Trusting God Day by Day: 365 Daily Devotions (4 page)

God is not necessarily looking for people with amazing abilities, but He searches for availability and a person who is willing to simply do whatever He asks them to do. If we will lift our hands to God and say,
“I am available to do whatever You want me to do,”
we will have peace and joy as we journey through life.

P
art of disciplining ourselves to celebrate life is refusing to live in mourning. There is a time to mourn, but we dare not let it become a way of life. The Bible says that weeping (mourning) endures for a night, but joy comes in the morning. There are things that happen in life that rightfully need to be mourned over, but joy always returns to balance things out. We must let the joy back into our lives after times of sadness and not feel guilty about enjoying life after disappointment or even tragedy has struck. There is a time to mourn and a time to rejoice, but we must not live in the state of mourning.

Part of life is dealing properly with sadness and disappointment. We cannot avoid them—and we should not deny the emotions that go with loss of any kind—but we can recover! I was saddened when I learned that a trusted employee had been stealing from our ministry, but I rejoiced that God brought the wrongdoing to light and it was discovered. I have a time of mourning when people I love die, but I can
also rejoice that they knew Jesus and are spending eternity with Him. I am sad when I realize I have let an area of my life get out of balance through lack of discipline, but I can rejoice that I now see the truth and am back on track. For all mourning there is an offsetting reason to celebrate. And although mourning is proper and is even part of our healing, it cannot last forever.

We cannot live in a state of mourning over things that have happened that we cannot change. In Christ there is always a place of new beginnings, and that is good news worth celebrating.

I
want you to notice the words
allotted part
and
appointed lot
in the above passage. What King Solomon is basically communicating here is this message: enjoy your life. Take your “appointed lot” in life and enjoy it. In other words, embrace the life—the personality, the strengths and weaknesses, the family, the resources, the opportunities, the physical
qualities, the abilities, the gifts, and the uniqueness—God has given
you
.

The only life you can enjoy is your own. That statement may seem so obvious that it’s unnecessary, but think about it. One of the primary reasons many people do not enjoy their lives is because they are not happy with the lives they have. When I speak to them about enjoying their lives, the first thought they often have is,
I would enjoy my life if I had your life, Joyce!
Instead of embracing the realities of their lives, these people spend their time thinking,
I wish I looked like So-and-So. I wish I had So-and-So’s job. I wish I were married. I wish my marriage weren’t so difficult. I wish I had children. I wish my children would grow up. I wish I had a new house. I wish I didn’t have such a big house to clean. I wish I had a big ministry…

The truth of the matter is, the first step to enjoying our everyday lives is to be grateful for the lives we’ve been given. We must not allow jealousy to cause us to be absent from our own lives because we want what someone else has. You have to take what you have and decide you are going to do the best you can with it. What are you doing with what you have been given?

T
he best advice I could ever give you is to live your life according to the truth of God’s Word, which is found in the Bible. I believe we
should honor God’s Word in our lives and give it a place of priority every day. We do this by reading and studying God’s Word and following it to the best of our ability. From a personal perspective, I can honestly say I love God’s Word. Nothing on earth has changed me the way it has—not just as a teacher or a minister, but as a follower of Christ.

The Bible has the wisdom you need for every issue you will ever face. It will not tell you specifically where to go on vacation next year or what color to paint your house, but it will impart to you principles of right living, right thinking, wisdom, and faith. It will instruct you through stories of men and women who lived long ago but faced many of the same human challenges and relational struggles you and I face today. The Scriptures will encourage you to persevere, inspire you to overcome, help you make good decisions, and teach you to hear and obey God’s voice.

I am always saddened when I encounter people who view the Bible as an outdated, irrelevant religious book. Yes, its words are centuries old, but instead of being old-fashioned or obsolete, they are ancient truths that have stood the test of time and been proven over and over and over again. The words of Scripture are alive; they are saturated with the power of God. They are as real and applicable today as they have ever been—and in our world today, we desperately need to be grounded in this kind of godly truth. The Bible is not only meant for preachers and “church people”; it is a book for everyone in every walk of life. It is spiritual, but it is also extremely practical.

