GRASS ISN'T GREENER ON THE OTHER SIDE

by Roy Todd

There’s an old saying which says that ‘the grass is always greener on the other side.’ Problem is…if you travel to ‘the other side’, you’ll soon discover that the green stuff isn’t really grass. It’s actually astroturf. It’s not real. It’s fake. It’s boring. It’s unfulfilling. You can’t grow there. When you’ve been on ‘the other side’ for a while, it doesn’t take too long before you start to reminisce and look back to… ‘the other side’, remembering those good old days when you enjoyed the joys of authentic green grass where you could actually grow.

‘Other side’ thinking is never helpful. It stems from unhealthy comparisons which reveal more about the insecurities of our heart than the challenges of our circumstances. The enemy can do great damage in the confusion of warped thinking like that.

Now for the truth. The grass will always be greenest where YOU choose to stay and grow it. This is why it’s important to get firmly planted in God’s house. It’s the only way you’ll ever experience real growth. Being planted is a natural principle. It’s also a spiritual principle too. It’s a long term commitment rather than a short term fix.

One of the things that will kill your spiritual health is panic. This is the result of allowing a false sense of perspective to invade your thinking. It focuses on what seems wrong. It obsesses over what you don’t have. It guilts and goads you, making you feel inadequate and full of failure. It adds a stress to your life that is unfair, unnecessary and unhelpful. It robs you of the joy of what God has blessed you with.

When panic sets in, it corrupts your thinking. It’s assumption is that another garden will be better for you. So an uprooting process takes place. It’s not instant. It takes a while. There’s a gradual shifting that happens in the heart. But eventually, it occurs fully. And so the search for greener grass goes on. Meanwhile, all that energy, time and passion you’d previously invested in the ‘old’ garden – it has become rootless and disconnected from the future of the garden. Problem is….that ‘old’ garden grows healthier and healthier. Then it flourishes and blooms. It eventually becomes a magnificent landscape admired by all who see it – a place where life and growth abound. Suddenly a revelation dawns….the enemy had lied after all. The grass wasn’t better on the other side. It was perfectly healthy where you were.

The enemy loves to feed insecurity and doubt. That’s why it’s important to have people around you who are themselves firmly planted in God’s house – who dare to speak the encouragement of God’s word into your life – who don’t pander to negativism – who challenge unbelief and provoke you to trust God. Nothing crushes the devil’s scheming more than a community full of people like this.

Hold your nerve. If you will keep tilling the ground around you and continue laying foundations of faith, hope & love, you WILL flourish…right where you are.

CHECK OUT THE JUNCTION CHURCH LEICESTER HERE AND THE JUNCTION CHURCH LOUGHBOROUGH HERE.