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“Be still and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.” Psalm 46:10

Being still is not a behavior that is valued in the culture of the United States, instead constant action is valued. There is a belief that the busier you are the more productive you are. That may be valued and be a belief here on earth, but our Lord looks at the idea of being constantly moving differently. He values stillness and quality time with us, His children.

It is hard to notice things around you when you are constantly moving or focusing on several different projects. As we multitask we divide our attention into so many areas that we can lose sight of very important areas. Our full attention is not given to one area, instead we feel we need to multitask to make sure we get everything done that we believe we need to get done in a 24 hour period.

For a lot of people, the idea of sitting still and not doing or thinking about anything for even 2 minutes seems impossible. If they aren’t worried that they are missing out on something, then they are worried that they are not getting something done. I believe that mastering the ability to sit still and breathe is important. When we calm our minds and bodies, we are able to see challenges clearer, solutions come to mind quicker and our emotional states can level out.

If we, as God’s children, could learn to stop moving and be still more often than we are, then we could turn our focus to Him more. He wants to help us with our challenges, with realizing solutions and maintaining a calmer emotional state. The biggest thing stopping all of that from happening is usually us, we tend to get in our own way. We get very busy running around trying to do everything that we forget to stop and just focus even for a few minutes on the Creator of the world. However, by focusing more on God, we deepen our relationship with Him, get to know Him more and trust Him more. God, Himself, rested when He was done with His work. So we should follow His lead and slow down, rest and be still.

I pray that as we all go about our day, that we each take a few moments to slow down, calm down and acknowledge that God is here with us and He is Lord of all. Let us all exalt Him and simply Be Still. Have a wonderful day.

“I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.” Psalm 139:14 NIV

In this Psalm, David is praising God as he is looking at everything the Lord has made. Everything is different, plants are different from animals, animals are different from people. Think about the plants and how many different types there are, think about animals and how on a cellular level no two are truly identical. People have remarkable DNA and systems within our bodies that enable us to heal when we are injured.

We are fearfully and wonderfully made, we are made in God’s image. When we begin to doubt what we are here for, what God made us to do, we need to remember that God cares enough and thought enough about us to make us exactly the way He wanted us.

I challenge each one of us, as we go through our day, to look at plants, animals, people and think about how complex they all are. God loves us enough to have made everything as extraordinary as He did. Remember that you and I are fearfully and wonderfully made, just as God wanted us made. Have a great day.

“The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace.” Romans 8:6 NIV

Our bodies crave what they want and our minds crave control. Control over our bodies, our feelings, our actions and circumstances. So it begins with the mind. What the mind wants and where the mind goes is the starting part.

When we let our flesh control what we think about, decide what we want, then we end up relying on ourselves and our own strength to try and get whatever it is. Most of the time, if we let that happen, what we end up with is a mess to clean up. Not very often is the outcome as wonderful or exciting or grand as we had envisioned it to be.

When we focus on something that our flesh desires, we tend to have tunnel vision, we only see a very small part and miss the rest of a very big picture. Many of us have realized that we are only seeing a small part of the picture but we crave control so much that we are willing to settle for that small part because we believe that we can control it. By doing that, we miss so much that we could be experiencing.

When we focus on what the Spirit desires, we are able to experience so much more of the big picture, but this comes with a catch…..we have to give up control. We have to be willing to trust that God, the One who made the world, universe and us, knows more about the big picture than we do. We have to trust that we are able to rely on Him and that He will get us through whatever we are doing. We have to trust that God wants to do more for us than we could ever ask for or even imagine to ask for.

So my question as we go about our day is this…..what is controlling your mind? We can determine this by realizing if we are chasing the desires of the flesh or the desires of the Spirit. Once we realize what is controlling our minds, we can begin to make sure that we feed our minds scripture (God’s word) instead of worldly views. Have a great day.

“Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you; before you were born, I sanctified you; and I ordained you a prophet to the nations.” Jeremiah 1:5

As we move through life, there are times when we feel alone, we have a fight with a family member, a friend breaks a promise to us or we don’t get a job we think we should have gotten. We feel like no one understands us at that time or understands what we are going through. In Jeremiah, we are told that before we were formed in our mother’s womb, we were known. When I read that I had to sit with that thought for a moment and let it sink in. I was known, really known. I can’t hide who I am from God because He knows me.

God truly knows each one of us, He knows our likes, dislikes, He knows how many hairs we have on our head. God knows our DNA, why we have the eye color that we have. He knows our emotions and our thoughts. We are no stranger to God. He not only knows us, He approves of us. He made us and we are His children.

That is a comforting thought when we feel down or alone, that there is someone who knows us, approves of us, will never leave us and loves us despite all that we do. If God was not going to love us, approve of us, value us or continue to be involved with us, He would not have made us. He wouldn’t have formed us in our mother’s womb, He would have just stopped. Yet He didn’t, He formed each and every one of us and He gave us each a purpose.

