Overthinking Your Problems?

“Jesus looked at them and said, ‘With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible’” Matthew 19:26

     Recently I was connecting an electronic gadget to the Internet and getting it set up. I went into the advanced settings and tried everything I could think of to try to set up the device, but it ended up creating a mess.

    Eventually, after much frustration and irritation, I finally realized the Only Thing I needed to do was connect the device to the Internet and it would do the rest of the setup. I was seriously overthinking the problem.

    We do the same thing with many of the problems that come into our lives. On more than one occasion God has told me to “leave it alone”, that either He would work it out, or the problem would work itself out.

    But often we want to “fix” things ourselves, to figure things out on our own. And too often we make a problem worse.

     While reading the Charles Stanley Study Bible I came across his suggestion that we should consider HALT before making any decisions. This acronym stands for:

H – Hunger

A – Anger

L – Loneliness

T – Tiredness

    We should HALT and never make a decision when these affect our judgment.

    That is good advice. It is also worth considering that many problems and challenges should be wholly placed into the hands of Jesus, and quit trying so hard to figure everything out.

     We need wisdom and guidance from God to deal with all the problems in our lives, and often we need to be patient and trust the situation to God.

    My State’s motto is “with God all things are possible.”

    I can’t think of a better motto. When we trust God with our problems, giving our challenges completely to Him, the pressure and stress of our difficulties are placed into the care of the One who can actually do something about them.

    When we have done all we can, we need to let God do the rest.

    Prayer: Dear Lord, help us to know when to act, how to act, and when to simply give our problems completely over to You. Amen.

Bitterness

Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Ephesians 4:31

Benedict Arnold should have gone down as one of America's greatest heroes.He was a great warrior for the American Revolution. He defeated the British at the Battle of Saratoga. But he was also wounded and left crippled in one leg. He was passed over for promotion due to politics. General George Washington encouraged Arnold to be patient. Washington greatly valued Arnold and spoke on his behalf. The battlefield promotion Arnold wanted finally arrived. But by that time Arnold was planning to betray America. It was said of Arnold that he tended his grudges like some would tend a garden. Benedict Arnold was overcome by bitterness and gave in to impatience and greed. A man who could have been one of American history's great heroes, instead became America's Judas due to bitterness.

The lesson for us is clear. If we nurse grudges, look upon our illnesses and afflictions as uncommon and unfair, seeing setbacks as a vendetta God must have against us, we too will go down in infamy rather than victory. Our good name could become yet another abject lesson in how bitterness can destroy and rob people of their better selves leaving only their bitter selves.

Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled; Hebrews 12:15 KJV

The danger of bitterness cannot be overemphasized. Like a seed it grows into weeds that take over and chokes the garden of our lives making us unfruitful. In the Bible we see it leading to the failure of Judas. He was the trusted treasurer of Jesus’ ministry. Instead of learning from the greatest Teacher who ever lived, he became bitter, and like Arnold would do centuries later, allowed his anger and greed to grow into a garden of bitterness and disappointment (John 12:3-8).

Disappointment comes to us all. No one gets through life unscathed. What we do with disappointment marks us as victors or victims.

From small, aggravating situations to huge disappointing events, we will be tempted by bitterness. Our choice and reaction will determine whether or not we fail the tests and temptations in our lives. How will you react to your next opportunity to become bitter?

Dear Lord, when bitterness rears its ugly head in our lives, help us to quickly pull it out like the dangerous weed it is. Instead give us grace to deal with disappointment as Your children and represent You well on this earth. Amen.

Who Influences You?

“Dear friend, do not imitate what is evil but what is good. Anyone who does what is good is from God. Anyone who does what is evil has not seen God” 3 John 1:11

    When our daughter would visit from Columbus Ohio she often brought her dog along, and it seemed nearly every visit our dog learned another bad habit from our daughter’s dog. Our little fellow imitated everything he saw the older dog do, picking up bad habits.

    Who and what we spend time with often influences us. If we are always around negative people, we can tend to become negative. On the other hand, if we are often around cheerful, positive people, we may develop that same habit and tendency.

    Jesus was an amazing person. He was bold, fearless, dauntless. He spoke with authority, faced down His critics, endured hardship, being tempted by the devil in the wilderness for forty days and overcoming temptation. Jesus is clearly someone worth emulating.

    With the many problems and challenges we face in life, we need a positive, strong, dauntless leader to influence our lives. Church, good preaching, teaching from the Bible, and especially time spent in prayer and reading God’s word are important influences. Time spent with Jesus can shape our thinking, empower our lives, influence us and enable us to survive our problems and afflictions.

    Many things influence us, from television programs and movies, to coworkers, friends, and family members. Anyone we associate with can influence the way we think and behave. When the influences around us are positive, it is a wonderful thing, but negative influences can drag us down, weaken us, remove our resolve to live virtuous, godly lives.

    We may not be able to avoid all the bad influences in our lives, but we can choose many of the influences we surround ourselves with. We can place ourselves in good company, not the least of which is surrounding ourselves with fellow Christians, and giving time to Jesus through reading His word and through prayer.

    Prayer: Dear Lord, fill us with Your presence, guide us throughout our life, and help us to become more like You. Amen.

Thinking Out Loud

I cry aloud to the Lord; I lift up my voice to the Lord for mercy. Psalm 142:1

For years I have had a habit of praying out loud. It probably comes from my habit of thinking out loud. Having Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, with frequent memory issues, I have learned that both writing things down and saying things aloud aids my ability to remember. The thinking out loud part gets me occasional strange looks from those who happen to come upon me doing so. And my wife has often called aloud to me from another room to ask if I was speaking to her when I have been practicing thinking out loud.

Likewise, I tend to pray aloud and often have frequent conversations with God throughout the day.

To keep the theme going, I often find myself reading out loud without thinking about it, to my wife’s annoyance if she happens to be watching TV at the time.

There is something very powerful about the spoken word, whether through prayer or reading God’s word aloud.

He read it aloud from daybreak till noon as he faced the square before the Water Gate in the presence of the men, women and others who could understand. And all the people listened attentively to the Book of the Law. Nehemiah 8:3

And:

Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near. Revelation 1:3

Preaching is a gift of the Holy Spirit. So is Teaching God’s Word. It is difficult to do either without words spoken aloud (with some exceptions).

Singing out loud is an important part of the Church. So is reading God’s Word aloud. Public prayers, and the Church verbally expressing public praise, all are indispensable.

Perhaps like myself, you will find that interacting out loud with God enables you to better remember your experiences with God in your spiritual walk.

Prayer: Dear Lord, Whether silently within our hearts and minds or verbally, let us never fail to stay in contact with You throughout our life and every day on this earth. Amen.