figure it out. But God knows. Nothing in your life is accidental. The pleasures and pains, the opportunities and obstacles, God can use it all. There is nothing God cannot use for good in your life if you'll hand it over to him - and then trust him.Trust Him. Run to Him. Live without regrets.
Have you ever eaten something you regretted later?
