Day 24 Here’s How It Works

Last week my husband and I sat down to plan our six-day road trip. This particular trip is all about seeing family and friends, so we wanted to schedule everything in a way that would smoothly take us from one destination to the next. 

We began to brainstorm and nothing—-I mean nothing—— was working. Remember a child’s “dot-to-dot” activity—where you begin at No. 1 and just flow from one number to the next??  Dave and I were still stuck at No. 1. 

In times like this, we know enough to set it aside and start over another time. Dave got up to leave the room and in my frustration, I said, “God, cause our thoughts to become agreeable to Your will.”  As I looked at my scribblings on my paper, immediately I knew what to do first. I wrote it down and quickly the next thing came to mind. In the space of about 90 seconds, I had all nine things written down in perfect order.  When Dave came back into the room, I handed him the paper. He looked at it and said, “Where did you get this?” I replied that I had asked God to “cause our thoughts to become agreeable to His will,”  and it all fell into place.

God is willing to be our Event Planner if we bring Him into our plans. He has the perfect layout for any situation. If we take Proverbs 16:3 AMPC off the page and put it into practice, we can eliminate all the frustrations of trying to make something work on our own. Commit your day to God and watch what happens. God desires to amaze you!!

Roll your works upon the Lord [commit and trust them wholly to Him; He will cause your thoughts to become agreeable to His will, and] so shall your plans be established and succeed. (Proverbs 16:3 AMPC)                                                                                                                                                                                

God bless your day!

Day 23 Thinking God's Thoughts

This morning I was in the kitchen thinking about what to have for breakfast. As I considered my options, nothing sounded good to me. Because of the words, “Father, cause my thoughts to become agreeable to Your will” are so familiar to me, they rolled right off of my tongue.

Roll your works upon the Lord [commit and trust them wholly to Him; 

He will cause your thoughts to become agreeable to His will…. 

Proverbs 16:3 (AMPC)

Immediately I thought of peanut butter. My favorite breakfast used to be peanut butter on a honey wheat tortilla with frozen bananas—all rolled up and ready to enjoy. I had taken myself off of this treat in May because my summer clothes were fitting too tight and I figured that it was partly because of the peanut butter.

When I was lamenting about my clothes predicament to my daughter, she advised me about an app for my phone that would keep me disciplined. She had been using it and it helped her to take her unwanted pounds off. I gave it a try and it did the same for me. Now my clothes fit comfortably again. This morning when I asked God to “cause my thoughts to become agreeable to His will,” and the words “peanut butter” came to mind, my immediate reply was, “No, I can’t have that!” God was saying, “Yes, now you can but not just every morning.”

I am so glad that God cares about what concerns us. If we invite Him into our daily lives, He will come. If we ask Him to give us His thoughts, He will.

Psalms 138:8 NKJV

Jeremiah 29:11 NKJV

I John 2:27 NLT

God bless your day with "God Moments."

Day 22 Adjust That Attitude!

Let’s continue now with learning how to stay in peace so we can be successful—one day at a time!

When we made Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior, our spirit was recreated to be in unity with Jesus Christ. It sure would have been nice if our souls were transformed at the same time but—not so! That’s up to us.

On Day 19 I explained that our soul is made up of our thoughts, our emotions, and our choices. If all three are in perfect alignment with God, then we experience peace. If not, our thoughts, emotions, and choices take a collision course. We are all over the map and there is no peace to be found.

It’s up to each one of us to commit our thoughts, our emotions and our choices to God so that He can cause them to become agreeable to His will. I call that “recalibration.” Three words that define recalibrate are adjustment, alignment, and correction. When we adjust our thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes so they agree with God’s, we will experience His peace. 

There is something we can do on purpose so that we can walk in peace every day of our lives. 

“Roll your works upon the Lord [commit and trust them wholly to Him….” 

My husband and I begin every day this way because we have learned when we are in sync with God, we experience peace—the kind of peace that establishes us in a position to be successful. How simple and how beneficial——and how motivating to do this each and every day!

Spend a little time thinking about an area of your life that needs to change in order to come into alignment with God's will. Make some notes in your journal using the following scriptures:

Romans 12:2 NIV

Philippians 2:5 KJV

Proverbs 16:3 KJV 

God bless your day! God bless your week! God bless your life!!

Karol

Day 21 Our Seven Day Recap

We have just completed 20 days of laying a foundation for developing a successful lifestyle. If you have just joined us, I encourage you to go to archives and click on April. There you will find “Day 1” which is entitled “Developing A Successful Lifestyle.” Begin reading there so you don’t miss a thing. 

