One Day at a Time

Are You Being Forced to Wait?

“I’m sorry, but you’re fired,” Pete’s boss told him. “You’ve missed too many days, and you’ve come in drunk or high just as many.”

Pete cringed, gathered his tools, and left. The bills continued to come. He heard plenty from his wife about the lack of money and the other jobs he lost.

He had to stop drinking and drugging. He couldn’t go through this agony again. He couldn’t go to the same places or hang around the same people. He’d give in to the pressure and drink or use again.

Pete told almost everyone he knew he needed a job. Hopefully one of them could help him obtain one. He and his wife prayed and waited.

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Do You Know the Meaning of “God’s Steadfast Love?”

Psalm 89:1-2 (NRSV)
I will sing of Your steadfast love, O Lord, forever; with my mouth I will proclaim Your faithfulness to all generations. I declare that Your steadfast love is established forever; Your faithfulness is as firm as the heavens.

There is a great deal wrong with our society and within each person (since social ills begin within the individual heart). As a believer who lives in an extremely secular (and sinful) society (California), I could spend my days focused upon how much is wrong with all around me, bemoaning my fate and wondering what shoe will fall next. Or, I can choose with the psalmist to focus instead upon the Creator and Master of all, trusting that God is going to work out and win out in the long haul.

Father God’s love is steadfast. The Hebrew word checed translated thus is interesting. Vine’s expounded on its meaning:

    “In general, one may identify three basic meanings of the word, which always interact: ‘strength,’ ‘steadfastness,’ and ‘love.’ Any understanding of the word that fails to suggest all three inevitably loses some of its richness. ‘Love’ by itself easily becomes sentimentalized or universalized apart from the covenant. Yet ‘strength’ or ‘steadfastness’ suggests only the fulfillment of a legal or other obligation.

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The 12 Steps for Those Who Love an Alcoholic

1. We admitted we were powerless over the lives of our loved ones.

2. We came to believe that Christ could change our way of thinking.

3. We made a decision to turn our will and lives over to Christ, COMPLETELY.

4. We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of OURSELVES.

5. We admitted to Christ, ourselves, and to another person the exact nature of our wrongs.

6. We were entirely ready to have Christ remove all these defects
of character.

7. We humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

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Surrender

Driving down the freeway your left rear tire explodes.You gently pull to the side of the road to exit and see what happened. You begin to check to see why it popped.

STOP.

The problem with most of humanity is that reason right there. In the end, it doesn’t matter what popped the tire. It doesn’t matter that if you were in the other lane, you could of avoided it. It doesn’t matter that you will now be late. And it doesn’t matter when you say, ” I knew I should of called in”. Why? Because none of those things actually happened.

Work on the solution. Take it off, and fix it. There is nothing in this world that is good, nor bad that you can prevent. For there is only rules one can live by, for which when done, makes you accept when the unpreventable happens.

How many of you would go back and change an event in your life? Let’s say one would change their academic career. For which the only reason I can think of would be to have a better job, and obtain more money. They are not living by the rules given. Money is absolutely nothing. It buys fake rules for which leads people to think it is something. Money creates man to believe you can prevent. Money can not make one go back and prevent your flat tire. It can only buy you a new one. It can not make you sober, only get you into places that try to help get you sober. False: money controls people places and things. Fact: people places and things allow money to control them. Other examples are such; I would of not married that person, I would have said bye to my father before he died. I would of never used. I would of answered the phone. I would of been kinder. Would, should, could. Words I will never understand.

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Who Are You Serving?

Then Samuel told the whole house of Israel, “If you’re returning to the Lord with all your heart, then remove the foreign gods and the Ashtaroth from among you, direct your hearts back to the Lord, and serve him only. Then he will deliver you from the control of the Philistines.” 1 Samuel 7:3, NET Bible

I have to look seriously at who – or what – I am serving. For I can be easily deceived if I am not regularly submitting myself to the Lord my God.

