Trusting God Day by Day: 365 Daily Devotions (22 page)

T
oday more people are spiritually malnourished than ever before. Too many elements of society distract people from their eternal souls and encourage them to concentrate on material life instead.

Caught up in this lifestyle, many people mistake the void they feel inside for physical hunger. They were never taught to recognize spiritual hunger, or what to do about it if they do recognize it. Since they don’t know what to do about the pain and loneliness, they reach for the quickest fix they know: food, drugs, alcohol, or other material pleasures.

If you have a rich spiritual life, you’ll already be satisfied and fulfilled in the moment, and won’t feel the need to “supplement” your moment with
“things.”

We all have these moments at times. You wander through a summer field of fireflies and suddenly feel still and awed at the beauty of it all. You hold your new son or grandson on your lap and feel a great spiritual bond of love all around you. You’re sitting in a pew Sunday morning and the light comes through the stained glass and fills your heart with joy. The moment is complete in itself. You don’t think,
My heart is full of joy, and boy do I wish I had a slice of chocolate cake in my hand!
You can know the complete fulfillment of spiritual nourishment, and know that if you will experience it regularly, you’ll have no problem craving earthly things.

In fact, we should all feel those transcendent moments more often than we do. I believe they are essential to physical, emotional, and spiritual health. And I think we spend too little time trying to achieve them and too much time meditating on our problems. Get your mind off the
problems, and spend more time meditating on the one true source of nourishment—God’s love.

I
am very thankful that I know the Word of God and have Him in my life to help and comfort me. But I try to remember that a lot of people in the world who are difficult to get along with don’t have that. I always want my behavior to be a witness for Christ and not something that would make Him ashamed of me. That being the case, I have had to work very hard with the Holy Spirit to develop the ability to act on the Word of God when people are rude instead of merely reacting to them with behavior that matches or tops theirs.

This issue is actually very common, which means that we all will deal with difficult people on and off throughout our lives. People are everywhere, and not all of them are pleasant. So we must make a decision about how we are going to react toward them. Will you act on the Word of God and love them for His sake? Or will you merely react emotionally and end up perhaps acting worse than they act? Have you ever let a rude person ruin your day? Make a decision that you will not ever do that again because when you do, you are wasting some of the precious time that God has given you. When a day is gone, you can
never get it back, so I urge you not to waste it being emotionally distraught over someone you may never even see again.

If you are in a situation that requires you to be with one of these hard-to-get-along-with people every day, I urge you to pray for them instead of reacting emotionally to them. Our prayers open a door for God to work through. Sometimes when we pray, God will lead us to confront a person like that. When He does, remember that confrontation should still be done in the spirit of love.

E
verything changes except God, and letting all the changes in our lives upset us won’t keep them from occurring. People change, circumstances change, our bodies change, our desires and passions change. One certainty in life is change. We don’t mind change if we invite it, but when it comes uninvited, our emotions can easily flare up.

John worked for an investment company for thirty-two years and was sure he would retire from that company. Without warning, the company decided to sell to a larger firm, whose management decided they didn’t want to keep a lot of the employees, and John lost his job. He feels that he wasn’t treated fairly when he was let go. Now what? John has a choice to make. He can either react emotionally by getting
upset, stressed out, anxious, angry, and worried, feeling and saying lots of negative things. Or he can act on God’s Word and trust God to be his vindicator and source of supply for every need. It is totally understandable that John has these emotions, but if he chooses to react based on his feelings, then he will be miserable and possibly make the other people in his life miserable. If he chooses to make decisions based on God’s Word, however, he can make the transition with far less turmoil. Will his anger dissipate right away? Probably not. But if John truly gives his care over to God, his feelings will calm down and he can be confident that God will continue to work in his life, bringing justice for the injustice done to him.

Most changes take place without our permission. But we can choose to adapt. If we refuse to make the transition in our minds and attitudes, then we are making a huge mistake. Our refusal to adapt doesn’t change the circumstances, but it does steal our peace and joy. But by acting on God’s Word and not merely reacting to the situation, you will be able to manage your emotions instead of allowing them to manage you.

I
have learned over the past few years through studying God’s love that giving to others is one of the ways we can and should celebrate our own victories. It is a way of saying, “I sure am happy about what God has done for me, and I want to reach out and make someone else happy.”

Giving is a central part of the Christian lifestyle, and we should do it aggressively and with joy. God has given us His Son Jesus as the best gift He could give, and in Jesus we have all other things. In Him we have been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realm (see Eph. 1:3).