As His children, we should be in a relationship with Him, talking to Him daily, sometimes several times a day. When we feel like no one understands us, we need to think of this verse and remember that God knows us intimately. He has known us since before we were even born, and with all of our flaws, He still wants to be involved with us. God doesn’t turn His love on and off depending on what we do or say. He is love and we were formed in His image so that we could be to others what He is to us, someone who is there for them and who loves them.

As you walk through your day, if you feel alone, misunderstood, or unsure of who really knows you, please recite Jeremiah 1:5. Place the message in your heart, embrace that you are not alone, you are understood and you are known!

“For we walk by faith, not by sight” 2 Corinthians 5:7 NIV

This verse was the motto for my mom and I. We both viewed this verse as how you should live life as a believer – always focusing on God and what He was doing in our lives. My mother was a woman of great faith. She lived through some very rough times but she knew that God was going to get her through. He brought her through abuse as a child, the loss of her mother at a tender age, an abusive marriage and a life of barely making ends meet to pay bills and provide for my brother and myself.

By the world’s standards and what she saw of others who had lived through the same type of experiences, she was destined to be homeless, broke and angry at the world. But that was not her, she chose to walk by faith, not by what the world showed her should be her destiny. My mother struggled with a lot of things but her faith was not one of those things. She knew where she was going and at the end of her life, she longed to go there, to be with Jesus. She longed for heaven, she knew it was real. Not because of anything that she saw in this temporal world but because her faith in Jesus and God told her that it is real.

Our life circumstances are not always what they seem. We may not have had a lot of money, but my mother would say all the time that we were some of the riches people she knew. We were rich in love and faith in God. I know without a doubt that my mother is in heaven with Jesus, singing His praises and filled with joy that she was right to believe in Jesus, to have faith.

As you go through your day, think about what your faith is in. Is it in money, relationships, things or is it in God? I can tell you that mine is in God because among all the other amazing things that God has done for me, He placed a wonderful role model in my life to help guide me. So I urge everyone to “walk by faith, not by sight”

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” Matthew 11:28 NIV

Have you ever been weary, just so tired that you need to sit down and not continue doing whatever it is you doing? Have you ever been burdened, that feeling of having the weight of the world on your shoulders and not sure what to do about it? I believe we all have from time to time experienced those feelings.

Those feelings can be true for us in a physical way but they can also be true for us in a spiritual way. Obviously, when we are discussing those feelings in regards to a physical way, we know we need rest for our bodies. Some times the challenge is finding the time to rest or allowing ourselves to rest. However, our bodies are good at making us finally rest, whether it is from crashing and not allowing us to go on without sleep or by sickness entering our bodies and stopping us in our tracks.

When we look at the feelings of weary and burdened in a spiritual way, the same is true for us. We will come to a point where we will need to do something about it, our mind and heart will struggle to find peace for us, forcing us to look at how we are living spiritually. We don’t like living being exhausted physically or spiritually, it goes against how we were made to live. Thankfully, as a believer, we are able to bring our weary bodies and souls to Jesus for rest.

Jesus is not complicated, He is straight forward. He wants us to follow Him, not all the regulations or rituals of formal religion, just follow Jesus. Get to know Him in a personal way, He will give each one of us rest if we let Him.

If you are tired, I strongly encourage you to turn to Jesus and let Him give you rest. Let Him be the way you are renewed both physically and spiritually. He is waiting for each one of us.

“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11

It is great to make plans and life is full of them. We make all kinds of plans, plans for the weekend, plans for college, plans our career, plans on how to find a spouse, plans for how many children we are going to have. So many plans. Some of our plans we share with others and some we don’t. We decide what ones we are going to share with others usually based on how crazy we believe them to be.

We even make our plans when we don’t have all of the information. Have you ever looked through a key hole to see what is on the other side of the door? We know that when we look through a key hole, we can’t see all that is on the other side, only a very limited amount of what is actually there. Unfortunately, that is how we make plans at times. We have a limited amount of information and we decide what we are going to do next, even when those decisions are life changing decisions.

One of the things that is wonderful about being a child of God, is that we don’t have to rely only on ourselves to get all the information we need to make decisions, we have the One Who knows all, sees all, is in charge of all, willing to help us. We don’t have to know what the next several steps are in the path we are taking if we are willing to trust the One who made the path. Not only can we trust Him, we can also seek Him and His counsel daily to learn if where we are placing our foot to take that next step is in the right direction.

God has plans for us, good plans if we listen to Him. However, listening is only the first step in this process. After we listen to Him, we need to take action, take the steps that He is guiding us to take, maybe that is studying for the test you have in school, answering the phone because the next business opportunity is calling, or maybe it is taking that next step that you are considering a huge leap of faith.

No matter what the action is, there is one thing for sure, you will never know if it was the way to go, if it would have worked out or not, if you don’t move forward. I pray that as you go about your day that you seek God and His counsel on what your path is. Have a blessed day.

“And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.” Ephesians 6:18

After Paul has given each spiritual concept a weapon to help us understand that concept, he instructs us to keep praying. Communication is important in all relationships and our relationship with God is no different. If we are not talking with each other, misunderstandings happen, opportunities of closeness are lost and true intimacy of knowing each other can not be developed.

