Learning To Fail and Succeed in God

Written by Rev. Daniel Forster

Take Today’s Next Step: Overcome fears. Share your faith.

God gives us the choice of how we wish to see the obstacles and mistakes that fill our lives. Like the other choices He allows us to make, we can either listen to the world and let failure consume us, or we can listen to Him and learn to succeed through Him.

“And Peter answered him, ‘Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.’ He said, ‘Come.’ So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, ‘Lord, save me.’ Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him, saying to him, ‘O you of little faith, why did you doubt?’  (Matthew 14:28-31 ESV)

A Black Mark or a Glow?

Written by Julie Cosgrove

Take today’s next step: Join The Life and you’ll be inspired with new ways to let your light shine as you make Him known. 

“In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:16)

Picture a large, white block shining in front of you. Just off-center, there’s a tiny dark spot. Off to the other side, you catch a glimpse of a glimmer. Which one captures your focus?

Our church is still in the growing stage. We rent facilities and use PowerPoint to display the words to the songs and hymns, the Scripture verses, and the prayers we say out loud. On the wall is a hole, or maybe it is a large black nail. Anyway, it is a black dot that is a bit larger than the PowerPoint period. It’s just enough to stand out and trip us up as our eyes scan the words.

Don't Give Up!

MARGARET ENGLISH DE ALMINANA

If you’re accustomed to praying in the power of Holy Spirit, you’ve probably experienced seasons of spiritual warfare. Sometimes it may seem as if all hell is breaking loose—literally.

People may seem to get mad at you for no reason. Others may begin gossip campaigns. Your car breaks down and the kids act up. Your husband says you are spending too much time in prayer. Your friends tell you to back off—that you’re just no fun anymore. In these seasons, problems can feel as though they are pouring into your life from every angle, and you can end up feeling misunderstood, confused, rejected and alone.

But you’re not alone! Seasoned intercessors all experience such problems. In fact, they say they expect them—and rejoice because they believe they are making progress in prayer.

Satan's Tools

"Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and, let us run with patience the race that is set before us" (Heb. 12:1).

There are weights which are not sins in themselves, but which become distractions and stumbling blocks in our Christian progress. One of the worst of these is despondency. The heavy heart is indeed a weight that will surely drag us down in our holiness and usefulness.

The failure of Israel to enter the land of promise began in murmuring, or, as the text in Numbers literally puts it, "as it were murmured." Just a faint desire to complain and be discontented. This led on until it blossomed and ripened into rebellion and ruin. Let us give ourselves no liberty ever to doubt God or His love and faithfulness to us in everything and forever.

We can set our will against doubt just as we do against any other sin; and as we stand firm and refuse to doubt, the Holy Spirit will come to our aid and give us the faith of God and crown us with victory.

Martha : The Woman Who Was More Practical Than Spiritual

Scripture References—Luke 10:38-41; John 11; 12:1-3

Name Meaning—As a Chaldee or Syriac word, Martha is the feminine of moro or more, meaning “lord,” “master.” We find this in the form maran in the well-known phrase Maran-atha, “The Lord cometh” (1 Corinthians 16:22). There are those who think that Kyria, translated “lady” in 2 John 1, is a proper name, the Greek equivalent of this word. Carpzov supposes that this Kyria was the same person as Martha of Bethany.

Family Connections—Of the history of Martha, the Bible tells us nothing save that she was the sister of Mary and Lazarus, and lived with them at Bethany. Some early writers have made Martha, the daughter, wife, or widow of Simon the Leper, and that on his death the house became hers, hence the reference to the house when the resurrection of Lazarus was celebrated (Matthew 26:6; Mark 14:3). 

Others think that Martha may have been a near relative of Simon for whom she acted as hostess. But the narrative seems to suggest the home belonged to Martha and being older than Mary and Lazarus, she carried the responsibility of all connected with household affairs in a home where “Jesus found the curse of the sojourner lifted from Him, and, in reversal of His own description of His loneliness and penury, found where to lay His head.” 

A Stone in my Shoe

Written by Linda McCutcheon

Are you facing a disappointment? In this study of Ruth we’ll look at how to find the grace to start over

”Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.” (Ephesians 4:31)

Recently I was hiking in the mountains. Somehow a little stone got into my shoe. I knew it was there and quite aggravating, but I never stopped to take it out. The views were so breath taking, I got distracted. Can you believe it, the next day I felt that same stone which I had not taken the time to remove.

