Showing posts with label Encouragement. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Encouragement. Show all posts

Succeeding Despite Ridicule: A Testimony Of Faith And Persistence


When my first writing (which was a poem) was selected for publication decades ago, a close and much older family member retorted, "Don't think you're better than others!"

That hurt and affected me negatively for years but I kept on writing and studying about writing and publishing. That and other slights and rejections starting in early childhood crushed my spirit in many ways. 

Though that mean comment often replayed in my mind, it eventually faded into the distance. Though it had done damage, one day I found myself to be successful, in satisfaction and fulfillment, in pursuing my writing goals.

Nothing comes to perpetual dreamers who only rest and fold their hands. Successful people do the things that others don't like to do and that others ridicule them for. They invest time and consistent effort in visions that burn within and they never give up.  

Compassionate people do not oppress others in their tender growth. They endeavor to build up those who are trying, especially children and teenagers whose lives can be destroyed through consistent insults. It is difficult for some to rise above non-support and oppression.  

Though others laughed at me and brushed off my efforts throughout the years, ridiculing me and saying in derogatory ways that I liked to play with papers, I kept playing with those papers. I kept writing and editing and filing and re-filing those draft manuscripts. 

Through the years, my files bulged and I dragged them to everywhere that I moved. I had unrelenting faith in what I was doing and an ever-burning love of the craft of writing and publishing.

Today, I am the only one in my family or in my previous circle of associations, that I know of, who has published books. While I've found creativity in my ancestry, I've not yet found anyone who published a periodical or a book.

Despite the rejection and derision that I have endured, I loved writing and other creative abilities that I'm blessed to have. I'm SO grateful that what God put in me could not be killed. I've done nothing but improve and progress over the years, adding more skills and talents along the way. 

It was hard to rise above the dejection that dogged me but God brought me through even when I did not know him and was not open to him. It was He who blessed me with my creative talents and He protected them, as He has protected me in many ways. 

I have published 7 themed journals, 1 prayer prompt journal, 1 children's book, 1 business book and am about to publish my 11th book, which will be my 2nd Christian book. 

Glory be to God The Father, God The Son and God The Holy Spirit! I now rely upon them entirely for my acceptance, validation and support. So Grateful! So Thankful! So Blessed!

My encouragement to you is to hold on to what you believe about the good thing that you are doing. You must choose to believe that some where, some way, some how you will accomplish what your spirit is burning to do. 

Our Father has given you all that you need to succeed. It is inside and members of The Godhead will help you to use the tools which you have been given. You are special! You are loved! They care about you! Press on! Keep going! Don't stop!





You Are Here: Tired Of Praying & Weary IX

Many who know and love God want to continue to have faith in the only personal contacts that we have with him. These are our prayer lives. 

They include our formal, scheduled prayers and our hurried, on the spot prayers. Most of all, they are simply the ways that we choose to talk to The Most High God everyday, throughout the day. The ways that we think of him when we lay our heads on our pillows every night. The ways that we wake up and greet him each morning. 

I know that you are one of these Christians who would like to continue to believe in your prayer life. Our Father wants you to know that your every prayer and conversation with him and even your desire to pray and share with him means everything to him. He receives your desires as prayers.





Receive more inspiration through my tired of praying series:



You Are Here: Tired Of Praying & Weary III

You Are Here: Tired Of Praying & Weary IV

You Are Here: Tired Of Praying & Weary V



You Are Here: Tired Of Praying & Weary VIII

They Can't Stop Your Blessing

~ When your application is not approved or your request is not accepted, you don't have to be angry. You don't have to blame them. You either believe that no one can stop any blessings that God wants you to have, or you don't.  ~

Jesus Fulfilled The Law Of Moses

Jesus Christ's sacrifice on the cross fulfilled the Law of Moses, so that we would not have to continue trying to do the Law that we could never fulfill. Doing the Law meant that we were always in a position to die in our sins. No matter how hard we tried to be good and do good, that's just the way that it was. 

