Thoughts for Life: Stay the Course

Max Lucado tells us, "Revenge builds a lonely house. Space enough for one person.

The lives of its tenants are reduced to one goal: make someone miserable. They do. Themselves!

Keep a sharp eye out for the weeds of bitter discontent.

God’s healing includes a move out of the House of Spite, toward the spacious ways of grace, away from hardness toward forgiveness.

Can he really, you wonder?

Can He really clean up this mess?

This history of sexual abuse? This raw anger at the father who left my mother?

Can God heal this ancient hurt in my heart?

Begin the process of forgiveness.

Turn your attention away from what they did to you to what Jesus did for you.

Stay the course.

You’ll spend less time in the spite house and more in the grace house.

And as one who’s walked the hallways of both, believe me, you’re going to love the space of grace.

You’ll get through this!

Stay the Course by Max Lucado

From You’ll Get Through This

Listen to UpWords with Max Lucado at OnePlace.com

(Used with permission, Google image added)

Cindy Sproles tells us about her book: New Sheets - Thirty Days to Refine You into the Woman You Can Be

{Money from New Sheets is donated to Hope House to help young, pregnant moms choose "life".}

"Need to change your husband? Change your sheets. Want to change jobs? Change your sheets. Long for a new life? Just change your sheets.

God uses our life experiences to shape us. When the friction of frustration chaffs the skin, God offers us respite and rest.

For author Cindy Sproles, sleeping on worn-out sheets meant holding on to the past, but new sheets...new sheets marked a fresh start.

The slate wiped clean. Crisp. Fresh. New. With each monumental event in her life, she tossed out the old and ushered in the new with a set of fresh new sheets.

From the cheapest muslin to the most expensive Egyptian cotton, she saw how God was shaping her into the woman she needed to be.

When the road is tough, veer off and step onto a path that is tried and true. One already walked, already blazed, and already prepared just for you.

New Sheets - Thirty Days to Refine You into the Woman You Can Be, is a series of thirty transparent devotions and inspirational thoughts that welcome you, wrap you tight, and snuggle you in encouragement.

The next time you long for a change...go for new sheets."

Let’s pray:

Father, as we think about Max's words, may we realize that You want us to forgive those who have hurt us, and we understand that it is for our own good to do so!

Soften our hearts to submit to what is Your will for us at this moment. We are looking to Your Spirit to enable us to do this.

We also ask for guidance in our personal needs. The book that Cindy Sproles has mentioned looks like a good one to get, and maybe even send to a friend who might appreciate it's helpful information.

Bless her efforts to reach out to women who need encouragement.

We pray these things in the mighty Name of Your Son, Jesus. Amen.

Today’s Bible verse: 2 Sam. 22:3 "The God of my rock; in him will I trust: he is my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my high tower, and my refuge, my saviour, thou savest me from violence."

Today’s quote: Gwen Smith – “We all have brokenness that needs fixing and stains that need to be cleaned. We all need a makeover! The good news of the Gospel is simple: when we call out to God and seek His heart and forgiveness through Jesus Christ, He does a new thing! He meets us with mercy, forgives us completely, blesses us with grace and does a masterful, life-changing work of transformation.”

Some thoughts today: When God adopts us into His Family, it will start a process of renovations that are to make us become Christ-like. God’s love for you is the surest thing there is, my friend. It is His desire to help you through every obstacle that comes against you in your walk with Him.

Remember, there is much more for you to experience of His love and grace. Be patient with yourself, and give God the right-of-way of changing you to be more like Christ.

- We’re to submit all the little things that hinder us, to be unhindered in our spirits.

- It’s all about unity, to have God’s blessing. He makes us one with others.

Sunday's post: Wounded. Broken. Abused.
Tammie Johnson
Tuesday's post: #43 The Issue of Gift Projection
C. Peter Wagner
Thursday's post: #44 Inflecting False Guilt
C. Peter Wagner
Saturday's post: An Occasion with a Lasting Impression
Jean Oathout

A popular post: Forgive Us, Father: Prayer Note #99
Dutch Sheets’ prayer: “Father, why is the thing we need the most, the thing we do the least? Why are most of us so busy we don’t have time?"