Trusting God Day by Day: 365 Daily Devotions (17 page)

What are you good at? Do you even know? Have you seriously thought about it, or have you been so busy thinking about what you are not good at that you have not even noticed your abilities?

P
raying is probably the most important part of preparing to do something, yet so many people today ignore or forget this vital part of the process. I suggest you don’t do anything without first praying and asking God to get involved and make it work out right. Jesus said, “Apart from Me you can do nothing,” and I believe Him (see John 15:5).

Prayer is like the GPS system in a car. When you turn it on and tell it where you’re going, it shows you the path you need to take to get there. The Bible says that we should acknowledge God in all our ways and He will direct our steps and make them sure (see Prov. 3:6). Prayer gives us God’s GPS—
guidance, provision, and strength
.

When Jesus ascended into heaven and sat down at the right hand of the Father, He sent the Holy Spirit to be our Helper in life. He is always ready to get involved, but we must ask for His help. If you don’t turn on your GPS, it won’t tell you when you’re making wrong turns. It won’t take the wheel away from you and keep you from getting lost. In the same way, the Holy Spirit offers world-renowned supernatural service, but you have to ask Him for it.

God will enable you to do things that will frequently surprise you if you take Him as your partner in life. But you must start with prayer.

S
tudies show that 10 percent of people will never like you. This means we won’t have a perfect record with everyone and we should celebrate who we are. A person who knows how to do this does not allow the moods of other people to alter theirs.

A story is told of a Quaker man who knew how to live independently as the valued person God had created Him to be. One night as he was walking down the street with a friend he stopped at a newsstand to purchase an evening paper. The storekeeper was very sour, rude, and unfriendly. The Quaker man treated him with respect and was quite kind in his dealing with him. He paid for his paper, and he and his friend continued to walk down the street. The friend said to the Quaker, “How could you be so cordial to him with the terrible way he was treating you?” The Quaker man replied, “Oh, he is always that way; why should I let him determine how I am going to act?”

This is one of the amazing traits we see in Jesus. He was the same all the time. He changed people; they did not change Him.

When an unhappy person is unsuccessful in making you unhappy, they begin to respect and admire you. They see your Christianity is something real, and they may be interested in hearing what you have to say.

Even people who seek to control you will disrespect you if you allow them to do it. I encourage you to be your own person. Do what God expects you to do and don’t live under the tyranny of other people’s expectations.

B
ecause human nature is self-centered, generous giving does not come naturally to us. We have to build into our thinking the mind-set that we are generous. Begin to think and say, “I am a very generous person. I look for opportunities to give.”

I have found that opportunities to give are all around me—and they are all around you, too. Finding out how you can bless another person is as easy as using your ears. If you simply listen to people, you’ll soon know what they need or would like.

In casual conversation, a person who works for me once mentioned she liked things produced by a certain company. I asked someone to go for me and get a gift certificate to this company, and I gave it to her with a note telling her how much I appreciate all her hard work. She began to cry and said, “It’s not the gift certificate that means so much to me. It’s the fact that you actually heard me and remembered what I said.”

I encourage you to begin listening to others and paying attention to what they say more than ever before. People want to know you’re listening to them; they feel loved and valued when you listen to them. If you don’t know what to do for someone, you’re not listening to them because people tell you what they want, need, and like—and you’ll
know if you listen. You could start a list of things that you hear people say they want or need, and if you cannot provide it for them now, you can pray that God will give you the ability to do so. If you act on what you hear and bless people accordingly, you’ll see that blessing others really is better than receiving anything for yourself. I assure you, the more you give, the happier you will be.

N
o matter what you do in life you will occasionally be criticized by someone, so you must learn to cope with it and not let it bother you. Criticism is very difficult for most of us, and a person’s self-image can be damaged by one critical remark. But it is possible to learn how not to be affected at all by criticism.

Like many other great people, the apostle Paul experienced criticism about many things. He experienced the same thing we do, which is that people are fickle. They love you when you are doing everything they want you to do and are quick to criticize when just one little thing goes wrong. Paul said he was not in the least bit concerned about the judgments of others. He said he did not even judge himself. He knew he was in God’s hands and that in the end, he would stand before God and give an account of himself and his life. He would not stand before any man to be judged (see 1 Cor. 4:3–4).

