Guidelines For Living Devotional

How Do You Know When You Have Heard God’s Voice?

Have you discovered that when someone says, "God told me to do something," we think that either we are confronted with a deeply spiritual individual or someone who needs a psychiatrist?

Stop And Listen To God’s Voice

Have you ever had the experience of being somewhere away from the noise and din of the city, perhaps in the mountains somewhere, or in a desert; and as you sat and looked at the starry sky, you were amazed at the silence?  It was quiet, right?  Wrong!  It wasn't quiet; it was just that you couldn't hear the sounds.  Strange but true is the fact that the atmosphere around you is filled with a thousand voices, but you just aren't tuned to them.  You can't pick them up.  If someone asks you what kind of a device you're listening to, you would say, "Well...it's a radio."  Or "I'm listening online over the internet."   There are "voices"—sound waves, cellular and digital signals all around us!

You Are Not Isolated Or Alone

Back when the world's population was less than 250 million, a mere fraction of what it is today, the prophet Isaiah wrote, "Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no place, that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth!" (Isaiah 5:8, KJV).  I wonder how he would feel today when skyscrapers puncture the skyline of almost every major city on earth, yet one of the ironic contradictions of our day is that there are more people alive today than have died since creation, and furthermore, there is more loneliness than ever before.  Strange, isn't it?  You would think that with more people, there would be less estrangement and loneliness.  But it just does not work that way.

Find True Companionship

Alone! is the title of Admiral William Byrd's autobiography.  It’s the story of his life as this celebrated explorer tells about his experience in a little hut in the Antarctic near the South Pole.  Byrd tells how the isolation of seeing no other human being day after day began working on his mind and emotions as he spent the long winter alone, separated from friends and loved ones, even separated from friendly animals which might have offered some companionship or comfort.  "Alone!"  None would deny it, but a person does not have to spend a long arctic night in a little hut near the pole to know what it is to experience feelings of isolation and loneliness.

What Is A True Friend?

In the event that you are ready to lose faith in humanity, let me tell you about Jean Rosenstein and what happened to her. Mrs. Rosenstein sat down at a small table in her cramped, one‑bedroom apartment and painfully put her thoughts on paper. The arthritis in her fingers made the writing difficult and painful but she continued.

This Is The Cure For Loneliness

The composer Peter Tchaikovsky knew what loneliness is.  He raised the shades on the window of his heart as he wrote in a minor key, "None but the lonely heart can feel my anguish..."  There are more people today than ever before who know the anguish of the lonely heart.  In spite of the fact that more people are alive right now than have ever died from the days of Adam and Eve to the present, there are also more lonely people than ever before.  It takes more than masses of people to eliminate loneliness.

Here Is A Remedy For Your Pain

It is said, "Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty."  Yes, and the worse malady mankind struggles with is on the rise.  We are all becoming lonelier and social scientists say, it may be a result of replacing our flesh and blood relationships with the virtual "friendships" of social media.  Replacing face to face relationships with Facebook friends or whatever, interacting with people that we may actually hardly know, real human social interaction has declined. In 1985, only 10 percent of Americans said they had no one with whom to discuss important matters, and 15 percent said they had only one such good friend. By 2004, 25 percent had nobody to talk to, and 20 percent had only one confidant.[1] Our relationships may stretch wider, but they are much more shallow.  We can be reached 24/7 but our hearts are less touchable by another real person than ever before.
 
[1] http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/05/is-facebook-making-us-lonely/308930/.  Accessed 5/16/16.

Why Should I Love My Neighbor?

Dr. Karl Menninger, the often-quoted authority on mental illness, said, "Love is the medicine for our sick old world."  Few would disagree!  Yet it is one thing to love the masses of the world--say, for example, China with its 1.4 billion people, and another thing to love the Chinese family who owns the local hardware store. Soren Kierkegaard wisely points out the fact that there is nothing in the Bible about loving man in the mass--only clear commands about loving individuals. 

Learn About The Father’s Love

Robert Knowles thought that he knew the formula for conveying values to children.  He told the press that he really believed a child would turn out just fine if the parents loved the child, spent plenty of time with him, involved him in wholesome activities, and helped him get a balanced education.  Quote:  "Suddenly after 17 years of dedicated effort, something happened to my fool-proof plan.  I found I was the father of a murderer."

Are All Men Created Equal?

 How much is a human life really worth?  Is the life of a youth worth more than that of an elderly person?  Is the life of a peasant equal in value, say, to that of a youth who has a college degree and has his life before him?  That question was debated in China, when an old peasant fell into a night-soil pit, and a twenty-four-year-old medical student, Zhang Hua, seeing his distress, waded into the pit to save the old man.