One thing I realized about God is that He’s all about process. More often than not, God, thousands of years ago, and God in 2016 is a God of process. Sometimes He does things quickly, like the waving of a wand- abracadabra and POOF- it’s done and fast. But when He decides to mold and make our characters, the things we want can take weeks, months or years.

I’ve got one and you’ve got one- a conscience. That thing that jerks us back when we do wrong, and that that gives our hearts peace when we’ve made the right decision...

We all have seasons in our lives where some are more challenging than others, but challenges are meant to increase our faith in God, mature us, strengthen us, and make us wiser. God doesn’t intend for us to stay stuck in a season. He’s the only One that’s meant to stay the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. But we’re meant to morph and grow as He moves us from season to season. However, it is possible that we can stay stuck in a season for far too long, longer than God intended us, if we choose to.

There are seasons in life when we’re in the unexplainable, where we’re being pressed, where situation after situation that comes makes us exhausted, and where we can’t understand why we’re being pressed on every side.

You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.

~Dale Carnegie

It’s exhausting to try and please other people and what they think we should do or not do. And even though their advice may come from a good place, we will only find freedom through seeking to please God above all else.

What is the foundation of Christianity? What does it mean to be a follower of Christ? If I may, I’d like to answer. It is love, and it means to love as Christ loved. 

Just because we’re in a situation that seems good and that seems ok doesn’t mean it is ok. The Scripture is full of examples where people thought they were ok, despite their unholy living.

There are many moments in life when we will all feel as if the world is against us- losing a job, a break up, someone hurts us, we try to pursue a dream but it doesn’t seems as if we’re making any headway, we get a challenging boss, our church lets us down, family members hurt us, etc. And we all know that life isn’t fair, but often, when it looks like something is being done to us, it’s actually being done for us.

God speaks to us continually, and it’s easy to lose sight of that in busyness of everyday life. It’s His nature to communicate with us, and it’s not always through words. 

It can be so easy to compare ourselves to others, to be envious of another, and to try and emulate what someone else is doing. If we resolve to look at our own papers, to look at our own lives and not compare ourselves to others, then we won’t have any reason to look at someone else’s paper. 

In the movie industry the leading roles are few. Only one man and one woman can have these spots. How far we go in life is largely dictated by how big or small our thinking is.

It can be hard to sit under someone’s authority, especially when we don’t agree with them, but Scripture is clear that authority must be honored and that we must submit it. 

Believe it or not, we have as much access to God as we have the faith receive Him. It can be the most challenging thing in life to make time for God. What is your reaction when the Holy Spirit is prompting you to connect with God? Do you seek God or put Him on the lower end of the list of “things to get to later?”

When it’s time to move on from a thing God will let you know and confirm it. And sure, God understands your attachment to the old thing. And sure, there might need to be a period of mourning and sulking. But after time has passed, you’ll sense God saying “You have mourned long enough for this thing, and it's time to let it go.”

We can’t always control what actions we are faced with and that includes success, but we can control our reaction to actions. God is far more interested in our reaction to a situation than we think. Tony Alany, the Pastor of Worship at McLean Bible Church in the U.S., unpacks that in life's successes we Christ is all we need, and how humility should be our response to success. 

It’s easy to remember Bathsheba by her sin and not by her accomplishments. As humans we tend to remember people by their sinful mistakes, years after they took place. 

It’s common to have a lot of people around you in your early 20s, but as you mature in your 20s, you realize that you’d rather have a few quarters around you than lots of pennies.

"Over the last decade, burnout has become an increasing phenomena. It causes emotional exhaustion, depersonilization, and reduced performance." 

Disappointment can often drive how we make decisions. We don't want to experience this emotion, so we shape our actions to secure reward or our desired outcome. 

Though we have no right to judge another, when we sit back and inspect their fruit, especially bad fruit, we may not know what's going in their hearts or minds. But, we will know that something is going on in their root system.