Dear Lord; Good morning Father!<\/p>\n
In recent months Father, my children have become much more observant of the people around them and the things they say and do.\u00a0 This of course has led to LOTS<\/span> of questions about behaviors and mannerisms, and why people act in certain ways.\u00a0 Following a car ride we took over the weekend, I started thinking much more in-depth about what they\u2019re asking and the responses I\u2019ve been giving them.<\/p>\n \u201cWhy do people throw trash on the ground?\u201d<\/em> asked Aidan as he looked out the car window Saturday afternoon.\u00a0 \u201cBecause sometimes, people can be lazy and selfish I\u2019m afraid.\u201d<\/em> I responded.\u00a0 A little further down the road, I put my turn signal on to move over into a different lane.\u00a0 When I did so, instead of making space to let me in the driver of the car next to me closed the gap between themselves and the car in front of them, effectively preventing the lane-change.\u00a0 Sensing my annoyance, one of the boys piped up \u201cWhy\u2019d they do that?\u201d<\/em>.\u00a0 \u201cBecause sometimes people only think about themselves.\u201d<\/em> I replied.<\/p>\n As I look back on that ride, I\u2019m a little disappointed by the answers I gave to the boys.\u00a0 These were prime openings for much deeper discussions about how our actions or inactions can affect others, and how with little acts of kindness and thoughtfulness we can make a real difference in the lives of those around us.\u00a0 Little things like holding onto your napkin from lunch until you find a trash can, or moving aside when you see someone with their turn signal on cost us very little effort,\u00a0 and yet can be the difference between a smile and \u201cthe last straw\u201d<\/em> of someone\u2019s day.<\/p>\n \u201cTherefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.\u201d \u2013 Colossians 3:12 (NIV)<\/strong><\/p>\n In the same respect Lord, I am also convicted by my own words as well.\u00a0 In a rush to get to work in the morning, how many times have I cut someone off without thinking about it?\u00a0 How many times have I not stopped to help someone in need when I truly could have?\u00a0 How often have I focused on situations in my own life instead of trying to reach out to others going through difficult times?\u00a0 I do try to be a good person and show kindness and comfort to others, but if I\u2019m brutally honest with myself I know I can do more.<\/p>\n Heavenly Father, please help guide me to be a source of compassion, support and understanding to those around me.\u00a0 Lead me to reach out in the spirit of Your Love, and to show that Light to others.\u00a0 Kindness is contagious Lord; Please aid me in starting an epidemic.\u00a0 Amen.<\/p>\n ~Phather Phil<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dear Lord; Good morning Father! In recent months Father, my children have become much more observant of the people around them and the things they say and do.\u00a0 This of course has led to LOTS of questions about behaviors and mannerisms, and why people act in certain ways.\u00a0 Following a car ride we took over […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[724,505,181,289,359,182,286,132,988,27,37,759,915,610,546,508,702,173,42,844,769,966,686,593,916,804,757,161,632,658,78,104,307,133,422,506,845,776,291,673,594,558,629,627,732,836,73,117,95,764,697,300,481,49,348,723,138],"class_list":["post-657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-emails-to-god","tag-actions","tag-afternoon","tag-aidan","tag-behavior","tag-bible","tag-boys","tag-child","tag-children","tag-colossians","tag-comfort","tag-compassion","tag-convicted","tag-dear-lord","tag-different","tag-difficult","tag-discussion","tag-drive","tag-father","tag-focus","tag-follow","tag-giving","tag-god","tag-guide","tag-heavenly","tag-heavenly-father","tag-help","tag-kind","tag-kindness","tag-lazy","tag-lead-me","tag-life","tag-light","tag-loss","tag-love","tag-loved","tag-morning","tag-need","tag-plea","tag-question","tag-questions","tag-ride","tag-rush","tag-saturday","tag-servant","tag-situation","tag-situations","tag-smile","tag-son","tag-spirit","tag-support","tag-understand","tag-understanding","tag-week","tag-weekend","tag-word","tag-words","tag-work"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p18mMc-aB","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=657"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":662,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657\/revisions\/662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}