“A man was criticized for failing to provide for his family. Times were hard. He couldn’t find a job so he decided to go into the fish business.

“After his first catch, he set up shop underneath a sign he made: ‘Fresh Fish for Sale Today!’ The first passerby offered a criticism: ‘Why would you use the word today? Everyone knows you don’t want to sell them yesterday or tomorrow. That leaves only today to sell them.’

“So he sawed off that last word and mounted the new version: ‘Fresh Fish for Sale.’ The next passerby asked, ‘Why use the word Fresh? Do you mean to imply that at other times the fish are not fresh?’ Again he changed his sign. Now it said, ‘Fish for Sale.’

“The next critic said, ‘Why not leave off the words for Sale? Any numbskull would know that’s why you have a fish market?’ Finally, he wound up with only the word ‘Fish.’ Even then, he still had a critic. The next passerby said, ‘Why do you need to put up a sign at all? Anyone who comes within half a mile of this place knows from the smell what you are selling!’

“Folks who are determined to leave no stone unturned will find something to criticize about any endeavor we undertake.”²

Criticism: A killer of worthy endeavors and a killer of relationships!

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please deliver me from the sin of a negative critical attitude. Help me to become more and more like Jesus in every way. Thank You for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully in Jesus’s name, amen.”

1. Ephesians 4:31 (NLT).
2. Jack Wilhelm. Source: KneEmail by Mike Benson, www.forthright.net/kneemail/.

Kevin Axe in Salt shares how “an episode in the TV show, ‘The Equalizer,’ showed the hero talking with his son. When the boy was eight, the father had gone off for what seemed like forever to be a super spy. The son tells his dad he used to go sit on a special rock in the park and wonder what he had done that was so terrible to make his own father stop loving him and leave.”

“But I’ve always loved you,” says the Equalizer.

“I realize that now,” says the boy, “but I just wish love had a higher priority.”

Don’t wait until it’s too late. Show your love today to the ones you love the most. You can express it in numerous ways. And don’t forget to put it into words as well—every day. As Solomon said, “Open rebuke is better than secret love.” For some who are starving for some loving attention negative attention can be better than no attention. Positive, loving attention is so much healthier—and greatly needed by all of us. So, don’t let your love be secret! Communicate it openly and often.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, thank You that you love me and expressed it in giving Your Son, Jesus, to die on the cross for my sins. Help me to show my love and appreciation every day not only to You, but also to the ones I love the most, and I thank You for every one of them. Thank You for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully in Jesus’s name, amen.”

1. Solomon (Proverbs 27:5).

I have worked for a number of years in divorce recovery and relationship workshops. I have repeatedly found that a big percentage of people who have gone through divorce or have impaired relationships primarily blame the other person for the relational breakdown.

Many of us don’t like this but the reality is there are no innocent parties in any divorce or broken relationship. Both parties are contributing something, even if it is being too weak, too passive, too submissive, not having healthy boundaries, being immature, too overdependent or codependent, etc., etc.

A lady I was dating a number of years ago said to me, “Dick, are you angry at me because I’ve been divorced three times?”

I answered, “Angry? No. Frightened? Yes!”

“They were all jerks,” she stated.

“Why did you marry them then?” I asked.

In actuality, we are as sick or as healthy as the people we are attracted to—especially romantically. We can tell a lot about ourselves by the people we are attracted and drawn to. If we want to have healthy relationships, we need to see what we have contributed to any relational conflicts in the past and do what we need to do to become healthy people. Only healthy people find and have healthy relationships.

Our conflicts can be God’s wake-up call to motivate us to take stock of our life, face our character issues, take responsibility for overcoming our personal weaknesses and grow to become healthy persons.

As long as we play the blame game and blame others for our problems we will B-LAME!

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, help me never to play the blame game but in every conflict help me to see exactly what I am contributing to the situation, and lead me to the help I need to overcome my character weaknesses. Thank You for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully in Jesus’s name, amen.”

1. Matthew 7:4-5 (NIV).

Jim DeLoach tells the following story: “A little boy in a fit of anger shouted at his mother that he hated her. Then, perhaps fearing punishment, he ran to a steep cliff near their house and shouted into the valley, ‘I hate you, I hate you!’ Back from the valley came an echo, ‘I hate you, I hate you!’ Startled at this, the boy ran into the house and told his mother that there was a mean little boy who lived in the valley who shouted at him, ‘I hate you, I hate you!’

“His mother took him back to the hillside and told him to shout, ‘I love you, I love you!’

“When he did, back came the reply, ‘I love you, I love you!’”

What we project is what we get back. If we project hatred, hatred is what we will receive in return. If we project love, love is what we will receive in return. We do reap what we sow—even if it is eventually.

“Suggested prayer: “Dear God, when I am angry, hurt or afraid, help me to realize that these are my issues, and help me to deal with these creatively so I will always project love wherever I go. Thank You for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully in Jesus’s name. Amen.”

1. Galatians 6:7 (NIV).

God isn’t into religion. He’s into relationships. That is, he not only wants us to have a close, loving, warm and intimate relationship with himself but also with each other.

Intimacy, however, can be scary. It means being open, honest and vulnerable—not just with our thoughts and ideas, but much more so with our feelings, failures, and fears—not only with God but with at least one or a few other trusted friends.

What’s scary is that if you see me and know me as I really am on the inside, you may not like me. Worse still, if I know me as I really am on the inside, I may not like me either!

However, only to the degree that I am open and honest can I ever be known for who I truly am. Furthermore, only to the degree that I am known, can I ever feel loved. If I wear a mask, you may like my mask, but I will never feel loved because my mask is not me. Only real people can experience real love. And we’re not talking about the body-building TV ads that promise real results for real people. These ads are about as phony as they can get. Being real has to do with the inner self and nothing whatsoever to do with the external self.

May God help each of us to be real and become the loving persons he planned for us to be.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, thank You that You are not into rigid religion but into loving relationships and that You want a loving, intimate relationship with me. Please help me to be honest with myself, with a few others and most of all with You. Help me to stop pretending and be real and in so doing become more and more like Jesus in every way. Thank You for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully in Jesus’s name, amen.”

1. Ephesians 4:15-16 (TLB).

Do you ever get your feelings hurt? If so, when this happens, how do you usually react? Do you want to withdraw from that person or get angry? Or if it it is a friend whom you feel hurt you, do you feel like ending the friendship?

When I feel hurt, my tendency is to want to withdraw, but what I try to remember to do is to pray and admit to God just how I feel and then ask Him to help me to be “as Jesus” to this person no matter how I feel, and then choose to do the loving thing towards this person, whether I feel like it or not.

Wherever possible, I also choose to share my hurt feelings with the person involved with the goal to “speak the truth in love.” To do this it is important to use “I” messages, not “you” messages. That is, to say, “I really feel hurt and need to talk to you about such and such….” Don’t say, “You really hurt my feeling when you did or said such and such.” We need to remember that what the other person says or does is their issue. The manner in which we respond and how we feel is always our issue and our responsibility.

I am not in any way seeking to justify what the other person does; rather, I am taking full responsibility for what I do and the manner in which I react. If I over-react to what is said or done, that is triggering some unfinished business in me. Furthermore, to the degree that I overreact, that is entirely my problem and my responsibility.

Admittedly, speaking the truth in love when we are feeling hurt and/or angry is much easier said than done, but it is something we need to learn how to do to maintain loving relationships.

At the same time, if the person who we feel has hurt us has a habit of lashing out when things don’t go their way, then we need to be firm with tough love, letting him or her know that if he/she continues to treat us in a hurtful manner, we will need to distance our-self from them, until they resolve their issue.

In all conflict situations, with God’s help, as a Christian, our goal is always to speak the truth in love.

Suggested prayer, “Dear God, when my feelings are hurt, please help me to evaluate my feelings to see if they are justified, or if I am over-reacting. If the latter, please help me to resolve the cause of my reaction and never blame anyone else for my issue. And even if my hurt feelings are justified, always help me to be ‘as Jesus’ to the person in question and always speak the truth in love. Thank You for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully in Jesus’s name, amen.”

1. Ephesians 4:15 (TLB).

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Note: For additional help in this area, see the article, “Resolving Conflict Creatively” at: https://learning.actsweb.org/articles/article.php?i=126&d=1&c=3&p=1

It began to happen soon after his 50th birthday. Until then Bill had always been reliable, dependable, a successful business man, a good husband, father and provider.

First, he went out and bought a new trendy wardrobe more suitable for a twenty-something man; then he changed his hair style, dyed his graying hair black, and traded in his late-model family car for a hip sports car. He said he didn’t like his work anymore—work that he had always enjoyed. He was depressed, started drinking more with the “boys,” came home late from work more often, and complained to his wife about their growing apart. He said he needed space to “think” about things, and hinted at divorce.

Bill is experiencing what many men go through in their mid-years. He’s in the throes of a mid-life crisis. As he looked back over his life and could now see the end in view, he wondered if he had achieved anything truly meaningful. His business and financial success, with all the material possessions he worked so hard for, left him feeling empty and unfulfilled. He now worries about the future and has convinced himself that it will just be more of the same—ad infinitum?

Unless Bill realizes what he is experiencing and gets some counseling help, rather than further acting out his unrealistic fantasies, he will cause serious heartbreak for his family and possible disaster for himself.

The sooner we men learn that significance is much more important than what the Western world has defined for us as success, and that purpose is of far greater value than possessions, the better off and healthier we can be for the rest of our lives—physically, emotionally, relationally and spiritually.

If, when we come to the end of life’s journey and want to have a sense of significance in that we have contributed to the betterment of mankind in some small way, it is imperative that we discover our God-given life-purpose (that will be serving people in one way or another), and dedicate the rest of our life to fulfilling that purpose.

And by the way, we are never too old to begin that journey.

As God’s Word reminds us, “Then he [Jesus] said to them, ‘Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.’”¹

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please help me to discover my God-given life purpose and dedicate myself to the fulfillment of this purpose so that when I stand before You face to face, I will not feel that I have lived in vain. Thank You for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully in Jesus’s name, amen.”

1. Luke 12:15 (NIV).

In his sermon, “The Turning Point,” Richard Fairchild tells how, at the Olympic Games in Paris in 1924, Bill Havens, a member of the four-man U.S. canoe rowing team, made the very difficult decision to withdraw from the games in order to be with his wife for the birth of their first child. The U.S. team won the gold medal and it turned out that the birth of the baby was so late Bill could have stayed on the team and arrived home in plenty of time for the baby’s birth.

However, Bill said he had no regrets because his first commitment was to his wife.

However, there is a fascinating sequel to this story. “The child eventually born to Bill and his wife was a boy whom they named Frank. Twenty-eight years later, in 1952, Bill received a cablegram from Frank. It was sent from Helsinki, Finland, where the 1952 Olympics were being held. The cablegram read: ‘Dad, I won. I’m bringing home the gold medal you lost while waiting for me to be born.’

“Frank Havens had just won the gold medal for the United States in the canoe-racing event, a medal his father had dreamed of winning but never did.”²

It is true for all of us in that whenever we honor our commitments—no matter what the immediate losses may seem—in the long run it always pays to do the right thing. Always.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please help me to always put first things first, honor all my commitments, and never forget to keep the long-term effects of my actions in mind. Thank You for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully in Jesus’s name, amen.”

1. Ephesians 5:25 (NIV).
2. Richard Fairchild, “The Turning Point,” http://tinyurl.com/3735ly

One writer observed a mother walking with a small handicapped child whose both legs were in braces. He was having a difficult time but his mother was right there with him encouraging him at every step.

“That’s great! You’re doing splendidly,” she kept repeating.

“I want to run,” the boy called.

“Very well, try it,” his mother encouraged enthusiastically. As he did, he tripped and almost fell and would have except his mother was right there beside him and caught him so he wouldn’t hurt himself. “You did fine,” she said again, “and next time you will do even better.”

God, too, knows our limitations. He sees our brokenness and doesn’t expect us to be able to make it alone. He knows we can’t run with a broken leg. He also knows we can’t live the Christian life without help and encouragement. He wants us to know that he is right there beside us to encourage us to keep trying, to keep growing, and to become stronger.

God also knows that we need supporting friends to encourage us, to help keep us on track, and to keep us accountable—as none of us can make it alone.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, help me to be an encouraging and supporting friend to the people You bring into my life. And help me not to be too proud or afraid to ask for help when I need a friend to lean on. And thank You that I can always ask for and receive Your help as needed. Thank You for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully in Jesus’s name, amen.”

1. Hebrews 10:25 (NIV).