You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, all whose thoughts are fixed on you! —Isaiah 26:3

If you want to overcome fear and worry, then you need right thinking. In other words, think about what you think about.

We’re told in Philippians 4:8, “Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise” (NLT). If you want personal peace, this is where it begins.

Why is the mind important? It’s command central. With our minds we reach to the past through memories, and we reach to the future through imagination. We need to learn how to think properly and biblically. As 2 Corinthians 10:5 says, “We capture their rebellious thoughts and teach them to obey Christ” (NLT).

The next time you’re troubled, you might try talking to yourself. We need to tell ourselves to think biblically, because it doesn’t always come naturally. For example, we see the writer’s despair in Psalm 42: “Why am I discouraged? Why is my heart so sad?” But then the writer continues, “I will put my hope in God! I will praise him again—my Savior and my God!” (verses 5–6 NLT).

Many of the Psalms are songs and prayers. They are honest. And as we read some of them, we may think, “I dare not pray that.” But go ahead and pray that. Go ahead and say, “Lord, I am hurting right now. . . . I’m in pain right now. . . . I don’t understand this right now. . . . I’m struggling with this right now.”

The next time you’re feeling down, the next time you think, “I don’t know how I’m going to get through this situation,” quote the Bible to yourself. Remind yourself of the truth of God’s Word. That is what it means to think biblically.

May God bless you today!

Chaplain Rob

The Lord directs the steps of the godly. He delights in every detail of their lives. Though they stumble, they will never fall, for the Lord holds them by the hand. – Psalm 37:23-24

We’ve all watched a mom walking with her toddler, holding his hand. Suddenly something catches the little guy’s attention, and he pulls his hand away. More often than not, he quickly gets into something he shouldn’t. He might even stumble and land flat on his face—something that would never happen if his mom had his hand.

What a great picture of the way we are with God. He seeks to hold our hand and guide us, but we are stubbornly determined to go off on our own. Instead of letting our loving Father direct our steps, we toddle off and get ourselves into trouble.

The other part of this passage that is special is the fact that God delights “in every detail” of our lives. It’s like the loving grandfather who listens to his little grandchild prattle on about something that happened to her. He may know all about it, but he still enjoys listening. Why? Because she’s his and he loves her dearly.

Ask Yourself
Describe some times when you pull your hand away from God. What typically diverts your attention?

As a child, did you know anyone who delighted in every detail of your life? How does this affect your ability to experience God’s love?

Ask God
Lord, it’s hard for me to believe you are interested in the details of my life, let alone that you delight in them. Help me to understand that and to spend more time talking with you about everything. And remind me always that my life goes better when I keep my hand in yours.

Blessings,

Chaplain Rob

If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it. – Matthew 16:25

In this Matthew passage, Jesus expresses a profound truth as a paradox—a seemingly self-contradictory statement that proves true upon further examination. Jesus is saying that if we hold too tightly to something, we will lose it.

We are all too familiar with the paradox that sometimes the harder we try to change our lives, the more stubbornly they refuse to change. In such situations, instead of just trying harder, we must be willing to try something different.

This doesn’t mean giving up. It just means trying a new tactic—maybe even doing the opposite of what we’ve been doing.

Try that the next time you encounter a familiar but uncomfortable situation. Instead of reacting the usual way—lashing out, clamming up, or pretending to be all right with something when you’re not—try to take a mental step back. Take a deep breath. Say a little prayer. Then deliberately do something different. Walk away. Speak up. Say no.

Try it just this once. For a change.

Ask Yourself
Is there a stubborn issue in your life that seems to resist every effort at changing? Brainstorm some different tactics for responding to this issue.

What internal arguments hold you back from trying something new in response to a painful stimulus?

Ask God
Lord, I need you so much in this process of breaking free from reactive patterns in my life. Help me loosen my grip on old habits and trust you enough to try something completely different. Help me better understand why I do what I do, and deliver me from my reactive lifestyle.

Blessings,

Chaplain Rob

But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. – 1 John 1:7-8

Discomfort, pain, conflict, spiritual warfare-these are aspects of reality in a fallen world. Healthy faith recognizes them as biblical realities. Healthy faith has you look to Christ for help when you’re in the midst of them.

Having a healthy faith certainly doesn’t mean you’ll always like reality, or that you should become complacent or indifferent to the darker side of life. But it does mean you’ll recognize the way things are. You’ll be able to admit you’ve failed, that you’re a sinner, and you’re stumbling along the way. But you can choose to walk in the light, and enjoy the companionship of family, friends and Jesus Christ himself.

Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm. – Winston Churchill

TODAY’S PRAYER
Father, help me face my realities with faith and hope with the understanding that while today might not be all I hoped it would be, tomorrow and all my tomorrows are in Your hands. Thank you, Lord for your faithfulness! Amen.

Blessings,

Chaplain Rob

Come to terms with God and be at peace; in this way good will come to you. – Job 22:21

Sometimes, we must accept life on its terms, not our own. Life has a way of unfolding, not as we will, but as it will. And sometimes, there is precious little we can do to change things.

When events transpire that are beyond our control, we have a choice: we can either learn the art of acceptance, or we can make ourselves miserable as we struggle to change the unchangeable.

We must entrust the things we cannot change to God. Once we have done so, we can prayerfully and faithfully tackle the important work that He has placed before us: doing something about the things we can change . . . and doing it sooner rather than later.

Can you summon the courage and the wisdom to accept life on its own terms? If so, you’ll most certainly be rewarded for your good judgment.

Surrender to the Lord is not a tremendous sacrifice, not an agonizing performance. It is the most sensible thing you can do. – Corrie Ten Boom

He does not need to transplant us into a different field. He transforms the very things that were before our greatest hindrances, into the chief and most blessed means of our growth. No difficulties in your case can baffle Him. Put yourself absolutely into His hands, and let Him have His own way with you. – Elisabeth Elliot

Ultimately things work out best for those who make the best of the way things work out. – Barbara Johnson

My prayer today is that all of us will be able to accept life on life’s terms

Chaplain Rob

Sow for yourselves righteousness, reap the fruit of unfailing love, and break up your unplowed ground, for it is time to seek the Lord, until he comes and showers righteousness on you. – Hosea 10:12

Character isn’t instantly created. It’s carved out.

To God, our lives are like a series of fields that need working. Once one has been worked, we move to the next. At each stop He encourages us to get busy tilling ground hardened by sin, pulling weeds grown in neglect, and planting seeds of biblical truth. He makes us willing and able for the work; and He makes each task fruitful through the power of the Holy Spirit.

But change does happen. The Bible gives us insight how. Think of Joseph in an Egyptian jail, and Moses in the desert. Recall David’s years of flight from Saul and Jonah’s time in the belly of a fish. Reflect upon Gideon in a cave and Job’s catastrophes. Consider Abraham’s wanderings and Peter’s three denials of Christ. Look at the apostle Paul’s blinding encounter with the risen Lord on the road to Damascus.

These stories, and many more like them, recount the ways of God among the men He claims for His own. As you spend time considering them, you will see a pattern emerge: brokenness, humility, and the learning of patience all come before spiritual maturity and usefulness. Open up your Bible and search out these stories. Learn from them. They demonstrate the pattern of change for your own life in Christ.

Our days are a kaleidoscope. Every instant a change takes place. New harmonies, new contrasts, new combinations of every sort. The most familiar people stand each moment in some new relation to each other, to their work, to surrounding objects. – Henry Ward Beecher

TODAY’S PRAYER
Lord, when change comes, I pray that I will look to you for insight. As things change in my life and around me, help me to keep my eyes on you and trust that whatever the circumstance, your ultimate plan for me is a good one. Amen

Blessings,

Chaplain Rob

Do not remember the past events, pay no attention to things of old. Look, I am about to do something new; even now it is coming. Do you not see it? Indeed, I will make a way in the wilderness, rivers in the desert. – Isaiah 43:18-19

The American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr composed a profoundly simple verse that came to be known as the Serenity Prayer: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” Niebuhr’s words are far easier to recite than they are to live by. Why? Because most of us want life to unfold in accordance with our own wishes and timetables. But sometimes God has other plans.

One of the things that fits nicely into the category of “things we cannot change” is the past. Yet even though we know that the past is unchangeable, many of us continue to invest energy worrying about the unfairness of yesterday (when we should, instead, be focusing on the opportunities of today and the promises of tomorrow). Author, Hannah Whitall Smith observed, “How changed our lives would be if we could only fly through the days on wings of surrender and trust!” These words remind us that even when we cannot understand the past, we must trust God and accept His will.

So, if you’ve endured a difficult past, accept it and learn from it, but don’t spend too much time here in the precious present fretting over memories of the unchangeable past. Instead, trust God’s plan and look to the future. After all, the future is where everything that’s going to happen to you from this moment on is going to take place.

The past is past, so don’t live there. If you’re focused on the past, change your focus. If you’re living in the past, it’s time to stop living there, starting now.

Shake the dust from your past, and move forward in His promises. – Kay Arthur

Whoever you are, whatever your condition or circumstance, whatever your past or problem, Jesus can restore you to wholeness. – Anne Graham Lotz

Blessings,

Chaplain Rob

“For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.” Jeremiah 29:11

There are times when we are so confused and overwhelmed by the pain in our lives that we wish we could die. No matter what we do, we are powerless to change things for the better. The weight of the sadness seems too heavy to bear. We can’t see why our heart just doesn’t break and allow death to free us.

Job felt that way. He’d lost everything, even though he had always done what was right. His ten children were dead. He had lost his business, his riches, and his health. And all this happened in a matter of days! He was left with a sharp-tongued wife and three friends who blamed him for his own misfortune. Job cried out, “If my misery could be weighed and my troubles be put on the scales. . . . Oh, that I might have my request, that God would grant my desire. I wish he would crush me. I wish he would reach out his hand and kill me.. . . . I don’t have the strength to endure. I have nothing to live for. Do I have the strength of a stone? Is my body made of bronze? No, I am utterly helpless, without any chance of success” (Job 6:2, 8-9, 11-13).

Job didn’t know that the end of his life would be even better than it had been at the beginning. God restored everything he had lost, and then some. “Then he died, an old man who had lived a long, full life” (Job 42:17). Even when we’re pressed to the point of death, there is still hope that our lives will change. Our recovery could be so complete that the final line written about us might read: “Then they died, having lived long, full lives.” We must remember: life can be good again! The key is trusting that things will get better.

Trusting God in difficult times will stretch our faith.

Blessings,

Chaplain Rob

But don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are fooling yourselves

Have you ever had one of those days when it seemed as though everyone was smiling, maybe even laughing, at you? Then you saw yourself in the mirror and discovered why. You had something stuck in your teeth. No wonder they were smiling.

The mirror just told you the truth about yourself, and you saw what everyone else was seeing. Then you had a choice: ignore the problem and leave it there, or clean yourself up.

The Bible is a lot like a mirror; it tells us the truth about ourselves. James wrote, “But don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves. For if you listen to the word and don’t obey, it is like glancing at your face in a mirror. You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like” (James 1:22–24 NLT).

It is not simply a matter of hearing God’s Word; it is doing what it says. The Bible must be our model for how we think and live. Problems will happen, family conflicts will happen, temptations will happen, sickness will happen, or something else may come our way. We can’t control that. But if we are in God’s Word and walking closely with Him and in fellowship with His people, then we will have the resources we need to face those challenges as they come. And challenges will come our way.

Dedicate yourself to worshipping God, confessing your sins, and hearing the Word of God. God’s Word has something to say to you. Spend time in it in the morning, in the afternoon, and in the evening. Continue in the Word of God. That is the secret to spiritual success. Just do your part, and then watch how the Lord will bless you and how your spiritual life will grow.

Blessings,

Chaplain Rob

Instead, God has chosen the world’s foolish things to shame the wise, and God has chosen the world’s weak things to shame the strong. – 1 Corinthians 1:27

Everybody makes mistakes, and so will you. In fact, Winston Churchill once observed, “Success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.” What was good for Churchill is also good for you, too. You should expect to make mistakes—plenty of them—but you should not allow those missteps to rob you of the enthusiasm you need to fulfill God’s plan for your life.

We are imperfect people living in an imperfect world; mistakes are simply part of the price we pay for being here. But, even though mistakes are an inevitable part of life’s journey, repeated mistakes should not be. When we commit the inevitable blunders of life, we must correct them, learn from them, and pray for the wisdom not to repeat them. When we do, our mistakes become lessons, and our experiences become adventures in character-building.

When our shortcomings are made public, we may feel embarrassed or worse, we may presume (quite incorrectly) “everybody” is concerned with the gravity of our problem. And, as a consequence, we may feel the need to hide from our problems rather than confront them. To do so is wrong. Even when our pride is bruised, we must face up to our mistakes and seek to rise above them.

Have you made a king-sized blunder or two? Of course you have. But here’s the big question: have you used your mistakes as stumbling blocks or stepping stones? The answer to this question will determine how well you perform in the workplace and in every other aspect of your life. So don’t let the fear of past failures hold you back. Instead, do the character-building thing: own up to your mistakes and do your best to fix them. Remember: even if you’ve made a colossal blunder, God isn’t finished with you yet—in fact, He’s probably just getting started.

Fix it sooner rather than later: When you make a mistake, the time to make things better is now, not later! The sooner you address your problem, the better. If not now, when?

Truth will sooner come out of error than from confusion. – Francis Bacon

Lord, when we are wrong, make us willing to change; and when we are right, make us easy to live with. – Peter Marshall

Blessings,

Chaplain Rob