Trusting God Day by Day: 365 Daily Devotions (53 page)

As children are growing up, their parents are happy to take care of them. But as the children grow and mature, the parents want their children to love them because of who they are, not because of what they can do for them. If our grown children only came to see us when they wanted something, it would hurt us. We want our children to visit us because they enjoy being in our presence.

It’s the same with God; He wants to bless us with all good things, but when we only seek Him for the wrong reason—with the motive of just getting something from Him—it grieves Him. When this happens, He may hide from us for a time. If this happens to you, it’s a good time
to analyze your motives. Do you only seek God when you need something from Him? Or do you have a longing and desire to truly know Him intimately… all the time?

I
think a lot of people have
ability
because God has given them gifts, but they don’t have
stability
, and so God cannot use their gifts publicly in ministry or business. They would end up hurting the cause of Christ because of their unpredictable behavior. I believe stability releases ability.

We can’t be stable only when we’re getting our way. We have to also be stable when we’re having trouble and trials, when people are coming against us, or criticizing us. In the Scripture above, Paul knew a lack of stability would hurt Timothy’s witness and anointing. Instability would prevent Timothy from hearing from God, so Paul instructed him to be calm and steady. We don’t enjoy life unless we develop an ability to remain stable in the storm.

When we’re upset, we are usually not listening. People don’t hear because they don’t get quiet enough to hear what God is saying. God isn’t going to yell at you. He usually speaks in a still, small voice, and to hear Him, we must maintain an inner calmness. Actually, peace itself is a guideline for what God is approving and disapproving in your life. We must all learn to follow peace if we intend to follow God.

You have to choose purposely to stay calm, to put your confidence and trust in God, and to be a ready listener for His voice. Then you have to be willing to make whatever adjustments are necessary to have peace in your life.

Some people might say,
“Well, it’s not fair for me to always be the one who’s changing and adjusting to keep harmony with everyone else.”
It might not seem fair, but God will bring justice in your life if you do what He’s asking you to do, and your reward will be worth the effort you made.

I
’m sure that you are like most people—you want good things to happen in your life, but too often you want them now… not later. All of us tend to feel that way, but when the good things we desire don’t happen in what we consider to be a timely manner, we are tempted to ask,
“When, God, when?”

Most of us need to grow in the area of trusting God and shrink our focus that is on the “when” question. If your mind feels worn out all the time from reasoning, you are not trusting Him.

I spent a large part of my life feeling impatient, frustrated, and disappointed because there were things I didn’t know. God had to teach
me to leave things in His hands. I finally learned to trust the One Who knows all things, and I began to accept that some questions may never be answered. We prove our trust in God when we refuse to worry.

Trusting God often requires not knowing
how
God is going to accomplish what needs to be done and not knowing
when
He will do it. We often say,
“God is never late,”
but generally He isn’t early, either. He uses times of waiting to stretch our faith in Him, and to bring about change and growth in our lives. We learn to trust God by going through many experiences that require trust. By seeing God’s faithfulness over and over, we gradually let go of trusting ourselves and place our trust in Him.

Looking at it this way, it is easy to see how timing plays an important part in learning to trust God. If He did everything we asked for immediately, we would never grow and develop into the people He wants us to be. If you are waiting on something right now and you feel frustrated, learn to be happy “not knowing.”

I
f we truly love one another, we will bear with one another and make allowances for one another. Making allowances doesn’t mean making excuses for people’s wrong behavior—if it is wrong, then it is wrong,
and pretending or ignoring it does not help. But making allowances for one another means we allow each other to be less than perfect. We send messages with our words and attitude that say,
“I won’t reject you because you did that; I won’t give up on you. I will work through this with you and believe in you.”

I have told my children that even though I might not always agree with everything they do, I will always try to understand and will never stop loving them. I want them to know they can count on me to be a constant in their lives. God knows all about our faults, and He still chooses us. He knows the mistakes we will make before we make them, and His posture toward us is,
“I will love you in your imperfection.”

When people do something that you just don’t understand, instead of trying to figure them out, tell yourself,
“They are human.”
Perhaps you don’t understand them simply because they are different from you.

