Good or bad words?

You can trust what your friend says, even when it hurts. But your enemies want to hurt you, even when they act nice. (Proverbs 27:6)

What does your closest friend say about you? It may not always be what you want to hear, but if they know Jesus, we can trust him to use their words on occasion. Those words may build us up at one time, but they can bring necessary conviction at others!

Do all the words we hear always bring us joy and great peace? Not hardly, as sometimes we need to hear the ones that sting just a bit. Why? We may not have been seeing things in the right light and need to have a bit more light shed on the matter. We may have been refusing to hear and just need someone to prod us to listen closer.

Our enemies, on the other hand, may sugar coat every word they say, happy to mislead us wherever they can. Whenever we choose to listen to their lies, we almost feel a little undone by those words. They eat at us and give us concerns we didn't know otherwise. We must be careful to embrace only wise words; words tempered by the Spirit of God.

Are the words of our friends always spot on? Not always, so we need to filter ALL words through the Holy Spirit and the wisdom he brings. Embrace truth, reject the rest, trusting him to know one from the other. Words are indeed powerful - like sticks and stones that may break one's bones. We may never fully appreciate their impact until we consider the impact of the Word of God.

Did it ever occur to you that God made a way for us to know him, experience healing, enjoy peace, and find comfort in times of distress through is written Word? His words, powerful and pure, given so we'd be able to look into them, experience their depth and insight, therein finding all we need to live our lives. If God knows the power of 'words', perhaps it is time we pay attention to ours. Just saying!

Oh, that is what you said!

Have you ever just chased your tail round and round? The harder you seem to work at solving something, the more difficult it seems to become to solve it. You never seem to "catch up", never seem to fully "grasp" the goal - the solution seems to evade you and you try repeatedly to solve whatever it is that stands before you. In the end, you just sit there in total frustration, more in a muddle than you were when you first began, wondering if there are any 'untried solutions' to the issue. Just as quickly as we started, we find ourselves out of energy to continue to journey! We stop short of the goal - never really crossing the finish line. What a waste to have started and then to not finish it. We are reminded of the importance of staying focused. We are also reminded of the senselessness of relying on anything other than Jesus to give us prominence or importance in the Kingdom of God.

"I'm not saying that I have this all together, that I have it made. But I am well on my way, reaching out for Christ, who has so wondrously reached out for me. Friends, don't get me wrong: By no means do I count myself an expert in all of this, but I've got my eye on the goal, where God is beckoning us onward—to Jesus. I'm off and running, and I'm not turning back." (Philippians 3:12-14)

We need to be insanely open about the struggle (the strain) it takes to reach the goal set out before us. Contrary to our frequent opinion about ourselves, we are not the "expert", but we are to know the voice of our God beckoning us onward - toward him. Here we find the point of most of our failure - it is based in the actual hearing of God's voice beckoning us onward. We all struggle with the "stretch" once in a while, but sometimes we struggle more than others - either because we hear and don't respond, or because we just refuse to hear. "So let's keep focused on that goal, those of us who want everything God has for us. If any of you have something else in mind, something less than total commitment, God will clear your blurred vision—you'll see it yet! Now that we're on the right track, let's stay on it."  (Philippians 3:15-16)

Anything less than total commitment really is not true or authentic commitment! Commitment suggests engagement - active participation from those involved. Therefore, anything less is really "dis-engagement". The reminder to us is focused on the need for total engagement. Throughout scripture, we see accounts of many who start well, then get off-course along the way. Why? It usually begins in the "listening". We "hear" a lot of stuff - what we "listen to" is what affects us the deepest. I have shared many times - listening is an action, not a passive process. Listening is indeed engagement. This past week my BFF needed to run by a store to find a particular item. I "heard" her announce the retailer she desired to visit and told her we'd stop on the way home. What I failed to "hear" was which one of these retailer locations she desired to visit. I chose the wrong one and she was delayed by one day in finding her purchase because of my 'listening, but not hearing'.

It makes no sense to hear clear direction and then ignore it, right? Yet, we do all the time! We read God's Word, become acquainted with his direct will for us, then just go on without ever "conforming" to his direct will. It is all a matter of focus - the clearer our focus, the easier it is to stay on track. It is God who gives us clarity - it is up to us what we do with the clarity we receive! Just sayin!