Tag: in God’s time

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Grey and Yellow

2020 was life-changing, it was exceptionally challenging that I can’t even put in a good word.

It was unremarkably heavy, a burdened weight unnecessarily shouldered for the past 10 months.

Suddenly, everyone had to forego with comfortable, we did not have a choice and that was frustrating. Life had to hide behind the mask.

Loss was a daily constant. The existential need to be seen, to be heard, to be held, was abruptly stolen by uncertainty and time was not on our side.

Anxiety continue to grow and you find yourself writing down turbulent thoughts on a fleeting lucid moment at 2 am.

I had to deal with so much the last year, I couldn’t cope. Gone was the strong facade I so easily wear, replaced by a throng of vulnerability and unrest. I feel like the chemistry in my brain fucked up.

2020 did not turn out how we hoped it would be, it was a cruel surprise. But somewhere in between the pandemonium was a window of realization that human as we are, we will instinctively survive.

If there was anything that I learned from the longest year of my life, it was gratitude, gratitude from the smallest of things: from keeping a job despite the economic collapse, home-cooked meals, discovering a hobby, appreciating my small circle of family and friends, new-age technology filling in the gap from being socially distant, waking up alive, healthy and somewhat sane.

May we leave the dust of the year that was in the past and may we learn that we could choose to drop these heavy loads and walk towards hope, no matter how small a speck, with empty arms making room to carry much better things.

Smile. It’s a New Year.

xx

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Enemies of the Heart | Anger

Following a daily devotional to appease a lot of chaotic thoughts.

This one is for me and I’m just going to leave it here as a reminder that there is so much more to life than living with all this nonsense.

Andy Stanley: Enemies of the Heart 

Devotional Day 3

“Letting Go of Hurt and Anger”

Scripture: Ephesians 4:25-32

The second enemy of the heart is anger. We get angry when we don’t get what we want.

Show me an angry person and I’ll show you a hurt person. And I guarantee you that person is hurt because something has been taken. Somebody owes them something.

We all know people whose anger could be verbalized in one of the following ways: “You took my reputation.” “You stole my family.” “You took the best years of my life.” “You stole my first marriage.” “You robbed me of my teenage years.” “You robbed me of my purity.” “You owe me a raise.” “You owe me an opportunity to try.” “You owe me a second chance.” “You owe me affection.”

The root of anger is the perception that something has been taken. Something is owed you. And now a debt-to-debtor relationship has been established.

How about you? What debt is causing the anger you feel?

How long are you going to allow the people who have hurt you to control your life? Another month? Another year? Another season of your life? How long?

I’d like to propose that today should be the day when you quit holding on to the hurt!

While it’s true that you can’t undo what’s been done, it’s equally true that you don’t have to let the past control your future. In Ephesians 4, we’re commanded to “get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger.” We do that by “forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”

The remedy for anger is forgiveness. If we hold out waiting to be paid back for the wrongs done to us, we will be the ones who pay. If, on the other hand, we cancel the debts owed to us, we will be set free.

Of the four monstrous forces we’re discussing in these devotionals, I believe this one—unresolved anger from intentional and unintentional hurt—is the most devastating. Yet in some ways it’s the easiest to overcome. You simply make up your mind to cancel the debt. You decide and declare, “You don’t owe me anymore.”

Follow this four-step process today:

(1) Identify who you’re angry with.

(2) Determine what they owe you.

(3) Cancel the debt by forgiving them.

(4) Don’t let the anger build up again.

“So stop telling lies. Let us tell our neighbors the truth, for we are all parts of the same body. And “don’t sin by letting anger control you.” Don’t let the sun go down while you are still angry, for anger gives a foothold to the devil. If you are a thief, quit stealing. Instead, use your hands for good hard work, and then give generously to others in need. Don’t use foul or abusive language. Let everything you say be good and helpful, so that your words will be an encouragement to those who hear them. And do not bring sorrow to God’s Holy Spirit by the way you live. Remember, he has identified you as his own, guaranteeing that you will be saved on the day of redemption. Get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words, and slander, as well as all types of evil behavior. Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you.”

‭‭Ephesians‬ ‭4:25-32‬ ‭NLT‬‬

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Enemies of the Heart | Guilt

Subscribed to this devotional recently and I’m just gonna leave Day 2 here. Just in case you stumble across this, read up.

Andy Stanley: Enemies of the Heart 

Devotional Day 2

“Fessing Up”

Scripture: 1 John 1:5-10

The first enemy of the heart is guilt. Guilt is the result of having done something we perceive as wrong. The message from a heart laden with guilt is, “I owe!”

