Do Not Worry

Mark Twain said “I’ve experienced a lot of terrible things in my life – and some of them actually happened”. I too have let negative and insecure thinking cause me much worry. When I get my feelings hurt I focus on negative thinking. The other night I got so absorbed in the details of what was upsetting me; I began to feel worse because one thought lead to another, and yet another until I got so upset that I started thinking “I cannot believe this is happening to me” which of course allowed me to throw one big pity party for myself. This snowball thinking reveals my all-too-human side?
Rehearsing the painful thoughts repeatedly is like making a snowball, the more you roll it around in the snow or add more snow to it, the bigger the snowball gets; Likewise the more we obsess over hurt emotions and add more negative thoughts to it the bigger the problem gets and we become more worried and stressed. When we fill our head with stuff like this it causes us to react to circumstances with agitation and harshness which robs us of the serentiy that God wants us to have.
God is the Father of peace. Many of us are worrisome and peace seems foreign to us. We long for our thoughts to be toward that inner tranquility regardless of the outward circumstances.

“The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:5-7)


When times are difficult we can direct our thoughts away from the hurtful events and toward our Father of peace. Thankfulness controls the temptation to dwell on the fear provoking events. It is impossible to be thankful and worry at the same time. The Lord has told us. Do not be anxious for anything.” When you catch yourself rehearsing a hurt, say to yourself, “whew, there I go again” and consciously nip it in the bud. Stop the train before it gets going because once it gets rolling, it is a slippery slope.
Maybe we cannot be thankful for the hurt in our heart but we can be thankful that God is near, that Jesus is standing by our side to take us to the Father of peace. When we pray we can hear God clearly say, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28).

The dance of intimacy

Ever since Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden, men and women have been hiding their deepest selves from one another. That’s why intimacy takes work. However, there is hope! Because God is the designer of relationships, He made you and those around you and knows our hearts, He knows how to help you connect with the key people in your life. Granted, intimacy can be one of the most frightening and challenging things you’ll ever experience, but if you are willing to climb the uphill battle, it can also be one of the most rewarding and satisfying parts of life.
Mature Intimacy is a place in which we can define the self and respect the emotional separateness of the other. Intimacy will not occur as long as we assume that we are the “expert” on how another should handle their relationships. If we find we alternate between silence and distance, or fighting and blaming we can rest assured these behaviors will keep us STUCK by ensuring that problems will not be addressed in a productive way. Problems will arise as well when we look to intimate relationships as our source of self-esteem.
We must be willing to fight for intimacy in our marriages and to fiercely guard it. We fight for it by being attentive to each other’s hearts; by yielding to God in a way that allows us to more easily yield to one another. We guard it by being intentional, considering what pulls us from intimacy and stepping away from those places, considering what brings us life and stepping deliberately into those places.
My lover is mine and I am his; we long to belong. Marriage, as a coming together before God, offers a sense of belonging that mirrors our belonging to the Father. While the vulnerability that intimacy brings is sometimes hard or scary to step into, it is such a wonderfully holy place that God gives us, a place of delighting in one another that echoes of the Father’s delight in us.
Father, forgive me the places where, although I long to belong, I rebel under your covering. Forgive me the places where I choose not to yield. Let me delight so much in You that I can delight in the one you have given me in marriage, that together we might be Yours. For more information see www.fatherlovesyou.net

The Holiday season , for many of us, is the most happy, exciting and joyful time of the year. Then again, for others, it can be a time of loneliness. Some of us look around the malls and see others shopping for gifts, laughing, hugging and humming a Christmas tune; for those feeling lonely, seeing this reinforces their emptiness and loneliness.
Loneliness, what is it? Adrian Rogers said:
“Loneliness is a painful sense of being unwanted, unneeded, uncared for, maybe even unnecessary. Every person has three basic emotional needs. Every one of us has a need for someone to love and someone to love us. We also all need somebody who understands us, who knows how we feel. And then we desire somebody who wants us and needs us. We need to be needed!”
There is in every human heart a place that God alone can fill. There is also in God’s heart a place that you alone can fill. No one and nothing else can fill your place in the heart of God. Whoa. He longs for you. When we really know that love, it heals our wounded hearts and restores damaged relationships. Recently I had a night where I cried myself to sleep, the pain of loneliness cut deep and all hope seemed lost. While weeping, I heard God’s gentle words of comfort, “you are not alone. For I am here, I have never left your side. I have seen you through your darkest night and I will wipe away your every tear.” This woke me up to how God’s love brings refreshment and stillness. He wants to spend time with me! Encountering God’s love combats loneliness! As F.B. Meyer said: Loneliness is an opportunity for Jesus to make Himself known.

Surrendering to God was the key to unlock the door to the life I wanted. When I gave authority in my life back to God, He changed me. I could not change myself no matter how hard I tried. When the walls around our heart come down, God has access to the deepest parts of who we are. A relationship with the Lord will begin to transform our capacity to relate to others. His love can then flow through us in a cleansing sort of way and we are different because of it. Jesus alone is the answer to loneliness.
It’s sad that people remain isolated in their loneliness during the Holidays. Christmas is about undoing loneliness. Isaiah shared with us before the birth of Jesus Christ, "Therefore the Lord Himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel" (Isaiah 7:14). Immanuel means "God with us." And if God is with us, how can we ever be lonely again? But, far more people are lonely than we may dream.