Do you see how unfair that would have been, for us to die in the sin condition that we were born with because we ourselves could never fulfill the requirements to be forgiven of those sins? God is the Good Father and he provided for those unredeemable sins to be redeemed through the sacrifice of Christ Jesus, Our Lord. 



The Weapon Will Not Produce

No weapon formed against us shall prosper doesn't mean that the weapon itself will always be stopped from striking. It means that the purpose and plan of the weapon, as designed by whoever the enemy is, will not produce the evil effect that the enemy intended. This is the heritage for those who love God through Jesus Christ by the power of The Holy Spirit, for those who choose to walk in the spirit and not in the flesh.

Isaiah 54:17

***

Why Did You Let Me Do It Father?

When I find that I've made what appears to be a poor decision and traveled in a direction that did not work out, I know that my Father knew it would happen and how it would end. I know that He was not surprised by my journey. He knows the beginning to the end of everything. He knows everything about me. I come from him and he has numbered all of the hairs on my head. He is concerned about every little thing that has to do with me. 

Most importantly, I look to him when I make plans. I am becoming more consistent about running every idea, goal and pursuit by him before I embark upon it. I want His supreme guidance and if it is not in His plan for me, I don't want it.  Because of my determination, when a path seems to goes awry, I lament to Our Father, Why, oh why did you allow me to go this way when it wasn't going to work OUT! 

I have learned that even when he allows us to go on a track that seems to not produce a favorable return, it's still in his plan for us and will work out for our good. We learn things and collect experiences that he will use to benefit our upcoming purposes. 

If you love God The Father, appreciate God The Son and obey God The Holy Spirit every day, don't ever think that an experience is useless. God does not produce useless things in our lives. God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. Rejoice! Just rejoice in the experiences that God allows into our lives, fully believing that all things work together for good to those who love God and are the called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28



Faith

 Thank you, Heavenly Father, that our FAITH is not based on the way of the world, which deceives. Our FAITH is based on the truths in your Word.

Joy

 Thank you, Father, that our joy is not based on how we feel, which fluctuates. Our joy is based on the truth in your Word.

Peace

Thank you, Father, that our peace is not based on our circumstances, which change. Our peace is based on the truth in your Word.

God's Love Overshadows All

Nothing else matters when we know who we are in God. Any abandonment, dismissal or spurning that we may endure no longer matters when the value that we are to God through Christ Jesus becomes real to us.

How we are accepted, received, approved and validated by our Heavenly Father everyday can overshadow any rejection that we may encounter. We need to give in more to God's love, which overshadows all, and live in the truth of it everyday.



Keep Seeking God's Truth About Your Life

It is often easy to feel that our most desired blessings from God will not come until we are dead and gone. It will no longer matter then, but it matters today. I know that you feel discouraged and sometimes hopeless. I can testify to how hard it is for some of us to believe that God loves us, that he really cares. I've endured so much in life, from a child, that my emotions question God's love for me. I sometimes feel hopeless that I'll ever realize some desired things in this life, but I persevere in eating and drinking the Word everyday. 

Each day I persist in having a formal prayer session every morning to commit my way to God. I set my day with Jesus Christ's sacrifice in mind. I know that God has helped me, done things for me, guided me and protected me. I'm rooted and grounded through years of seeking God's face after I accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior. I love my Heavenly Father with a perfect love in my reborn spirit. 

What makes the most difference for me is choosing to read the Word everyday. One scripture, one chapter, doesn't matter how much how little, just opening it and reading something. And not always going to the 23rd Psalm but going places in the Bible where I've never been. That's where the real power is.

The Word slowly transforms us and helps us to choose to believe. And to believe is a choice that we have to make everyday. As I press on in learning about the things of God, I understand more, and he does reward me for my faithfulness. Even so, it is a constant, spiritual battle to believe and receive. 

The devil and his demons are real and they never cease to try to destroy our relationship with God. They work hard to make us think and feel that God does not love us. Our job is to resist them and call them out everyday as the liars that they really are. Evil spirits have nothing to offer us but lies and desolation and an end equal to what they face. 

