He Pulled Out Their Hair

Next time you are tempted to pull someone's hair because they are not listening, you were not the only one. LOL

Nehemiah 13:25 "So I contended with them and cursed them and struck some of them and pulled out their hair, and made them swear by God, "You shall not give your daughters to their sons, nor take of their daughters for your sons or for yourselves."

And we were thinking the prophets walked around all smiley faced and positive, winning people by their clever levity an...d winning personalities. Think again, Jeremiah was referred to as the weeping prophet."

A true prophet of God does not attempt to only see the good and compliment it. He notices mostly the ugly that needs to be corrected and rebuked.

The good needs little attention, it's already good, it's the bad that needs to have attention paid to is, that is what brings others around to becoming better if they listen.

There is no need to pay much attention to that which is already working well, the broken things are the things that need our attention.

Encouragement in my opinion is helping someone to keep going in the right direction with an "atta boy", while moving on to spending most of the time instructing those who are not going in the right direction, but want to know.

It is a waste of time to continue to instruct or warn those who refuse to listen, those who are hell bent on doing things their own way, even if it is not working for them, or when they haven't had enough experience to understand that it will not working for them.

Matthew 11:14-16 "…14"And if you are willing to accept it, John himself is Elijah who was to come. 15"He who has ears to hear, let him hear. 16 "But to what shall I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the market places, who call out to the other children,"

Christ said a number of times, "those who have ears to hear, let him hear." It was His way of saying, "those who are willing to listen and learn let them pay attention."