What is this business about my needing to study, strive, labor to be quiet? shouldn’t, quiet, just happen? I Thessalonians 4:11. I have always been a quiet person on the outside. For example, when I had the opportunity to give a Sunday morning sermon at a high school reunion, all my friends came up to […]
Category: Mindfulness
Happy as the person who does not apply ungodly advice even from godly people. Or hang around with sinners, wishing we could do what they do, or join in with scoffers as they make fun of other people. Instead they meditate day and night on God’s word. They will be like trees that are green […]
The Lord gives and he takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord! Job 1:22 Now, come on, be real! Is that the first thing you think of when you have lost something very very important to your happiness? It sure is not what I think of, “Blessed be the name of the Lord”. […]
Categories
A POSITIVE SPIN
We have all heard the saying, “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.” As people of faith, this actually makes sense. The world wants me to take God’s gifts for granted, find fault with my reality, compare with the illusion of other’s reality and wish my reality would just magically change. / Faith suggests that […]
We know it’s not smart to “sweat the small stuff” but does that mean it’s OK to sweat the big stuff? The truth is that I shouldn’t sweat anything. Well, maybe it is alright for me to sweat being obedient, sweat moving my body members according to a growing picture of God’s principles in action. […]
Categories
BEING PICKY POSITIVE
I need to take heed to myself, get the beam out of my eye, see the other as supremely important and find ways to encourage and build them. Which do I focus on more: what I want God to do for me/what God has already done for me? My brain is naturally wired to be […]
How cool is that? In Romans 7 Paul laments that he keeps doing what he knows he shouldn’t and doesn’t really want to do them. Then he doesn’t get around to doing what he knows he should and really wants to but the sin in him keeps bossing him around. I can relate. Paul calls […]
Categories
KINDLING STARTS FIRES
Many of the illnesses that I work with are KINDLED. That means that they tend to gradually worsen. It becomes easier to fall into a relapse and harder to recover. Change for the better or for the worse tends to be like that. I can become discouraged by how slowly I replace a bad habit […]
Categories
RADICAL MINDFULNESS
Remember the rule? If I want to know what godliness looks like—I just picture what I normally do and then godliness will, pretty much, be the opposite! So what is my normal state of mindfulness? Well, not to be mindful at all! I let my focus drift to the future the past and everywhere else. […]
The devil loves to grab a delicious worm and stick his hook into it to spoil it. That doesn’t mean that the worm is no good. In like manner the new age people like to take one of God’s good ideas and twist it to the point that we faithful followers of Jesus are leery […]
verlebellmd.com 