Trusting God Day by Day: 365 Daily Devotions (44 page)

You’ll be amazed at how your joy will increase if you make a habit of noticing those who usually aren’t noticed. God watches out for them, and He will be delighted to have you make yourself available as His partner in this endeavor.

M
atthew 6:33 tells us that when we seek
first
the kingdom of God and His righteousness, He will give us everything we need. It is a matter of putting God first in our lives. Simple? Yes. Easy? Not necessarily!

Even though we want God to help us, it is sometimes difficult to consistently put Him first. It may seem easy to trust Him with your life when you’re in church on Sunday morning, but on Monday you may be tempted to take control again. Seeking God and putting Him first requires building an intimate relationship with Him that will sustain you every day of the week. God knows what we need better than we do, and He longs to provide it, but He requires that we make Him top priority in our lives.

Many years ago, when I began my relationship with God, I wasn’t really serious about it. Like many other Christians, I put in my church time on Sunday. I was even on the church board, and my husband, Dave, was an elder. The problem was, when I was at home or at work, it was hard to tell the difference between an unbeliever and me. I had accepted Christ, I was on my way to heaven, and I loved God. But I didn’t love Him with my
whole
heart—there were many areas of my life that I had not yet surrendered to Him. As a result, I was frustrated, and my life lacked victory and joy.

Finally I cried out to God for help, and thankfully, He heard and answered my prayer. He began to show me that I needed to let Him out of my “Sunday Morning Box” and allow Him to be first in every area of my life. Since I did that, I am continually amazed at the ways that God provides for everything else I need.

I
’m sure you know people with amazing stories of the way God has worked in their lives. I always love to hear a great testimony, but I also know that behind every extraordinary account of someone’s life lies some kind of challenge or difficulty. No one ever has a testimony without a test.

We must pass all kinds of tests as we go through our lives, and passing them is part of never giving up. It’s vital for us to understand the important role that tests and trials play in our lives, because understanding them helps us endure them and actually be strengthened by them.

Everything God permits us to go through will ultimately be good for us—no matter how much it hurts, how unfair it is, or how difficult it is. When we encounter tests and trials, if we will embrace them and refuse to run from them, we will learn some lessons that will help us in the future and make us stronger.

One reason we must go through trials is to test our quality (1 Pet. 4:12). Often, we find ourselves wishing we had the faith of Sister so-and-so or Brother so-and-so. I can assure you, if they have a strong and vibrant faith, they did not develop it easily. Just as muscles are strengthened through exercise, firm faith comes from the furnace of affliction.

Sometimes people say to me,
“Oh, I wish I had the kind of ministry you have, Joyce.”
Well, I did not get it by wishing. These people didn’t see when I was feeling I couldn’t hold on one more second, begging God to help me to not quit or give up. They don’t know the tests and trials I’ve faced along the way.

No one who does anything worthwhile for God has traveled an easy road. Doing great things for God requires character, and character is developed by passing life’s tests and staying faithful to Him through the trials.

I
like to define a motive as “the
why
behind the
what
.” A motive is the reason we do what we do. We often say we are doing things for God, but sometimes we do not understand why we do them. We only know
what
we are doing, but we have not taken the time to truly understand
why
.

Impure motives can cause many problems, one of which is being overcommitted, which results in unnecessary stress in our lives. Surely we won’t live with extreme stress if we are obeying God and doing only what He wants us to do. Never agree to do something in order to
impress people or because you fear what they may think or say about you if you don’t. God wants us to help and bless people, but a “good work” done with a wrong motive is no longer a good work. Don’t say yes with your mouth if your heart is screaming no.

Take the motive test as often as you can. Begin to ask yourself questions that will help you assess your motives, such as:

• Why did I agree to serve on that committee?
  
• Why did I say I would lead the missions group at church? Do I really have a heart for evangelism and a longing to serve God, or do I want people to talk about what a good church member I am, or am I afraid of what they will say if I do not agree to help?
  
• Why do I really want that promotion at work so much? Is it motivated by God or worldly ambition?
  

As you evaluate your motives, you will begin to see what is in your heart. Pass the test by making sure your motives are pure and right before God—even if that means changing the “what.” The motive test is a lifelong test. I frequently reevaluate my motives and discontinue things I find I am doing for the wrong reason, and that helps me keep my priorities in order.