Jesus knew the nature of human beings, and therefore He was not shocked when they did things He wished they wouldn’t have done. He still loved Peter even though Peter denied knowing Him. He still loved His other disciples even though they were unable to stay awake and pray with Him in His hour of agony and suffering.

What people do will not stop us from loving them, if we realize ahead of time they are not going to be perfect and prepare to make allowance for that human tendency that we all have.

T
he Bible says, “Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him” (Rom. 4:8
NIV
). That does not mean that God does not see the sin. It means that because of love, He does not hold it against the sinner.

Love can acknowledge that a wrong has been done and erase it before it becomes lodged in the heart. Love does not register or record the wrong; this way resentment does not have a chance to grow. Why not get out all the past-due accounts you have ever kept on people and mark them, “Paid in full”?

Some of us worry about our memory, but to be truthful we probably need to get better at forgetting some things. I think we often forget what we should remember and remember what we should forget. Perhaps one of the most godlike things we can ever do in life is to forgive and forget.

Some people say,
“I will forgive them, but I will never forget it.”
The reality of that statement is that if we cling to the memory, we are not truly forgiving. You might ask how we can forget things that have hurt us. The answer is that we must
choose
not to think about them. When those things come to mind, we must cast down the thoughts and choose to think about things that will benefit us.

Clearing all your records will produce good results. It will relieve pressure and improve the quality of your life. Intimacy between you and God will be restored, and your joy and peace will increase. Your health may even improve, because a calm and undisturbed mind and heart are the life and health of the body (see Prov. 14:30).

T
he first quality of love listed in Paul’s discourse in 1 Corinthians 13 in the Bible is patience. Paul writes that love endures long and is patient. Love is long-suffering. It remains steady and consistent when things are not going the way you wish they would.

I have been practicing being patient with clerks who are slow, who can’t find prices for items, who run out of register tape, or who linger on the phone trying to calm down an irate customer when I am standing right there, waiting to be helped. I have had several store clerks actually thank me for being patient. I am sure they take a lot of abuse from frustrated, impatient, unloving customers, and I have decided I don’t want to add to the problem; I want to be part of the answer.

Sure, we are all in a hurry and want to get waited on right away, but since love is not self-seeking we must learn to put how the clerk feels ahead of how we feel. Recently a store clerk apologized for being so slow, and I told her that nothing I was doing was so important that I could not wait. I saw her visibly relax, and I realized that I had just shown her love.

We are encouraged in the Bible to be very patient with everybody, always keeping our tempers in check (see 1 Thess. 5:14). That is not only good for our witness to other people, but it’s also good for us. The more patient we are, the less stress we have! Peter said the Lord is extraordinarily patient with us because it is His desire that none of us perish (see 2 Pet. 3:9). That is the same reason we should be patient with one another—especially with those in the world who are looking for God.

I urge you to pray regularly that you will be able to endure whatever comes with a good temper and patience. Trust me, things will come
that have the ability to upset you, but if you are prepared ahead of time, you will be able to remain calm as you face those things.

A
few weeks ago, I preached on patience and being thankful no matter what your circumstances. I had done three major conferences in six weeks in addition to fulfilling several other commitments, and that Saturday-morning session was the last of that string of commitments. I was really looking forward to getting home early that day, eating a good meal, having Dave take me shopping for a while, taking a hot bath at home, eating ice cream, and watching a good movie. You can see I was prepared to reward myself for my hard work. I had a good plan for myself!

We got on the plane to return home, and the flight was scheduled to be only thirty-five minutes. I was so thrilled… and then something went wrong. The airplane door wouldn’t shut properly, so we sat for almost an hour and a half while airline maintenance worked on the door. There was talk of not being able to fly out that day and perhaps renting cars and driving home.

I cannot tell you how hard it was for me to be patient. Just keeping my mouth shut was a huge accomplishment. I had preached on patience, and now I was being tested.

I realize we may not always feel patient, but we can still discipline ourselves to react patiently. I can’t do anything about how I feel sometimes, but I can control how I behave, and so can you. I can assure you that I did not feel patient sitting on that runway, but I kept praying
silently,
Oh, God, please help me stay calm so I am not a poor witness after what I just finished preaching
.

God helped me; and while things don’t always turn out the way I want them to in those situations, in that case we ended up getting home in plenty of time for me to still do all the things I had planned.