Isn’t that just like bitterness? It begins small. It is irritating and it affects what we are doing. If not dealt with it begins to gnaw at our life. Each step I took, I knew the stone was there. When bitterness is harbored in our lives, it stays with us throughout the day. It controls our thought life, marriage, home life, our day to day relationships and our work suffers.

Don't Look at the Storm

"But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me. And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?" (Matthew 14:30-31)

If there's any way the devil can get your eyes away from the Word, he'll do it. He'll cause trouble. He'll make the circumstances around you pitch and roll like a rowboat in a hurricane. 

He'll do anything he can to get you to concentrate on the realm of the physical senses and the situation around you instead of on the promise of God--because he knows that if he doesn't, you'll take that promise and beat his brains out with it.That's what he did to Peter. When Peter first jumped out of the boat that day in response to Jesus' word, what happened? He walked right across that water without a problem. His whole being was fastened on that word Jesus had spoken to him, "Come!"

Are You A God Chaser?

"But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst;  but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water  springing up into everlasting life." -John 4:14

Are you a God Chaser? As we prepare our hearts and minds to dive into 2013, I find myself wondering how I can jump-start the New Year by immersing myself even deeper into the Lord.

Last month we talked about allowing our spiritual, emotional and physical batteries to run low. I promised that I would follow up this month with help for recharging ourselves through our ultimate Power Source - The Ever Present Spirit of God.

As the New Year quickly approaches, it seems fitting that we look at how we can begin the next year of our lives totally plugged-in to God, and going even deeper in Him than we ever have before.

The Case for Letting Your Partner’s Eye Wander

By MEREDITH MELNICK |

Just ask Eve. There’s nothing so desirable as the one thing you’re not allowed to have. Which is why a new study suggests that if your partner’s got a wandering eye, you might be better off letting him (or her) enjoy it. 

Research on romance has consistently shown that men and women who don’t notice attractive strangers tend to be more satisfied in their own relationships and are more likely to stay with their partners long term. Of course, that blindness has to come naturally. When a person is forced to divert his attention from that cute bartender — by, say, a jealous partner’s opprobrium — it could result in a sort of “backlash” effect, which may end up reducing his level of relationship commitment.

That’s the finding of a new study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, which tests the “forbidden fruit” hypothesis in a series of experiments on college students who were involved in romantic relationships. Write the researchers:

Keeping Your Focus Where It Belongs

A pastor tells a story of how he spent a summer teaching in Mexico and took both of his children with him. To pass the time as they drove, his 13-year-old son watched for license plates. The trip to Mexico netted him plates from 24 states!

	Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. — Colossians 3:2

So when they started back, the son was almost halfway to having seen plates from all 50 states. And their return trip would take them through Yellowstone National Park—a license plate collector’s paradise. By the morning of the second day there, he had just one more state to go: Delaware.

When the three stopped to see Yellowstone’s magnificent sights, the boy wouldn’t even glance at them. He preferred to run up and down the parking lots, looking at license plates. He had become so obsessed with finding that Delaware plate, it was as if his life depended on it. When they stopped near the picturesque Yellowstone Falls, he kept looking for license plates.

Fastest way to be closer to God

Hey it's Don and Dawn again and here's another interesting story. 

It's a story of the Italian poet Dante Alighieri, who was deeply immersed in meditation during a church service, and he failed to kneel at the appropriate moment. 

His enemies hurried to the bishop and demanded that Dante be punished for his sacrilege. 

Dante defended himself by saying... 

"If those who accuse me had had their eyes and minds on God, as I had, they too would have failed to notice events around them, and they most certainly would not have noticed what I was doing." 

End of story. 

How about you? 

What Do Women Want?

Doug Rosenau New Man - Sexual Purity

Husbands desire to be great lovers with a truly skillful and passionate sex life. What happens that so many men fall short of this grand goal? Here are two of the most common skill deficits that sabotage these lofty dreams: (1) Men don't truly understand women; and (2) Men don't realize that they don't truly understand women.

These seven keys will unlock passion in your marriage.

Want to Be More Creative? Get Bored

By Martin Lindstrom | FAST Company

Quick: Survey your friends, your family, and colleagues and ask them when it is that they get their best and brightest ideas. How do they come to solve insurmountable challenges? And when despairing over the unsolvable, how does their breakthrough moment occur?

