For the person who realizes that the circumstances of life are never bigger than God, there is a short‑cut to victory.  It is one of the few shortcuts that you ever experience in life that can save you a lot of sweat and pain. It is learning the secret of praise and thanksgiving.  Thankful for what?  For the fact that I feel so low I'm looking up to see bottom?  Thankful that my job played out on me, thankful that my husband of 18 years left me for another woman?  Thankful that there aren't many jobs available for folks at my age?

You can no more have intimacy with God without prayer than you can have intimacy in marriage without communication.  Though you may have never thought of the two in relationship to each other, what makes both meaningful is much the same.  Success in both is dependent upon the quality of your relationship with the object of your affection.  When you can't communicate with your husband or wife--for whatever reason, your relationship rapidly disintegrates. Love grows cold. Warm memories are just that--recollections of the past, not realities in the present.

“I have a question,” the email read. “How can I forgive people who insulted me, lied to me and humiliated me for a long time? It was a very difficult time for me, but I could not change the situation. Now I have escaped from this hell but I have a strong desire for revenge. I want them to feel what I felt when they jeered at me.”

There are some individuals whose spirits can't be conquered. No matter how they are repressed, how they get hit, they just get up and walk, then run, then climb the heights.  They just don't know how to quit.  Such was the old man who presented his claim to Joshua in the Bible, "I am eighty-five years old!" he began," but he quickly adds, "I am still as strong today as the day Moses sent me out; I'm just as vigorous to go out to battle now as I was then."  And then he got to the bottom line: "Give me this mountain of which the Lord spoke in that day!" (Joshua 14:12 NKJV).

Suppose that Buckingham palace made an announcement, a strongly worded one, saying that it is the pleasure of Her majesty, the Queen, that henceforth, all British subjects should live in peace, that all citizens should immediately stop hating each other, that marriages should be harmonious, and that all criminals should cease and desist from all illegal activity immediately?

After He had prayed all night, Jesus called twelve men to follow Him--ordinary men who were fishermen, small businessmen, and government employees.  None were university graduates or professionals as we think of them today.  They were men with calluses on their hands, with the smell of labor on their clothes, with dust on their sandals.

The Graeco-Roman world into which Jesus was born hardly knew what to do with the narrow strip of land on the eastern Mediterranean which was then known as Palestine.  When Romans built a gymnasium and baths at Caesarea, the Jews revolted. Eventually Caesar sent his legions, who subdued the rebellion.  Then politicians discreetly forged alliances with Jewish leaders whose loyalty to Rome was unquestioned.

When Jesus told the disciples that they were to seek first God's kingdom and His righteousness, He used a strong word, one which means to earnestly seek something, something worthy of the time and effort it takes to reach that goal.

While Disneyland calls its playground "The Enchanted Kingdom," there is another kingdom, one which I think of as "The Invisible Kingdom."  Jesus referred to it as "the Kingdom of God."  It's an invisible kingdom with no boundaries, no police force, no border control, and no laws except the law of love.  But wherever you find God's people, you will find evidence of this invisible kingdom in the lives of its subjects.

Some 600 miles south of Cairo, on the banks of the ancient Nile, stands the ancient temple of Karnak, one of the most splendid structures of the ancient world. Across the river is the majestic valley of the Kings and the awesome tombs which were monuments to the egos of the pharaohs.