Why Worry When You Can Pray?

Why worry when you can pray? It's an honest question. When we've done everything we are capable of doing, but we're still worried, what more can we do? Let me tell you a story...

Why Worry When You Can Pray?!

A Story about Worry

Joan has given hundreds of speeches before large audiences and has been a keynote speaker at major conferences and other events in her field. She knows that her daughter, Meghan, an eighth-grader, has to give a presentation at school tomorrow and that she's nervous about it. Joan wants to help her daughter, but she knows not to force herself into her daughter's business or nag her about her speech. If she does, Meghan will become defensive and resist her attempts to help. It's happened before. So instead, Joan casually mentions that she has helped others with their speeches and, if Meghan is interested, she would gladly help her, too. And then she leaves it at that.

That night, while Joan is watching television, Meghan comes in quietly and sits down beside her. Joan smiles reassuringly and gives her a hug. She asks how she's doing.

Meghan says, "I'm fine," and looks down. A moment later, she looks back up and adds, "I'm kind of scared about tomorrow. I don't like speaking in front of people."

Joan nods and says, "I know how you feel." She talks about how she used to have stage fright and how scary it can be to talk in front of a group of people when you're not used to it. 

"So how did you get over it?" asks Meghan. 

Joan tells her daughter some of the techniques she had used to get over her own fear of public speaking. Then, she asks if she would like to practice her speech in front of her, and maybe she could offer some feedback and tips.

Meghan agrees, and she stands up and begins her speech. Kindly, gently, reassuringly, Joan coaches her daughter and gives her a few simple strategies to use. By the time they finish, Meghan is feeling visibly relieved and more confident. Joan hugs her proudly; she knows her daughter will do well.

In many ways, we are like the daughter in the story above, and God is like the mom. We face problems in Life. We have limited knowledge, skills, and resources. God's knowledge, skills, and resources are unlimited. But he knows not to force himself on us. If we feel we are being coerced against our will, we tend to get defensive and stubborn. So instead of making us listen to his counsel and accept his help, God humbly and graciously offers his assistance to us, but then waits patiently for us to ask for his help.

Worry Does NOT Help! Prayer Does!

Why worry when you can pray? Why ruminate over your problems and all the what-ifs that could go wrong? Not only do anxious thoughts fail to help us, but such worried thinking actually harms us! When we panic, we are less able to see possibilities. We get stuck in either/or, black-and-white kind of thinking. We are unable to think creatively. Worrying incessantly does no good. Our feelings of fear or anxiety serve only to help us avoid unwarranted risks, but when risks are worth taking -- and in Life, every positive action that we can take will involve some risk -- worrying incessantly can keep us from preparing for and responsibly facing challenging opportunities. 

When you are afraid, use the tools God has given you to conquer your fear. Pray. Read the Bible. Seek the counsel of wise men and women whose judgment you trust, especially those who have successfully conquered the challenge you are now facing. Formulate a plan where you can make manageable, measurable progress towards your goals, and find a friend or mentor to hold you accountable to sticking with your plan. Once you've done your part, trust that God will be with you and help you in your time of need. As Ephesians 6:13 says, "Having done all, stand." Stand tall on God's promises. Believe that he is with you and that he will never leave you or forsake you! (Hebrews 13:5) And then go claim your victory in Jesus' name! 

Here is an encouraging sermon from Joel Osteen (embedded from YouTube) about having faith when you are afraid and facing difficult challenges:

Why Worry When You Can Pray?!!

Whenever you are facing challenging circumstances, ask yourself the following question, aloud: "Why worry, when you can pray?" When you hear yourself say it, you will remind yourself that you have a God who is always there, ready to listen and ready to help!

Be a Blessing to Someone Today!

The best way to feel blessed yourself is to be a blessing to someone else today!

Love your neighbor as yourself! Bless someone else, and you will be blessed yourself!

In our hyper-individualized American culture, the cultural wisdom tells you that if you want to feel better about yourself, you should engage in "self-care." And "self-care" often means being intentionally self indulgent and self centered.

But once you have a healthy level of self-respect and proper boundaries, focusing excessively on yourself will actually make you less happy and less fulfilled. 

Of course, if you don't have a healthy level of self-respect and proper boundaries, so that others push you around and walk all over you without any repercussion, then that is a separate issue that needs to be addressed.