Those who believe have no where else to go but to Our Father God, Our Savior Jesus, Our Comforter The Holy Spirit and The Word of Truth. If we're tired and don't feel like praying or reading sometimes, The Holy Spirit knows all about it. God does not condemn us for this fleshly weakness but we always have to go back. There is no where else where we can find comfort, relief and hope. 

If we let him, God will grow us, transform us and strengthen us and also reward us everyday. Keep trusting him and remember that Jesus gave his blood and his body so that you can become whole in everyway, despite how you feel and what you have experienced or are experiencing.

I pray for you that from this point you are healed in heart, mind and emotions and that you are strengthened and that your faith is increased beyond all measure! God loves you and he knows all about you.









Being A Positive-Minded Christian

Living a successful Christian life and doing things God's way requires a positive mindset. Walking in the Spirit requires a positive mindset. Being transformed by the renewing of our minds through reading the Word daily requires positive mindsets going in. Allowing our faith to be increased by God requires positive mindsets. Make no mistake, for wonderful changes to come about, we have to start with positive mindsets. We have to believe! That is positive-mindedness. 

Have you been negative-minded when coming to God in prayer? Were you raised in a negative-minded family? Have your trials and troubles in life fostered a negative mind in you? Are you so tired of life, so tired of praying, so tired of hoping that your mind is now negative to God's possibilities? Well, the Holy Spirit is our Comforter and Guide and will restore positivity and faith in us if we let Him.

Allowing the Word to sink in as we read it daily will prune us. We are the branches of Jesus Christ and we have to be regularly trimmed in spirit and attitude. This cutting process will convert and transform our negativeness to the positive-minded position that we need to be in to receive from Our Heavenly Father. 

Are you eating and drinking The Word daily? Are you reading around in The Bible rather than reading the same old scriptures that are tired to your mind and heart? Are you ensuring that you are getting a balance of The Word rather than reading The Lord is my shepherd or Our Father, which art in Heaven everyday? Are you becoming familiar with more obscure scriptures? It takes the entire Word, Old and New Testaments, to transform us and round us out to positive thinking, feeling and behaving. 



Choosing One Day Of Rest

We are often reminded that God rested the seventh day after he created our world and Adam and Eve. How often do we follow his example and the admonition of the scriptures? We should be more pro-active in enjoying a day of rest each week because the spiritual blessings are many.

It is good to have one day per week when we totally wind down. A day when we don't do all of the stuff that we usually do becomes a day of renewal. Christians feel that Sunday is that day. We use that day for special worship-of-God activities, special Sunday meals and peacefulness.

Some people have to work on Sunday, so they choose another day of rest. Some Christians choose to set apart Saturday for special worship and renewal. It's not so much the day but the obedience to God and the scriptures that blesses us. 

Like with fasting, our minds are brought back to the knowledge, every hour of that chosen day, that we are honoring God through sacrifice. Throughout that day when we think of things that we want to do but shouldn't, we are reminded that we are sacrificing and that Jesus Christ sacrificed for us. We draw closer to God on this day of rest.

Whatever day you choose, be sure to do something different than what you usually do, something restful, peaceful and calm. Cultivate serenity, tranquility and elevated worship. Use it as a prayer-building day. Be refreshed, restored and renewed one day per week, not just spiritually but physically as well. The blessings will be abundant!

Hebrews 4:1-11

Deuteronomy 5:14 

Exodus 20:10, 23:12

Genesis 2:2-3



I Feel Optimistic Today Prayer

 

Dear Heavenly Father:

I feel optimistic today! 

Let not my optimism come through fleshly feelings because my flesh is unreliable. I refuse to walk in the flesh.

I pray that my optimism comes through confidence in your right hand of righteousness, discernment of your angels surrounding me and comfort from your Holy Spirit. 

My optimism is through my faith from walking in the Spirit. 

When I am out of the Spirit, show we the way to return to the Spirit so that my Godly optimism may abound. 

I thank you that I have a hope and a future and that my way grows brighter everyday!