It is the will of God that we give thanks at all times and in everything (see 1 Thess. 5:18). Thanksgiving must have an expression in order to be complete. We can say that we are thankful, but do we show it? Are we expressing it? We say “thank you,” but there are other ways of showing appreciation, and one of them is giving to people who have less than we do. Giving to the poor is commanded by God. It is one of the ways we can keep a continual cycle of blessing operating in our lives. God gives to us, and we show appreciation by giving to someone else; and then He blesses us some more so we can do it all over again.

The Bible puts it plainly. When God blesses you as He promised, find a poor man and give to him. Do not harden your heart, but open your hands wide to help him. If you give to him freely without begrudging it, then the Lord will bless you in all your work and all that you undertake (see Deut. 15:6–8, 10). What we give to others as a result of obedience to God is never lost. It leaves our hand temporarily, but it never leaves our life. We give it, God uses it to bless someone else, and then He returns it to us multiplied. I like the way God does things, don’t you?

I
have often said I think we forget what we should remember and remember what we should forget. Jesus chastised the disciples on one of their journeys because they had forgotten about a miracle He had done. They had started out on a trip and suddenly remembered that they had forgotten to bring enough bread. They had only one loaf, and that would not be nearly enough. In a short while Jesus began to teach the disciples to beware of, and on their guard concerning, the leaven of the Pharisees and Herod. Jesus of course was talking about being on their guard against deception, but the disciples reasoned among themselves that He was talking about the fact that they had forgotten to bring bread, as if that would have concerned Jesus at all. He then began to chastise them, asking if they had forgotten when He fed five thousand people with five loaves of bread. Had they forgotten another amazing miracle when He fed four thousand with seven loaves? Had they remembered, they would not be worried about going hungry because of not having brought enough bread with them.

If we would remember the miracles God has done in our past, we would not so easily fall into worry and fear when we face new challenges. When David was facing Goliath and nobody was encouraging him, he remembered the lion and the bear that he had already slain with God’s help. Because of remembering the past, he had no fear of the current situation.

Are you facing something right now that looms before you like a giant in your life? Is it illness or financial lack? Is it relationship problems? Is it
something you have never done before and you don’t know where to begin? The truth is that it doesn’t matter what it is because nothing is impossible for God. Take some time right now and recall some of the things He has helped you with and brought you through in the past. Think about and talk about those things, and you will find courage filling your heart.

T
here is a big difference in knowing God and knowing
about
God. When we truly know God, we also experience (know) His power. Many Christians live too much by feeling. If they feel joyful and happy, then they say God is blessing them, but if they feel blah, cold, or flat, then they might be heard asking, “Where is God today?” If their prayer is not answered to their satisfaction, they ask where God is. When we experienced the attacks on the Twin Towers in New York City on 9/11, a newscaster asked, “Where was God when all of this happened?” Had this newscaster known God, he would never have asked such a question.

If we have a true knowledge of God, we are not disturbed by any scientific view, or any theories of evolution, or so-called contradictions in Bible translations. We have a perfect assurance that God
is
, and
knowing that, then we know that nothing else matters. We do not feel a need to explain things, because we know what cannot be explained in words. Paul said he saw things when he had visions of heaven that he could not explain. Men always want to explain God, but if we know Him truly, then the first thing we give up is trying to understand Him or explain Him. The person who knows spiritually has no need to understand everything mentally.

Pray daily for a spirit of wisdom and revelation that you might know God and His Christ, the Messiah, the Anointed One. Celebrate that you know God, that you are an eternal being, and that you are progressively coming to know Him better as each day passes by. What an amazing blessing it is to know God. It should make us want to shout for joy. Celebrate because you have joined Jesus’ party!

G
od’s Word is truth, and learning to face truth in every situation is the road to victory. For many years I was extremely difficult to get along with, but I blamed my bad behavior on my circumstances and other people. I was totally unable to change until I faced the truth that I was the problem. I had a bad attitude, and I was selfish. It was emotionally painful for me to admit that I was the problem, but it was a pain that led me to freedom.

It is easy for us to see what is wrong with other people, but it is
very difficult for us to see ourselves as we really are. Ask God to reveal you to you! Ask Him to show you anything about you that needs to change, then face it and let Him help you get free. God wants to set us free from the things that torment us, but it is not possible unless we face truth.