We had toilet issues recently. I won’t say who caused the toilet issues in our home, but it required an early morning trip to Wal-Mart to get a new plunger. Why did we need a new one? Because I broke my old plunger trying to unclog the same toilet after one of my son’s friends (you know who you are…LOL) caused some serious damage earlier in the week. I mean serious damage. Taco Bell was not agreeable with him at all. Is Taco Bell ever agreeable? It’s all good though, because we got it unstopped eventually, and we all have toilet issues from time to time. I may be the only one who would write a blog about it. Anywhoo….I went to Wal-Mart around 6am to get a new plunger.

I like to enter Wal-Mart through the Automotive Department because I can get in and out quickly. As I walked in I saw the hunting, fishing, and sporting goods to my left. I turned right and headed toward Home Supply, and I glanced down each aisle I passed looking for plungers. I saw automotive, tools and hardware, painting supplies, air conditioning filters, light bulbs, and finally I came to the plumbing aisle. I found the plunger that I wanted, and I headed back to check out.

As I was leaving I began to think about how you can find pretty much everything you need at Wal-Mart. That was the store's mission from the beginning. They wanted to have everything under one roof. Food, audio visual, clothing, arts & crafts, office supplies, bedding, plumbing supplies, toys, medicine, and the list could go on and on. To top it off, they are open all day every day, so if you need a plunger at 6am…you can get it. If you are craving a mango at 2am…you can get one. If you want to watch all 3 Godfather movies in one night…you can get buy the trilogy at 11:30p.m. We all have our late night craving or weird Wal-Mart excursion stories we can share, so feel free to share yours in the comment section below.

Going to Wal-Mart that morning reminded me of the relationship that believers should have with the Holy Spirit. We have ALL that we will ever need to live the life of a believer IN us. The Holy Spirit has spoken this truth many times through my wife Donna to our family and ministry over the last few years. She has said many times, “The power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead is IN us!” That is absolutely the truth!! 24 hours a day and 365 days a year, we have all the guidance, leadership, wisdom, security, hope, grace, love, etc… That we will EVER need. We CAN actually know and understand the will of God for our lives. Check out these verses.

“And the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. For example, we don’t know what God wants us to pray for. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words. And the Father who knows all hearts knows what the Spirit is saying, for the Spirit pleads for us believers in harmony with God’s own will. And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.”      Romans 8:26-28

The Holy Spirit, God’s very presence IN us, prays for us constantly with “groans” that are beyond words. His groaning for us is in complete harmony with God’s perfect will for our lives. Did you get that?? When we surrender completely to God’s voice and presence within us everything can and will work out for our good. Whatever we need is already in us. Believers that are lost and need direction, have all the guidance they need IN them. Believers that are depressed and struggling, have all the hope and encouragement they need IN them. Believers that are addicted, struggling in a relationship, or face doubt and insecurity daily, can find deliverance from what controls them, peace for their marriage, family, & friendships, and all the security and assurance they will ever need IN them! You think Wal-Mart is amazing?? The Holy Spirit is the physical presence of God Himself in You, and He absolutely has EVERYTHING you need.

You don’t need to go somewhere to get it. You don’t need the latest book to find it. You don’t need to be dependent on a church, a person, a youth group, or anything else. All we need is found in the power of God’s Word and His Presence that resides IN us. Don’t get me wrong, I totally believe and know God uses churches, youth groups, books, songs, movies, people, nature, and a multitude of other resources to awaken us to His truth in our lives. I’ve experienced it personally! God uses blogs, books, messages, worship, and so much more to awaken us to truth all the time. But, we can't become more dependent on religious activity, the approval of certain people, and listening to the voices of others to guide us spiritually above making God’s voice within us the first priority. God’s voice should ring louder than all other voices and influences as He leads us. 

