“Satan has asked to sift each of you like wheat. But I have pleaded for you, Simon, that your faith should not fail. So when you have repented and turned to me again, strengthen your brothers” (Luke 22:31-32). Jesus is not surprised by your failures. In fact, he sees them coming. Notice two things in…
You will never come so far that you have nothing left to learn. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Every man I meet is my superior in some way. In that, I learn of him.” I challenge you to learn one thing about recovery this week. There are many ways to do this. Pick one: Go to…
In a popular Seinfeld scene, there is this poignant interchange between Jerry and Elaine. Jerry: “Is this about me?” Elaine: “No.” Jerry: “Then I’ve lost interest.” And that is the problem for most of us. If something is not about us, we aren’t interested. But recovery takes us down a different path – one that…
Leroy was willing to do anything for a few bucks. Going door to door looking for odd jobs, he was thrilled when Mrs. Johnson offered him a job. “Go out back and paint my porch,” she told Leroy. A couple of hours later, Leroy told Mrs. Johnson he had completed the job. Mrs. Johnson said,…
On June 15, 2012, Nik Wallenda walked a tightrope that was suspended over Niagara Falls. That 1,500-foot steel wire could not be stabilized, so it swayed back and forth. As Wallenda inched his way across the wire, he prayed and sang praises to Christ with each step he took. A few days before Christmas, 2020,…
Corrie ten Boom said, “When a train goes through a tunnel and it gets dark, you don’t throw away the ticket and jump off. What do you do? You do what the woman who survived a Nazi concentration camp did – you sit still and trust the engineer.” We are to trust in God, not…
One night at the dinner table, the wife asked her husband, “Why is it that you always give me the smaller piece of steak now? When we first got married, you always cut me the larger piece of the streak. You don’t love me anymore!” “Not at all,” said her husband. “Then why do you…
In 1972, two men, John Wojtowicz and Salvatore Naturile, robbed a French bank. They would have gotten away with it – had they gotten away. But caught up in their success, the young men grabbed the cash, then stood around the bank lobby unnecessarily. Because they didn’t leave as soon as they had the loot,…
According to psychologists, we are born with only two fears – the fear of falling and the fear of loud noises. Let’s focus on one of those – the fear of falling. Here’s an idea. Try using your fear of falling as a positive. Alex Rodriguez said, “Fear of failure is what fuels me, keeps…
In 1992, a farmer named Peter Whatling lost a hammer on his farm in England. On asking his friend, a metal detectorist, to help him find the lost hammer, they discovered 14,865 gold, silver, and bronze coins from the late Roman Empire. The entire hoard currently is valued at $4.3 million. The coins, along with…