When you are caught up, I encourage you to put in your email address and each new post will automatically be sent to your email box. I love this revelation so much that I will probably never quit posting about it. I want to help you be successful, just as God is helping me!!

On DAY 15 we learned that God has wonderful plans for us and He is waiting for us to invite Him to share them with us.

On DAY 16 we learned that hearing from God is really very easy—as long as we get our agenda out of the way.

On DAY 17 we learned that if we don’t commit our day to God, we will more than likely hit a dead end and get stuck there. Being stuck is not fun!

On DAY 18 we learned how to put our questions on “God’s Drawing Board” and let Him help us to think like He thinks concerning every question we have.

On DAY 19 we learned how to declutter our souls so that we can think straight and not succumb to our out-of-control emotions, which cause us to make wrong choices.

On DAY 20 we learned that decluttering is a constant exercise. It’s something that we practice every day. Remember those closets??

If you haven’t put Proverbs 16:3 AMPC into practice yet, I pray that what I have said so far has motivated you. And to those of you who have made it part of your daily prayer, I would love to hear how God has been able to work in your lives.

God bless you all!

Karol

Hi, everybody!

I had all these great intentions of writing to you while I was on our five-day vacation. I was going to demonstrate the use of Proverbs 16:3 AMPC while doing ordinary things like vacationing. It ended up that we were on the go most of the time. However, I did have one major example that I do want to share with you.

On the first day of our trip, I had the opportunity to pick up and harbor a major offense. (No, not with my husband!) It was like I was in a tug-of-war with this thing.  I knew better than owning it but it would not leave me alone. It was like my mind was on a continuous play--running the offensive words over and over as I tried to sleep. I fought it with all that I had and then finally I said, "Father, I commit this injustice to You. Cause my thoughts to become agreeable to Your will so I can be established in peace--and experience Your success." Shortly afterward, I fell into a sound sleep. When I woke up in the morning, I began to celebrate what God had done for me when I completely submitted to Him for His help. I was ready to begin a new day!

It's not the people who are the problem, but the enemy who used the people....Ephesians 6:12

Do not return evil for evil but instead extend a blessing.....I Peter 3:9 NLT

Father, help me to think like You think concerning this......Proverbs 16:3 AMPC

God always causes me to triumph......2 Corinthians 2:14

When I committed the situation to God, He took it from there......Psalms 118: 23

It's Time To De-Clutter Again!

Day 20 

On Day 19 I talked about “de-cluttering” our souls to get rid of fear, anger, confusion, frustration and all the things that cut us off from the peace of God. We can pray and submit our plans to God* all day long but if we haven’t emptied our souls of garbage thinking, we will not be able to enjoy the companionship of God. We’ll be too full of ourselves—our false imaginations, our selfish thoughts, and the memory of all past experiences that have gone wrong.

Have you noticed that our “closets” need attention on a regular basis in order for them to stay neat and organized? It is the same for our souls. For example, once we recognize a bad attitude over an injustice done to us, we can say, “No you don’t! I have no use for you!! Into the garbage you go!”

Then as you commit your plans to God, you will feel Him nudging you into the right direction all day long. Here’s an example for you—this morning I recognized a judgmental attitude on myself. In one word, that boils down to pride. Can we all say “Yuk—Yuk??” 

Instead of allowing that judgmental thought to take up residence in my soul, I pulled it out and showed it to God. I asked Him to help me not go down that path of criticism of others. A good friend stopped over and if I hadn’t gotten rid of that “garbage” thought, my judgmental words would have come up in my conversation. Instead, while we were visiting, we stopped to pray for someone and the presence of God was tangible in the room—to the point where we could hardly speak. 

Time to clean out our souls and then do a daily check to keep them clean. No fear—no pride—no selfishness—no anger—nothing except the presence and peace of God!

How It Works....

We have been learning how to apply Proverbs 16:3 to our lives. Think about these words:

Roll your works upon the Lord [commit and trust them wholly to Him; He will cause your thoughts to become agreeable to His will, and] so shall your plans be established and succeed. (AMPC)                                                                      

The other night we were sitting at an outdoor concert and enjoying the beautiful humid-free evening. All of a sudden I picked up my phone and clicked on my Weather App. I went to the radar and noticed lots of green, red and yellow just west of us. We decided to load up our lawn chairs and head for the car so that we wouldn't get caught in rain, winds and maybe even hail. We walked to the edge of the outdoor concert area--away from the buildings--to be greeted by some very dark clouds. We were able to drive into the garage just as the rain and wind started to come. 

We had committed our day to God when we woke up that morning and right in the middle of a very pleasant evening, I picked up my phone and went to that App. God was causing my thoughts to become agreeable to His will. He knew the storm was coming. 

And that's how it works!!