What you think, what you dwell on, will make a difference.  If you dwell on something long enough, it tends to become your reality, at least in your mind. For example, if you are going through a storm in life and your focus is on your situation, then there is little hope, but if your focus is on God, you will be filled with hope.  

It’s so easy to take one little thought and allow it to become an entire situation that doesn’t even exist. Our minds are at work constantly, so it is imperative that we take every thought captive.  We too easily make a mountain out of a mole hill if we focus on it long enough!  Seriously, any thought that you don’t take control of will become a controlling thought in your mind.  That can be a very dangerous place to be.  Uncontrolled thoughts can destroy relationships, they can hold you back from taking God at His word, they can hold you back from taking that leap of faith you need to take in order to do what God has called you to.  Don’t miss out on all that God has for you by allowing your thoughts to run you instead of taking them captive.

Run those things by the Word of God!  Do they line up with what He has to say?  Does His word say, “Oh, yup! You’re right, you can’t do what I am asking you to do!?”  or does it say, “you can do all things through Christ who strengthens you!”?  Get into His Word and allow Him to show you all that He has for you and who He says you are!  Focus on His Word as it says in Joshua 1:8, “This book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it.  For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.”  So, take those thoughts captive and fill your mind with the Word of God.  Allow Him to work in and through you so you can be all He created you to be!  His best is yet to come!

Quote:  “Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you are right.”  ~ Henry Ford

How much different would the world be if no one could see, or if maybe our ability to see didn’t include skin color or the ability to discern between attractive and not?  Would we choose different people to marry or be friends with?  Would we hire different people or vote differently?  Would we treat more people with the respect they deserve?  How often do you think companies miss out on the best employee?  How many people who think that they are “less than” for one reason or another would excel?

Our eyesight is a wonderful thing, and I would never wish blindness on anyone, but when it comes to people, we shouldn’t judge by what we see.  You don’t know what storms they have faced, where they have been, or even where God is going to lead them.  We need to be very careful that we don’t get in the way of God using someone because of our own bias.  As Christians, that is one area where we should be so much different than people who don’t know Him; we are known for it!  There’s no room for prejudice in a heart filled with Jesus! Every single person out there was created by God in the image of God, and He is the ONLY judge.  Matthew 7 tells us, “Judge not, that you be not judged.  For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.  And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye?”  That’s a verse we all need to take more seriously, because just as He told Samuel, only God knows the heart, best to leave others to Him for judgment and focus our time on sharing His love and the gospel with as many people as possible!

We need to be so focused on what we need to work on ourselves that we don’t have time to judge any person who crosses our path, whether it’s their clothes, shoes, hair, skin color, what we think, or what we have heard.  The Bible is also very clear that we are not to give preferential treatment to someone because of their status, and that’s a tough one for a lot of people because it is all around us.  Even some churches are guilty of doing that.  I have seen pastors lay out the red carpet for people because of their financial status, and that isn’t right.  God is our provider, and He can do it with the rich and the poor and many or few, and when we start catering to someone because we think it may benefit us, we have forgotten who our source is.  It’s all about giving God glory, so that could be why there are so many times when He will take a small group of people and do a mighty work.  When you are focused on God, nothing is impossible.  When you focus on anyone else for any other reason than God bringing them to you, then you may miss His best!  What if Samuel ignored God and anointed Eliab instead of David?  What sort of mess might that have been?

Ask God to give you discernment and wisdom.  Ask Him to help you see other people the way He sees them and with His heart for them.  The only way to make a difference in the world is to let go of what we think we see and follow Him!  He alone is The Way, The Truth, and The Life ~ there’s no other, so if you want His best, stick close by His side and allow Him to fill your heart and mind!

Philippians 4:7,  “and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”  

Mountaintop or valley, you can be filled with the peace of God, but it is a choice of what you will focus on.  I am by no means making light here; this is not always an easy thing to do.  There are times when life can run you over and consume you with all that is going on, and it takes getting very intentional to focus on God and Who He is instead of those things!  I get it!  But, if you want peace at all during those times, you must focus on Him to have it because that is where your help will come from!.  He loves you and He doesn’t want you to go through life alone!

How about your home, what is it full of? Do you live in an atmosphere of anger, bitterness, frustrations, or is your home that is full of peace and Hiss presence? That is also a choice.

