Just Continue That Thought...

A thought by Max Lucado from his book, Every Day Deserves a Chance: Wake Up to the Gift of 24 Hours (p. 90). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition. (Click on the book title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) Too many times we visualize God sitting down with his back to us, not really caring.   But the key is not where he is turned but where we are turned. Max says, “When his patriarchs trusted, God blessed. When Peter preached or Paul wrote or Thomas believed, God smiled. But he never ran. “That verb was reserved for the story of the Prodigal Son. ‘But when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him’ (Luke 15:20 nkjv). “God runs when he sees the son coming home from the pig trough. When the addict steps out of the alley. When the teen walks away from the party. When the ladder-climbing executive pushes back from the desk, the spiritist turns from idols, the materialist from stuff, the atheist from disbe

A thought by Max Lucado from his book, Every Day Deserves a Chance: Wake Up to the Gift of 24 Hours (p. 87). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition. (Click on the book title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) Fear can be a terrible thing to feel, can’t it?   But there is something to understand about fear. Max says, “The presence of fear does not mean you have no faith. Fear visits everyone. Even Christ was afraid (Mark 14:33). But make your fear a visitor and not a resident. Hasn’t fear taken enough? Enough smiles? Chuckles? Restful nights, exuberant days? Meet your fears with faith. “Do what my father urged my brother and me to do. Summertime for the Lucado family always involved a trip from West Texas to the Rocky Mountains. (Think Purgatory to Paradise.) My dad loved to fish for trout on the edge of the white-water rivers. Yet he knew that the currents were dangerous and his sons could be careless. Upon arrival, we’d scout out the safe places to cross the river. He’d walk u

A thought by Max Lucado from his book, Every Day Deserves a Chance: Wake Up to the Gift of 24 Hours (p. 74). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition. (Click on the book title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) The twelve Apostles were having a rotten day.   They had a whole bunch of people who had been sitting on a hillside listening to Jesus for a long time and the people were getting hungry.   And the Apostles were becoming frustrated because they had a problem and didn’t know what to do.    Maybe that is you today. Max says, “How unnecessary! If your father were Bill Gates and your computer broke, where would you turn? If Stradivari were your dad and your violin string snapped, to whom would you go? If your father is God and you have a problem on your hands, what do you do?" Max goes on, “Scripture tells us what to do:  “ Is your problem too large? ‘God…is able…to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think’ (Ephesians 3:20 nlt). “Is your need too grea