A SIMPLE PROP ILLUSTRATION:
All you need is a rubber band, a zip tie, and a few pens.
When the zip tie is used to bundle the pens, it's locked in place. Once the zip tie is locked in place around the pens, it's use is final. You have to cut the zip tie to unbind the pens, rendering the zip tie totally useless.
But when you take the rubber band and bundle the pens together, you can easily remove the rubber band to free the pens. And the rubber band is still useful, because the rubber band is flexible. It can be used over and over again.
Life is a progression of events. Things change. People are different. In order to grow, you must stay flexible. Flexibility is the constant readiness for change and a willingness to be used. You are willing to be stretched in order to fulfill God's purposes in your life and in your relationships.
"Blessed are the flexible, for they will not be bent out of shape" - Dr. Terry Sparks, Family Life Church - Sulphur Springs, TX.
"For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, WILLING TO YIELD, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy" (James 3:16-17, NKJV).
Someone has noted that it's a pity more people can't travel the straight and narrow path without become straight-laced and narrow minded.
There is a balance that elludes many who attempt to walk the narrow way. That balance is between allowing God to make you a better person and never allowing yourself to take any credit for it.
"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith —and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast" (Ephesians 2:8-9).
"Skepticon is NOT welcomed to my Christian Business." That is the sign that greeted customers at Andy Drennen’s Springfield, MO, gelato shop this past Saturday (11/19/11). He posted the discriminating declaration in response to a Skepticon Convention attendee whom Drennen said was delivering a mock sermon and cursing the Bible. “There was this guy who made very vulgar comments about my faith. He was just really disrespectful. Very, very disrespectful toward my Christian views."
There is no doubt that Pastafarians take great delight in ridiculing and deriding Christianity and people of faith. Nevertheless, is banning them from our businesses really the message we want to be communicating to a group which already finds us narrow-minded and intolerant?
Jesus went to great lengths to welcome doubters! Remember his response to Doubting Thomas? He laid open not just his heart, but even his very wounds to him.