You may be thinking, “I don’t hear God’s voice.” It's not because He doesn't wants us to hear his voice. He wants to reveal His perfect will to us. But we must be transformed and renewed in our thinking, so that the Spirit can begin to reveal the Father’s will. We simply must love and allow Him to work within us. Jesus Christ, the visible presence of God who laid down His life for us all, made us a promise while He walked the earth

 “If you love me, obey my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, who will never leave you. He is the Holy Spirit, who leads into all truth. The world cannot receive him, because it isn’t looking for him and doesn’t recognize him. But you know him, because he lives with you now and later will be in you. No, I will not abandon you as orphans—I will come to you. Soon the world will no longer see me, but you will see me. Since I live, you also will live. When I am raised to life again, you will know that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Those who accept my commandments and obey them are the ones who love me. And because they love me, my Father will love them. And I will love them and reveal myself to each of them.”

God wants to reveal Himself to us. He doesn’t want us to walk aimlessly through this life. He doesn’t want us to feel like we have been abandoned. He is our Father! He is gracious and loving. He knows what we need and desire because He created us with those needs and desires. He desires to give us good gifts, and anything that is good in our life comes from our Heavenly Father.  

“So don’t be misled, my dear brothers and sisters. Whatever is good and perfect comes down to us from God our Father, who created all the lights in the heavens. He never changes or casts a shifting shadow. He chose to give birth to us by giving us his true word. And we, out of all creation, became his prized possession.”   James 1:16-18

Here’s the hard truth I must face. The reason I fail to hear God’s voice and understand His will for my life is ME. The reason I find myself in a “mess” is because I try to handle or solve things on my own. When I surrender ALL to the Holy Spirit’s leadership in my life, He WILL supply the needs and desires that God has for me. He isn’t the one who shifts are changes, I am. There is no need to look down aisle after aisle, for what we are seeking. It’s already IN us available every moment of every day.

My wife Donna has said it best, “As we are walking in the Spirit, the plan He established for us before the beginning of time, His perfect will for our lives (Rom. 12:2), will be accomplished.”  

Be blessed today! We would love to read your comments, thoughts, and Wal-Mart Stories below.

weDIGit is a 501 3C organization. You can donate by hitting the PayPal button or sending donations to 504 Tumbleweed, Forney, TX. 75126. All donations are tax deductible and meet the needs of our ministry & family as we continue to walk by faith.

I used to love to fish with my MeeMaw and PeePaw. That's them in the picture to the left. They were my mom’s parents, and they lived just outside of a small town called Stamps in southwest Arkansas. They would take me fishing in a flat bottom boat in what was called the Bodcaw Bottoms. We would fish for a “mess of perch.” For those of you that might not know what the word “mess” means, it means “a lot of.” In the country they say things like, we have a “mess of corn,” or a “mess of peas,” etc… Pretty much whatever you have “a lot of” around your house, can be called a “mess” too. For instance, at the Carroll home we have a “mess of children!” Anywhoo…Back to the story.  

PeePaw would launch us out in the boat and paddle from the front. I would sit in the middle, with a HUGE life vest that dang near suffocated me, so they could keep me under a watchful eye. Apparently I would jump in unannounced at times, so extreme caution was always used. I was a little hyper and excited as a child. Ok. Ok. I’m still at little hyper and excited.

MeeMaw would sit in the back of the boat and direct my PeePaw (she would yell out his name HENRY) where to go. If he didn’t listen to her, then certain “expressions” would fly back and forth over my head as Henry and Nell emphasized the importance of their opinions on the direction of the boat. We didn’t have Twitter or Facebook or Vine or even the internet back then, but man those comments and moments would have made some amazing tweets and videos!  

That life vest I had to wear was a small price to pay to get to fish with them. I never complained, too much, because I loved to fish with them. We would fish for hours, and would usually catch a pretty good “mess” of fish because PeePaw, thanks to MeeMaw’s guidance of course, always knew right where to take us. We’d pull them in one after the other.

