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Thinking about all the things you haven’t accomplished and all the ways you come up short and all the attention you never get is a lot like walking into a prison cell and locking the door from the inside.
Father, please free me today, thought by thought, from the prison of self-focus. From Psalm 146:7
“Freedom from myself will be/The sweetest rest I’ve ever known.” Chris Rice
Some people think that God keeps close tabs on what we owe, but I think that He’s like my friend who is always looking for chances to say it’s on the house.
“He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all – how will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things?” Romans 8:32
Father, I want to always be looking today for chances to graciously give.
Whenever I forget how much God loves me, I scramble around trying to earn a safe place in the people and things around me. As soon as I remember again, I’m settled.
“Big Nutbrown Hare settled Little Nutbrown Hare into his bed of leaves. He leaned over and kissed him goodnight. Then he lay down close by and whispered . . . , ‘I love you right up to the moon – and back.’” From a child’s tale by Sam McBratney
“For high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His lovingkindness. . . .” Psalm 103:11
In a fast-paced, efficient, can-do world, it’s easy to get the idea that sad is bad. No wonder we need permission (and a lot of courage) to feel deeply.
“Jesus wept.” John 11:35
“It’s alright, darlin’. You go ahead and cry.” Sarah Ann to me
Today’s problems and pressures and pain feel a lot lighter when you remember to look above and beyond.
“Therefore, we do not lose heart. . . . The things we can see are only temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” 2 Corinthians 4:16-18
“Let me not go forth to my work believing only in the world of sense and time, but give me grace to understand that the world I cannot see or touch is the most real world of all.” John Baillie
It’s easy, especially with the people closest to you, to get into the habit of finding fault. Finding good might be a far more fruitful (and enjoyable) habit to cultivate.
“Instead of looking at the areas in which our fellow-creatures give us pain, we will look at their love and their kindness until we are astonished at it and at our own blindness which could not see it before.” Priscilla Maurice
“[E]ncourage each other and build each other up. . . .” 1 Thessalonians 5:11