Healthy Self-Respect and Proper Boundaries Help You to Help Others More Effectively 

A message if self-care may sometimes be needed to correct for low self-esteem and codependency, where a person feels obligated to put themselves last in any and every situation, no matter what. Some people were raised with an unhealthy belief that enjoying nice things for yourself is somehow sinful. (Usually, this belief is encouraged by selfish and narcissistic religious leaders who don't practice what they preach.) Sometimes, people do need to learn how to say "No!" to the unreasonable and selfish demands of others and to say "Yes!" to their own legitimate needs and desires. After all, you can't obey Jesus's teaching of loving your neighbor as yourself, if you don't love yourself!

If that is the case, find a Christian leader whose life you would want to emulate. Pick someone who is genuinely happy and who has healthy, happy, mutually rewarding relationships. In other words, find someone who both talks the talk and walks the walk. Once you have identified some people like that, ask them to counsel you. As Proverbs 11:14 says, there is wisdom in having multiple good counselors.

Learn to love yourself, but don't stop there. If you love yourself, you're only doing half of what Jesus taught when he said to "love your neighbor as yourself."

Once You Respect Yourself and Have Healthy Boundaries, Look for Ways to Show Your Love for Others! 

Assuming you do have a healthy self-respect and have proper boundaries in your relationships with others, then engaging in "self-care" will only take you so far. 

If you focus only on yourself and your own needs and wants, you will paradoxically become less happy and less fulfilled in life. 

As it turns out, the best way to make yourself feel happier and more fulfilled is to do something nice for someone else! Of course, this is what all the world's major religions have taught for centuries. Now, research in the field of positive psychology is confirming that teaching!

In Luke 10:25-37, Jesus tells the parable of The Good Samaritan in response to a series of questions from a religious leader. When asked about how to gain eternal life, Jesus responds with a question: what does the Law say? "Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart . . . and love thy neighbor as thyself." (Luke 10: 27.) So the religious leader asked a followup question: "Who is my neighbor?" Jesus responded with the story of a man in desperate need of help; his own countrymen pass him by without giving aid, ostensibly because of religious considerations (if the man was dead, they would be ritually impure for temple services). But a Samaritan, a member of a lower caste and a natural enemy of the injured man, stopped to help him. Jesus said that this is an example of how we should be towards others: the best way to show our love for God is to perform acts of loving kindness towards others. (See also, the parable of the Sheep and the Goats in Matthew 25:31-46!)

In John 12:24-25, Jesus declares something of a paradox: if you try to hang on to something, you will lose it; but if you let go of it in order to serve God by being a blessing to others, you will gain more than whatever you gave up. How does this work? How can you be better off when you sacrifice for the good of others?

In addition to the spiritual blessings promised by Jesus (as well as the leaders of the world's other major religions), we experience verifiable emotional blessings when we act kindly towards others! 

We are social creatures. There are no indigenous people anywhere who live in isolation: every people group throughout the world originally lived in small tribes. For a person who ventured out on his own, there would have been a lot of hungry predators waiting to eat him! We are physically one of the weakest animals on the planet; in one-on-one, hand-to-hand combat, we would be quickly killed by most of the large predators out there. But what allowed us to survive and thrive as a species was our ability to work together (in addition to our opposable thumbs). Consequently, our instincts and emotions are designed to get us to seek companionship, since relationships with other people are so critical to our survival.

Our brains are "wired" to reward altruism, since acts of kindness towards others strengthens our relationships and social bonds. Because of the type of creatures we are, doing good to others makes us feel subjectively happier and more fulfilled!

Check out this video below (embedded from YouTube) of Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar discussing the scientific evidence for the benefits of being kind towards others!

Spirituality and science agree: in order to live a fulfilled and rewarding life, we should perform acts of loving kindness towards. So go and be a blessing to someone today! Not only will you bless the other person, you will also bless yourself!

How to Stop Procrastinating Now!

Stop Putting Life on Hold! Stop Procrastinating NOW!

"I want to stop procrastinating . . . starting tomorrow!" announced someone who will never stop procrastinating!

But seriously, how do we break the habit of putting life on hold until some distant future day, when we will hopefully feel up to it, feel sufficiently prepared for it, or feel like we finally have enough time to deal with it? 

How do we stop procrastinating NOW?

There Is Never Going to Be a Better Time than Now!

In 2 Corinthians 6:2, the Apostle Paul said, "Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation." Today! 

It has to be Today! Whenever you experience God's grace, mercy, forgiveness, redemption, empowerment, and blessing, you are experiencing them in the present. Today.