In Jesus' blessed name I pray.

Amen!


 

We Never Have To Stop Praying

We never have to stop praying. We are encouraged to pray without ceasing. (I Thessalonians 5:17

There are formal and informal ways to pray. When we accept this, the many ways to pray 24/7 open up to us. We don't always have to get on our knees with a scripted intonation of phrases and quotes.

Prayer, in it's essence, is talking to God. Talking to Jesus. How much more candid, honest and heart-felt are conversational words versus rehearsed prayer speeches.

Being tired or discouraged and not feeling like praying is not even an excuse. We can ask the Holy Spirit to pray for us. He will then utter on-target words that we cannot.

Pray without ceasing and grow closer to God.



Bishop Dale C. Bronner On Wise Planning And Common Sense

Bishop Dale C. Bronner, based in Atlanta at Word of Faith Family Worship Cathedral (WOFFamily), is such an effective speaker, preacher and teacher. I receive much encouragement and knowledge through his messages.

Listen to his message on wise planning, common sense and keeping abreast of the facts. Learn about adaptability and the willingness to be flexible. I thank Jesus Christ and Bishop Bronner for this message from God!

His points are:

♦ Seek God first.

♦ Learn from mistakes.

♦ Seek to understand before giving input.

♦ Imagine the consequences before making a move.

♦ Exercise good judgement to live respectfully and peaceably in society.

♦ Respect by looking back.

♦ Remember why I started building my enterprise, plan, project, dream.

♦ Remember those who may have sacrificed for me.

♦ Remember any heroes I may have.

♦ Remember God.

♦ Remember who I am.

♦ Remember what never changes, principles, communication, etc.



Make It Happen With The Help Of God

 

Don't just dream about it. Make it happen, with the help of the Lord. Receive God's ways of thinking. He's sharing them with you. 

You can't just spend the rest of your life wishing it could happen. Learn to see things God's way. He's showing you how.

Don't just keep thinking about it. You're either serious or you're not. Do what God is telling you to do.

You can't continue to just wonder about it. Accept the knowledge that God is constantly imparting unto you.

Don't just hope that it will come to pass. God is a do something God. You have to step out and do it. You know what to do. Faith and courage are being built up in you by Our Lord. You have been asking for it and he is faithful. God has been giving to you the building blocks of faith and courage. 

You can't continue to spend your life dreaming about it, wishing about it, thinking about it and wondering if it will ever happen. You have to take the risks necessary for God to bring to pass your most cherished dreams.

Some of God's most faithful servants from the Bible went out, went forward, moved on, sometimes not knowing how the gap between where they were and where they were going would be bridged.

They had ideas about how they needed to do it but they ultimately had to make their uncertain way, with God always before them. They had to go forward when things were not perfect or when there was opposition, when no one believed or supported them, when God did not tell them all of the facts.

They had to take steps, often with blind faith, to arrive where they wanted to be, where they should be and to where God promised them they could be. If they had kept waiting for things to be perfect or for situations to be the way that they thought they should be, they would never have went forward and obtained what God had already provided.   

Don't just dream about it. Make it happen, with the help of the Lord.




Believing What We Pray For

In order to see the realization of our fondest personal prayers, we have to first believe what we pray for. We don't have to believe that we can do it through our own planning and orchestration but we do have to believe that we CAN receive them from God.

We also have to believe that we can be faithful in managing them after we receive them. This is one way to believe that our prayers will happen, that we'll be getting a favorable answer from God. 

The problem is that we pray for things that we're not committed to, that we're afraid of and that we don't even believe that we can really do. We pray pipe dreams, fanciful hopes or plans that would come to naught if we were given them. This is one reason that in our hearts we secretly say, "I don't believe my prayers will come true." Why don't we truly believe what we are praying?

Many Christians promote that we should ask God for big things, impossible things, things that are beyond what we can do on our own. Yes, we should, but we still have to believe in our own prayers. We have to believe in what we are asking for to improve our lives. We have to believe in the prayers that we pray on our behalf.

