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Don’t Give Up
Bob Foster, my mentor and friend for more than 50 years, never gave up on me. His unchanging friendship and encouragement, even during my darkest times, helped carry me through.
We often find ourselves determined to reach out and help someone we know who is in great need. But when we fail to see improvement right away, our resolve can weaken and we may eventually give up. We discover that what we hoped would be an immediate change has become an ongoing process.
The apostle Paul urges us to be patient in helping one another through the stumbles and struggles of life. When…
Always Listening
Dad was a man of few words. He had hearing damage due to years of military duty and wore hearing aids. One afternoon when Mom and I were talking a little longer than he thought necessary, he responded playfully, “Whenever I want peace and quiet, all I have to do is this.” Lifting both hands in a single motion, he turned off both hearing aids, folded his hands behind his head and closed his eyes in a serene smile.
We laughed. As far as he was concerned, the conversation was over!
My father’s actions that day remind me how different God is…
Readiness
When God speaks, many of us are like people in a fog, and we give no answer. Moses’ reply to God revealed that he knew where he was and that he was ready. Readiness means having a right relationship to God and having the knowledge of where we are. We are so busy telling God where we would like to go. Yet the man or woman who is ready for God and His work is the one who receives the prize when the summons comes. We wait with the idea that some great opportunity or something sensational will be coming our way, and when it does come we are quick to cry out,
Moving Mountains: The Practice of Persistent Prayer
Discover how you can practice the prayer of faith—how you can petition God and anticipate that the miraculous is possible.
Behind the Scenes
My daughter sent a text message to a friend, in hopes of having a question answered quickly. Her phone’s messaging service showed that the recipient had read the message, so she waited anxiously for a reply. Mere moments passed, yet she grew frustrated, groaning her annoyance at the delay. Irritation eroded into worry; she wondered whether the lack of response meant there was a problem between them. Eventually a reply came and my daughter was relieved to see their relationship was quite amiable. Her friend had simply been sorting out the details needed to answer the question.
The Old Testament prophet…
Bringing your impossibilities to Jesus
You’ve heard it said, “Nothing is impossible with God.” But living in that reality can be harder than just saying it! And today on Discover the Word, we continue the conversation in our series titled, “Bring It to Jesus.” It’s a discussion on the power of bringing even our impossibilities to Jesus. Listen today to Discover […]
His Wonderful Face
My four-year-old son is full of questions, and chatters constantly. I love talking with him, but he’s developed an unfortunate habit of talking to me even when his back is turned. I often find myself saying, “I can’t hear you—please look at me when you’re talking.”
Sometimes I think God wants to say the same thing to us—not because He can’t hear us, but because we can tend to talk to Him without really “looking” at Him. We pray, but we remain caught up in our own questions and focused on ourselves, forgetting the character of the One we’re praying to.…
Bringing your health to Jesus
When we pray for healing, and it doesn’t come, where is God then? Today on Discover the Word, the team continues their series titled, “Bring It to Jesus,” and they’re going to be talking about bringing our health to Jesus. Listen right here on Discover the Word!
Bringing your children to Jesus
Do you ever worry about the children in your life? Of course, you do. We worry about them when they’re infants, and we worry about them when they’re adults. So today on Discover the Word, we’ll gather around the table to discuss how we can bring our children to Jesus. Can we trust God with […]
Praying for others
When a serious need comes up at home or around the world, have you ever felt powerless to do anything about it? Well, there’s One who can intervene in any circumstance! And today on Discover the Word, we return to Paul’s letter to Philemon to see what he says about praying for others. How much […]
A heart for prayer
What’s the point of prayer? Today on Discover the Word, we will discuss Paul’s heart for prayer and how it fueled his heart for others. It’s a conversation that comes out of our look at Paul’s letter to his friend Philemon—a short note, with a big message. Don’t miss a second of the conversation that […]
The Discipline of Hearing
Sometimes God puts us through the experience and discipline of darkness to teach us to hear and obey Him. Song birds are taught to sing in the dark, and God puts us into “the shadow of His hand” until we learn to hear Him (Isaiah 49:2). “Whatever I tell you in the dark. . .”— pay attention when God puts you into darkness, and keep your mouth closed while you are there. Are you in the dark right now in your circumstances, or in your life with God? If so, then remain quiet. If you open your mouth in the dark, you will speak while in the wrong mood— darkness is the time to listen.
The Devotion of Hearing
Just because I have listened carefully and intently to one thing from God does not mean that I will listen to everything He says. I show God my lack of love and respect for Him by the insensitivity of my heart and mind toward what He says. If I love my friend, I will instinctively understand what he wants. And Jesus said, “You are My friends . . .” (John 15:14). Have I disobeyed some command of my Lord’s this week? If I had realized that it was a command of Jesus, I would not have deliberately disobeyed it. But most of us show incredible disrespect to God because we don’t even hear Him. He might as well never have spoken to us.
Are You Listening to God?
We don’t consciously and deliberately disobey God— we simply don’t listen to Him. God has given His commands to us, but we pay no attention to them— not because of willful disobedience, but because we do not truly love and respect Him. “If you love Me, keep My commandments” (John 14:15). Once we realize we have constantly been showing disrespect to God, we will be filled with shame and humiliation for ignoring Him.
“You speak with us, . . . but let not God speak with us . . . .”
3 Things I Never Knew About Prayer
Despite being Christian for almost 22 years, I never liked nor knew how to pray for the better part of those two decades. I’d always think, “Why do I need to pray when God already knows everything?”
