Guidelines For Living Devotional

It’s Time to Slow Down Your Life

Living faster than ever before and enjoying it less?  Millions of people are like that, living in a pressure cooker environment, packing more and more into less and less time, but liking it less every day.  Whatever makes life worth living–the leisure walk through the woods, the time to sit and play with your baby, a candlelight meal with your husband, time to read and reflect–are all swallowed up by the monster of doing more and more in less time?

How To Make Today Count

How you speak two words tells a great deal about your outlook on life--two very important words that are often spoken at the beginning of the day.  Those two very revealing words are, "ANOTHER DAY."  Think for a moment.  When you awake in the morning and say, "Another day...," how do you say it?  The inflection of your voice reveals a lot about your attitude.

4 Guidelines To Help You Think Straight

Do you remember when your friend made a bad choice, a wrong decision like walking out of a marriage, or quitting a job over a petty disagreement, or allowing a disagreement to break a long-time friendship?  And you said, "That person isn't thinking straight!" 

6 Ways To Get Out Of A Mess

Have you ever had the experience of waking up in the morning and asking yourself, "How have I gotten to this place?  What has happened to me?  Where did I go wrong?"  The realization that you were in the wrong place under the wrong set of circumstances hit you like a ton of bricks.  You suddenly realized that you had missed the right turn a few miles back down the road of life.  Now you are asking, "How do I get out of this mess?  Or is there a way out at all?"

Start Including God In Your Thought Process

Only ten percent of all people really think.  Seventy-five percent think they think, and fifteen percent would rather die than think.  Do you believe that?  I often close a program with the phrase, "Think about it!"  Yet, quite often, we prefer not to think because when we really do think about something, we are confronted with the consequences of our actions which we prefer not to see.

Have You Thought About Your Relationship With God?

The human brain is an amazing creation.  It has spawned the marvelous inventions of space and plummeted the depths of the biological kingdom.  It has given birth to the space program, the marvelous advancements of medicine, the libraries of the world, the advancements of civilization, the remarkable achievements in the fields of science, history, anthropology, literature, social studies and a jillion things that neither time nor space allow me to mention.  It has also produced the negative rationale behind two world wars and a host of lesser conflicts and the hideous reality of concentration camps, and has filled the prisons of the world because of man's failure to think through the consequences of his actions.

How Do Thoughts Dictate Actions?

Some 3000 years ago the wise man—perhaps Solomon himself—said it so well: "For as he thinks in his heart, so is he."   Simply put, you become what you think—negative or positive.   Your thinking shapes your attitude, and your attitude is like the wood carver's tool that molds you into the image you become.

What Is True Love?

"How could God really love me if He let this happen to me?" If you have never said it, chances are you have thought it--at least for a fleeting moment, and perhaps that thought took root in your mind and the logic has become a real problem. In coping with the problem of circumstances which run counter to your belief in a good God who loves you, you may well have to disengage yourself from the broken relationship which stands as a barrier between you and God's love.

Can I Question God’s Goodness?

Afflictions come to us in all sizes and shapes. I am thinking of two individuals in particular--one of whom sustained brain damage in a sports injury and then faced a life-long physical impairment, and another who has grown bitter over the loss of a baby girl found dead in her crib.  Both of them talk of God's love. The first speaks of it as a comfort and a strength; the other as an obstacle--"How could God really love us and allow this to happen?" In one case the injury drove him to God; in the other, it drove her away from God.

What To Do When You Doubt God’s Love

Have you ever doubted that God does love you?  Have you ever faced circumstances that caused you to say, "How could God love me when He has allowed circumstances as these?"  It may have been the death of your child, or a mate who deeply disappointed you, or something about which you prayed, and your prayer went unanswered—or so you thought.  Possibly you did not verbalize it at all, but way down in your heart you just allowed those thoughts of, "How could this happen if God really loved me?" to reverberate in your soul.