Ponderings

Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God?  Or am I trying to please people?  If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.   G alatians 1:10 NIV Approval.  Validation.  Gratitude.  These are things many of us seek, things I struggle with daily.  Even though as believers we long to follow God and live to bring him honor and glory, few of us would agree that man's approval means absolutely nothing to us.   For years I have struggled with approval addiction.  As a devotional writer I want to know that the meditations I share are helping and making a difference in the lives of others.  How else can I measure that except by the number of Facebook likes or Twitter retweets I receive?   How different would our lives be if we lived each day with God's approval as our goal and stopped believing the lie that man's approval is a valid measuring stick?  What if we spent less time seeking validation on social media and more time in pr

At times we all feel like we are on a sinking ship, don't we?  We can't pay our bills, don't understand why we lost our job or our health, and the problems we face are bigger than the iceberg that sank the  Titanic .  Like the disciples, we may feel like Jesus is asleep in the boat without a care in the world, while we are headed down, down, down.   At some point in life most of us have heard the familiar story in the gospel of Mark, where Jesus calms a storm.  Sometimes a Bible passage can become so familiar to us that we miss the little nuggets God hides inside.   Mark 4:35–41 (ESV): 35 On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” 36 And leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. And other boats were with him. 37 And a great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat, so that the boat was already filling. 38 But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke him and said

Happy New Year!  I really mean that.  There is not a reason under the sun why we must experience another year of misery as we did in 2020.  Sure, many of us had the dickens kicked out of us by adversities and loss, sickness and suffering.  We couldn't see coming everything that life dished out.  But, the past is past and if we change our focus a little, I truly believe we can live above our circumstances and experience joy in 2021. Here are a few of the things that 2020 taught me: 1.    God is in control.   Now it may not seem that way to you, but nothing takes him by surprise.  Neither is God to blame for all the bad things that happen to us.  God doesn't cause natural disasters, racial riots, political misconduct, or anything else that man brings on himself or his neighbor because of his own sinful nature and willful misconduct, but he does allow us to suffer the consequences of those choices.             The Bible is filled with scriptures that attest to the sovereignty of G