G
od has given each of us abilities, and we should use them to benefit one another. Whatever your particular talent is, offer it as a free gift occasionally rather than always wanting or expecting to be paid for it.

For example, if you are a photographer, offer to take free wedding pictures for a friend or someone on a tight budget. If you are a hairdresser, offer to go to a homeless shelter or nursing home and cut hair once a month or more if you’re willing. A friend of mine is a decorative painter, and she recently donated three days of her time painting at a home for troubled young women.

I met a woman once who had little money but wanted to support missions financially. She did so by selling her baked goods to raise money for missions. Her story emphasizes the point that if we refuse to do nothing, we will be able to find the something that we can do, and when everyone gets involved it won’t be long until the good in our world will overcome the evil.

To say we can’t do anything is just not true. We may make excuses, but excuses are nothing more than a way to deceive ourselves and justify doing nothing. You will come alive like never before if you will aggressively reach out to others.

Let us not forget the words of Jesus: “I give you a new commandment: that you should love one another. Just as I have loved you, so you too should love one another” (John 13:34). Without a doubt, this is our purpose and the will of God for our lives.

I
am fairly disciplined in my eating habits, and recently I spent a week with someone who really struggles in that area. The person mentioned several times how disciplined I am and how undisciplined she is. Each time she did so, I downplayed my ability to discipline myself by saying,
“I have areas of weakness also, and you will overcome this as you continue to pray and make an effort.”

There was a time in my life when I would not have been so sensitive to my friend’s feelings. I would have probably given her a sermon about the benefits of discipline and the dangers of overeating and poor nutrition. However, I would not have succeeded in doing anything but making my friend feel guilty and condemned. When she asked me to share ideas that might help her I did so, but with an attitude that did not make her feel that I had it all together and she was a mess. I have discovered that one way to love people is to help them not to feel worse about the things they already feel bad about.

Meekness and humility are two of the most beautiful aspects of love. Paul said love is not boastful and does not display itself haughtily (see 1 Cor. 13:4). Humility serves and always does things to lift others up. The Bible teaches us to have the same attitude and humble mind that Jesus had (see Phil. 2:5). He was one with God, but stripped Himself of all privileges and humbled Himself to become like a human being so He could die in our places and take the punishment we deserved as sinners (see Phil. 2:6–9). He never made people feel badly because they were not on His level, but instead He stooped to their level. Paul did the same, and we need to follow these biblical examples.

W
e are all different, and we each have different needs. I urge you to go the extra mile and find out what people really need instead of merely giving them what you want to give them, or what you think they need.

I like to give gifts, so I usually do that to show love. I once had an assistant who did not seem to appreciate my gifts very much. This really bothered me because she seemed ungrateful, but when I got to know her better, she told me that the most important thing to her was hearing words that conveyed love.

I wanted to give her gifts because that was easier for me than saying the words she wanted to hear. I often show appreciation for someone’s hard work by giving them things, but she needed me to
tell
her what a good job she was doing and how much I appreciated her.

Through gift-giving, I was trying really hard to show her love, but amazingly she did not feel loved. Because I enjoyed giving and receiving gifts, I assumed she did as well. I think that happens more often than we realize simply because we don’t learn enough about people to be able to give them what they truly need; we simply want to give them what we want to give them because that is easier for us. We cannot expect everyone to like what we like. We need to take the time to get to know them
and then minister to them according to their need. When we expect everyone to be like us, we end up pressuring them to be something they don’t know how to be. God graciously places many different types of people in our lives because we need them all. Each of us has a gift that we can learn to use for the benefit of the others around us. Appreciate people for who they are, and help them to become all they can be.

O
ne of the most beautiful things the Bible says is that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. He did not wait for us to deserve His love; He loves us unconditionally. To be honest, that’s hard for many of us to comprehend because we are so accustomed to having to earn and deserve everything in life.

God is rich in mercy, and in order to satisfy the great, wonderful, and intense love with which He loves us, He poured His life out for us freely (see Eph. 2:4).
That
is revolutionary love! Real, revolutionary love must give itself, for it can never be satisfied to do anything less.