Just Continue That Thought...

A thought by Rick Warren from his book, God's Answers to Life's Difficult Questions (Living with Purpose) (p. 47). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. (Click on the book title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) Are you sure, Bill?   Are you sure? Rick says, “This is called emotional reasoning, and it is destructive. It is the ‘I feel it, so it must be true’ idea. Musicians, athletes, and TV stars—to name a few—know that often after a performance they feel as though they’ve flopped. Yet they also know that they must learn to ignore those feelings because feelings aren’t always true. Feelings are not facts; they can be highly unreliable.” He goes on, “For instance, a few weeks after I had been married to Kay, I woke up one morning and said, ‘You know, honey, I just don’t feel married.’ She replied, ‘It doesn’t matter, buddy. You are!’ “I don’t always feel close to God either, but this doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m far away from him. I don’t always feel like a Chr

A thought by Rick Warren from his book, God's Answers to Life's Difficult Questions (Living with Purpose) (p. 33). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. (Click on the book title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) That is an important question with blessing in mind. Rick says, “Is your business available for him to use at any time? Is he able to minister to people through your job? Too often we try to separate the secular and the spiritual; we have our Christian life nicely partitioned off from our career. But this prevents God from blessing your business or job. And the truth is, God will bless anything you give him. If you give him all your life, he will bless all of it. But if you give him just a part of it, he will bless just that one part.” Rick goes on, “A friend told me that as the president of his corporation he invites God to every board meeting. He reports that as a result, the board members make fewer mistakes and have more peace of mind about difficult decisio

A thought by Rick Warren from his book, God's Answers to Life's Difficult Questions (Living with Purpose) (p. 29). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. (Click on the book title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) That may be difficult for some to believe but most of us know it is true. Rick says, “But a failure can become a stepping-stone to success.” Now we need to believe that. Rick goes on, “Sometimes we give something our best shot but still come up ten feet short. We study diligently for a test and only get a ‘C,’ or we work hard to make our marriage better but still don’t see any progress. Life can be tough at times, and it’s tempting to give up. We feel like saying, ‘What’s the use? I just set myself up for more failure. Can anything make a difference?’” Maybe that is you right now.   Rick says, “But first you must realize that God is interested in your success; he’s not interested in seeing you fail. Suppose my daughter Amy said to me one day, ‘Dad, I