Guidelines For Living Devotional

Does God Get Your Best?

It's an old story, one I heard as a boy. About the turn of the 20th century, a missionary who was working in Central Asia saw a mother of twins, both babies under her arms, walking slowly, deliberately towards the river. Understanding the local belief that twins were cursed and that one should be sacrificed to the gods by throwing it in the local river, he wondered if this fate was in the mind of the woman who walked so slowly that morning.

How Valuable Are You?

How valuable are you anyway? Are you worth your weight in diamonds or rubies? Or even rice or potatoes? Scores of people today feel that their worth is not even that of straw. They struggle with feelings of worthlessness and inadequacies, completely overwhelmed by their feelings of inferiority, and the more they think about it, the worse the situation becomes.

"We Continue to Love"

The year was 1976. The place: Czechoslovakia. Alan Travers told about it in a Trans World Radio publication. He was ministering in a church which had been infiltrated by Communist agents who reported everything that was said and done. He wrote, "One of the men in the church was pointed out to me as the government spy who would report to the police the next day everything that was said in church that morning. I was not surprised that there was such an informer there, but what did surprise me was that during the morning prayer session this man stood up and prayed and the congregation joined in with him."

The Answer to the Sickness of Sin

In the comedy, "The Three Stooges," there is a scene where Curly and Moe are angry with each other. The smaller of the two men always comes out being the loser, so Curly says, "I'm going to strap a stick of dynamite to my chest, so the next time he hits me, he'll get blown up!" Sure! That's what happens when you plot revenge on someone who has hurt you. Revenge not only destroys your enemy, it destroys you at the same time.

Revenge, Repression, or Forgiveness

The judge called it "strength." The prosecutor called it "refreshing." And the general public called it "crazy!" It was the response of forgiveness which a 70 year-old woman had towards the man who cut her throat and sexually assaulted her.

A Church for the Birds

An unknown pundit wrote the following: "A group of birds decided to form a church. So they called a meeting and the duck stood up and said, 'I think we should require baptism by immersion. It's the only way we can get their pocketbooks wet.' But the rooster said, 'No, we should baptize people by sprinkling...many people dislike the embarrassment of getting wet all over.' So the argument went on.

Does God Have a Sense of Humor?

"Does God really lack a sense of humor?" That question was the lead sentence in a newspaper article that crossed my desk. I read the article and got to thinking about it. John Dart, writing for the L. A. Times, asked some provocative questions and started me thinking. Does God have a sense of humor?

Leaving the Answers to God

“Dear Dr. Sala,” writes a friend of Guidelines. “Your radio messages...are also uplifting. I oftentimes tell myself, what is life for? Why should one person be more hurt than others? Why must one’s life be lived until you succumb to death? Why can’t one evaporate, vanish on one’s command, if life is untenable? Can you give some answers to these questions?”

Is God Really to Blame?

“Dear Dr. Sala,” writes a listener. “First and foremost, I’m mad. Really mad at my life. It’s the pits. All of my life, God has been unfair to me. He put me in a dysfunctional family, made me endure things you wouldn’t imagine possible and made me ugly. I feel so ugly because people respond to me in a way that I don’t like.” The last sentence reads, “I wrote this letter as a last resort.” And it is signed, “Whipsawed by Confusion.”

The Lure of the Emotional

What do you do when your head and your heart don’t agree, besides hurting a lot? A young woman who is a Christian, unhappily married and wanting to find the right person and marry, meets a man, usually married and a few years older than she, and he begins to give her attention. He makes her feel important and tells her how turned on he is by her, that she is exactly what he has been looking for all his life.