Discouragement

Four Questions For Broken People

The ultimate measure of a person is not where one stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where one stands in times of challenge and controversy. ~Martin Luther King

Have you ever thought you were too weak to help?

It’s easy to imagine someone who’s better qualified, tempting to believe that your personal failures render you useless. We all want to conceal our dirty laundry, but followers of Christ must remember that we’re called to serve where we are and to offer ourselves in that service. We’re all gifted so we can offer those gifts in service to others.

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Do Your Part – How to Strengthen Your Faith

2 Peter1:5-8
For this very reason, you must make every effort to support your faith with goodness, and goodness with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with endurance, and endurance with godliness, and godliness with mutual affection, and mutual affection with love. For if these things are yours and are increasing among you, they keep you from being ineffective and unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

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God’s Role in Tragedy

God does not allow evil and suffering to continue because He does not love us, or is in some way detached and removed from us. God takes our suffering so seriously, that he took it upon himself on the cross. ~ Tim Keller

When I speak to a group about RELENTLESS GRACE, the questions are frequently penetrating and gut-wrenchingly honest. One question is asked more than any other. “Do you believe that God caused your injury?”

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Coasting – The Importance of Rest

If you’re coasting, you’re either losing momentum or else you’re headed downhill.

I suppose that’s true.

Cyclists don’t get stronger or faster by coasting. The only way to increase performance is to pedal as hard as possible, even on downhill stretches. When you coast, you don’t improve.

But I don’t think coasting is always negative. I think we’re making a mistake to always equate coasting with laziness and waste.

We can get awfully focused on productivity and efficiency, working hard, maximizing potential gains. Nothing wrong with that.

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I ASKED God and He SAID

I asked God to take away my addictions and behaviors.­
God said, No.­
It is not for me to take away, but for you to give it up.­

I asked God to make my handicapped child whole.­
God said, No.­
His spirit is whole, his body is only temporary­

I asked God to grant me patience.­
God said, No.­
Patience is a byproduct of tribulations;
it isn’t granted, it is learned.­

I asked God to give me happiness.­
God said, No.­
I give you blessings; Happiness is up to you.­

I asked God to spare me pain.­
God said, No.­
Suffering draws you apart from worldly cares
and brings you closer to me.­

I asked God to make my spirit grow.­
God said, No.­
You must grow on your own! ,
but I will prune you to make you fruitful.­

I asked God for all things that I might enjoy life.­

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Weary Yet Pursuing

Then Gideon and the 300 men who were with him came to the Jordan {and} crossed over, weary yet pursuing. Judges 8:4, NASB(emphasis added).

The story about Gideon and his meager band of men defeating a massive enemy gathering is always inspiring to me. First, I’m reminded that no battle is ever won in my own strength. Second, I’m encouraged by the fact that nothing is impossible with God.

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Who told you that?

After the fall, Adam began to explain to God how he was ashamed and afraid because he was naked. I love the way God responded:
Who told you that you were naked?” Genesis 3:11

Obviously Adam had been influenced, informed and instructed by a voice other than the voice of God. God was perturbed about it!
“You think you need to hide in shame and be afraid?
Who told you that?”

I wonder how many times God has the same objection when He hears the lies we believe:
Who told you that?

Who told you weren’t capable?
Who told you one little compromise wouldn’t hurt?
Who told you you’d never accomplish anything significant?
Who told you it was too late to start over?
Who told you that you couldn’t be forgiven?

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When the Wheels Come Off

I grew up in the 70’s and 80’s when parents still told their kids to go outside and play. My friends and I would spend all day in the yard and when we got hot and sweaty enough we’d run to the back patio, open the water spigot on the side of the house and get down on our hands and knees so we could get low enough to turn our mouths up for a drink of water that splashed all over our faces and down our necks. In the evenings I remember seeing my parents shaking their heads as they watched the oil crises in the 1970’s unfold on the nightly news. Gas prices skyrocketed to 73 cents a gallon! “Turn it off,” my mother would say to my dad. “Good grief! The wheel’s are coming off but they make it sound like the world’s ending.”

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