How is it possible to receive what we unconsciously don't believe? It is not possible because we would miss all of the signs and open doors that would lead to obtaining the favorable answers that we desire. The challenges that we would see would be obstacles to us instead of opportunities. Because of that, we would blindly pass them by.

In fact, we already see many challenges as insurmountable obstacles or we would not be asking God for help. What exactly are we asking for though? How can we start our journeys to believing what we pray for?  

There's something between the prayers and the receiving of the answer to the prayers that we ask. It is us. We have to work with God and it's up to each one of us to work out what our place is in the fulfillment of the desires.

When we understand that, we can then work with God and receive favorable answers to our fondest supplications. What if we can't see our part in it? What if we just wait for God to do it, like we've been doing?

If we can't understand what our place or part is in believing in our prayers, then maybe we should not be praying for those things or praying in that way. Maybe that is why deep down in our hearts we don't believe what we are asking. 

Maybe our prayers need to be adjusted or re-designed. Maybe the focus of our fondest hopes needs to be altered. Is it possible that we even need to replace a long-standing prayer for another, more accurate one?

If we ask our Father God to help us to develop accurate prayers, he will do it. We don't want to keep spending time and energy on prayers that are never going to happen because we don't believe them. We don't want to spend a lifetime praying inauthentic prayers.

We want to pray prayers that move things, that change things, that bring things to pass. We want to pray prayers that are faith-filled, accurate and effective. Words come first and powerful, faith-filled words bring things into being. These scriptures make it plain:

Proverbs 18:21 Death and life are in the power of the tongue.

Hebrews 11:3 Things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.

Our prayers are our tongues, our words and the things which are not seen, the invisible things. The things that we are praying for, on our behalf, are the things which are seen, that can be brought into being by our unseen prayer words, if they are accurate. 

The world does not respect or honor God, but the world understands many truths that we ignore. We can learn from the truths that those who do not love God nor his Son are telling us everyday. The knowledge all belongs to God. They don't care to realize it but their knowledge belongs to God. We can take it, along with the Scriptures, and work with God to pray prayers that we can believe in.

I don't know if Dr. Margie Warrell worships God or not but she says this in her article Your Words Create Your Reality:

The words you speak hold power. Power to create new possibilities or to close them down. We unconsciously sabotage our success. Whatever direction your words lead, your mind, body and environment will follow. It’s therefore extremely important to be intentional about the words you use.

We can make our prayers, our words, the fruit of our tongues authentic so that we can believe them and work with God in bringing them to pass.



From Disappointment And Confusion To Triumph

In Psalm 44:1-26, we see that God's people endured disappointment and confusion just like we do, but they triumphed in God.

It's so important to read The Word everyday and not only start each day with prayer, but to talk to God throughout the day. Through these practices, we build strength to hold on and continue to believe through similar circumstances like what they endured. We should always stay close to God because nothing here in this earth is sure.

What we consider to be God's special blessings to us can turn at any time. What's here today can be changed or gone tomorrow. Does that mean it did not come from God? No.

I don't know about you, but I'm always thanking God for all good things. However, things change. God changes things at his will and he allows things to change. God is god of all and most of the time we are not able to understand why he allows or does certain things.

As David shared in the Psalms, one day we're on top and the next it seems like the whole world is against us. God allows things that are incomprehensible and mostly he doesn't tell us why. As we grow in him, we can sometimes discern a track that he has us on and that helps us to perceive that all is well.

Our job and best mental and emotional attitude is to cling to him, whether we are up or down, prosperous or lacking, successful or struggling. Whatever the circumstance, our faith is not to be placed in those day-to-day shiftings.

It is difficult sometimes, when we're struggling in various ways, but our hope and faith is to be in God himself. We can also ask him for relief at any point. David did that many times while professing his faith and devotion to Our Father.

No matter what he was suffering, mental or emotional anguish or physical attack, he took his disappointment and confusion to his God. In the end, he triumphed because he never gave up on Our Heavenly Father. He stayed with God.




How To Accept Jesus Christ As Your Savior