Trusting God Day by Day: 365 Daily Devotions (6 page)

G
od wants us to use wisdom to make right choices, and the Holy Spirit will lead us into wisdom if we will simply ask Him to do so.

Have you ever needed to make a decision and had your head (your intellectual abilities) try to lead you one way while your heart was leading you in another direction? Have you ever had a situation in which your flesh (your natural thoughts and feelings) seemed to be guiding you down one path, but something inside you kept nagging you to go another way? For example, have there been times when you stayed up late at night watching television, even though you knew you needed a good night’s sleep to be strong and alert for an important meeting the next day—and you kept resisting the knowledge in your heart that you really should go to bed? Have you purchased something you were excited about on an emotional level, but knew in your heart you could not really afford and didn’t even need it?

What is happening in the kinds of circumstances I have just described? Chances are, wisdom is crying out to you. Many times, it cries out in the form of the things you find yourself thinking you should or should not do—you should eat healthily; you should be kind to other people; you should not spend money you do not have. These are all practical examples of using wisdom in everyday life. When you sense such leadings, the Holy Spirit, Who speaks to your heart, is trying to help you make a wise decision, even though it may not be the choice you want to make or it may not seem to make much sense in your present circumstances.

When we know the wise choice to make and don’t make it, the reason is often because we are allowing our flesh to lead us and to see if we
can get away with unwise decisions—which is also known as “foolishness.” The flesh leads us to foolishness, but God wants us to walk in wisdom and make choices now that we will be happy with later.

A
lmost everywhere you travel, you are likely to come to a point where two roads intersect and you must choose whether to turn or to go straight. We all face intersections in our lives. They are our turning points, the places where we must make decisions.

If you are standing at a point of decision in your life right now, let me urge you to follow wisdom. Go to God and His Word first; don’t automatically turn to the people and resources around you and ask them what you ought to do. God may answer your prayer by speaking through someone, but it is best to honor Him by seeking Him first.

Recently, I was with a friend who suffered from serious back problems. After an unsuccessful surgery, she continued to have terrible pain. Her doctor released her, saying there was nothing more anyone could do, and suggested she go to a pain-management clinic and learn to live with the pain. She began to seriously seek God about what she
should do. I have an expert chiropractor who has helped me over the years. I told my distraught friend I really thought he could help her, too. After one visit, her pain diminished greatly. The chiropractor put her on a rehabilitation strength program, and after she returned to him a few more times she was soon completely pain free. Wow!

She did not run to me and ignore God; rather, in seeking God, He gave her advice through me. As I said, God may use a person to speak words of wisdom to us, but it is important that we seek Him because all true wisdom comes from Him. He deserves the credit, no matter what vessel He uses.

L
ife can become complicated when people do not know how to make decisions and stick with them. In the verse above, James is basically saying,
“Make a decision. Just say yes or no, and don’t keep changing your mind.”

We often labor over the choices and options before us when, actually, we just need to make a decision and let it stand. For example, when you stand in front of your closet in the morning looking at all of your clothes, just choose something and put it on. Don’t go back and forth until you make yourself late for work!

When you get ready to go out to eat, pick a restaurant and go. Don’t
become so confused that you feel there is no one place that will satisfy you. Sometimes I would like the coffee from restaurant A, the salad from restaurant B, my favorite chicken dish from restaurant C, and dessert from restaurant D. Obviously, I cannot have everything I want at the same time, so I need to pick one of those places and eat there. I can go to the others later.

Let me encourage you to start making decisions without second-guessing yourself or worrying about the choices you make. Don’t be double-minded. Doubting your decisions after you make them will steal the enjoyment from everything you do. Make the best decisions you can, and trust God with the results. Don’t be anxious or afraid of being wrong. If your heart is right and you make a decision not in accordance with God’s will, He will forgive you and help you move on.

O
ne of the biggest mistakes we make as believers is failing to remember that God’s timing rarely matches our timing. We think and plan in temporal terms, and God thinks and plans in eternal terms. What this means is we want what feels good right now, what produces immediate results, but God is willing to be patient and deliberate as He invests in us over a period of time to produce results far better and longer lasting than we can imagine.