PeePaw loved to tell a story about me every time we went fishing. Actually, he’d tell the story pretty much anytime someone new came with me to their house. He would tell the story about how one time, when I was a little boy, we had gone fishing together. We caught a mess of fish and brought them back up on the bank. They dumped the fish out of the bucket, and they begin to flop for all they were worth. They said I laughed & laughed as I pointed to the fish and exclaimed in my high pitched little boy voice, “Look PeePaw!! Those fish are so happy!! They are happy PeePaw!” Each time he told that story he would laugh so hard and smile from ear to ear. Isn’t it funny how you don’t realize how special some moments are until you look back? But, that is for another blog at another time…Today we are talking about Happy Fish and feeling “Like a Fish out of water.”

If fish had feelings, I'm sure they weren't feeling happy. They were out of their environment. They were grasping for water to move through their gills, so they could breathe again. They were dying. Yet, in their death, they were actually providing life and a great meal for our family. It turns out there is a lot we can learn from a flopping fish.

I am learning that as we willing yield to the Holy Spirit’s Sanctifying work in our lives, we will many times feel like a fish out of water. As the Spirit transforms us into the image of our Savior, we will initially, and quite frequently, also feel like a fish out of water. When we step out in complete, blind, and dare I say “stupid” faith to pursue God’s purpose and will in our lives, we will again feel like a fish out of water. When the Holy Spirit asks us to do or speak or act or believe for something that is completely different than anything we’ve ever done or experienced before, we will feel like a fish out of water. Why? Because we are out of our environment! Because it’s not like we’ve always done it! Because it’s not OUR WAY! It’s His. So, if we aren’t flopping around every now and then, we must still be in the safety of what is comfortable, familiar, and all about us.     

I have felt like a fish out of water many times over the past 3 years as Donna and I stepped out to begin weDIGit. Many of you may have witnessed my “flopping” from afar. I have flopped around trying to get back to what felt “normal.” I have flopped around in fear of the unknown. I have flopped around attempting to figure things out or make things happen on my own. The temptation has been to believe that I needed to get back into the water of what I have always known. I didn’t want to die. I wanted to go back to a safe environment. I wanted to have a “normal” way of life. I wanted something “consistent” financially. But you know what? As my flopping begins to subside, I am beginning to really understand what Jesus meant in John 12:24.

“I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat is planted in the soil and dies, it remains alone. But its death will produce many new kernels--a plentiful harvest of new lives.”

To live, we have to die. Die to self. Die to the opinion and approval of others. Die to our wants & desires. Die to our plans and goals. Die to our opinions & false beliefs. Die to our way of life. Die to anything and everything that is not of God. Then, and only then, can we really LIVE! Not only live, but Jesus says in John 10:10 we can live a life that is ABUNDANT and FULL! A life that yields a harvest of NEW lives as the Holy Spirit transforms us, even as we are flopping, into the image of Jesus Christ Himself. We can then share our flopping stories with others around us. We can share with others how that because of God’s grace, mercy, and love we have been Transformed! Changed! Healed! Restored! Renewed! Ceased to Flop! And as the Psalmist says in Psalm 40, “Many will see and fear the Lord!”  

When we quit flopping around like a “fish out of water”, we finally submit to the death of self, and allow the Holy Spirit and the power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead to work IN and through us to bring glory to the Father through all that we do and say. When that happens, the words of Jesus in Matthew 19:26 will be clearer than ever before.

“Jesus looked at them intently and said, “Humanly speaking, it is impossible. But with God everything is possible.”

You see, God does the miracle IN US! He makes anything and everything possible! If He ordains it, He will sustain it! Can I get an Amen from my flopping dying- to-self brothers and sisters out there??  It’s HIS life IN us!

If you are flopping around like a fish out of water today be encouraged!! I’m a flopper too! But guess what, we are not alone! As we yield to God’s Sanctifying, death to self, work in our lives, He has promised that He will never leave us or forsake us. The pain may be great. The flopping may be severe and frequent. We may be grasping for air. But we can find hope in the words of Jesus in John 16:32,  

“I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.”