Just Continue That Thought...

A thought by Bob Goff from his book, Everybody, Always: Becoming Love in a World Full of Setbacks and Difficult People ( p. 66). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition. (Click on the book title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.)   Those are two keywords grimace and delights, that make a big difference in each one of us. Bob says, “We should all have beautiful ambitions for our lives and who we might become, but we also need to sync it up so we’re not fooled into believing we’ve already arrived at a place in our faith we’ve only been thinking about going to someday. “Have you noticed when people take photographs of each other, the person taking the picture is usually smiling too? Check it out for yourself. I think God does the same thing when He sees us. He’s not trying to bust us when we fail or when we act like posers. He doesn’t hang photographs of our mess-ups on the refrigerator. God isn’t in the business of punishing us with reminders; instead, He pursues us with love.

A thought by Bob Goff from his book, Everybody, Always: Becoming Love in a World Full of Setbacks and Difficult People ( p. 56). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition. (Click on the book title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.)   Ok, I know that somewhere you have failed at something.   I have too. Bob says, “We’ve all hit the ground hard at work or in a relationship or with a big ambition. Whether we had a big, public failure or an even bigger private one, the initial failure won’t crush our spirit or kill our faith; it’s the second hit that does. The second hit is what follows when things go massively wrong or we fail big, and the people we thought would rush to us create distance instead. They express disapproval or treat us with polite indifference.” He goes on, “If we want to be like Jesus, here’s our simple and courageous job: Catch people on the bounce. When they mess up, reach out to them with love and acceptance the way Jesus did. When they hit hard, run to them wit

A thought by Bob Goff from his book, Everybody, Always: Becoming Love in a World Full of Setbacks and Difficult People ( p. 54). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition. (Click on the book title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.)   But agreeing with and doing what he did are two different things, aren’t they? Bob says, “For me, agreeing is cheap and obeying is costly. Obeying is costly because it’s uncomfortable. It makes me grow one decision and one discussion at a time. It makes me put away my pride. These are the kinds of decisions that aren’t made once for a lifetime; they’re made thirty seconds at a time.” Earlier he said, “What I’ve been doing with my faith is this: instead of saying I’m going to believe in Jesus for my whole life, I’ve been trying to actually obey Jesus for thirty seconds at a time. “Here’s how it works: When I meet someone who is hard to get along with, I think, Can I love that person for the next thirty seconds? While they continue to irritate me,