“And when they found him, they exclaimed: ‘Everyone is looking for you!’ Jesus replied, ‘Let us go somewhere else – to the nearby villages – so I can preach there also. That is why I have come.’” Mark 1:37-38

Behind the declaration “Everyone is looking for you!” is a host of expectations. It can feel like the demands are coming from every direction with more expectations than we can fulfill.

How did Jesus respond with such clear purpose and direction to all the demands and expectations people had of him? How did he not get flustered? The verses just prior share his secret. Jesus had risen early that morning and found a solitary place where he could be alone with his Father and pray. Jesus didn’t disclose the intimate and private conversation he had with his Father, but the result was he knew his purpose and he knew it was time to move to nearby villages.

We, too, have many demands made of us. Our boundaries are constantly challenged. We also need to know our purpose and receive direction from our Father. We will often have more placed on us than we can handle without disappointing others or even ourselves. Jesus knew the secret — find a solitary place to pray in private. Seek the face of the Father and ask for his will and direction.

Like Jesus, you will not meet all of the needs and expectations from people around you but you can be sure the Father will lead and guide your life and your actions when you seek his will in prayer. It is an open invitation to pray. Emotional bondage can come through the constant demands and expectations of others. God calls us to please only him!

Heavenly Father, thank you for the freedom of following you wholeheartedly. We seek your will and direction for each day of our lives. Help us respond to your invitation to get alone with you and pray and seek your face. Direct us in your purpose and your plans for our lives. Lead and guide us moment by moment through your Spirit. In Jesus’ name, amen.

By Donna Mitchell
Used by Permission

Learn more about knowing Jesus at: https://thoughtsaboutgod.com/four-laws/

FURTHER READING

• When Life Isn’t Easy
• How to Get a Grip
• Pressing On

The post When Demands are Endless appeared first on Thoughts About God.

“But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.” – Jesus Christ
Luke 6:35

If you want to get a little taste of what God is like, try loving your enemies, lending money to those you know won’t pay you back, and then try being kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. What does this do to one’s sense of justice and fairness? What could this possibly be about? Jesus can’t be serious about this, can he?

Here’s what I think. I think Jesus is getting us to think this way because he wants us to see something important about ourselves.

After all, what are we thinking here – that we are God’s friends, that we always pay back what we borrow, and that we are most certainly grateful and holy, and that’s why it’s so hard for us to understand why God would ask us, the holy ones, to be kind to all these wicked and ungrateful folks? My goodness! somehow we’re going to have to find it in ourselves to love these awful people. But I suppose that if God can do it, we can too. It will be a stretch, but we will try! Is that what this is about?

Hardly. Here’s what I think it means:

There is relatively little difference between the most ungrateful, wicked people I can think of and me, and I had better be deeply grateful that God is, in fact, “unfair” in this way, because otherwise there would be no hope for me. I know this is what Jesus is saying because the very next verse is: “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful [to you].” And that is followed up with: “Do not judge and you will not be judged.”  See where He’s going with this?

When you look at it this way, it changes the whole picture.

Love your enemies and be kind to those who, like you, have received the kindness of God when you didn’t deserve it. And if you are ever tempted to think of God as being unfair, then go all the way and rejoice in the glorious inequity of grace that has made unlikely room for you and me, and in that same spirit of “unfairness,” make room in your heart for others.

by John Fischer
Used by Permission

FURTHER READING

• Examples of His Love
• Your Kindness Quotient
• Our Heavenly Father’s Unconditional Love

The post The Glorious Inequity of Grace appeared first on Thoughts About God.

For without faith, it is impossible to please God, for anyone who comes to God must 1) believe that he is, and 2)that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him.  Hebrews 11:6

For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.  Romans 3:23

As a life-long people pleaser, I have often fallen short of other people’s expectations of me.

As I have sometimes been told, “You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you cannot please all of the people all of the time!”

Probably the hardest person for me to please was my father.   Being a parent myself, I know what high expectations we often place on our children.  We want so much for them, but most of all, that they would be happy.  God wants us to have a meaningful life, too!

In frustration, I finally gave up trying to please him a few years ago.  Being a people pleaser is, in itself, doomed to failure, anyway.

As I was thinking about this aspect of my life this morning, because as a mother of adult children and a grandmother, I care about the needs of my kids and grandkids, so I think of how to please them with some thoughtful act or encouraging words.  God is a parent like this, too, and he went to great lengths of meet the needs of his children in every generation through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.

by Mike Woodard
used by permission

FURTHER READING

He Has Not Deserted Me – by Bill Bright

What Pulls Your Strings? – by John Grant

Spiritual Distractions – l by John Grant

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The post People Pleasing – Falling Short of Expectations appeared first on Thoughts About God.

