Just Continue That Thought...

A thought by Max Lucado (2013-04-29) from his book, Facing Your Giants: God Still Does the Impossible (p. 164). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition. (Click on the title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) One of the first things I do every day after I have read my Bible is to sit at my computer, go to Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn and write down a positive encouraging word to help to counteract that defeating voice that comes to my mind at the beginning of my day.   You know that voice that hits you, don’t you? Max says, “He vies for the bedside position, hoping to be the first voice you hear. He covets your waking thoughts, those early, pillow-born emotions. He awakes you with words of worry, stirs you with thoughts of stress. If you dread the day before you begin your day, mark it down: your giant has been by your bed.” Max goes on, “And he’s just getting warmed up. He breathes down your neck as you eat your breakfast, whispers in your ear as you walk out the door, sh...

A thought by Max Lucado (2013-04-29) from his book, Facing Your Giants: God Still Does the Impossible (p. 160). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition. (Click on the title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) We have our plans.   We know that it is what God wants.   We know, “But God…”   Have you had any of those, but God moments in your life?   How did you handle them? Max shares, “Willem wanted to preach. By the age of twenty-five, he’d experienced enough life to know he was made for the ministry. He sold art, taught language, traded in books; he could make a living, but it wasn’t a life. His life was in the church. His passion was with the people. “So his passion took him to the coalfields of southern Belgium. There, in the spring of 1879, this Dutchman began to minister to the simple, hardworking miners of Borinage. Within weeks his passion was tested. A mining disaster injured scores of villagers. Willem nursed the wounded and fed the hungry; even scrapin...

A thought by Max Lucado (2013-04-29) from his book, Facing Your Giants: God Still Does the Impossible (p. 111). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition. (Click on the title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) There are so many times we feel like failures and we know we aren’t going to make it.   Do you know what I mean? Max says, “Wouldn’t you love God to write a nevertheless in your biography? Born to alcoholics, nevertheless she led a sober life. Never went to college, nevertheless he mastered a trade. Didn’t read the Bible until retirement age, nevertheless he came to a deep and abiding faith.” He goes on, “We all need a nevertheless. And God has plenty to go around. Strongholds mean nothing to him. Remember Paul’s words? ‘We use God’s mighty weapons, not mere worldly weapons, to knock down the Devil’s strongholds’ (2 Cor. 10: 4 NLT).   You and I fight with toothpicks; God comes with battering rams and cannons.” Earlier he said, “Pete sits on the street and leans...