Suggested prayer: “Dear God, when my inner self or your Holy Spirit reminds me of something I need to fix, to start, to put right, or to do today, please help me to write it down so I don’t forget, and then do something about it that day. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Psalm 4:4 (NIV).

Life can be like that too. If you keep missing the mark—of other’s expectations of you—pretty soon you discover that you are out—at least on the outside and no longer with the in-group. You end up feeling and believing that you are a loser.

And then you consistently set yourself up to lose because that’s what you believe you are—a loser.

The opposite is also true. If you believe that you are a winner, you will act in a winning manner. Even when you fail at something, you will use it as a lesson to improve what you do and move on to another success and thereby reinforce your belief that you are a winner.

In other words, if you believe you’re a loser, you will lose. Or if you believe you’re a winner, you will win!

However, if we feel we are a loser, little by little we can change our belief about ourselves by building on our successes—no matter how small they are—and not on our failures. Every one of us can do something well if we choose to—even if we start by doing a good job sweeping the kitchen floor and taking pride in the fact that we did a good job…and then keep repeating this practice with other chores.

Unfortunately, too many people have the belief that they are either too bad or not good enough for God to accept them and they feel that, to him, they are losers. Not so. With God you can strike out “seven times seventy” (ad infinitum) and you’re still not out—unless you allow yourself to be.

With God no matter what we have ever done or have failed to do or how many times we have failed, we never strike out with him. He loves us unconditionally. All we need to do is acknowledge the fact that Jesus died to pay the penalty for our sins, confess our sins and failures to God and ask for his forgiveness—and of course accept it with thanksgiving— and then little by little learn to forgive ourselves. That’s what you call hitting the greatest home run of all.

1. Matthew 18:21-22 (NASB).

Ours is a day filled with numerous abbreviations: In computer talk we have: RAM, KB, MB, GB, ISP, HTML, PHP, IE, Etc. In the recovery world: AA, CODA, SAA, etc. And in psychological circles: OCD, ADD, DID, etc.

I heard about a new one (at least it’s new to me) in an article by Otis Young. It’s IDD, and stands for Integrity Deficit Disorder (not to be confused with the medical term, IDD, which stands for Iodine Deficiency Disorder).

As Young put it, “A person who is afflicted with this disorder knows what’s right but doesn’t follow through and do what’s right. He or she makes a promise or commitment, and then fails to keep it. Thus when you meet a person with integrity deficit disorder, you’re never quite sure if you can trust that person or not.”²

IDD people make excuses for why they didn’t do what they said they were going to do. They fail to accept personal responsibility and blame the weather, circumstances and especially others for their failures and the problems they have. They are defensive and hide behind a mask of superficiality, saccharine sweetness, religiosity, negativism, and/or phoniness. They refuse to take a good hard look at themselves and are masters of self-deception. Many IDDs believe the lies they tell themselves.

IDD is not a mental illness. It is a choice—a sinful choice. As God’s word says, “Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins”

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please deliver me from the sin of IDD and help me to be a man/woman of integrity. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. James 4:17 (NIV).

2. Rev. Otis Young, “Integrity Deficit Disorder.”

On one occasion, I believe it was to the evangelist Dwight Moody, a woman said, “Mr. Moody, I don’t like the way you do your evangelism.”

To which Moody replied, “I don’t particularly like the way I do it either. How do you do it?”

The lady replied, “I don’t do it.”

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

Moody’s answer may have been somewhat blunt but he made a good point. In more youthful days I was invited to a planning session for the college-age youth group in the church I was attending at the time. They asked for my opinion about what I felt was not working and how their program could be improved. I said, “I don’t feel I have a right to criticize if I am not willing to do something about it.” So guess what? I was made the new program director!

It’s very easy for all of us (including myself) to sit back and criticize our group, church, politicians, leaders, etc., etc., and not do anything about it.

Michelangelo had a great answer. He said, “Criticize by Creating.” True, most of us will never be a Michelangelo and none of us can do everything—but every one of us can do something no matter how small to help the world we live in become a better place in which to live.

And none of us will ever be called to do what God called Moses to do. But in essence God says to every one of us: “What is that in your hand?” That is, “What ability do you have?” Whatever it is, God wants and expects us to use it to serve him—and we serve him by serving others.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, thank you for the gifts and abilities you have given to me. Help me to know what they are and find a place to use them in loving service to you and others. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Exodus 4:1-2 (NIV).

Grant Frazier said, “Life is full of obstacle illusions.” He’s right.

Instead of seeing obstacles as opportunities to grow, negative people see them as obstacle illusions. They see them as mountains too high to climb and use them as excuses to hang on to if they don’t want to act responsibly and grow up and therein become stronger, healthier persons.

It’s all in their attitude of mind—their negative thinking—and they allow their problems to have a crippling effect in their life. They are faith-less!

On the other hand, positive people are faith-full. They see every obstacle, not only as a challenging mountain to climb and conquer, but as an opportunity to grow and become stronger, better, healthier persons. When faced with an obstacle (as another has suggested), they don’t tell God how big their problems are. They tell their problems how big their God is!

Neither do they allow past failures to defeat or depress them. And when the devil comes to remind them of their failures, they remind him of his future! Thus ends their discussion with the devil!

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please help me to commit and trust every obstacle in my life to you and give me the faith to ‘climb every mountain, ford every stream, follow every rainbow until I reach my dream’²—or rather, until I reach your dream for me. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Matthew 17:20 (NIV).

Years ago there was a song that said: “Into each life some rain must fall, But too much is falling in mine.”

The first line certainly is true. Problems, difficulties, challenges, and obstacles come to us all. That’s life. And without doubt, the more noble our life’s purpose is, the greater the obstacles we will be confronted with and challenged by.

However, the important thing to realize is that it’s not what obstacles we are confronted with that count, but how we respond to and what we do about them.

Obstacles are meant to be object lessons for us—to teach us how to grow, become strong in character and mature—ready for anything. They are meant to challenge us…to stretch us…to show us what potential and possibilities we can see and achieve.

The reality is we can either run from our problems—the obstacles placed in our path—or we can, with God’s help, overcome and learn from them and thereby become more mature persons, and stronger in character. The choice is ours. Remember, character counts—always in all ways!

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, thank you for the obstacles you allow in my life. Help me to see in every one a lesson to learn, an opportunity to grow, and a challenge to become more mature and stronger in character. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. James 1:2-4 (NLT).

I don’t know about you, but I get great encouragement knowing about other people who have experienced setbacks, discouragements, criticism, mistakes and failures, but with faith, hope, persistence and determination have risen above their circumstances to become and do all that they were capable of becoming and doing.

For example, here are some more successful failures:

Colonel Sanders of Kentucky Fried Chicken fame had his chicken recipe rejected 1,009 times before a restaurant accepted it.

Zane Grey became a dentist and hated it. He wrote several novels. They failed. He wrote a western novel, The Last of the Plainsmen. It too was rejected. He was told he had no future as a writer and to give it up. He persisted and was 40 before his first book sold. He had 65 books published while he was alive—24 after he died. His books sold more than 50 million copies. Forty-nine of his novels were made into movies. One million of his books still sell every year.²

Decca Recording Company turned down the Beatles in 1962. They said, “We don’t like their sound. Groups of guitarists are on the way out.” (Yeah right!)

Van Gogh sold only one painting in his entire lifetime and that one was of his own brother.

Richard Hooker spent 17 years writing a humorous war story which was rejected by 21 publishers before William Morrow bought it. The title of the book? MASH! (And we all know the rest of that story.)³

Wilbur and Orville Wright’s father believed that his sons’ desire to fly was heresy. Walt Disney went broke seven times and had a nervous breakdown before becoming successful. And Thomas Edison failed more than 6,000 times before making an electric light bulb that worked.

So … if you feel like you’ve ever failed, remember David who blew it big time with God in his adulterous affair with Bathsheba and having Bathsheba’s husband killed. So why did God say David was a man after his own heart? Because David was honest with God, admitted his failure, confessed his sin and God forgave him. He’ll do the same for you and me too. When we fail that’s the time to give God a chance. Surrender your heart and life to him, give him your failures, and in time—with growth—he will make something beautiful out of your life too.

Remember, “Failure is an event—not a person!”

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, I acknowledge my failures and surrender my heart and life to you. Please help me to see every character issue I need to resolve and, with your help, overcome. Please make something beautiful out of my life. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Acts 13:21-22 (NKJV).

2. Insight, No. 77, p.9.

3. Insight, No. 53, p. 23.

You have probably read how “Einstein was four years old before he could speak and seven before he could read. Isaac Newton did poorly in grade school. Beethoven’s music teacher once said of him, ‘As a composer he is hopeless.’ When a boy, Thomas Edison’s teachers told him he was too stupid to learn anything. F.W. Woolworth got a job in a dry goods store when he was 21, but his employers wouldn’t let him wait on a customer because he ‘didn’t have enough sense.’ A newspaper editor fired Walt Disney because he had ‘no good ideas.’ Enrico Caruso’s music teacher told him, ‘You can’t sing. You have no voice at all.’ And the director of the Imperial Opera in Vienna told Madame Schumann-Heink that she would never be a singer and advised her to buy a sewing machine.

Leo Tolstoy flunked out of college. Werner von Braun flunked ninth-grade algebra. Admiral Richard E. Byrd had been retired from the Navy as ‘unfit for service’ until he flew over both Poles. Louis Pasteur was rated as ‘mediocre’ in chemistry when he attended the Royal College. Abraham Lincoln entered the Black Hawk War as a captain and came out as a private. Louisa May Alcott was told by an editor that she could never write anything that had popular appeal. Fred Waring was once rejected for high school chorus. Winston Churchill failed the sixth grade.”²

Speaking personally, my father wouldn’t allow me to go to high school. I was only 13 when he made me go to work to earn my own way. But through faith in God and sensing his purpose for my life, hard work, and determination I not only graduated from college but also from graduate school. True, I started late, but I made it. You can too.

My advice to one and all is this: Don’t allow your past to determine your future. Discover God’s purpose for your life and, with his help, give it all you’ve got.

Remember, failure is an event—not a person. When you stumble and fall (and you will from time to time), don’t stay down. Get up, learn from your mistakes, and go on! Every day for the rest of your life commit and trust your life and way to God and he will be with you every step of the way.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, help me to know what your plan and purpose for my life is. And give me the faith and insight to learn from my failures and the strength and courage to never give up until I become all that you envisioned for me to be[,] and to do all that you planned for me to do. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Proverbs 24:16 (NKJV).

2. Dr. Milton E, Larson, “Humbling Cases for Career Counselors,” Phi Delta Kappan, February 1983. Volume LIV, No. 6; 374.

Again today I want to quote Michael Josephson of Character Counts. Speaking about athletes he said the following:

“I was leading a discussion with former elite athletes when someone asked about the ethics of trying to intimidate or injure an opponent. ‘Football’s a physical game,’ said a former NFL star, who went on to extol the advantages of intimidation through the infliction of pain. A former Super-Bowler spoke without remorse about ‘taking players out’ with a particularly dangerous but then legal ‘chop block’ aimed at the knees.

“When an Olympic track athlete said that, legal or not, it is wrong to be intentional or callous about inflicting possible career-ending injuries, he was ridiculed. ‘It’s part of the game,’ was the response, and a room full of … men continued to rationalize brutality.

“Another former football player brought the room to silence. A huge man, he barked, ‘Hold on,’ and held his hand up high. In it was a prosthetic leg. He said his leg was amputated from the knee down due to a chop block. ‘Was it worth it?’ he asked.

“Applying ‘game theory,’ athletes not only injure others but permanently damage their own health pumping up with illegal drugs, politicians breed cynicism and distrust with lies and insincerity, and numbers-manipulating executives disgrace themselves and demolish the jobs and retirement accounts of thousands.

“Declaring a tactic ‘part of the game’ may delude the conscience, but it doesn’t justify vicious, disrespectful or dishonorable conduct—no matter how many people are doing it. Life is not a game.”²

Thank you, Michael, I couldn’t have said it better. Character does count if we want to leave a better world for our children and our children’s children. Plus, we always reap what we sow—always—even if it is eventually!

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please help me to always remember that character counts. And please deliver me from the temptation to take any shortcuts that would hurt anybody else in order for any kind of selfish, self-centered, self-gain. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Proverbs 26:27 (NKJV).

2. This is Michael Josephson reminding you that character counts. www.charactercounts.org

I read about a group of nuns who were given a vacation trip through the Rocky Mountains where they had never been before. They were filled with awe as they marveled at the wonder of the many miles of majestic mountains. However, every time they stopped to enjoy the view, one particular nun would slip away by herself. So on one occasion the other nuns decided they would follow her to see what she was up to. “They watched her as she walked into the gully. She bent down and reached under a sizable rock, and then turned the rock upside down. She brushed her hands and turned around to walk back up the trail. When she looked up, the entire Order of nuns was watching her.

“Margaret, what are you doing?” they asked.

“I’m turning over a rock,” she replied.

“Why?” they asked. “Do you do that every time?”

She answered, “Yes.”

“Why do you do that?”

She replied: “Because I will never pass this way again, and it’s my intent to have made a difference while I was here. So I turn some rocks over so that this place is different because I passed here.”²

A little amusing perhaps, but seriously, I want to make a difference—for time and eternity—as I pass through the journey of life! I don’t think any of us want to have lived in vain. The best and ultimate way I know to make a difference is to make myself available for God to use every day of my life.

We are not all called to be homemakers, doctors, bakers, dressmakers, preachers, communicators, or whatever—but we are all called to be faithful and when we make ourselves available to God every day, be assured, he will use us to make a big difference in the lives of the people he brings across our path.

As Stephen Grellet so eloquently put it: “I expect to pass through this world but once. Any good thing, therefore, that I can do or any kindness I can show to any fellow human being let me do it now. Let me not defer nor neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.”³

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, at this the beginning of another New Year, I commit and trust my life to you and am available for your service. Please use me this year to be as Christ to every life I touch and in so doing make a difference in the world in which I live. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Philippians 1:20-21 (NLT).

2. Rev. Douglass M. Bailey, Sermon: “Hard Truth for Advent.”