Don’t be surprised if many of those you ask say something like: "I sleep on it. Then as soon as I get in the shower in the morning… voila!"

For what it’s worth, the shower doesn’t do it for me--I’m a pool man. When my head is cluttered and I can’t think straight, I don my goggles and go for a swim. After the first couple of laps, the confusion begins to lift, and the answers start emerging. What the shower and the pool have in common is they’re both places where you’re rarely disturbed, allowing solitary contemplation. The warm water sure doesn't hurt, either.

This is all related to a phenomenon that’s been identified by Edward de Bono, the legendary creative thinker. He calls it the "creative pause." In de Bono’s book Serious Creativity, he asserts that even when things are going along, well, swimmingly, "some of the best results come when people stop to think about things that no one else has stopped to think about."

Although most people are unaware of the name for it, creative pauses are happening wherever people are solving problems. They occur among harassed CEOs, design directors, and small-business entrepreneurs. The creative pause allows the space for your mind to drift, to imagine and to shift, opening it up to new ways of seeing.

There’s just one small problem: The creative pause might soon become a thing of the past. When was the last time you remember being bored? Or even having a moment free from distractions?

I know it sounds strange, but I welcome boredom. It forces me to ponder. But to make sure we’re on the same page, when I speak of boredom, I’m not referring to killing time on your smartphone, your iPad, or your laptop. I’m not even talking about paging through a book. I mean bored as in doing absolutely nothing.

Because here’s the rub--when we’re at our most bored we’re forced to push our creative boundaries, and unearth the root of whatever problem we're working on. A quick glance around and you’ll notice that it’s almost impossible to be bored in our 21st-century environment. Every bar now has at least one television blaring. And just as night follows day, your eyes will be drawn to the moving pictures above, sapping whatever creative thoughts you could be having. Or take, for example, the last time you were alone at a restaurant waiting for a friend to join you. Chances are you reached for your phone and did something with it, anything to avoid appearing like the lonely loser in the corner.

If you’re still struggling to remember your last bored moment, consider the younger generation. When you were younger, perhaps you hung out on the street with other neighborhood kids. Or maybe you shot a few hoops or cycled down to the drugstore. There were no PlayStations, Xboxes, Wiis, or the latest game apps to play on or offline. Have you noticed how quiet suburban streets are these days?

Back in the 1990s, when Lego asked me to explore the consequences of digital play versus physical play, I discovered how many kids were preoccupied with the tactile aspects of play--how kids were already preoccupied with Tamagotchis, those handheld digital pets that need regular feeding, walking, and sleep. Tamagotchis hit the toy world like an out-of-control virus, making a huge dent in Lego’s Christmas figures. It seemed the more kids played with a screen, the greater their chances of losing their creative skills. Digitized pocket toys have a set sequence of steps to follow, and as soon as kids get the gist of the game, they fall into a passive-interactive mode.

This new development in the toy market was potentially disastrous for Lego, who, in principle, requires a user to bring their imagination to the connecting plastic bricks in order build the object of their fancy. However, as I was busily conducting experiments with interactive play, I accidentally stumbled upon a small realization. It began as an ordinary day. The children were involved in interactive play on a computer screen, and I was handing them the Lego bricks, asking them to create something. But then something extraordinary happened. The entire network broke down, and it took a long 20 minutes for the IT engineers to restore the system. Then it was back to business as usual. Except this time, when I handed over the bricks, the activity level increased. I began seeing Lego castles, trains, bridges, roller coasters, and monsters being built. Those 20 minutes of boredom gave rise to a remarkably productive output, and taught me the value of being bored.

Boredom, however, is becoming an endangered activity. Once lost, it’s not likely to return, because being entertained 24/7 is what kids have come to expect. In fact, by the time I began researching the power of word of mouth for my book Brandwashed, a frenzy of digital toys, apps, games, and screens had become endemic.

These days, I schedule a regular dose of boredom into my day. Furthermore, I don’t check messages if I’m waiting for a friend. I choose, instead, to watch people in bars, cafes, and restaurants. I don’t play games on my phone or my computer. I carry an old Nokia that no one would dream of stealing. More often than not, I hit the pool at the end of the day. As I power up and down the lanes, I rethink what I’ve learned. I now have the time and space to solve whatever problems have arisen. It’s an important meeting with myself, and I keep it religiously. Because the day I lose it, I’ve lost myself.

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