God has been teaching me a lot lately about how I view people.  For instance, recently I ordered food at the drive through of a local fast food joint.  The voice that came through the microphone was very well-spoken, eloquent and respectful.  Pulling up to the window to pay for the meal, before me stood a gentleman with green hair, big fat wooden earrings in his ears, tattoos and so forth.  I mentioned to my husband that I would have never identified that voice with that look or persona.

Often we can come across people in our pathway who don’t look the way we feel they should look or don’t carry themselves in a manner approving of our standards, yet in them is a real person with a real soul.

David was judged wrongly by those of his own house.  When the prophet Samuel came to Jesse’s house to anoint…

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“Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves . . .,” 2 Corinthians 13:5

“What? School just started back!”  No, that’s not what I’m talking about.  When was the last time we really pushed the envelope with ourselves to see what we have in us?  When watching television, I sometimes come across shows where people are doing what seems to be the impossible; people who love the adrenaline of seeing just how far they can go with a particular feat.  Some of the things I see just make me want to shake my head, and yet, others are actual, honest assessments of endurance; to see if they have what it takes to make it all the way, or to break some sort of record.  It’s a testing of one’s strength and stamina.

Tests, for most people, are not pleasant at all.  It…