Sometimes the people who are criticized the most are the ones who
try to do something constructive with their life. It amazes me how people who do nothing want to criticize those who try to do something. I may not always do everything right, but at least I am attempting to do something to make the world a better place and to help hurting people. I believe that is very pleasing to God! After many years of suffering over the criticisms of people and trying to gain their approval, I finally decided that if God is happy with me, that is enough.

Each time someone criticizes you, try making a positive affirmation about yourself to yourself. Don’t just stand by and take in everything anyone wants to dump on you. Establish independence! Be confident in God’s love and approval, and don’t be defeated by criticism.

I
think it’s good to occasionally (or perhaps frequently) do something that seems outrageous. Do something that people won’t expect. It will keep your life interesting and keep other people from thinking they have you tucked away nicely in a little box of their own design. People become bored because their lives become predictable. One great woman who was seventy-six years of age said her goal was to do at least one outrageous thing every week. I just read this week that we should do one thing every day that scares us.

We are not created by God to merely do the same thing over and over until it has no meaning left at all. God is creative. If you don’t think so, then just look around you. All the animals, bugs, plants, birds, trees, and other things are totally amazing. The sun, moon, and stars, planets, space, and gravity—all of which God has created—can boggle our minds. We could actually go on forever talking about the infinite variety of things God has created. In case you haven’t noticed, God is quite outrageous and frequently changes things up in our lives. He is full of surprises and yet totally dependable. You know, we really can learn a lot from God!

I don’t want people to think they have me all figured out, and although I want to be dependable and faithful, I don’t always want to be predictable. Sometimes I get bored with myself and I have to pray and ask God for a creative idea to shake up my life a little and keep me on my toes.

A
confident person can say “no” when they need to. They can endure people’s displeasure and are able to reason that if the disappointed person truly wants a relationship with them, they will get over their disappointment and want them to be free to make their own decisions. They realize wanting to please others can be a trap that keeps them from the freedom of saying no.

Sometimes you have to say “no” to others in order to say “yes” to yourself, otherwise, you will end up bitter and resentful, feeling that somewhere in the process of trying to keep others happy, you lost yourself. You are valuable, and you need to do things that you want to do as well as doing things for others.

When you do feel you need to say no, you don’t have to give a reason why. So often people want us to justify our decisions, and we really don’t need to do that. I try to be led by God’s Spirit—or another way of saying it is I try to be led by my heart—and sometimes I don’t even fully understand why I feel something isn’t right for me. But I have learned if I do feel that way, I am not going to go against my own conscience in order to have everyone be happy with me. I often say, “I just don’t have peace about it,” or “I don’t feel right about it,” or even a plain old “I don’t want to” is sufficient.

There is nothing wrong with giving a reason if you have one, but I think we go overboard in trying to explain ourselves sometimes. If an offended person doesn’t want to understand, they are never going to, no matter how many reasons you give. Follow your heart and keep your peace. Say “no” when you need to and “yes” when you should.

J
esus said we should become like little children if we expect to enter the kingdom of God. I believe that one of the things He was telling
us is to study the freedom that children enjoy. They are unpretentious and straightforward; they laugh a lot; they’re forgiving and trusting. Children are definitely confident, at least until the world teaches them to be insecure and fearful. I can remember our son Danny at the age of three walking through the shopping mall with Dave and me and saying to people, “I’m Danny Meyer, don’t you want to talk to me?” He was so confident that he was sure everyone wanted to know him better.

Children seem to be able to make a game out of anything. They quickly adjust, don’t have a problem letting other children be different than they are, and are always exploring something new. They are amazed by everything!

Oswald Chambers wrote in
My Utmost for His Highest
: “The freedom after sanctification is the freedom of a child; the things that used to keep the life pinned down are gone.” We definitely need to watch and study children and obey the command of Jesus to be more like them. It is something we have to do on purpose as we get older. We all have to grow up and be responsible, but we don’t have to stop enjoying ourselves and life.