Prayer is simply a conversation with God. There should be respect for who God is but there also needs to be genuine interaction on our part. God doesn’t need flowery speech such as “thou, thy and thine ” in our prayers, He just wants us, our genuine self, talking with Him. He doesn’t require a certain amount of time either, just being there and willing to talk with Him is what He wants. He wants to be involved in our lives, He created us for that very reason, to interact with Him.

Some have said that you need to follow acronyms to know how to pray. If this is something you want to do, then that is ok, it is also ok if you don’t. There are plenty of them to choose from, but if you are looking for something to follow after, there is no better way to pray than the way that Jesus Himself taught His disciples. In Matthew 6:9-13, Jesus was talking with His disciples about how to be sincere in their prayers, making sure that the prayer is a true communication with the Father and not a show for those around them.

He talked with them about being alone when they pray and focusing only on God and then He taught them this prayer found in Matthew 6:9-13. Jesus said “This, then, is how you should pray: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name,  your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.'” NIV

In the end, it doesn’t matter if you follow an acronym or not. What matters is that you are talking with God, being sincere and genuine and then listening for what He may have to say back to you. When we pray, we tend to usually ask for something, something we feel we need or want.

My encouragement for each one of us, is that when we pray that we also make sure we are asking God to help those around us with what they are going through as well as ourselves. In our verse for the day, Paul said to pray for all of the Lord’s people. No conversation is always about getting something from someone else, there are also parts of the conversation that are about getting to know each other, gratitude for things that have been done for us and listening to the other one.

I encourage you today, as well as myself, to not pray a memorized prayer each time we pray. Instead to pray from the heart, seek to get to know God, to thank Him for what He has done in our lives and ask Him for guidance in life as we go through each day. To seek what we can do to help further His kingdom here on earth.

I believe there in no better conversation that we can have than the one we can have with our Heavenly Father especially when we are genuine, sincere and real with Him. After all, He already knows what is in our hearts, He simply wants to hear from us. I hope you have a great day and enjoy spending time in communication with our Heavenly Father.

“And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” Philippians 4:7 NIV

Yesterday I wrote about Philippians 4:6 and today I want to continue with the next verse and talk what happens when we follow verse 6 and give our anxieties and worries to God. Philippians 4:7 tells us that when we are willing to let go of our worries and give them to God, that we can receive peace, peace that only God can give us. When the world talks about peace it is referencing peace that is based on circumstances and is only temporary.

Peace from God is different, it is permanent because it isn’t based on circumstances in the world, it is based on Jesus’s sacrifice on the cross. When Jesus died for our sins, He removed the barrier between us and God, our sin. Our sin was stopping us from having peace with God.

Until we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we are at odds with God and His will, we are not following His will because we don’t know it. When we are at odds with God, we are not at peace with Him and until we are at peace with God, we can’t receive peace from God.

The peace that God gives us is truly beyond our explanation. Being at peace when everything around you is in chaos is not natural in this world but it is for God. In Matthew 8:23-27, scripture tells of the time when Jesus was at peace in the boat while the storm was going on around Him and everyone else on the boat thought they were going to die. Jesus’s peace came from God and we can have that same peace as well. We simply have to do our part – bring everything to God in prayer with thanksgiving.

When you are in communication with God today, try giving thanks for who He is and everything He has done for you before you tell Him what you need or desire. Then sit quietly and wait for the peace that is truly indescribable to fill you, it is an amazing feeling to know that God is in control and that no matter what happens, He has you in His hands.

Have a wonderful day.

“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever” Hebrews 13:8 NIV

How many things in our world change everyday? The amount of things that stay the same from day to day is smaller than the amount of things that change from day to day. The weather changes, our bodies change, our emotions change, and our interactions with others change, just to mention a few things. There is even a saying about change, “the only consistent thing in life is change” Thankfully, we have a Savior who does not change.

Jesus is the same today as He was yesterday. He loves us just as much today as He did yesterday and as much as He will years from now. He forgives us today just like He forgave us yesterday. Jesus has not changed His mind about us and has not decided to abandon us, He is always there with us, walking along side us each step of our lives.

If anyone changes in our relationship with Jesus, it is us. We can go from being on fire about our relationship with Jesus to being complacent and only pray when we need something, only read His word when we have time and only worship Him when we feel like it. Jesus doesn’t only forgive us when He feels like it, He forgives us each time we repent and ask for it. We need to be consistent in our relationship with Jesus because He deserves to have our constant admiration, devotion and faithfulness, after all, He died in our place so we can live in Heaven with Him for eternity.

As we go about our day today, I pray that we have an awareness of how often we think of Jesus and talk to Jesus. That awareness can help us in being purposeful in our efforts to grow in our relationship with Jesus, thereby maturing in our faith.

Dear Heavenly Father, Thank You for not changing and for being our Constant in a world where things change all the time. Thank You for loving us and being willing to send Your Son to pay the final price for us so we can spend eternity with You in Heaven. Help us to be consistent in our worship with You, our communication with You and our study of Your word. I pray this in Jesus’s precious name. Amen.