Tomorrow, by definition, will always be a day away. Whatever day it is, that day is today, and today is the day to seize all the opportunities and to use all the tools and resources God has given you.

Today, right here, right now, is the only day we have in which to act, to change, or simply to be present in our lives.

Lord willing, we will be alive tomorrow to do all of those things, but guess what? When "tomorrow" arrives, that day will be "today." 

All of this may sound so basic as to not be worth saying. But this really is an important insight! It is always NOW. You are alive TODAY. Not yesterday, not tomorrow, but TODAY! Really embracing and living in this truth can be profound and profoundly life changing. 

Our default is not to be fully engaged in the present moment. Our default is to daydream about the future or ruminate about the past. And if our attention is on the past or future, then it won't be on the present, which is the only time we really have to experience and live Life.

With God, It Is Always Now!

It is always now! Maybe this sounds Buddhist or New Age, but guess what? It is also Biblical. And I'm not going to miss out on Biblical wisdom just because it's an insight that Buddhists or New Agers have popularized. 

Why should we be fully alive and engaged in the present? Because that's how God is! In John 8:58, Jesus said, "Before Abraham was, I am." He didn't say, "Before Abraham was, I was." (If your translation says "was" or "existed," it is incorrect.) Thousands of years ago, Jesus is. Let that sink in. Abraham may past tense, but Jesus is always present.  

Think about it like this. In Mark 12, the Sadducees questioned Jesus about the resurrection and tried to trip him up with an apparent paradox from the Torah. Jesus didn't take the bait. He recognized that the question was based on false assumptions about God and the Mosaic Law. In his reply, Jesus said that God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. (Mark 12: 27.) 

I think it's consistent with Jesus's teachings to paraphrase him in the following way: God is not the God of the past, but of the present. For us, there is no way we can be present 2000 or 10,000 years ago. We are bound by time, just as we are bound by space. We can experience only the present moment, just like we can only be in one place at a time. But for God, there are no such limitations. God is always present. For God, it is always now. That's what eternal means: not bound by time.

So the bottom line is this: God is oriented to the present. We should be too.

As the Psalmist said, "This is the day that the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it." Psalm 118:24.

Today is the day to live, to act, to be, to make a change.

The writer of Hebrews spoke of "Today" as a day of sabbath rest for God's people. (Hebrews 4:3-11.) You can rest from your own self-centered efforts and agenda today, because God wishes to work through you today to accomplish something bigger and better and more fulfilling than you could ever do on your own. That's the very definition of working smarter, not harder.

It actually takes a lot of mental and emotional energy to daydream about the future or ruminate about the past. This isn't to say that we shouldn't plan for the future -- that's something we can do today -- but our focus should always be on what we can do and experience and be in the present.

Today is the day of God's salvation. Today is the day to rejoice and be glad. Today is the day of resting in God's presence and grace and empowerment.

Once you really believe those truths, you will be ready and willing to act now. Today. In the present moment.

Like Nike Says, "Just Do It!"

Dr. Laurie Santos coined the term "The G.I. Joe Fallacy" to describe the erroneous belief that (according to the 1980s G.I. Joe cartoon series) "knowing is half the battle." Knowing is not half the battle. You still have to do.

Sure, now you know that God is ready to act in you and through you to accomplish great things today, but just knowing that isn't going to change anything. Like James said, "Faith without works is dead." (James 2:20.) You have to put God's word into practice to make it effective in your life. God's word tells you that today is the day that God has made, but now you have to act like you believe it by doing something with that knowledge.

In Steven Covey's classic book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, the first habit is being proactive. Effective people don't wait for change to happen; they take action to bring that change about. Don't let Life happen and just react to it. Believe that you are someone God can use to change the world for the better. Be proactive!

Fortunately, positive psychology has developed useful tools to help you make positive changes in your life, starting today. But you have to decide to act and then follow through. You have to do the work. But fortunately, as many people have discovered first hand, these tools do work, and you can use these life hacks to form new habits and break old ones.

Dr. Gabriele Oettingen's Life-Hack Called "WOOP"

Click below to listen to an episode of the NPR podcast "Hidden Brain" about the tool developed by Dr. Gabriele Oettingen called "WOOP," which stands for "Wish, Outcome, Opposition, Plan." This life hack has been proven to work to help people accomplish their goals! Applying this technique won't cost you anything, and it takes relatively little time, so why not give it a try!

 
So go ahead and put your plan into action! Try out different tools and "life hacks" and find out what works best for you! Just be proactive, and act! The Lord bless you and keep you as you do!

If you have any tips you'd like to share on how to stop procrastinating now, please add them below to the comments section! And check out other articles on this site about claiming victory in Jesus today!

Have an Attitude of Gratitude!

When we're in pain, it can be hard to see the good in life. But a consensus of experts, from religious leaders to psychologists, tell us that we will be happier if we cultivate an attitude of gratitude.

Have an Attitude of Gratitude, No Matter What the Circumstances Are!

What Makes Us Discouraged?

Nothing makes us discouraged. True, sometimes things happen that we don't like. But those things don't have the power to make us feel down and out. Most things in life are outside of our control, but our attitude is not. No matter what has gone wrong in life, we can always choose to have an attitude of gratitude!

I know it's not easy to stay grateful, in spite of unpleasant circumstances. Believe me, I know. It's not easy. It's hard. But it is possible.

Don't believe me? That's fine. Because if it was just me saying it, I wouldn't believe it either. It would seem too counterintuitive to be true. Bad things happen, yet you're supposed to stay grateful about your life? How is that supposed to work?

But according to God, it does work. And it is possible. And it's what God wants us to do, no matter what the circumstances look like!

The Apostle Paul's Teachings on Gratitude

In 1 Thessalonians 5:18, Paul says, "In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you."

The Apostle Paul earned the right to say that, too. In 2 Corinthians 11:23-27, he talks about some of the difficulties he faced: he was whipped five times, he was beaten with wooden rods three times, he was stoned almost to death, and he was shipwrecked three times and adrift in the middle of the stormy sea. He was jailed multiple times because of his religious convictions, and not in an American jail where he was constitutionally protected from cruel and unusual punishment; no, he was thrown into Roman dungeons where no punishment would have been considered too cruel. He was ultimately killed by the Romans, very likely after being tortured. And through it all, Paul did not waiver in his commitment to God. There is no way Paul could have done all that if he had not followed his own advice and given thanks to God in every circumstance.

Philippians 4:4-9 contains a powerful distillation of Paul's teaching about having an attitude of gratitude.

• Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say, rejoice. 
• Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand. 
• Be careful (anxious) for nothing; but in everything, by prayer and supplication and with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God;
• And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
• Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.
• Those things, which you have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do; and the God of peace shall be with you.

No matter what is going wrong, God is still good, so start by rejoicing in God. Don't give in to anxiety or despair.  Instead, pray: tell God how you feel and ask him for what you need, and make sure you do it "with thanksgiving!" Thank God because you know he will make a way. (1 Corinthians 10:13.) And then focus on positive things.

It won't be easy. But God will give you all the grace you need to do it.

Having an Attitude of Gratitude

Here's the reality of our situation: in the world, we will have problems, but Jesus has given us his word, so that we can have peace in him. (John 16:33.)

It is not a choice whether we will have difficult circumstances. We will. That's guaranteed. Jesus said it. And if that wasn't enough, every philosopher or religious leader I've ever heard of has agreed with him. For example, the first noble truth of Buddhism is that suffering is everywhere. Even those who don't believe in God believe that the world is full of problems.

But although we don't have a choice about whether we will have problems in life, we do have a choice about whether we will have peace. We will have problems, but we can have peace. The problems come no matter what. The peace comes only if we choose to trust God and follow the Bible's teachings about having an attitude of gratitude in all circumstances.

Fortunately, that choice cannot be taken away from us. In addition to these promises of God, we have the testimony of Jews and Christians who have faced the most horrific circumstances imaginable, yet who have chosen to respond with godly virtue. For example, both Viktor Frankl and Corrie Ten Boom wrote about their experiences in Nazi death camps, and both shared stories of people who did noble and heroic deeds, even in the face of cruelty and death. (I highly recommend Dr. Frankl's book, Man's Search for Meaning, and Corrie Ten Boom's book, The Hiding Place.)

As Zig Ziglar once said, "Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude." If you choose to have a bad attitude, you will really only hurt yourself, and that's in addition to whatever other problems you already have! Why make things worse for yourself? Why not take advantage of biblical principles and promises, so that you can have a better, more victorious life right now?

But Life Is Not Fair! I Have a Reason to Be Unhappy!

Even though it's the truth that we can only have God's peace if we choose to have an attitude of gratitude, some people will object that this ignores all the reasons people have for being unhappy. Life is unfair. People did me wrong. If you knew what I'd been through, you wouldn't say that.