Consider the man who runs off with another woman and abandons his family. Without realizing it at the time, he has stolen something from every member of his family. He has robbed his wife of her future, her financial security, and her reputation as a wife. From his children’s perspective, this man has stolen their Christmas, traditions, emotional and financial security, dinners with the family, and so on.

Now, the man who did all this doesn’t think in terms of what he has taken. Initially, he thinks in terms of what he has gained. But the first time his little girl asks him why he doesn’t love Mommy anymore, his heart is stirred. He now feels guilty. Dad owes.

Nothing less than paying that debt will relieve a guilty heart of its burden of guilt. People try to work it off, serve it off, give it off, and even pray it off. But no amount of good deeds, community service, charitable giving, or Sundays in a pew can relieve the guilt. It’s a debt. And it must be paid or canceled for a guilty heart to experience relief.

How do you get your guilt canceled? The answer comes in one of the first Bible verses I memorized as a child: 1 John 1:9. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (kjv).

Confession has the power to break the cycle of sin. And like most medicinal remedies, it works when applied properly. Proper application happens when we confess our sins, not just to God, but also to the people we’ve sinned against.

Guilty people are usually repeat offenders. And as long as you’re carrying a secret, as long as you’re trying to ease your conscience by telling God how sorry you are, you’re setting yourself up to repeat the past. However, if you start confessing your sins to the people you’ve sinned against, odds are that you’re not going to go back and commit those sins again.

Confess both to God and others, and you will slay this enemy of your heart.

What are you feeling guilty for? Confess your sin to God and to whomever you have hurt. Do it today.

“This is the message we heard from Jesus and now declare to you: God is light, and there is no darkness in him at all. So we are lying if we say we have fellowship with God but go on living in spiritual darkness; we are not practicing the truth. But if we are living in the light, as God is in the light, then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin. If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth. But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness. If we claim we have not sinned, we are calling God a liar and showing that his word has no place in our hearts.”

‭‭1 John‬ ‭1:5-10‬ ‭NLT‬‬

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Love is Spelled T-I-M-E

Love is Spelled T-I-M-E

Love is wildly popular, in conversations and songs. Everyone believes in love, at least we think so. But believing is not a problem. It’s the doing.

How is love best described? Self-sacrifice might be the higher definition: “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13). This thankfully gets us past warm feelings to costly actions. Dying for someone we love is the ultimate proof. What loving parent wouldn’t give his or her life for a child?

But as we break that life down into smaller increments, it is simply made up of time: minutes, hours, days, and years. We may be ready to sacrifice blood for our beloveds in times of crises, but not always our precious day-to-day time. We can imagine ourselves as the parent hero in some big screen moment, but can we also play a big part in the daily routine?

Time is the currency of all relationships. It’s precious because we all get only twenty-four hours per day. Once we spend an hour, we can’t recapture it—it’s gone forever. If we spend an hour or two with our children, we can’t spend those same hours on anything else. The hour is sacrificed for them. It’s gone.

Doing the math, 2 hours a day equals 14 hours a week, about 56 hours a month, which becomes 730 hours a year. Spread over 20 years, this means 608 full days, almost two years of our lives.

But it takes more than two hours a day to raise children. The average grade school child demands three to five hours a day. This isn’t even quality time; it’s just busy time.

An infant and toddler demand even more. Those early years are front-loaded with urgencies. The teens through the twenties have back-loaded demands in worry alone, over friends, dating, college or career, and other almost-adult choices. Going from worry to hurry to a slower “hang” time is costly.

Time, time, time is the high price of a loving parent, but who has time? Jan and I believed that if we invested our time heavily in our kids while young, we would give them a growing deposit from which to draw when they were older. It was a calculated risk we were willing to take.

Source: Mark and Jan Foreman (parents of Jon and Tim Foreman or Switchfoot) and David C Cook, Never Say No, Raising big-picture kids; please visit http://www.dccpromo.com/never_say_no/

xx

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Ultimate Victory

Me and a friend were both sharing problems we are currently experiencing, and we ended up talking about God and devotionals. Was amazed how well versed he is with the bible and know so much about his God and he recommended devotionals by Max Lucado so I looked him up and subscribed to a two week daily reading. So here, I’m sharing day 6 of the reading plan I’m currently on from Thomas Nelson and Max Lucado’s “God Will Carry You Through.”

Ultimate Victory

Life turns every person upside down. No one escapes unscathed. Not the woman who discovers her husband is having an affair. Not the businessman who has his investments embezzled by a crooked colleague. Not the teenager who discovers that a night of romance has resulted in a surprise pregnancy. Not the pastor who feels his faith shaken by questions of suffering and fear. We’d be foolish to think we are invulnerable. But we’d be just as foolish to think that evil wins the day. The Bible vibrates with the steady drumbeat of faith: God recycles evil into righteousness. Perhaps you read this book in search of a quick fix for your challenges. “How to Overcome Obstacles in Five Easy Steps.” Sorry to disappoint.