As crazy as it may sound, you need the peace of God even on the Mountaintop.  Your life needs to be full of the peace and love of God, not just for you but for those around you!  When you are having those mountaintop experiences, it is good to take a look around and see who may need a hand up.  Who can you encourage with the peace and love of God?  Who can you pray with?  Who can you share His hope with?  Focus on Him and don’t waste those moments.  Use your mountaintops just as you would a valley to experience and know God more and to be full of His peace for anything coming your way.  Don’t slack off in your walk with God because nothing seems to be going wrong right now.  Pursue Him with all your heart!  Look for opportunities to be His hands and feet!

If you are angry and frustrated and aren’t sure if you will ever get the answer you are waiting for, you may not feel like it at first, but you need to turn on some praise and worship music and remind yourself of who your God is.  Dig in and spend time with Him.  Spend more time than usual with Him.  Read your Bible, spend time in prayer, spend time in a Bible Study, read books, and listen to messages that will draw you closer to Him.  Don’t allow satan to talk you into being angry with God ~ what good is that going to do for you or your situation or those around you?  Give it all to Him and allow Him to fill you with HIs peace that He is always working, even when you can’t see it.  He sees, He cares, and He wants to heal your heart, but you must give it all to Him for that to happen.  God loves you and He wants to walk with you today.

So, do you have His peace today?  Do you need to get intentional in your focus so you can have His peace?  When you are full of His peace, make sure you don’t just keep it to yourself; share it with those around you.

Quote:  “What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”  ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

How can you be an overcomer?  How can you live a successful life, one that truly makes a difference?  How can you be the change you want to be in your home or in the world?

We must each stop and consider our ways.  What are you pursuing?  What is it that drives you every day?  People strive for more wealth, love, and acceptance, etc., but the one thing that will make the most difference in their life and the lives of those around them is when they strive for a closer walk with God.  How is that done?  You won’t find it by just showing up at church on Sunday and coasting the rest of the week.  It takes spending quality time with God in His Word and in prayer.

Oh, how much the world needs God!  We need to live lives that reflect who He is, so they will be drawn to Him.  I’m not saying that you should live a “religious life”; we need to live Jesus-filled lives.  Read about Him.  Get to know more about who He is and how He treated people.  Jesus wasn’t complacent, and He certainly wasn’t a doormat or weak.  He stood for what was right, and He loved people.  The more time you spend with Him, the more you will become like Him.  

Ask God to show you what His dreams are for your life.  Ask Him to fill you with His love for others.  Ask Him to guide you in all that you do.  Ask Him to reveal the truth.  Listen when He speaks and don’t ignore His promptings.  I find that one of my greatest struggles at times is obeying His prompting instead of doing it my way.  Sometimes He asks you to just sit and allow Him to fight for you, and my instant response tends to be to want to fight for myself or vindicate myself, so it is a process to learn to just be still and allow Him to do what He says He will do.  We all want that instant fix or solution, but He wants His best for us.  So, stop for a moment today and consider your ways, are you walking in your own strength and trying to do it all yourself, or are you allowing Him to work in and through you so you can become all He created you to be, knowing that then truly His best is yet to come!

So, what do you do when you wake up and you don’t really feel like a warrior?  No matter who you are, there is a battle raging around you.  We know that, as it says in Ephesians 6:12, “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.”  Now, even though we know that the battles are spiritual it is also evident that satan uses people, just as it is a choice to allow God to work in and through you it is a choice to walk hand in hand with satan as well, and not everyone chooses to walk with God, unfortunately.  So there’s a constant battle going on in the Earth, and it seems to be raging in our day.  

David wrote those words while he was in the cave, and King Saul was pursuing him with his army of men to kill David.  David had his moments, just like everyone else, when he was frustrated and down, but when he was, he chose to strengthen and encourage himself in who God is!  He turned to praise and drew strength and encouragement from praising God!  David was known as a mighty warrior, and yet even David had times he had to hide or run from his enemies. Was it because God wasn’t on His side?  Absolutely not, but evil happens in this world no matter who you are. There are going to be battles and storms in life, and your confidence will come from learning to trust God and who He is, just as David did.  Even as a teenager, David stood up and trusted God to give him all that he needed against Goliath.  Were there more able-bodied men around who could have taken on that giant?  A whole army of them!  David stood strong and faced the giant with the help of God and the confidence of who God is.  

So, do you need God to lift you up out of that pit you are in today?  Maybe you aren’t in a pit, but the battle is wearing you down?  Take the time to read some of the Psalms and spend time with some praise and worship music.  Remind yourself of who God is and all that He has done, knowing that He is still at work and He wants you to trust Him and His plan for your life!  God is faithful!

Quote:  “Courage doesn’t always roar, sometimes its that quiet voice at the end of the day saying, ‘I will try again tomorrow.’”  ~ Mac Anderson

There is nothing in this world that you or I can face that is too difficult or that takes God by surprise!  He is able to do above and beyond anything that we can possibly imagine!  I believe that with my whole heart and I have seen Him do things that only He could do and I will also be the first to tel you that ~ that doesn’t mean that everything in your life is going to be perfect and that troubles won’t come and that your answer will come when you think it should because sometimes those things are there and allowed to help grow us into who we are called to be.  

Sometimes it takes a storm to get us back on course!  Sometimes all Hell comes against you and there just doesn’t seem to be a reason on earth why God would allow it, but you must trust Him and His sovereignty and goodness and know that He still has a plan and He sees and He will bring you through it better if you will just give it to Him and allow Him to work in you.  The world is watching ~ they are looking for answers and I know that sometimes when you pray and your answer seems delayed, it can be easy to wonder why, but sometimes they need to see us stand strong and they need to see us cling to our hope found only in Him.  Sometimes being the light isn’t all about everything in our lives being perfect, because life here on earth is just not perfect.

What hope do you have when you feel as though you are in the fire and you can’t seem to find any answers, and your prayers don’t seem to be getting past the ceiling, and you have waited so long and yet ~ nothing.  Will that fire last forever?  Are you all alone?  Did you miss something? No – No – Probably not!  If satan is after you, then you must be doing something right, and you must be headed in the right direction, and God hasn’t left you. He is working, and He will do what He said He would!  Your hope is in Him, and He has that plan in the works just as it says in Jeremiah 29:11-13, “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.  Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.   You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”  Do not give up and don’t cave in to those negative thoughts that keep trying to work their way into your mind.  God didn’t bring you this far to just bring you this far, but it is a choice to grow in the fire.  

I would love to be able to always write that everything is always going to be great and God will never allow anything to come against you, but it is in the struggles that we grow, and His plans for you require growth.  We must continually grow in our walk with Him!  So, are there answers coming?  Yes!  Is God still working?  Absolutely! Does He see and does He care?  Always!  We are living in tough times, so there will be struggles, so will we be found faithful?  Will we continue to trust Him because that is where His best and His answers are found?!  We always have hope!  God is on our side!  Nothing is too difficult for Him, including healing your broken heart, mind, body… He has you in the palm of His hand!  He sees you and He not only knows your name, He has a plan and He is in the process of fulfilling it, so cling to Him and trust Him.  Pray and ask Him to help your unbelief if you are struggling, but don’t give up.  He will get you through to the other side!  

Right now, the world needs to see Christians rise up in the confidence of the One we believe in!  They need to see us as hope-filled, confident, godly people who aren’t afraid to be different.  The answer is not found in who sits in office in your government, but in who sits on the Throne of All!  God is still on His throne.  We live in a lost and dying world where people are terrified and lost at every turn.  They are looking for answers, and those who are screaming the loudest are leading them straight to hell.  We need to live confident, hope-filled lives that scream louder!  We need to show the love of God every chance we get.  Let God judge the sin in the world, you love them all the way to Him, so He can lead them in the way they need to know to go.  Too often, we treat people like they should know the truth, but they don’t!  We have moved so far away from God in so many areas, we need to start educating people about who God is.  When missionaries go to a country where they know that the people have no clue who God is, they don’t barge in and judge them for their misbehaviors; they show them and teach them, and that is the world we all live in today.  A world that is lost and in need of a Savior, we need to live lives that lead them to Him.  Who or what is your confidence in today?  If it is in God and His promises and His faithfulness, and His plan for your life, then you can walk in confidence that no matter what comes your way, God is always faithful!  