Well, I don't know what you've been through -- just like you don't know what I've been through -- but I still know that you are better off finding something to be grateful about.

You're right about life being unfair. It can be very unfair. While we should do what we can to work for justice and oppose injustice, we will never remove all the unfairness from life, no matter how hard we try.

Something I learned from cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is that it can be beneficial to evaluate beliefs on the basis of whether they are helpful or unhelpful, rather than whether they are true or false. "Life's not fair" is a true belief. But, how helpful is it to dwell on that belief, to ruminate over life's injustices and to remind ourselves over and over again about how we've been wronged?

Once, I was in therapy for an injury I'd suffered because of someone else's carelessness. I hadn't done anything wrong, but I had been hurt. And now I had to work through painful exercises in order to heal properly.

In that circumstance, I could think about how I had been wronged or about how it was unfair for me to be enduring painful therapy while the person who had caused my injury was (to my knowledge) healthy and able-bodied. That thought would have been true. But how helpful would it have been? Not very.

Sometimes I did allow myself to brood over the injustice of my situation, and whenever I did, I always felt worse. In addition to the pain from my injury, I also experienced the emotional pain of feeling that I had been really wronged. Because I had. But dwelling on that fact did not change anything about my situation. It did not help me to heal. It did not help me to be happy. The fact that I had been unjustly harmed was not a helpful one for me to think about.

Thankfully, God gave me the grace to give thanks in those circumstances. And when I did, I always felt better.

The hard part was this: in order to feel continually better, I had to keep making that difficult choice over and over again. Once was never enough. At some point, maybe when I was having to push through the pain, or maybe when I was having trouble falling asleep and my mind was drifting back to the events that had caused my injury, I would start to feel down again. And once I started feeling down, the thanks and praise that I gave God earlier in the day didn't do me much good: I had to start all over again and conscientiously choose to give thanks and praise in the present moment.

No matter what difficulties you're going through, and no matter what I problems I face in the future, whenever we are challenged, we each have to make the same difficult choice: we must choose to be thankful. We must choose to have an attitude of gratitude. But if we do, God has promised that we can enjoy his peace that "passeth all understanding." (Philippians 4:7.)

A Practical Tip for Cultivating an Attitude of Gratitude

Here is a practical tip for cultivating an attitude of gratitude: write down something that you are grateful for. Do it first thing in the morning, when you wake up. Better yet, think of someone you are grateful for, and write that person a short text message or email letting them know that you are thinking of them and that you are grateful to have them in your life. And then, before you go to bed, write down something that happened that day that you are grateful for. If you can, get someone to be your accountability partner in this and agree to send each other a text message or email each evening to briefly recap something good that happened that day. By doing this, you will actually train your mind to look for the good, rather than what is bad. And as your perspective becomes more positive, so will your mood. 

Trust God When You Don't Know What To Do!

Trust God When You Don't Know What to Do!

The Coronavirus may have given us a new reason to be afraid, but we have a reason not to fear that has not changed in over 2,000 years: Jesus! Whether we are facing a pandemic or any other threat, the most important thing to remember is this: trust God when you don't know what to do!

God Is Always With You!

Rest assured that God is always with you! Hebrews 13:5-6 says that God will never leave you nor forsake you! So you can boldly say, "The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me." As the old song says, "He's got the whole world in his hands!" That means that as long as you are in the world, you are in God's hands!

I remember when my youngest child had to go to the hospital when she was just a baby. She was screaming her head off, which was completely out of character for her. She hadn't eaten all day. She couldn't talk yet, so we had no idea what was wrong. I felt so helpless, because there was nothing I could do ... That is, there was nothing I could do on my own!

As David said in Psalm 61:2, "When my heart is overwhelmed, lead me to the rock that is higher than I."

If I was the highest "rock" in my life, I would have nowhere else to turn when I came to the end of my own resources and my own strength! But thanks be to God, there is a rock that is higher than me! And through prayer, I have him on speed dial, 24-hours a day, seven days a week!

My heart was in my throat as the doctor said they would need to run some tests to rule out a potentially dangerous condition. There was nothing I could do to control the situation. I had no choice but to "let go and let God."

Before the doctor gave us the results of the test, I prayed and committed everything -- my daughter, her health, the results of the test -- to God. I prayed for her to be fully restored to health, of course. But I knew that no matter what the doctor said, everything would be alright.

God Has It All Worked Out!