I don’t have an easy solution or a magic wand. I have found something—Someone—far better. God himself. When God gets in the middle of life, evil becomes good. Haven’t we seen this discovery in the story of Joseph? Saddled with setbacks: family rejection, deportation, slavery, and imprisonment. Yet he emerged triumphant, a hero of his generation. Among his final recorded words are these comments to his brothers: “You meant evil against me; but God meant it for good” (Genesis 50:20 NKJV).

This is the repeated pattern in Scripture. Evil. God. Good. See the cross on the hill? Can you hear the soldiers pound the nails? Jesus’ enemies smirk. Satan’s demons lurk. All that is evil rubs its hands in glee. “This time,” Satan whispers. “This time I will win.” For a silent Saturday it appeared he did. The final breath. The battered body. Mary wept. Blood seeped down the timber into the dirt. Followers lowered God’s Son as the sun set. Soldiers sealed the tomb, and night fell over the earth.

Yet what Satan intended as the ultimate evil, God used for the ultimate good. God rolled the rock away. Jesus walked out on Sunday morning, a smile on his face and a bounce to his step. And if you look closely, you see Satan scampering from the cemetery with his forked tail between his legs. “Will I ever win?” he grumbles. No. He won’t.

I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light so that you can understand the confident hope he has given to those he called—his holy people who are his rich and glorious inheritance. I also pray that you will understand the incredible greatness of God’s power for us who believe him. This is the same mighty power that raised Christ from the dead and seated him in the place of honor at God’s right hand in the heavenly realms. Now he is far above any ruler or authority or power or leader or anything else—not only in this world but also in the world to come. (‭Ephesians‬ ‭1‬:‭18-21‬ NLT)

xx

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Thank you for Sunday.

I wanted to write about you. About how I’m starting to resent you. About how I feel like you aren’t true to your word. About how I’ve been asking because you said to ask and I’ll be getting what I’ve asked for, but I haven’t. About how I’ve been searching what you said will be found, but I stare in blank spaces instead. About how I’ve been knocking because you said you open doors, but even the windows are shut. I keep asking myself why you let these things happen; why you are silent, unanswering, unavailable. I feel unheard, abandoned. I feel like you are not on my side. It seems like you have a sick sense of humor and the joke’s on me. You’ve left me anxious and frustrated and bitter. I believed, I believe, I keep on believing, I even keep on assuring myself that I believe and that there is a reason behind all these, that there is a purpose these has to happen.

After more than a month of ignoring you, I finally went to see you last Sunday. You welcomed me despite that. You had me sit and offered me really good coffee. You smiled upon me last Sunday and we talked. You asked how I was and you even sang to me. You then asked me if I’ve set goals for my life. I told you about mine, the goals I’ve been setting for so long, the goals I’ve been immensely praying you help me with. You asked me if these goals are anchored on love. By love you mean by sharing to others, goals with selfless acts, goals that honor and respect. You then started talking about faith and encouragement and character. I was holding back tears as I listened and stared at you. My goals were anchored on myself and I felt so ashamed.

I’m sorry for being impatient and for being easily swayed away from what you’ve taught me to do. I’m sorry for being selfish and self-centered. I realized that when I try to justify myself, the end result still points back to me. I know you have a better plan than the one I have in mind, you always do. So I will wait. I will wait for whatever it is that you will give me, whatever it is that you want to happen. I will wait. I will extend my patience and wait because I believe it will be better. If tomorrow doesn’t go as I planned, then so be it. I will trust you on this one.

xx

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Let love be your highest goal. – 1 Corinthians 14:1

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Processing Your Anger

Sharing Day 332 of the reading plan I am currently on from http://www.joycemeyer.org/ Joyce Meyer: Promises for Your Everyday Life – a Daily Devotional

Processing Your Anger

All anger, regardless of its cause, has the same effect on our lives. It upsets us, causing us to feel pressure. Keeping anger locked inside and pretending it doesn’t exist can even be dangerous to our health. Most of the time we’re only hurting ourselves, and the person who angered us isn’t even aware of it.

I struggled with terrible anger until God grabbed my attention. I eventually had to find a positive way to process my anger. That was a place of new beginnings for me.

When you face your anger and decide to deal with it God’s way, you can overcome it. The Holy Spirit gives us the power to be stable and walk in the fruit of the Spirit. We have the power to forgive those who do injustices in our lives and to love the unlovely.

So we must take responsibility for our anger and learn to deal with it. Instead of keeping it all bottled up inside, seek the Lord and ask Him to help you release it. Process it and bring closure to it, and that will relieve the pressure.

Prayer Starter: Lord, I don’t want to keep my anger inside of me because that will only damage me and it’s not pleasing to You. I ask for Your help. Help me to relieve the pressure of anger in my life.

Control your temper, for anger labels you a fool. (‭Ecclesiastes‬ ‭7‬:‭9‬ NLT)

xx

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a-quick-temper-will-make-a-fool-of-you-soon-enough(Photo courtesy: Google Images)

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Vengeance Is God’s

Sharing Day 324 of the reading plan I am currently on from http://www.joycemeyer.org/ Joyce Meyer: Promises for Your Everyday Life – a Daily Devotional

Vengeance Is God’s 

When someone makes us angry, Satan likes to attack us and keep us upset. Responding in a positive way is the direct opposite of what the enemy wants you to do, defeating his plan to keep you upset. It doesn’t come naturally, and it isn’t always easy, but when we do what we can do, God will do what we can’t do.

When someone angers and offends you, a natural response for many of us is to try and pay them back. But if you really pay them back, what will you gain? You’ll only make them angrier and then they might try and pay you back again. The cycle never ends!

If we hang on to anger, we’re just being foolish. We must turn the anger and the people who caused it over to God and let Him take care of it. ..Vengeance is Mine, I will repay (requite), says the Lord. .

Trust God and He will take care of you and protect you. You can’t change what happened, but when you give it to God, He’ll use it to bring you a better future.

Prayer Starter: God, I believe that vengeance is Yours and that paying people back in anger is not something You want me to do. I give my anger to You and trust that You will take care of me.

Dear friends, never take revenge. Leave that to the righteous anger of God. For the Scriptures say, “I will take revenge; I will pay them back,” says the LORD. (‭Romans‬ ‭12‬:‭19‬ NLT)

xx

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Live at Peace with Everyone 

Sharing Day 314 of the reading plan I am currently on from http://www.joycemeyer.org/ Joyce Meyer: Promises for Your Everyday Life – a Daily Devotional

Live at Peace with Everyone 

An important lesson I’ve learned is to “bend so I will not break.” The Bible says to “readily adjust yourself to [people, things]. And, if possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone” (Romans 12:16, 18 AMP).

Before I made the Word of God a priority in my life and decided to live an obedient life, I had to have my own way. I wasn’t adaptable. I wanted everyone else to adapt to me. Of course, that resulted in more strife and stress.

I’ve now learned to bend. It’s not always easy on the flesh to give in and do things differently than I had planned, but it’s easier than being upset and miserable.

If you want to have peace in your relationships, you will need to be willing to be flexible. Pushing for your own way all the time will only hurt and offend those around you. But when you take to heart Paul’s encouragement to ‘live at peace with everyone,’ the Holy Spirit will fill your relationships with His joy and peace.

Prayer Starter: Holy Spirit, help me to bend so that I will not break. I want Your peace in my relationships, so I choose to be flexible today.

Do all that you can to live in peace with everyone. (‭Romans‬ ‭12‬:‭18‬ NLT)

xx

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Facing the Truth Brings a Happier Life 

The worst lies are the ones we tell ourselves. Cliche but, well the TRUTH will always set you free. Everyday, we face our own daily battles but we don’t have to go through these alone. To relieve ourselves from the frustrations of these battles, we need to start with acknowledging our imperfections. Living a happy life is a choice only we get to choose to make.

Sharing Day 313 of the reading plan I am currently on from http://www.joycemeyer.org/ Joyce Meyer: Promises for Your Everyday Life – a Daily Devotional

Facing the Truth Brings a Happier Life 

Nobody can be set free from a problem until they’re willing to admit they have one. An alcoholic, drug addict or anyone who’s lost control of their life is doomed to suffer until they’re able to say, “I’ve got a problem, and I need help with it.”

Even though our problems may have been brought upon us because of something done against our will, we have no excuse for allowing the problem to persist, grow and even take control over our entire life. Our past experiences may have made us the way we are, but we don’t have to stay that way. We can take the initiative by taking positive steps to change things, and we can ask for God’s help.

Whatever your problem may be, you must face the truth and assume some personal responsibility. The Bible says we must evaluate ourselves. That might seem daunting, but Jesus Christ is in you and can help you through any past problems and issues.

Face the truth, it can be the beginning of a happier life!

Prayer Starter: Holy Spirit, I don’t want to live in denial and fear of my problems. I choose to evaluate myself and get to the bottom of these issues because I know that You can help me work through them to have a happier life.

Examine yourselves to see if your faith is genuine. Test yourselves. Surely you know that Jesus Christ is among you; if not, you have failed the test of genuine faith. (‭2 Corinthians‬ ‭13‬:‭5‬ NLT)

xx

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