According to William A. Ward, “Thoughtfulness comes in many forms, and is virtually always welcomed by its recipients. Thoughtfulness is a habit—a way of life well worth cultivating and practicing.

“The thoughtful person is quick to pay a well-deserved compliment, or to send a prompt note of congratulations to someone who has received a promotion, an honor, or special recognition.

“Thoughtful people don’t wait for opportunities—they imaginatively create numerous opportunities to make life brighter, smoother, and more enjoyable for those about them. Our thoughtful attitudes and generous deeds can make many people happy—including ourselves.”

Being thoughtful is being kind, it is being loving, it is being “as Jesus” to people.

Today, make sure you go out of your way to be thoughtful and kind—first of all to your own loved ones … and in some way to every life you touch.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please help me to be loving, kind, and thoughtful today—and ‘as Jesus’—to my own loved ones and to someone who needs a touch from you. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Ephesians 4:32 (NIV).

Many achievements in life have come from a setback, an accident, or some kind of crisis or even suffering. For instance, the first cars had to be started by cranking the motor by hand. At times the engine would “kick” back the crank handle. This happened to Charles Kettering and it broke his arm.

“There must be a safer way to start cars than this,” Kettering reasoned and he went on to invent self-starters for cars.

Jacob Schick was prospecting for gold where the temperature fell to 40 degrees below zero. He had a hard time trying to shave with a blade without sufficient hot water—so he invented the first electric shaver.

Eugene O’Neill had no specific goal or aim in life until he became ill and had to go to hospital. While lying flat on his back he began to write his plays.

A number of years ago I had an accident on a construction site which put me in hospital for a week. For a few years I had been battling a sense of God’s call to Christian service but never acted on it until I was flat on my back with time to think. It was there in the hospital that I said, “Okay, God, you win. I know what you want me to do.” That was the day I made the decision to go back to college to train for Christian ministry.

So, when things go wrong in your life and you experience a major setback, lose your job, or have an accident, not always, but perhaps God has something for you to learn, or something else he wants you to do. The important thing is to be open to what God is saying.

True, disasters happen because we live in a broken, sinful world. Sometimes, however, a disaster is “God’s wake-up call” to teach us an important lesson, to help us grow, or to lead us in a different direction.

Most of us are not going to be struck down like Saul [Paul] was and hear a voice from heaven, and be left blind for three days when God calls. Some of us, though, who are hard-headed have to be “hit over the head” as it were with a “four-by-four” for God to get our attention. But for most of us God leads through his Word, our circumstances, and through a “still small voice” within that gives us a sense of what God wants us to do.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, help me to see/hear/learn what you are saying to me in every adverse circumstance I may experience, as I truly want to be what you want me to be and to do what you want me to do. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Acts 9:1, 3-4 (NIV).

On an occasion following a great victory Napoleon was asked how he made his army cross the Alps and he replied, “One does not make an army cross the Alps; one leads it across.”

Whether a boss, a parent, a teacher, or a friend, the most effective way to lead others, to teach others, to motivate others, to train our children and/or to influence others is by example; that is, by who we are, by what we do, and most of all by how much we care about them. In other words, we need to model what we want others to learn and do. We need to lead the way, not by being demanding or controlling, but by showing through both our caring and our doing—by example not by telling.

Furthermore, “People don’t care how much we know until they know how much we care,” and as Carl Jung stated, “Where love rules, there is no will to power, and where power predominates, love is lacking. The one is the shadow of the other.”

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please help me to teach others your ways, not by my telling them how but by showing them how by my example. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Matthew 20:26-27 (NIV).

I read an interesting quote that said, “You can never get enough of what you don’t want.” I had to stop and think about this one. Why would I ever want what I don’t want?

An over-simplification of what I believe this quote means is that if I have a craving for chocolate ice-cream, no matter how much vanilla ice-cream I get, it would never satisfy my hunger for chocolate ice-cream.

To apply this principle to a higher cause means that sometimes we settle for less than what is best for us because of the challenge to achieve what we truly want to achieve if we are determined to do so.

For the Christian, God wants the very best for us. The question for each of us is, Do we want what God wants for us?

God wants us not only to be members of his family, but growing members who are becoming more and more like Christ in every way, who don’t settle for anything less than complete wholeness, complete recovery, a healthy lifestyle, a worthwhile work (either paid or voluntary) into which we can put our best efforts, loving relationships, and for us to discover and fulfill his divine purpose for our life.

