First, let me apologize! I am doing an on-line Bible study for A Sudden Glory, and the blog mailing list and the Bible study mailing list got married for a very brief time yesterday. So you might have received Lesson 1 Day 2 by mistake. PLEASE don’t unsubscribe on that email. It will remove you from everything. The problem has been fixed and you should not receive any more Bible study emails unless you have subscribed to that as well. Read more…
Gratitude Changes Everything
“Give thanks in all circumstances,” (1 Thessalonians 5:18 NIV).
Paul wrote the Thessalonians, “Give thanks in all circumstances,” (1 Thessalonians 5:18). We read that verse and think it rather nice. So we slap a sloppy coat of thanksgiving on life and go about our day. In reality, most of us are thankful for very little.
Notice the Bible doesn’t command us to feel thankful in all circumstances. Read more…
Practicing Gratitude
God inhabits the praises of His people (Psalm 22:3 KJV).
Gratitude is the most effective way to deepen your consciousness to the fact that you are the object of God’s affection and love. [tweetherder][/tweetherder]Giving thanks awakens your senses to see God, to hear God, to taste and see that He is good. [tweetherder]When you feel far from God, Read more…
From Grumbling to Grateful in the Blink of an Eye
“Do everything without grumbling and arguing,” (Philippians 2:14 NIV)
Monday I issued a challenge for you to wear a rubber-band around your wrist and pop it every time you grumbled or complained. Here are just a few of the pictures I received of brave souls who took me up on the challenge! I’m so proud of you! Read more…
The Danger of Ingratitude
“Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise,” (Psalm 100:4 NIV).
“Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise,” (Psalm 100:4). Right in the center of my Bible, I find an invitation into God’s presence. And while there is nowhere we can go away from God’s presence, Read more…
Ingratitude is Contagious…Don’t Be a Carrier
“When the Lord heard your complaining, he became very angry. So he solemnly swore, ‘Not one of you from this wicked generation will live to see the good land I swore to give your ancestors, except Caleb son of Jephunneh. He will see this land because he has followed the Lord completely. Read more…
God Sees Your Disappointment
“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are – yet without sin,” (Hebrews 4:15 NIV).
Let’s face it. People let us down. They disappoint us. And so does God. Often our experiences fall short of our expectations for God to meet all our needs the way we think He should, Read more…
Disappointment with God Part 2
“So we fix our eyes not on what is seen but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:18).
As you live and move and have your being in Christ, at some point, difficult days will come. We live in a fallen world, and suffering is simply a part of it. Read more…
Disappointment with God Part 1
“All the ways of the LORD are loving and faithful,” (Psalm 25:10 NIV).
I sat on the floor playing a card game with my young son. It was shaping up to be one of the best summers ever. Steven was savoring every minute of the long hot days, our Golden Retriever, Ginger, had delivered seven adorable puppies, and after years of negative pregnancy tests and doctor visits, Read more…
When the Earth Drops Out From Beneath Your Feet Part 2
His ways are higher than our ways and His thoughts higher than our thoughts,
(Isaiah 55:9 NIV).
If it were up to me, I would have written some stories differently. I would have a little girl who would be twenty-one years old this year. Carol’s son would not be in prison. Linda’s twenty-year-old daughter would not be a quadriplegic because of a car crash at a tollbooth when she was a toddler. Read more…