“For He satisfies the longing soul, and fills the hungry soul with goodness” Psalm 107:9

One day I gave my two-and-a-half-year-old granddaughter paper and crayons to play with while I was working on the computer. After a little while she came to me and said, “Grandma, I want a lady pen.”

“A lady pen?” I asked. “What is a lady pen? Show me.” I opened the desk drawer and showed her all the pens. She took the one with the brightest lid and walked back to her papers.

Soon she was back, quite disgusted. “Grandma, this pen does not make a lady,” she said. Then I understood what she had meant when she asked for a lady pen. She had expected the pen to automatically draw a lady for her. Of course, we know that pens can’t draw anything by themselves — they can only do what our hands make them do. But she hadn’t learned that yet.

Later, I wondered how often we as adults expect our work, our ministry, our spouse, or material things to do the impossible for us. We expect them to satisfy the longing and hunger in our heart and soul. No created thing can do that for us —only God can.

However, we can be a pencil in God’s hand. Mother Teresa once said, “I am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God who is sending a love letter to the world.” If we become pens in God’s hands, He will make something beautiful out of our lives, and it will spill over to others.

I drew a lady for Tabitha that day, although it was no masterpiece. God is the Master Creator. He is an excellent artist and will mold us into something beautiful and pleasing — if we yield to His control. He promises that we will not be disappointed.

Lord, help us to continually realize that You alone can satisfy the deepest longings in our hearts. You can make something beautiful out of our lives. Amen.

By Katherine Kehler
Used by Permission

Further Reading

• True Satisfaction – by Brigitte Straub

• Are You Enjoying the Goodness of the Lord?  by Kathy Cheek

• Satisfaction –  by Kathy Cheek

The post Lady Pen appeared first on Thoughts About God.

“Trust the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your path.’ Proverbs 3:5&6

I don’t understand God sometimes!  

To be honest, it’s really most of the time.

Why doesn’t He clearly reveal Himself to me?  Why does He often leave me guessing at who He is and what He is doing?   You see, I have these great expectations about God and what He could and should do.  And I get frustrated and disillusioned when I don’t see Him behaving like I think my God should. . .

My husband had a cousin who finally found love at the age of 40 and married a man who had lost his wife to cancer.  He had three children, who longed to have a mother again. They had prayed for three long years and she was their answer!

Her wedding was such an amazing celebration – so full of life and joy.   But only 3 months later we were in that very same church holding her funeral.  Her husband and her children were devastated!  And I found myself questioning God . . .  It seemed so senseless and even cruel! How could there be any good in this?

When my son was in High School he experienced an incredible amount of loss and disappointment in a 6 month period.  And as a result, he became disillusioned with God.  I begged God to show Himself to my son, “He needs to see You and know that You love him.  Will You just prove to him that you are God?”  But it didn’t happen that way and my son struggled in his faith.

Why does God do that?  Why doesn’t He feel compelled to meet our expectations?  After all He is God!   You would think that because He wants everyone to come to Him, He would be out and about proving who He was and what He could do.  So why doesn’t he do that?

As I was reading my Bible one day, I came upon a passage that echoed this struggle I was having with God.

Jesus was speaking to His followers and He was explaining to them that He was the Bread of Life. Look at his controversial words, “I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you cannot have eternal life within you.  But anyone who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise that person at the last day.”  John 6:53-54 (NLV)

Really!! Who wouldn’t be confused by those words?

It goes on to say that many of his disciples said, “This is hard to understand, how could anyone accept it?”

Many of his followers turned their backs on Jesus that day and so He turned to his twelve disciples and asked them if they were going to leave Him too?

Look at Peter’s reply, “Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words that give eternal life. We believe, and we know you are the Holy One of God.” (John 6:68-69 NLV)

Do you see it?

Peter says, “WE BELIEVE and we KNOW you are the Holy One of God.”

I believe what Peter is saying here is that even though we don’t understand You . . . even though You aren’t meeting our expectations of what we think a Messiah should be . . . even though we can’t see the Way we will TRUST you.

And I love what he says right before that statement.  “Lord, to whom would we go?”

Times without number I have heard Peter’s words echoed by other followers of Jesus in times of disillusionment, “Where would we go?  How could we ever walk this road without Him?”

I’ve come to the conclusion that we cannot compel God to prove who He is.  He will do it in His time and in His way.

And His WAY is the way of faith.

So when I am disillusioned because my God is not meeting my expectations, I CHOOSE to believe, to trust that His way is good.

And I turn my eyes back to the Cross. . .

For how can I question His goodness, when He willing laid down His life for me?

By Kristi Huseby
Used by Permission

Further Reading

•  God’s Mysterious Ways
•   God’s Sufficiency Exceeds Our Need – by Sylvia Gunter
•  Salvation Explained

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