Focus Your Energies

Don’t create for anyone but yourself, for within yourself is the satisfaction you desire. How can one hope to please everyone? That's right! You can't. And since you can't, you shouldn't fret with people that don't understand your vision. Just ignore anything that isn't constructive. 

Be persistent and focus your energies on what you want to achieve. Splitting your mind amongst many different things will prevent you from mastery. Resistance will become your tomb. Resistance is a tomb, by the way.

On your epitaph is nothing you can ever read. So, die for yourself as well. Life is one shot. Don't get lost in the idea that you could die before you achieve anything of merit. Seems as if we are more enthralled by novelty, and less by actual skill. But God is interested in devotion. He wants to know if you'll honor the gift that was given to you, or will you squander it, wasted like orange juice on your kitchen floor.

Daily Devotional: You Lack Nothing

Philippians 4:19

19 And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.

Even in my suffering, my own "first world problems", I reach out for the comfort of Christ.  I am, by no stretch of the imagination, perfect. I stumble.  I fall. But I also know how to get back to my feet.  If there is an experience of lack in my mind, it is only a temporary vapor, dissipating in an instant.  

There is truly nothing that we lack.  As the Bible says, even as God supplies the animals with all they need, how much more will he do for us, his most cherished and beloved on this planet?  In our problems, it is hard to see the forest for the trees therein, and we get caught up in the future of what could happen instead of being concerned about the very moment.  

The Bible instructs us to not be concerned about the issues of tomorrow, for tomorrow has enough issues of its own.  We should not be worried about what will happen, but more concerned about what is going within us and within the moment.  

Have you ever sat down to meditate on God, in complete solitude?  Did you notice how peaceful it is to feel the moment and live within it?  Reading the Word will do this if you allow it.  Everything that you need is there; all the answers you seek are at your fingertips.  He will give you all that you need, if you just come to him and ask.

Praise God for his love and mercy. 

Be blessed. 

Daily Devotional: Pray for Rain Amidst the Drought

“When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land."
– 2 Chronicles 7:13-14 (NIV)

We expect God to forgive us, but often we forget that we still must repent for our sins. We must seek God in earnest, asking not only for forgiveness, but for guidance.  We look toward him for deliverance, and we must find our way here, on the earthly plain while he works outside of time.

God does not condemn us to torment and pain. Often, we find ourselves on this path due to the problems we face and what we do to each other.  We are all connected.  Each and every one of us is linked, and what we do individually will eventually affect someone else; and so on, and so forth.  Surely, you did not think you were here on this planet, alone, eking out your existence in lonesome drudgery? No, my friends. We are here, together.  And until we understand this mere fact, that we share an eternal and fateful connection, we will consistently suffer each other's hurt over and over again.

Humility is not something one comes by easily.  It takes effort to admit you are wrong.  You, who have committed sin against another, will likely not admit it to their face.  We barely like to admit that we are wrong. Isn't that sad?  But God in Heaven shows us that forgiveness is not something that is just given, but earned and worked for, because you have to be able to forgive others, first.

May you be blessed today.  Amen.