T
alking with God about everything gives us a sense of belonging, of being cared for by Someone Who is on our side and Who is powerful. One of the phrases I like to use when teaching about prayer is: “Pray your way through the day.” This is certainly good advice to follow if we want to enjoy our lives each day. We need to remember we can pray anytime, anywhere. First Thessalonians 5:17 tells us to “be
unceasing in prayer.
” In other words, we need to keep the lines of communication with God open. We need to stay in constant fellowship with Him through prayer, all day, every day.

While there are times when we need to be very diligent, focused, and set apart as we pray, we do not have to wait until we are in church or some other designated place, or until we have a specific amount of time, before we pray. The best way I know to be
“unceasing in prayer”
is to live as though God is constantly paying attention to us, because He is. For example, we can pray quick, simple, effective prayers aloud or silently. We can say silently while sitting in a business meeting:
“Oh, God, help me make a good decision here. Give me Your wisdom to speak wisely and be a blessing to my company
.” We can whisper a prayer as we drop off our children at school:
“God, protect them today. Help them learn everything they need to know. Give them favor with their teachers and their friends.”

We can also pray prayers of praise and thanksgiving as we go about our daily lives, saying things like:
“Thank You, Lord, for helping me through this day”
or,
“I worship You, God, for Your goodness this afternoon.”
These types of prayers take only a few seconds, but they keep us focused on God, aware of His presence, and in continual communication with Him.

H
ow would you respond if I asked, “Who are you?” Would your first inclination be to list the things you do and the roles you play in life? Would you say,
“I am a flight attendant,” “I am a brain surgeon,” “I am a banker,” “I am a minister,” “I am a wife and a mother,”
or
“I am a high school student”
? These answers would describe
what you do
, but none of them would tell me
who you are
.

As a believer, one of the most important realities for you to understand is who you are in Christ, your identity in Him. When I first heard the phrase “who you are in Christ,” I did not know what it meant. But understanding these powerful words is vitally important. When people receive Jesus Christ by faith as their personal Savior, God sees them as made right with Him and as being “in” Jesus. Being in Christ provides you with certain rights and privileges, the rights and privileges that belong to the children of God.

If the daughter of the queen of England visited the United States, I doubt anyone would ask for a list of what she could do. She would have immediate access and favor because of who she is. If this dynamic works with a human being, just imagine how much more valuable it is to be a child of God. However, if the princess did not know who she was, she would not use her identity to her advantage.
The same principle applies to anyone who does not know who they are in Christ.

The difference between who we are in Christ and what we do is huge. We are so much more than our jobs, our accomplishments, or our failures. Our identity comes from Jesus. In and of ourselves, we are nothing, we have nothing, and we can do nothing of eternal value. But in Christ, we can be, do, and have everything God promises us in His Word.

T
his verse reminds us that we need to learn how to live from faith to faith. It means we approach everything we face, every challenge we meet, every decision we make, and everything we do with faith.

I certainly need faith in my everyday life and in my ministry. When I travel to conferences, I go in faith that I will arrive safely at my destination. When I begin teaching, I do so in faith that God has given me the right message for the audience. I have faith that I am anointed to teach God’s Word, to help people, and to speak the right words. When I walk off the platform, I have faith that God has used my ministry to change lives. When I leave to go home, I have faith that I will arrive safely.

After many years of being doubtful and fearful, I have definitely
decided faith is much better. Faith enables us to enjoy our lives and to do amazing things. Living by faith is not a
feeling
we have; it is a conscious decision we must make.

Faith is simply the conscious, deliberate choice to put our trust in God. It’s at the heart of everything great we’ll ever do. It becomes more natural and we get better at it the more we do it.

If you will begin by exercising faith for simple things, eventually you will have no difficulty trusting God for great things. I remember going to a garage sale and trusting God to help me find a pair of tennis shoes for one of my children for two dollars because that was all I had. I saw God’s faithfulness, and eventually I was able to trust God to cover the needs we have for an international ministry.

I
like to define faith in a very basic, easy-to-understand way: living with a positive attitude that comes from a deep trust in God. Living
by faith is looking at everything in a positive way and trusting in the power of God, Who loves us and wants the best for us. When we have faith, we can say with confidence in our hearts: