Even though I have quoted it before, I appreciate the following ditty because there is so much truth in it:

“It’s the little things that bother us and put us on the rack, you can sit upon a mountain but you can’t sit on a tack!”

It’s amazing how uptight and impatient I/we can become with the little annoyances of everyday life. Sometimes it seems these upset us more than big issues.

Remember, though, that the things that bug us don’t cause our impatience, they just trigger it! And that’s what God wants to get us to face and fix. He wants to fix us from the inside out so that we will learn both patience and every other grace.

Keep in mind, though, if you don’t want to experience trials and tribulation, don’t ever pray for patience! This is because we only learn patience by experiencing the things that upset and bug us.

Growth is usually slow. So, while learning to be patient with others, don’t forget to learn to be patient with yourself.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, help me to not only grow in patience but ‘in faith and love and every grace / Might more of your salvation know / And seek more earnestly your face.’ Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Romans 5:3 (TLB)(NLT).

While we are encouraged and even commanded by God to love one another, it isn’t always easy to do. Loving actually needs to be learned.

As the Bible teaches, we love God because He loved us first. He modeled it for us. The same principle is true with human love. We love people because someone first loved us and modeled love for us.

We didn’t come into the world knowing how to love, only with the ability to learn how to love. If we didn’t receive healthy loving or if we didn’t feel adequately loved when we were growing up, chances are as adults we will suffer from love deprivation and not know how to love properly—only how “to make” love which may or may not have anything at all to do with love!

In other words, to learn to love we need to be loved first—for what we didn’t receive in our early developmental years, we need to receive now.

We do this by having at least one or two safe, loving, non-judgmental, and accepting people to love us as we really are—by allowing them see our total dark side—secrets, failures, sins, weaknesses, faults … warts and all. As these people love and accept us for who we are (not for what we have or haven’t done), we learn little by little to love and accept ourselves. Remember, too, that we can only be loved to the degree that we are known, and we can only love and accept others to the degree that we have learned to love and accept ourselves. Admittedly this can be very scary but it is profoundly healing.

This is another reason why the Bible teaches us the importance of confessing our sins and faults to one another.² Doing this is crucial for the healing of our human hurts and damaged emotions.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please give me a few friends with whom I can feel safe to let them know me fully and love me still. Through their love and your love please help me to learn to love and accept myself in a healthy way. In so doing teach me to love others who also need to be loved in the same way I do. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. 1 John 4:19 (NKJV).

2. James 5:16.

Oswald Chambers said, “God who made the birds never made bird cages. It’s men who make bird cages [and put people in them] and after a while we become cramped and can do nothing but chirp and stand on one leg.”

In one of his parables Jesus illustrated how everybody is responsible for making good use of the talents he or she has been given. The one who had been given ten talents invested them wisely and was rewarded accordingly. The man who had only one talent and sat on it, lost it.

This principle is true in many areas of life. A few years ago I snapped an Achilles tendon—twice in a three-month period. I was on crutches for several months. When I was back on both feet again, my right leg was very weak and my calf muscle had already shrunk from lack of use. I had to have intensive physical therapy to get its use and strength back again.

What we don’t use we take the risk of losing. This is true in various areas of life. And as Jesus’ parable intended to teach us, it is even more applicable when it comes to using our gifts and talents for the Kingdom of God and investing them in eternal values.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, thank you for the talents you have entrusted to me. Help me to invest and use them wisely for your Kingdom. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Matthew 25:25 (NIV).

The past few years have certainly been marked by many major crises and natural disasters … terrorist attacks, bombings, massive earthquakes and devastating floods.

In the midst of these disasters we witnessed incredible acts of compassion and unprecedented deeds of kindness by thousands of good-hearted people. We also witnessed dastardly evil: looting, crime, anger, rage, irresponsibility and the never-ending nauseating “playing the blame game.”

Sadly, the world is filled with gripes* of wrath. This is about angry obsessive complainers who blame God, the government, their spouse, their boss, or anybody else for the problems they have. They gripe about the weather, gripe about the service be it good or bad, and even gripe when they are being helped by the sacrifice of others. These are those who avoid personal responsibility, live in a state of constant denial, and gripe, gripe, gripe.

Yes we need to help the helpless and those who are in a position where they literally cannot help themselves. But let’s wake up! Stop rescuing those who can and need to help themselves. As the Bible teaches, if we rescue these people we will have to do it again … and again … and again. The most loving thing we can do for this kind of person is to help him to help himself. And we can only do this if he wants to become self-reliable and personally responsible. For those who can help themselves but don’t want to, we need to get out of the way and let them crash in the hopes that this will bring them to their senses and face the reality of life as it really is.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please deliver me from the sin of being an obsessive complainer, playing the blame game, and/or for being irresponsible. And deliver me from rescuing those who are quite capable of and need to become responsible and learn to help themselves. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

* For those for whom English is not their primary language, “gripe” means to complain.

1. Proverbs 19:19 (NIV).

In a speech in August of last year a well-known woman of color shared the following: “A little girl grows up in Jim Crow Birmingham—the most segregated big city in America,” she said. “Her parents can’t take her to a movie theater or a restaurant, but they make her believe that even though she can’t have a hamburger at the Woolworth’s lunch counter, she can be President of the United States. And she becomes the Secretary of State [of the USA].”²

The speaker’s name? Condoleezza Rice, former Secretary of State, a committed woman who knows first-hand the values that make a nation exceptional and what it means to live the American Dream!

From time to time I receive requests from overseas young people who want me to help finance them to come to America and receive a college education. And how do I help them? I do it by telling my story as I came from humble beginnings in Australia. My father made me quit school at the age of 13 and work full–time, insisting that I give every penny I earned to help support our family of four siblings.

Did I become resentful of other kids whose parents allowed them to go to high school? No. I believed in hard work and always worked diligently. By age 15 I was put in charge of a department where I worked in a radio factory. By age 16, while working full time, to learn a trade I put myself through a five-year, part-time course at a technical college. When I felt called to Christian ministry and wanted to come to the U.S. for training, I never asked nor received a penny from anyone to help me. All I prayed for was that God would give me enough work so I could earn all I needed to come to America to study, and that when I got here that He would help me to find part-time work so I could pay my way through college. God answered these prayers. I never lacked finding work and accepted any type of work I could get … including scrubbing floors and more. In the summer time I worked three jobs at once—one full-time and two part-time—seven days a week.

Sadly today, however, we are living in an ever-increasing entitlement society where too many believe that the world owes them a living and where too many government leaders are supporting this societal-self-destructive way of life. At the local pier where I live there is a notice that says. “Don’t feed the birds. It will make them over-dependent so that they will become unable to take care of themselves.”

Yes, I believe in helping those who genuinely cannot help themselves (including those who simply cannot find any kind of work), but when we do for others what they can and need to do for themselves, we are NOT helping them, but keeping them over-dependent, immature and irresponsible.

Remember that opportunity comes to those who prepare themselves and are ready for it when it appears! They know that it comes to pass—not to pause. As basketball coach, Bobby Knight, stated, “The will to succeed is important, but what’s more important is the will to prepare.”

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, help me to realize that while I was not responsible for my initial background, I am totally responsible for what I become and for what I do with my life. Deliver me from the sin of expecting others to be responsible for me and help me to prepare myself for all opportunities that come my way. And help me to live a fruitful and productive life and always do so for your glory. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. 2 Thessalonians 3:10 (NIV).

In his book, Mind Your Own Business, Murray Raphel shares the following story. “Years ago, in Russia, a czar came upon a lonely sentry standing at attention in a secluded corner of the palace garden. ‘What are you guarding,’ asked the czar. ‘I don’t know. The captain ordered me to this post,’ the sentry replied.

“The czar called the captain. His answer: ‘Written regulations specify a guard was to be assigned to that area.’ The czar ordered a search to find out why. The archives finally yielded the reason. Years before, Catherine the Great had planted a rose bush in that corner. She ordered a sentry to protect it for that evening.

“One hundred years later, sentries were still guarding the now barren spot.”

The application is obvious.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please give me the wisdom to know what to guard carefully—especially that which is imperative and eternal—and forget continuing to guard that which is no longer relevant. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Matthew 15:14.

“Love … look at the two of us, Strangers in many ways.” These were words that Karen Carpenter hauntingly sang. Likewise, in another song she expressed how loneliness was “such a sad affair.” Tragically, Karen’s own life was a sad affair. Lonely and not feeling loved, she starved herself to death. A tragic loss.

In the U.S. at the turn of this century it was estimated that some 50 percent of adults 25 and older would be single. Many, if not most of these, long to love and be loved by at least one special person. Some will be fortunate to find meaningful love. Some probably won’t. And there are millions of married people who, like strangers, live together alone apart. Their lives are consumed by loneliness, as are the lives of many elderly folk. This, too, is a very sad affair.

Whether single or married, young or old, the fact is that while we can live without romantic love—even if not desirable—we cannot live healthily without at least one or two healthy, loving relationships. We are created for such and need to get this requirement met in healthy ways. If we don’t, it can take years off our life.

In perhaps the greatest literary masterpiece on love ever written, the Apostle Paul wrote of the emptiness of life without love: “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.”²

Paul also gives us the key for finding love in loving relationships: “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, and it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres.”³

And in the words of John Oxenham of New Zealand:

Love ever gives,

Forgives outlives,

And ever stands with open hands,

For while it lives, it gives.

For this is love’s prerogative —

To give, and give, and give.⁴

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, thank you for your great love in giving your Son, Jesus, to die in my place for my sins. Please help me to find healthy loving relationships and learn to love others as you have loved me. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. 1 Corinthians 13:13 (TLB)(NLT).

2. 1 Corinthians 13:1-3 (NIV).

3. 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 (NIV).

4. See www.actsweb.org/wordsoflove/love_ever_gives.php.

In speaking about the meaning and purpose of life, one insightful writer said, “It is not about writing great books, amassing great wealth, achieving great power. It is about loving and being loved. It is about savoring the beauty of moments that don’t last, the sunsets, the leaves turning color, the rare moments of true human communication.”

King Solomon, one of the wisest and richest men of antiquity said about his life: “I undertook great projects: I built houses for myself and planted vineyards. I made gardens and parks … reservoirs to water groves of flourishing trees. I bought male and female slaves …. I also owned more herds and flocks than anyone in Jerusalem before me. I amassed silver and gold for myself, and the treasure of kings and provinces….In all this my wisdom stayed with me. I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure. My heart took delight in all my work, and this was the reward for all my labor. Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun.”²

When we realize that the essence of life is not in power, performance, or possessions but in loving relationships—both with our fellow man and with God—and in appreciating the beauty of his creation, and fulfilling his purpose for our lives, we will have discovered what Solomon took a lifetime to learn.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, give me the wisdom to understand that the beauty and true meaning of life is not found in power, performance, or possessions, but in loving relationships the human heart yearns for, and in loving and serving you. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Ecclesiastes 2:11 (NIV).

2. Ecclesiastes 2:4-8, 10-11 (NIV).

I believe it was Dwight L Moody, the famous evangelist, who was once told by an irate church lady, “Mr. Moody, I don’t like the way you do your evangelism [preaching].”

In reply Mr. Moody said, “I don’t necessarily like all of it either, but it’s the best way I know. Tell me, how do you do it?”

“Oh, I don’t,” was the reply.

“Well,” said Moody, “I like the way I’m doing it better than the way you’re not doing it.”

It’s always easy to know what to do when we don’t have to do the job, and very easy to criticize others when we’re not doing the work ourselves.

Some time ago when I was a member of a large group and things weren’t going too well, I was asked what I thought about the situation and what could be done to improve things. I said that I didn’t feel I had the right to criticize unless I was prepared to do something about it. I was, however, prepared to help, and several of us working together saw things greatly improve.

In this instance, as it is in many other instances, criticism without offering help would have only served to make matters worse and cause further dissension among the group. So, if we’re not willing to put our shoulder to the wheel and do our bit, let’s not stir up dissension through negative criticism. Furthermore, might I add that journalists, politicians, authors, and even preachers don’t have the right to name others and confess their sins in public, without having first confessed their own sins in public.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please deliver me from ever having a negative, bitter, or critical attitude, and wherever I see a need, may I be willing to help if I am able to. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Proverbs 6:16-19 (NIV).

Oldies but goodies: “The pedestrian had no idea which way to go, so I ran over him.” That, says the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, is among a list of explanations the company has received for automobile accidents.

Others include: “The other car collided with mine without warning me of its intention.”

“I had been driving my car for 40 years when I fell asleep at the wheel and had the accident.”

“As I reached an intersection, a hedge sprang up, obscuring my vision.”

“I pulled away from the side of the road, glanced at my mother-in-law, and headed over the embankment.”

“The telephone pole was approaching fast. I attempted to swerve out of its path when it struck my front end.”

“The guy was all over the road. He had to swerve a number of times before I hit him.”

“The indirect cause of this accident was a little guy in a small car with a big mouth.”

But Metropolitan says the strangest reason of all is, “An invisible car came out of nowhere, struck my car, and vanished.”

I guess, like the lawyer who questioned Jesus, it’s a human trait that too many of us want to justify ourselves whenever we do wrong or fail to do what we know we should.

However, it’s only when we get real and admit our mistakes that we can learn from them, grow, and find forgiveness—from God and others. As Solomon put it, “A man who refuses to admit his mistakes can never be successful. But if he confesses and forsakes them, he gets another chance.”²

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please help me to be mature and honest enough to admit when I make a mistake, quit playing the blame-game, and accept full responsibility for all of my actions. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Luke 10:29.

2. Proverbs 28:13 (TLB)(NLT).