Endurance ~ not usually a favorite word because it tends to imply that there must be pain or stretching ~ whatever the case may be… it isn’t comfortable.  We all seem to prefer comfort, but it’s time to learn to endure to the end of all that we are called to do.  Get through that valley so you can make it to that mountaintop.  There are always lessons to be learned in life, and valleys tend to mature us, so if you have found yourself in a valley of life today, ask God what it is you need to learn from the experience so you can grow closer in your walk with Him.  

If you are going to heaven ~ don’t go alone!!  Start living that life of confidence of God living within you!  Don’t spend your life living in the same fears that the world lives in.  Spend time getting to know Him and growing in your walk with Him so you can be all He created you to be and your walk with draw others to Him as well!  After all, we know that truly His best is yet to come!

The Israelites were distraught to the point of even hiding in caves to hide from the Midianites.  All of their crops were being destroyed, nothing was going their way.  They had gotten themselves into the mess they were in, but God was showing up to get them out of the mess and to show Himself mighty in their lives.  Now, just in case you haven’t heard or read this story before, multiple armies were coming after them and Gideon here was from what was considered one of the lesser tribes and his family was not considered great in the tribe and he was the youngest in his family ~ so he felt like a “nobody”.  (Classic example of why you can’t base who you are on anything other than who God says you are ~ another Bible study for another time.). The odds were all against him, but God convinced Gideon that He was with Him and He would give him the victory.  Then Gideon called this great army of men together, but God told him there were too many, and God didn’t want them to think they had victory on their own. He wanted to show them and the armies they were fighting that HE IS GOD.  He took Gideon’s army down to just 300 men.  He started with 22,000 and now he had 300 ~ it certainly looked like in the natural, all of the odds were against him….

When all of the odds are against you and that mountain or battle seems to be too much for you, it is the perfect opportunity if you are willing to trust and walk with God for Him to show up mighty in your life!  Too often, when the battle has been raging or we are faced with something that looks impossible, we give up instead of trusting God to do the impossible, and then we wonder why He doesn’t.  He is the God of the Impossible!  He created everything ~ nothing is too difficult for Him.  It takes trusting Him when you don’t see a way, when all of the odds are against you, and allowing Him to lead you through it all.   There are times in life when you just can’t do anything about a situation, and it may be absolutely killing you that you can’t fix it, but if you will just give it all to God and allow Him to work in and through you, He will guide you through to the other side.  We trust too much in ourselves and not enough in Him.  If you want His best, then you must allow Him to work that out in your life. That doesn’t mean that there will never be struggles or mountains, because how else will you learn to trust Him?  

It’s just like that night when I was going to have to walk around a half mile down a dirt road in the pitch dark, with a cloud filled sky and no lights with 2 toddlers and an infant ~ that hole for the moon to peak through those clouds didn’t show up until I stepped out onto that road praying to make it.  You must step out in faith in order to see Him move!   Gideon had to trust that God would do what He said he would do.  God gave him signs, but it still took faith and trust for Gideon to make the move.  

No matter where you are in life, God wants to walk with you and He wants the opportunity to do mighty things in and through you so others will see and know that He is God, and then they will be drawn to Him.  Stop trying to do everything in your strength!  He’s got you and He sees and He knows all you have faced, everything that has been said and done ~ will you trust Him?  Take the time every day to spend some time getting to know and trust Him more, and then you can rest assured that truly His best is yet to come!

We know that in life we will all have times of mourning and despair as well as joy and praise, and we have the opportunity to grow closer to Him through both.  

Have you ever seen a huge Oak tree?  They can become pretty massive, and their wood is very strong.  It’s the type of wood that is durable and sturdy.  An oak tree doesn’t grow to that height overnight, and hopefully, wherever it grows, its roots go deep!  We had a crazy storm that hit our neighborhood several years ago, with either a downburst or tornado, and several trees in our neighborhood that were just massive were uprooted!  It was a mess and very sad.  The root systems were massive, and yet when you looked at them, you could see that they grew out more than they did down deep.  In Tennessee, there’s a lot of rock, and in most places, you can’t dig more than maybe a couple of feet at best without hitting the rock; therefore, the roots of most trees aren’t going to grow very deep, so 95-mile-an-hour winds are no match for them.  As we go through life, we are faced with all types of experiences and situations, and those things will either grow your relationship with Him deeper and stronger or you will find, when those storms come again, that your roots are shallow and you may find yourself teetering in your faith.  God wants to walk with you through the good, the bad, and the ugly!  He wants your life to be full of Him!  He wants you to be a planting of His that will display His beauty and splendor because you are full of all of who He is!