There are many things I can serve in this world, none of which honour Jesus: I can serve money, other people, addictions to various substances or activities – I can even serve an addiction to people if what they think of me, or if their opinion, is more important to me than His opinion or what the Lord thinks of me.

Something else that I can become a servant to is my emotions. It is so easy for me to become overwhelmed by my feelings, and when I do, I can begin to quickly bow down to them. When anger rears its ugly head in me, it is all too natural for me to lash out at my husband or the nearest loved one to me. However, the Lord says in His Word:

A gentle answer turns away wrath,
but a harsh word stirs up anger. Proverbs 15:1, NIV84

When I feel discouraged and overwhelmed by a task that is before me, it is simple for me to say, “I just can’t do this!” But the Word of the Lord speaks differently:

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In Trouble? You have a Privilege and a Future

“Call upon Me in the day of trouble! I will deliver you–and you shall glorify Me!” Psalm 50:15

In this portion of the divine Word, you will discover:
1. your present portion–trouble;
2. your constant privilege–prayer;
3. your future prospect–deliverance.

1. Your present portion is TROUBLE.
You must expect trouble, and will certainly be deceived if you expect to escape it. Sin is the parent of trouble–and our sin-cursed earth its fruitful soil. Trouble springs up all around us, and appears in an almost infinite variety of forms.

Every connection we form,
every character we bear,
every office we fill, and
every relation we sustain–
is a fruitful source of trouble!

We shall have…
trouble in mind,
trouble in circumstances,
trouble in body;
trouble from almost every quarter!

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Being Victorious Over Your Enemies

Deuteronomy 28:7
“The Lord will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before you; they shall come out against you one way, and flee before you seven ways.”

Every believer has enemies. In fact, every believer has three enemies: Satan and his hoards, sin, and our own mortal flesh. Notice that I didn’t mention other people… precisely because our warfare isn’t against other people (for whom Christ also died), but against principalities, powers, and spiritual wickedness (Ephesians 6:12). But we do have enemies and we should be doing battle everyday against those enemies. The wonderful thing is that those enemies are already defeated. In fact, they don’t simply skulk away from the direction they came. The Lord routes them in seven different directions! They fly pell mell, unable to even chart a course, due to their fear of the Lord’s armies.

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New Year’s Resolutions

written January 1st but applicable to any new beginning

Today is traditionally a day of resolutions: I will eat more healthy. I will exercise more. I will spend more time with my family. To be honest, I’m just horrible with resolutions. Even if I make just one, I can do that one thing regularly… for a while… and then life comes crashing in and I find that my resolution (and all my good intentions) go right out the window. I just can’t handle looking at life over a long period of time. Too many things happen that make demands upon me… demands on my time, on my emotions, on my energy, on my focus.

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Fly to Him


Learn the Divine skill of making God all things to you. He can supply you with all; or, better still, He can be to you instead of all.

Let me urge you, then, to make use of your God. Make use of Him in prayer; go to Him often, because He is your God. Will you fail to use so great a privilege?

Fly to Him; tell Him all your wants. Use Him constantly by faith at all times. If some dark providence has beclouded you, use your God as a “sun”; if some strong enemy has beset you, find in Jehovah a “shield”; for He is a sun and a shield to His people. If you have lost your way in the mazes of life, use Him as a “guide”; for He will direct you.

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Psalms for Eating Disorder Recovery

If you are looking for strength, hope or comfort in your eating disorder recovery, consider looking to the book of Psalms. May the Lord strengthen you and give you peace as He speaks to you through His Word.

For hope and strength, you can go to Psalm 46. From verse 1 which says, “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble” to verse 11 which states, “The LORD Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress” you can go to this Psalm when you need to know that God is with you and is strengthening you. You can find more of the same in Psalm 121. From verses 1 and 2, which declares “I lift up my eyes to the hills-where does my help come from? My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth” to verses 5 and 6 which reassure, “The LORD watches over you-the LORD is your shade at your right hand; the sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon by night” this short eight verse Psalm offers a lot of hope and strength.

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