Guidelines For Living Devotional

What you say can get you into far more trouble than what you do!  Have you discovered that?   It's much like the advice that the mother whale gave her young:  "It's when you are spouting that you always get into trouble!"

Eventually your faith will be challenged, no matter how strong or how weak it is.  It may be challenged by an agnostic professor; or perhaps more likely it will be challenged by the trials of life.  Sooner or later something happens and your heart cries out, "Lord, I just cannot handle this."  It may be a child's illness, or a marriage that turns sour, or a business deal which has not gone well.

Men and women have always had difficulty communicating, and now we know why--at least, to a very small degree.  It's a proven fact that women listen with both sides of their brains, men primarily with one side.  But what we've known for ages is still true: though it may be a challenge, it can be done.  I am convinced that communication is the key to any relationship, whether it is your marriage, getting along with your neighbor, or succeeding in business.

Speaking in public and talking in private are not the same at all.  There are people who are great public speakers.  They motivate, they inspire, they move people to tears, but talk to the same person one-on-one and it's like trying to get a dead fish to swim, or a corpse to tell you how he feels.

"My husband just doesn't get it," a wife complains.  Often, she is right, and she has scientific evidence to back up her allegation.  Scientists using a modified MRI have taken pictures of both male and female brains that prove--Are you ready for this? --that women use both sides of their brains when they listen, and men use only one side.

"Dear Dr. Sala, where was God when my dream died?  I thought I could trust Him.  Now I'm not sure!"  No, you were not the one who wrote those words, but chances are those thoughts have at some time or another risen from your troubled heart, whether you voiced them aloud or just thought them.

When I was a kid in school, I found myself constantly thinking about tomorrow--what I intended to do as soon as I could get out of the classroom and get moving.  The young often dream of tomorrow, thinking of what they are going to do, and the old often focus on yesterday--what they have done.  You know the attitude, "The older I am, the better I was!"  With each telling of the story, the fish gets bigger or the hero gets braver.

Do you ever feel yourself being torn between what you know is the right thing to do and what you really want to do?  If you answer, "no," either you're not telling the truth, or the battery of your conscience has gone dead.  The struggle is an old one.  Even Paul experienced the conflict.  He candidly told of the battle which waged in his heart.  He said, "When I want to do good, I don't; and when I try not to do wrong, I do it anyway" (Romans 7:19, Living Bible).

"Marriage is a relationship in which a woman never gets what she expects and a man never expects what he gets," so said a pundit. Another cynic tells of a conversation a dad had with his school-age boy, who asked, "Dad, I hear that in some parts of Africa a man doesn't know his wife until he marries her.  Is that right?" and the dad replies, "That happens in most countries, son."

Few people ever have had an encounter with a burning bush that would not go out, but Moses did.  Few people ever audibly hear the voice of God, but Moses did.  Few individuals are given supernatural signs which convince others that they have had an encounter with God, but Moses was one who did!  Yet--and I want you to make that word a bookmark for what I’m saying--yet Moses cried out to God: “If you are pleased with me, teach me your ways so I may know you and continue to find favor with you…" (Exodus 33:13).