It is no “chocolate ice-cream party” to achieve any of these goals let alone all of them. The half-hearted never make it. “Vanilla ice-cream living” is so much easier to achieve, but it has no “nutritional” (spiritual) value.

Are you and I settling for “vanilla ice-cream” when we could have the gold of God’s “chocolate ice-cream” life?

Suggested prayer: “Oh God, please don’t let me ever get satisfied with an abundance of what I don’t want—anything less than all that you have planned and envisioned for me to become and do. Please give me faith and determination, and with your help, to achieve all your goals for my life. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Matthew 9:29 (NIV).

Some years ago when Apple Computer fell on hard times, Apple’s co-founder and chairman, Steven Jobs, went from California to New York City. “His purpose was to convince PepsiCo’s John Sculley to move west and run his struggling company. As the two men overlooked the Manhattan skyline from Sculley’s penthouse office, the Pepsi executive started to decline Jobs’s offer. ‘Financially,’ Sculley said, ‘you’d have to give me a million-dollar salary, a million-dollar bonus, and a million-dollar severance.’ Flabbergasted, Jobs gulped and agreed—if Sculley would move to California. But Sculley would commit only to being a consultant from New York.

“At that, Jobs issued a challenge to Sculley, ‘Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water, or do you want to change the world?’ In his autobiography, Oddesy, Sculley admits Jobs’s challenge ‘knocked the wind out of me.’ He said he’d become so caught up in his future at Pepsi, his pension, and whether his family could adapt to life in California that an opportunity to ‘change the world’ nearly passed him by. Instead, he put his life in perspective and went to Apple.”²

Let me ask you a question, “Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling “sugared water”—or doing what you are doing today for the rest of your life? Or do you want to help change at least your world?” There’s nothing wrong with selling sugared water … or doing a million other things; but there’s nothing earth-changing about many of these undertakings either. The question is, “Is what you are doing making a difference in someone’s life—or that of many lives—and that for eternity? Do you want to join hands with Jesus Christ and help make an impact on your world? If your answer is yes, he may call you to be a prayer intercessor, to give sacrificially, to change your profession, or he may call you to leave your comfort zone to go out into the world of Christian service.

Whatever you choose to invest your life in, be sure that what you are doing is investing in people’s lives for all eternity, and in so doing, storing treasure in heaven.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, thank you for the tremendous opportunity to serve you while here on earth. Please help me to see what is the best way for me to do this so my life is invested in eternal values—and so I am storing treasure in heaven. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Matthew 6:19-21 (NIV).

2. Leadership, Spring, 1991, Vol. XXII, No. 2, p. 44.

General Eisenhower would demonstrate the art of leadership with a piece of string. He’d put it on a table and say: “PULL it and it will follow wherever you wish. PUSH it and it will go nowhere at all. It’s just that way when it comes to leading people. They need to follow a person who is leading by example.”²

People who lord it over others are control freaks. They are insecure people who only feel secure when they are controlling others—or think they are. And whether they are seeking to lead a church, a class, a team, their family, or just one other person—or as a politician—they are not being effective leaders but pushers. Secure people will want to avoid this type of person. The only way to be an effective leader is to be a “puller.” That is, to lead by example.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please help me to be a true follower of Jesus and to lead others to you by my example; that is, by modeling the person you want me to be, so that others seeing your direction of my life will also want to be a follower of Jesus. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. 1 Peter 5:2-3 (NIV).

2. Michael P. Green, Illustrations for Biblical Preaching, Grand Rapids: Baker, 1989, p. 216.

As a young man Demosthenes, the famous Greek orator, had a speech impediment that made him feel shy and insecure. His father left him a wealthy estate, but according to Greek law at the time, to claim his estate he had to establish his right of ownership through public debate. Because of his inability to speak clearly and prove his ownership he lost his inheritance.

Motivated by his loss and through dogged determination Demosthenes overcame his speech impediment to become one of the great orators of ancient times. Nobody remembers who got his inheritance but the story of Demosthenes has been told to countless numbers for centuries.

Back in college days I recall one of my professors saying that it takes twenty years to make a preacher and that the most effective ministers are those whose lives are tempered by suffering. “Nonsense,” I said to myself at the time. I was wrong.

Pain, disappointment, sorrow, suffering, and sadness, and not success, are what can make a person more understanding, gentle, kind, understanding, accepting, loving, and real—if we allow this to happen and not become bitter.

The prophet Ezekiel understood the suffering of the Israelites in exile because he sat where they sat for seven days—and was overwhelmed.² It’s only when we sit where others sit that we can fully understand their suffering, without which we will be limited in our effectiveness as witnesses for Christ and as communicators of the gospel.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please help me not to avoid my pain but to face it, embrace it, own it, and bring it to you for your healing touch and use it to make me more sensitive to the suffering of others and minister to them in their pain. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 (NIV).

2. Ezekiel 3:15.

“Josh McDowell tells about an executive ‘headhunter’ who recruits corporate executives for large firms. This headhunter once told McDowell that when he interviews an executive, he likes to disarm him. ‘I offer him a drink,’ said the headhunter, ‘take off my coat, undo my tie, throw up my feet and talk about baseball, football, family, whatever, until he’s all relaxed. Then, when I think I’ve got him relaxed, I lean over, look him square in the eye and say, “What’s your purpose in life?” It’s amazing how top executives fall apart at that question.’

“Then he told about interviewing one fellow recently. He had him all disarmed, had his feet up on his desk, talking about football. Then the headhunter leaned over and said, ‘What’s your purpose in life, Bob?’ And the executive said, without blinking an eye, ‘To go to heaven and take as many people with me as I can.’

“‘For the first time in my career,’ said the headhunter, ‘I was speechless.’”²

I’ve asked this same question to scores of people over the years in seminars I have led. Just about everybody believes God has a God-given life purpose for them, but when I ask them what it is, very few have the slightest idea what it might be. They have never carefully thought through it and written it down.

If we want to die well, we need to live well, and if we are to live well, it is imperative that we know what our God-given life purpose is and with God’s help give it our best shot.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please help me to discern my God-given life purpose so that I know exactly what it is. And please help to fulfill this purpose so when I come to the end of my life’s journey, I will know that I have not lived in vain. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. 2 Timothy 4:7-8 (NIV).

2. Dr. Gary Nicolosi, “Preparing for the End Time,” sermon, www.stbartschurch.org

Speaking to Thomas Edison, before Edison discovered how to make an electric light bulb work, a young journalist asked, “How come you keep trying to make an electric light when you have failed so many times. Don’t you know that gas lights are with us to stay?”

“Young man,” Edison said, “I have not failed but successfully discovered 6,000 ways that won’t work!”

If anyone knew opposition it was the Apostle Paul. Besides being in prison and being exposed to death, he received from the Jews the thirty-nine lashes. He was also beaten with rods, stoned, and shipwrecked three times. He was in constant danger from bandits, his own countrymen, and from Gentiles. He often went without sleep and knew hunger and thirst and was left cold and naked, and knew constant pressure because of his concern for all the churches.²

Paul was faithful to the end. In spite of innumerable setbacks, he never quit and he never gave up.

Great perspective. Great persistence. Great attitude. Having a Great God makes all the difference! You and I have the same Great God and can have the same great attitude in everything that we are doing for God and for his glory.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please give to me a great perspective, great persistence and a great attitude, and grant that today I can have a part in the great work you are doing in the world today. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. 2 Corinthians 11:26 (NIV).

2. See 2 Corinthians 11:24-28.

It was Emily Dickinson who spoke so eloquently when she said,

“If I can stop one heart from breaking,

I shall not live in vain;

If I can ease one life from aching,

Or cool one pain,

Or help one fainting robin

Unto his voice again,

I shall not live in vain.”

I have had the privilege of publishing the gospel message of Jesus Christ since 1968 … starting in an extremely small way. I never cease to be amazed at what God will do with a life that is committed to serving him. And my prayer today is that God will use me to achieve more in the next decade of my life than I have in the past four-plus decades.

I hope that you, too, will pray a similar prayer so that when you and I meet God face to face we will both hear his welcome words, “Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your Lord.

“Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please use me to achieve more in the next decade of my life (should you grant me this time) than I have in all of my past years. And please help me to so live that my life will not be lived in vain. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. 2 Corinthians 1:4 (NIV).