Sometimes life just seems to keep coming at you!  It’s like you can’t even make it through one thing, and something else comes and plows you down!  Cling to Him!  You can be angry, you can be in mourning, you can be frustrated, and you can pour your heart out to Him with every bit of that, but cling to Him!  Don’t let go!  Cling to Him, knowing that He sees and He has a plan, but you must stick with Him in order to achieve those plans!

Fortunately, there are also times when you find yourself rising to the top and feeling blessed, and those are times you need to cling to Him as well!  Don’t forget who brought you there.  Keep Him first place.  Ask Him how you can continue to grow through this time!  Ask Him what His dreams are for your life?  Is there something new or different?  Is there an area you can serve Him in?  Don’t waste time when you are blessed on meaningless, fruitless things!  By all means, enjoy the time and relish the blessing, just don’t miss out on the blessings of His presence and the opportunity to grow closer to Him!

Every season is an opportunity to grow closer to Him!  Don’t miss out!  Ask Him today to show you His plan and His dreams for your life, knowing that in Him, His best is yet to come!

Israel had just faced an unexpected defeat at Ai, and now God was telling them that they needed to go back.  It was no little thing that they had been defeated by Ai, it was a small city that should not have been a problem for their army, especially since they knew God had promised to give all of their enemies over to them.  Now, what would all of the rest of the people in the land, who before this had feared them, think?  God told Joshua to let go of those thoughts and frustrations and to go back and take the city because He was giving it to them.  There had been sin in the camp.  One man chose to rebel against what God had said, and it caused their first defeat, but that had been dealt with, and God was telling them to let it go and move forward to take the promised land!

Sometimes you may have to fight the same battle more than once, but if God is calling you to that battle, He will give you victory.  Don’t allow the enemy to discourage you and frustrate you, and keep you where you are, because God didn’t bring you this far to only come this far.  Sometimes our thinking and our faith seem to be based on what we are capable of or what others say is possible, but our thinking and faith should be based on what The Word of God says, what He has promised, and Who He is.  One of satan’s greatest tools these days is to get Christians to be so afraid to believe for anything for fear of being accused of prosperity thinking that they don’t believe Him for anything. And no, I don’t believe you can just think positive and pray and poof you have the car of your dreams sitting in your driveway, or that if you have faith, everything just falls into place all of the time.  Life is hard, and if you are striving to have a close walk with God, I can assure you that all hell is likely to come against you, and that is where your faith in Him will guide you through all of that into His best!  Don’t fear it ~ He will fight with you and for you, He loves you and His desire is to guide you into all He created you to be.  

So, as you face that challenge, storm, or maybe the biggest battle of your life, remember these words from Isaiah 41:10, “So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God.  I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”  God loves you so much and if you will just draw close to Him and walk with Him every day you can cling to what He says in Jeremiah 29: 11-13,  “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.  Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”  You want to find Him?  Seek Him with your whole heart.  Trust Him and allow Him to guide you into all He has planned.  Take a moment and ask Him what His dreams are for your life!  Trust me, HIs plan for you is bigger than yours because His plan is to use your life to bring Him glory and to show others who He is.  So, whether you are “in the fire” or on the mountaintop, you never know whose life you are touching.  You don’t know who is watching, and God wants to use you and your walk with Him to help them.  It’s not just about us. It’s about the other lives we change because of Him in our lives that will matter in the end.  God wants to show up mighty in your life, but that means you must trust Him and walk with Him.

So no matter what you have to do today, be strong in Him, don’t be discouraged, He is going with you. Seek His face.  Ask before you jump (that goes for in or out of something).  Don’t allow negative thoughts into your mind to discourage you, cling to Him and His promises ~ He will deliver you!  He will rescue you and guide you if you will just put it all in His hands, knowing that then truly HIs best is yet to come!

Quote:  “Courage doesn’t always roar, sometimes it’s the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, ‘I will try again tomorrow’.”  ~ Mac Anderson (Simple Truths)