Just as our children try to talk us into giving them what they want right away, we often try to talk God into immediately giving us what we
want. He loves us even more than we love our children, and He loves us too much to give in to our pleadings. He knows something born prematurely might struggle to survive, so He waits until He knows everything is properly prepared for the arrival of our dreams.

God sees and understands what we do not see and understand. He asks us to put aside our natural tendencies to want to figure out what should happen in our lives and when it should happen. He also desires us to stop being frustrated because things do not go according to our plan, and instead to relax, enjoy the ride, and trust He is working everything out according to His timing and the wisdom of His plan.

Without trusting God, we will never experience satisfaction and enjoyment in life; we will always be striving to “make things happen” within our timeline. We must remember God not only has plans for our lives, He also knows the perfect timing for each aspect of those plans. Fighting and resisting the timing of God is equivalent to fighting and resisting His will for our lives. God is working, often in ways we cannot see, to bring His plans to pass in our lives in the best possible ways. We simply need to trust Him as we wait for the arrival of our dreams.

S
ometimes, the best way to deal with an offense or with something that gets on our nerves is simply to overlook it. If we insist upon calling
every little mistake to people’s attention (this is called “nit-picking”), we are not being gracious and merciful.

Every member of every household on earth has some annoying habits. Nobody’s perfect. In our home, I have habits Dave wishes I didn’t have and he has habits I wish he didn’t have. For instance, Dave does not always close his closet door. In our closets, the lights stay on if the doors are open. For years, I had a hard time simply closing the closet door for him; I always wanted to make sure Dave knew he left the door open and I had to close it again!

Our fleshly natures really enjoy telling people what they have done wrong and how we have fixed it. The best way for me to handle Dave’s open closet door is to close it and go on about my day, not to say,
“You left your light on again”
every time he does it. There are similar things Dave needs to do for me. There are plenty of times when I am not perfect and I want him to cover my mistakes.

In adult relationships, both in marriage and in other relationships, we need to cover one another’s mistakes. Although there are times when situations need to be confronted and resolved, there are other times when people are busy or rushed and they simply need us to step in and cover them without reminding them over and over of what we’ve done for them.

People do not want to hear about every little mistake they make. I really appreciate the times people cover my mistakes; I believe you do, too. I encourage you to apply Proverbs 10:12 to your everyday life. Before you point out what someone has done wrong, remember that love covers transgressions.

M
y husband is a very happy man; he is consistently joyful and peaceful. Over the years we have been married, he has enjoyed his life much more than I have enjoyed mine, and he has not spent (wasted) nearly as much time as I have being angry, upset, and frustrated.

When certain problems arise, Dave says,
“If you can do something about this, do it. If you can’t, go on about your business, trust God, and let Him take care of it.”
That always sounded good to me, but it used to take me longer to
“let go and let God work”
than it did him, but now I am catching up.

Recently, we were riding in the car together and Dave received a phone call about a change in one of our television air times. This happened to be on one of our best stations, and he did not like the change. He started getting upset, and I heard myself say,
“Don’t let it bug you. God will make it work out for the best if we pray.”
I didn’t even have to try to be positive; it was my first response. I am continually amazed at how much God can change us if we continue praying and letting Him work in our lives. Here I was actually encouraging Mr. Positive, when most of my life it had been the other way around. That felt good!

If we really love God and want to do His will, then we must believe—no matter what happens in our lives—that God is in control and He will take everything that happens and make it work out for our good. Certain circumstances may not always feel good or appear to be good, but God will cause them to work together with other things in your life to bring about good. God is a good God, and He can take even the worst situations and bring something positive out of them.

E
veryone who is truly successful in life has to deal with criticism. Sometimes criticism comes from people who do not understand what we are doing, cannot see the vision we see, or are jealous of our success. Sometimes criticism is legitimate but isn’t delivered in a helpful way. Learning to deal with it in a godly way is always a great testimony to the people around us.

In Matthew 10:10–14, Jesus tells His disciples how to deal with criticism or with people who will not receive their message. His advice:
“Shake it off.”
Jesus Himself was criticized frequently, and He usually ignored it (see Matt. 27:11–12). Often, the best way to respond to criticism is to say nothing at all. But when you must respond, here are a few suggestions for handling criticism in a godly way: