Author: naesnotes

“A man’s steps are directed by the Lord. How then can anyone understand his own way?” Proverbs 20:24 NIV. This verse was circled in my Bible, so it was not the first time I saw it. However, it felt like a new revelation.

Anyone who believes in God and follows Him knows that God has a plan for our lives and lead us in that plan when we seek Him. That knowledge doesn’t keep us from questioning and wondering why God asks us to do certain things or leads us in a way that we don’t understand. The New Living Translation says it this way, “The Lord directs our steps, so why try to understand everything along the way?” Proverbs 20:24 NLT.

We often wonder why God leads us in certain ways to do certain things, even why some people come into our lives and others move out of our lives. If we count the hours spent wondering about these things, it probably adds up to years over the course of our lives. What could we have done with those hours or years spent trying to understand all of God’s leadings in our lives? We aren’t supposed to know what God is doing or why because He’s God. He sees everything that we don’t see. He knows things we don’t know. Isaiah 55:8-9 reminds us that God’s thoughts and ways are higher than ours. Trying to figure out the purpose of events is like trying to put ourselves in God’s place.

The next time you face something you don’t understand, don’t just survive and lose time trying to figure it out. Go to God and submit to Him so you can thrive!

We find this reminder in Matthew 6:34. The Message version says, “Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.” How many hours a day do we spend worrying about something that isn’t even a thing yet? Actually putting those hours into days would be shocking. By worrying about things we imply that we are the solution to the problem. Worry isn’t the same as concern. Concern in the Webster’s 1828 dictionary lists to relate or belong to as related phrases. You can be concerned over a situation, relating to or having compassion for the person involved. You don’t have to worry about it. Worry is defined as mental distress caused by concern. (Dictionary online). It implies you are continuing to dwell on the situation. God doesn’t want you to spend hours or energy worrying about something. He wants you to focus on Him and let him take care of the situation. We will be able to deal with the problem for effectively and thrive through it rather than survive!

In a world of uncertainty and tragedy it’s sometimes hard to remember that there is a God who loves us no matter what is going on in our lives. We experience times of doubt, lack of forgiveness, unbelief, heartaches, and disappointments. Sometimes it seems we have more of these moments than ones of peace and rest. Our moods, circumstances, and situations change day by day-sometimes even hour by hour. Thankfully it’s in those times we can look to God’s word and find words of comfort. Psalms 36:5-6 says, “Lord, your constant love reaches to the heavens; your faithfulness extends to the skies. Your righteousness is towering like the mountains; your justice is like the depths of the sea.” (GNT). These qualities of God are compared to things that we can’t measure because God is bigger than anything we face in our lives. Sometimes we go through events where it doesn’t feel like God is with us. It can feel like we are struggling just to survive. Set yourself on a path to thrive by remembering that God is bigger than anything we face in our lives because His love for us is constant and reaches farther than anything we can measure.

We are always trying to find a better way to do something. In our own strength, our options are limited on how to make things better. We often look for short cuts which may save time but sacrifice quality. One area this happens frequently is in diet and exercise. Setting the goal is not the problem. The first 3 weeks go well. Then you hit week 4. You have seen minimal results for the amount of work you put into planning healthy meals and exercising at they gym. Is it really worth it if it is going to take more time?

This happens in other areas of our lives also. You set goals, make plans, and even execute the plans for a time. Then you realize the road to the end is long and paved with distractions and roadblocks. Think about how much time we spend researching and planning to reach our goals. We want to draw from the experience of others and try to make our path easier. What we forget is that we are all individuals-no two people are alike. What worked for one person may not work for you. We get frustrated and feel defeated when our meticulous plan fails or take too long. What did you do wrong? At the beginning of the journey, did you seek God’s help and direction? Oftentimes, that is the piece we forget. Psalms 37:5 says, “Give God the right to direct your life, and as you trust him along the way, you’ll find he pulled it off perfectly!” (TPT) He wants you to be the best you can be on your journey. You cannot do that unless you bring God into all areas of your life and let him direct you. You will still experience setbacks, but if you let God direct you, you will thrive instead of just survive!

That dreaded spinning wheel on the internet. In a world of instant gratification and a wealth of information at our fingertips, the spinning wheel on the internet is the worst. It appears at the most inconvenient times too: you have 5 minutes to complete the order or lose it; you are in the middle of an order and it freezes on the payment screen and you have to start over. The examples are endless. It is funny how this one simple, spinning wheel can cause such frustration and potentially ruin our day if we let it. The information hasn’t gone anywhere-it’s just not accessible to us at the moment. We start trying to reload the website which works sometimes but other times just delays the results. We would be better off to wait for it to fully load.

Sometimes life feels like that. We know God has a plan for our lives and promises He is going to fulfill, but we want it now. The promises and plans are rarely filled instantly. We see “Content loading”. God is sitting back and saying, “It’s coming. Just wait.” Who does that? We get in a hurry and try to help it along or get tired of waiting and lose sight of what God wants. We would be better of if we would take a breath when that website is loading and wait for the request to be fulfilled and keep our sights on the end results. So, what should we do while waiting on God? He doesn’t lose sight of us and our journey. In our waiting, we need to not lose sight of Him. Use the waiting time to develop more of a relationship with God. Keep your eyes fixed on Him and let Him load the content in His time. Psalms 38:15 says, “LORD, I wait for you; you will answer, Lord my God,” (NIV). He will bless the waiting time spent with Him so you thrive instead of just survive!

God orders blessing for you. Deuteronomy 28 is a chapter of blessings in the Old Testament that outlines what obedience to God gives you. You find many different words used between the different translations of the Bible to convey its message. In verse 8 you find “will send” (NIV), “will guarantee” (NLT), “will bless” (GNT), “will order” (the Message). Many versions use “will command”.

So God will bless us. He orders the blessing and sends it forth, guaranteeing that it will come because he commanded it to go forth. It even says He will bless all that we set our hands to do (MEV). What we can’t miss is the last part of the verse, “in the land your God is giving you,” (MEV). God has a place for us and things He wants us to do for Him. The key to blessing is being where He wants us. That’s why it’s so important to seek God and find out where He wants us to go and not what we want. The blessings will come when we are in the land (place) He gives us (leads us to). The NIV version even says that God will send the blessing ahead of you to the land he is giving you.

That doesn’t mean that there won’t be some difficult times. There are always forces at work against God’s children trying to steal the blessing. Many times the strongest force of opposition is at the beginning of the journey, trying to get you to doubt that you even heard God in the first place. The only way to truly know God’s path for you is to seek Him and read his word daily. You can survive missteps and wrong moves. You can thrive and be blessed when you seek God and his directions.

Daniel 2 gives an encounter between Daniel and King Nebuchadnezzar. The King had a dream that disturbed him, and he wanted someone to tell him what it meant. He first calls upon all the magicians, enchanters, sorcerers, and astrologers in verse 2 (NIV). The king considered these people to be the wisest in his kingdom. They wanted the king to tell them the dream so they could interpret it for him, but the king had another idea. He somehow knew they might not be entirely honest with him about the interpretation and instructed them to tell him the dream and interpret it or face death (v.5-9). The interesting part about this exchange is what the wise men say in verse 11, “No one can reveal it to the king except gods, and they do not live among men,” (NIV). Even they knew what the king asked could only be done by gods. The king didn’t like that answer and ordered all the “wise men” killed.

Enter Daniel. He asked the king for time to interpret the dream. He didn’t go to his other friends. He went to God. God revealed the dream to Daniel in a vision and took it to the king. Daniel again tells the king that no wise man can explain the dream to him but the God in heaven revealed the mystery to him (v. 27-28). The king recognized that Daniel’s God is the God of gods and Lord of kings and promoted Daniel.

Daniel not only helped the king, but he also saved himself and all the other “wise men” in the kingdom by seeking the right source of direction. The king didn’t want to tell the wise men first because he knew that when you ask people for advice, their advice can be influenced by their own thoughts and feelings. They can accidentally lead us astray based on what they think and feel. God is the only one who sees all the things and won’t steer us toward the wrong thing with feelings. He is the only one who knows our hearts and what purpose we have on this Earth. It is important to have wise people around you. Make sure those people ultimately tell you to seek God and His direction. You can survive taking advice from people. Why not thrive and seek the advice of God who sees everything?

What do we have to give to a God who created the universe? What does he expect from us? We ask so much from Him, almost without even thinking about what we are really saying.

He wants us to seek Him. Matthew 6:33 says, “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness…” (NIV). What does that look like? It can be different things for different people depending on the situations. There are some basics that are included in that.

Psalm 37 outlines some specific things God wants from us. Going through the chapter we see the following instructions: do not fret, trust, delight, commit, be still, refrain from anger, wait, keep His way. That seems like a lot and some people get overwhelmed by just thinking about trying to do all these things, especially when faced with the trials of each day. Each instruction, though, comes with a promise. Instead of thinking about it as a laundry list of things to do, think of it as a way to get to the promises of God.

Do not fret. This is mentioned a few times within the chapter concerning when evil people succeed and Godly people are overlooked. Think of it more as when you experience a disappointment when someone else gets something you thought you deserved or you are hurt by someone. At those times we often spiral into thoughts of inadequacy and question our abilities. God knew what was going to happen and still has a good plan for you no matter happens in that situation. He will bring about the good things to you.

Trust. The basis of our relationship with God has to be clothed in trust. The trust needs to overflow into all areas of our lives, not just the ones that we let go easily. This is referenced in verses 3 and 5. In verse 5 it’s paired with “commit”. The promise at the end of verse 5 is that God will help you (GNT).

Be still. This is the hardest one for many people. We want to help God, so we can control the outcome and not wait for results. The key to this is in verse 7 where it says, “Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for the Lord,” (NIV emphasis mine). Patiently is not a word we like to hear. What does it look like to wait patiently? Quietly; doing nothing to help move the situation forward. This is the hardest part because we want things now and in our way. God sees what is best for us and doesn’t need our help getting it to us.

Refrain from anger. Anger at a situation is not wrong. That’s a normal human reaction when something bad happens that we didn’t expect. However, we don’t have to stay in anger. Don’t harbor anger or seek to harm someone out of anger. Let God take care of bringing justice on your behalf. You will be much happier if you let it go, and let God take care of it. When we harbor anger and resentment we can’t do the last instruction…keep His way.

When we keep His way we are seeking him first-above all the things we see. When we keep his way, he delights in us. Verses 23 and 24 tell us why that is important. “The Lord guides us in the way we should go and protects those who please him. If they fall, they will not stay down, because the Lord will help them up.” (GNT). What a great promise! The God of the universe will help us up when we seek Him. We can survive our disappointments and stumbles. We will thrive when seek God first because He will help us back up!

Driving serves a purpose-to get us from one point to another. We know our destination when we get in the car. Thanks to map apps, we know the route to take and how long it will take to get there. We are confident, comfortable, and in control. What could possibly go wrong?

There’s an accident-you get delayed. There’s road construction-you get delayed. You miss a turn-you get rerouted. Even when we plan and have it mapped out, situations arise that delay our arrival. The nice thing about the map app is that it sees what is ahead. It makes adjustments to our route and lists the new arrival time so we are not completely surprised by the delay. This keeps the passengers in the car with us from trying to give their opinions on which way to go and getting us further off course.

Unfortunately, life is not like that. We plan. We prepare. We map out what we what to go and what we want from life. It’s impossible for us, even with the most meticulous planning, to see everything that stands in the way of where we are currently and what we want to accomplish. When we try to “drive” our own lives, there are opportunities for us to be blindsided by things we cannot see or predict. This can get us off course with no direction or guidance about the next step when we try to drive ourselves. This is where other people in our lives can also cause problems. Without a map, the opinions and advice of others can steer us in the wrong direction and take us further away from our destination.

That’s why we need God to be our driver. He acts as our map app. He doesn’t always remove the roadblocks-construction and traffic delays. He can prepare us for the detour and tell us what the next steps are to keep us on track to our destination. Isaiah 30:21 says, “If you stray to the right or the left, you will hear a word that comes from behind you: “This is the way; walk in it.” CEB. The key to hearing God’s voice is to stay connected by reading the Bible and praying. This will put God in the driver’s seat for your life so you can thrive, not just survive!

“Put on the armor of God.” Something we hear from the time we are small if we grow up in church. Who doesn’t remember the funny graphic they would put up to show the different pieces of armor? After that, though, we tend to forget about the individual pieces and the purpose of each piece in how it works to protect us.

It starts with a introduction in Ephesians 6:10, “Be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power,” (NIV, emphasis mine). We are not expected to be strong in the Lord in our own power. It is His power that gives us the strength we need to stand against our enemy. This is highlighted in verse 11 where the FULL armor of God is first mentioned.

Let’s review the pieces of the armor. Verse 14 mentions the belt of truth first. It’s interesting that the “belt of truth” is the first piece mentioned. It doesn’t start at the top of the body and go down. It starts with truth. Why is that? Lies are the enemy’s best weapon against us. Getting us to buy into the lies of the world and what we see or hear around us is the best way to get our eyes off the good God who loves us and is always championing what is best for us. If we don’t have God’s truth present everyday then we fall prey to whatever our eyes see and our ears hear.

Verse 14 also mentions the “breastplate of righteousness”. This is also listed in Isaish something God does in Isaiah 59:17. What is that exactly? The definition of righteousness from Webster’s 1828 dictionary adds some light the verse. Some of the phrases listed are “equivalent to holiness”, “honesty and virtue”. So we are to make sure we are walking in holiness, honesty, and virtue. Doing this keeps us out of some of the stuff in the world that is not good for us.

The part of the armor in verse 15 is the “shoes of peace”. We should make every effort to walk in peace with those around us. If we are not in peace, our thoughts and actions don’t follow the righteousness of God and that brings turmoil and doubt.

Next is the “shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one,” (verse 16, NIV). This is one of the most crucial pieces as the enemy wants our hearts. Faith in God no matter the circumstances is the only thing that can combat the attacks the enemy brings to get our hearts to turn from God. Without faith we will crumble under the attacks and lose what God has for us, good things!

Verse 17 mentions the “helmet of salvation” and “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God,” (NIV). At first I thought of these as being separate from one another. Let’s look at them together. The “helmet of salvation” is remembering that God sent Jesus to save us. That knowledge is what brings us into the initial relationship with God, keeping our thoughts on the fact we are saved. Then the “sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God,”. This also deals with our thoughts. We can’t stand if we don’t know the truth of scripture and fight the enemy with the words of God instead of our own words. The word of God is the ultimate truth and the enemy knows that. When we fix our thoughts on our gift of salvation and the word of God, we can come against anything that is thrown at us.

The final instruction isn’t really a piece of armor but the last piece needed to make it all work together. “Pray in the Spirit on all occasions,” (NIV). When we put on all the armor and cover it in prayer we are protected on all levels.

The cracks in the armor are revealed when we have a trial that causes us to lose focus. When that happens, take some time to look at each piece and see where it is necessary to readjust your armor because God doesn’t want us to merely survive. He wants us to thrive!