Keep reminding yourself that God has it all worked out! We may be surprised by sudden reversals of fortune and unexpected difficulties. But these events will never surprise God, who sees the end from the beginning. (Isaiah 46:10.)

Of course, you can know this, intellectually. But you have to remind your heart, over and over, anytime your feelings reveal that you are really afraid that things won't work out for you or those you love.

God loves you unconditionally. He will never leave you or forsake you. As Psalm 39 declares, there is nowhere you can go where God is not with you; your entire life was written in God's book before you were even born; and you are "fearfully and wonderfully made."

Based on these promises from God, ask yourself, how could it be possible for things not to work out for you and those you love? Yes, we may experience some short-term losses and some temporary setbacks, but the ultimate reality is this: you are victorious through Christ!

How to Activate Your Faith!

Romans 12:3 says that to each of us, God has given a "measure of faith." And like the tiny measure of leaven in Jesus' parable that caused the whole batch to rise (Matthew 13:33), when you activate your faith and let God into your circumstances to go to work on your behalf, you can be confident that he will cause every aspect of your situation to work together for your ultimate good (Romans 8:28).

I know it can be tough to deal with danger and uncertainty. We are human after all, and we have natural human emotions, including fear. Our emotions were created by God, so our emotions are not wrong or sinful. But our emotions were meant to serve us, not to rule our lives.

Our emotions tell us what is going on in our hearts and  in our lives. If we experience fear, we should always ask why. Is there some real danger? Then God would have us be prudent and take reasonable precautions. Fear should motivate you to do something about the source of your fear. Fear might feel like a negative emotion, but its results should always lead us to some positive action in response.

Remember, courage is not the opposite of fear. Courage is the willingness to confront what you fear. And to do that, you need faith.

So how do you activate your faith when you are afraid? First, turn to God. Follow David's counsel from Psalm 61: when your heart is overwhelmed with fear, sorrow, regret, or any other unpleasant emotion, turn your attention to the rock that is higher than yourself: Jesus.

Remind yourself of who Jesus is and what he has promised to do. Remember what Jesus said to the disciples before he ascended into heaven, "And lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world." (Matthew 28:20). Are you a disciple of Jesus? Has the world ended yet? If you are a Christian, then Jesus is definitely still with you!

If you have done anything wrong, then ask God for forgiveness, and then receive that forgiveness. Forgive yourself. Don't try to have a higher standard for yourself than God does. He has made forgiveness easy, so don't you try to make it difficult. Forgive yourself.

If you have harmed someone else, then apologize and take reasonable steps to make amends. If you are too emotionally involved in a conflict with someone else to see what is appropriate to do, then ask a neutral third-party whose judgment you trust for advice. Once you have apologized and made amends, then move on. Don't wait on the other person to forgive you; receive forgiveness from God, and give forgiveness to yourself.

Now celebrate God's forgiveness and the new life he has given you. Give thanks to God! As the apostle Paul reminds us in Romans 8:32, God gave us Jesus to suffer and die, so that we could be saved; so you know that means that God is not going to hold anything back to give us what we need in life.

If you need an example of how to activate your faith, just look at the apostle Peter when he saw Jesus walking on the water in Matthew 14. First, he asked Jesus, "If this is you, if you're in this, then communicate that to me, so that I can join with you in this situation." Then he listened for Jesus' voice. And when Jesus called him, he went. No further questions. And as long as he kept his eyes on Jesus, he was able to do the impossible and stay on top of his circumstances. But unfortunately, Peter let his attention shift from Jesus to the problems and threats around him. When he saw the wind and the waves, he became afraid, and he started to sink. But Peter knew what to do: he immediately called out to Jesus to save him, and Jesus did.

When it's you in the middle of one of life's storms, do what Peter did correctly: focus on Jesus, on hearing his voice, and on doing what he leads you to do. But don't make the same mistake Peter made: don't take your eyes off Jesus. But if you do, follow Peter's example and immediately turn back to God, knowing that he hears your prayers and is quick to save and restore whatever has been lost.

Trust God When You Don't Know What To Do! 

The bottom line is this: trust God no matter what. Whether you think you know what to do or not, trust God. Whether you think you have everything you need or not, trust God. Whether you feel like everything is going well or poorly, trust God. Whether you feel like you have it all figured out, or whether you feel like you are completely overwhelmed and confused, trust God. Remind yourself who Jesus is, what he has done, and everything he has promised to do. Trust God.