BEFORE AND AFTER

You have to understand “The Before” process to appreciate “The After” 

I rushed into the house knowing that I had to get dinner ready. This was only after I made a quick stop by the grocery store to get things I needed to prepare my favorite boxed meal using ground beef. I got the meat browned and was adding the wet ingredients and then the boxed powder and noodles. I stirred it a little and just as I was about to let it be for a bit , my son peeked in the pot and said “Ewww, I don’t want that. That looks gross.”  I looked at him (as only I can) and explained that he eats this all the time and this is what it looks like BEFORE it is cooked. I guess he had never quite seen it in this stage before. Seeming content with my explanation, he quickly ran out of the kitchen to watch TV during the wait.

It wasn’t long before dinner was ready. I fixed his plate and surprise! He ate all of it. (I knew he would.) I guess it is a good thing that the finished product looked nothing like the way it started out or else my son might not have partaken in this gourmet meal, huh? I guess that’s human nature. We tend to look at things the same way, like houses, cars, or furniture. We dismiss things as old, unwanted, destined for the junk pile. But there are hundreds of shows with the focus of taking those things and transforming them into beautiful creations (and millions are watching them).

The sad reality is that we even tend to look at people that way. We base our opinion, our assessment, our character analysis on their BEFORE state. Sometimes we write them off as unfit, substandard, unprepared or unqualified. But what we don’t understand is that they are in the “BEFORE” stage. God is working in their lives, changing their hearts, making a new creation in them. The “AFTER” has yet to be revealed, but it is sure to be absolutely amazing. How do I know? Because I serve a God that does not subscribe to mediocrity. He is a God that does things in excess, in abundance.  If you have ever written someone off and not really understood that their “BEFORE” process was in progress or if you were the one that was written off.  Make a change today! It is important to know and trust that “The AFTER” is yet to come!

Be encouraged today!

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Do not despise these small beginnings, for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin,.. Zechariah 4:10a (NLT)

Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. 2 Corinthians 5:17