Daily Wisdom: Your Trials Have a Purpose

Lots of people complain about the difficulties in their lives and they wonder how they will handle them, or why they can’t have a trouble/challenge free life. If you find yourself among this group of people, I want you to consider this;

A mighty wind blew night and day. It stole the oak tree’s leaves away. Then snapped its boughs and pulled its bark, until the oak was tired and stark. But still the oak tree held its ground, while other trees fell all around. The weary wind gave up and spoke, “How can you still be standing, Mister Oak?”

The oak tree said, “I know that you can break each branch of mine in two, carry every leaf away, shake my limbs, and make me sway. But I have roots stretched in the earth, growing stronger and stronger since my birth. You’ll never touch them, for you see, they are the very deepest part of me. Until today, I was not sure, of just how much I could endure. But now I’ve found, with thanks to you, I’m so much stronger than I ever knew!”

Be thankful for everything in your life, and know that you all win in the end, because God’s word says “For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.”

Daily Wisdom

These words, though simple, have profound powers and results in them; “THANK YOU!” Learn to use them on everyone, for everything no matter how small or insignificant it may be. A lot of us are so blinded by our need for more, that we cannot see the many miracles in lives every day. If we all could spend sometime today doing some stock taking of the many, many things we have that have been made possible by God, maybe, just maybe we will say THANK YOU LORD.

Stop Looking For Faults, Start Looking For Good

One of the characteristics of people who are not doing very well with their lives is, they are top complainers and whiners. They never can find anything good about their lives and the environment they find themselves. Folks what you focus on, expands and successful people are using this to their advantage.

Haven’t you notice that successful people never talk about how bad the economy is, how high things in the market have gone up, or how many bad breaks they are having? Instead they focus on what’s good, what’s working, or what’s beautiful about them…they always try to find the good in every situation they find themselves in.

Do you want to end this year on high note? Develop the habit of finding the good in every situation. Stop talking about the negative things around you. Stop looking for the things that ain’t working in your life. If you are a Christian, you should be familiar with a powerful scripture that says, Ask and it shall be given to you, knock and the door shall be open to you, seek and you shall find. So here is a question for you, what are you seeking in your life?

There’s Always Something to Be Thankful For

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One of the best things I learned as a Child of God is giving thanks to God for all things and in every situation whether it is positive or negative. But I have discovered that for most people thanking God for the good things is so easy. When good things happen to you, when good times come, you rejoice and celebrate, but that seldom is the case when you are hit by adversity or some misfortune.

A guy once said to me once, “why should I rejoice and be thankful when bad things happen to me? I ought to be sad, and complaining, so that maybe I can get help somehow.” Unfortunately he isn’t alone with that mindset, because that’s just what most people do; they cry, whine, talk or complain about their adversities and setbacks.

One of my favourite scriptures says, “all things work together for good to them that love God.” No matter how bad I am hit by difficulties and adversity, I believe that in the end something good will come out of the situation. Secondly, from experience I know that things don’t always end up as bad as they seem at first. Sometimes we react based on the information we receive, only to realize later that it wasn’t as terrible as it was reported.

So No One is Repaying Your Kindness?

I was listening to a radio programme yesterday where there was a discussion about gratitude and kindness to others. In the course of the programme, someone sent in a message and stated that he had stop caring about others because in spite of all he does for others, nobody ever shows him gratitude or return favours.

As the show continued, most of the callers’ responses to the message were very sympathetic to the guy who wasn’t receiving enough gratitude and favours for the good he does to others. One caller went as far complaining at how the world is filled with ingrates and unloving people.

Some of the questions going through my mind both during and moments after the radio show were; “why should we write off the world just because of a few bad people?” Why should our love and kindness to others be tied to what they give to us or how we expect to be treated in return? Must everyone whom we show some form of kindness pay us back or even tell us gratitude?

Sometime ago I ate food that didn’t taste very nice but that didn’t make stop eating food again because of my previous experience. Some people drive and unfortunately get involved in some accident, yet they never stop driving or travelling along the road. But you find an individual who helps someone or some people, who later didn’t do enough to repay his/her kindness, says, “I have had my experience, I have learned my lessons. This is the last time I will ever show kindness to people. I did this or that for this and that, and now see what I got in return.”

Watch Your Confessions

Most times when I meet people, 8 out of the ten sentences they make are complains about life; about not having what they want. They complain about having bills, not having the car or house of their dreams. Not having enough money, they complain about the society, the negative influences, their children, the weather etc.

Folks the more we talk about these things they more they increase in our lives. Some of us are making the laws of God work against us instead of working for us. The scripture says, “Ask and you shall receive, knock and the door shall be opened to you, seek and you shall find.” What have you been seeking? Problems, sicknesses, poverty, lack of opportunities? Yes you seek for these things when you talk more about them. Remember what you focus on will expand.

A Fathers Advice to His Child

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If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;

If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

Rejoice, not Complain

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“We can complain that the rose has bushes, have thorns or we can complain that thorns have roses.” – Abraham Lincoln

Like the thorns are always parts of the rose flower, so are problems part of life. There isn’t a life without some form of problem or the other. But some of us have made it habitual to complain about our problems. We are always seeking friends, family and church to complain to. In my country today many people are always seeking for prophets and “prayer warriors” to eliminate problems, failing to understand that a problem free person is a dead person.

A Day Will Make the Differrence

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Many times we face difficulties, uncertainties and challenges that threaten to destroy our relationships, marriages and life. What surprises me most times when I go through days of having series of challenges is by just sleeping and waking up the next day, everything return back to normal as if I never had challenges the previous day.

A day makes a lot of difference in our lives. If you are having a difficult day, never give up and think your life is a difficult one, its just one day! If you endure till the breaking of a new one, you will see that most of your problems have passed along with the previous one miraculously.

The scripture says, weeping may endure for a night but joy always comes in the morning. Many of us will agree with this if we can cast our minds back to the many mornings our challenges at work, our quarrels at home, our fights with our friends etc have been miraculously resolved for us by a new day.