Do your thoughts and words please the Lord?

Be Still . . .
Devotionals for Daily Living

May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.
(Psalms 19:14 (NIV))

Reading this passage reminded me of something that I think most people forget to take into consideration, and that is the simple fact that God knows us better than we know ourselves. He sees straight into our hearts and knows our innermost desires. He sees the things that we try to hide even from ourselves.

Are you willing to ask God to search your heart?

Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.
(Psalms 139:23 (NIV))

Better yet, are you willing to respond to God when He reveals to you things that are not pleasing in His sight? All of us have thoughts and desires that are less than righteous. We all say things that are less than pleasing to God and to ourselves. Are you willing to repent? Are you willing to change? It is human nature to rebel against correction. It is human nature to fall into prideful arrogance because we simply don’t want to change.

In short, we don’t want to please the Lord. We want to please ourselves?

Do your thoughts and words please the Lord?

Copyright 1998 – 2019 Dennis J. Smock
Daily Living Ministries, Inc.
http://www.dailylivingministries.org
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In whom do you trust?

Be Still . . .
Devotionals for Daily Living

Trust in the LORD with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
in all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make your paths straight
(Proverbs 3:5-6 (NIV))

It is so hard to place your trust in what can’t be seen. The world has a way of catching our attention and side-tracking us from this trust. It is easier to trust in what can be seen. Yet, this trust is what God wants us to build with Him. He calls it faith. If you place your faith in God, He WILL make your paths straight, for He will be walking with you and guiding you in all that you do.

How is your faith?

What do you lean on?

In whom do you trust?

Copyright 1998 – 2019 Dennis J. Smock
Daily Living Ministries, Inc.
http://www.dailylivingministries.org
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Are you where God wants you to be?

Be Still . . .
Devotionals for Daily Living

Trust in the LORD with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;

in all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make your paths straight
(Proverbs 3:5-6 (NIV))

Does anyone really understand the world and how it works? We see things from a small perspective. Can you tell the size of the forest while you are surrounded by trees? You must have a different point of view. Do not rely on what you can see. It may not be as it appears. Rely on God. He has a unique perspective since He is the Creator of all things.

Imagine that you are conducting an experiment with an animal in a maze. You can clearly see which way to go, yet the animal cannot, and go about in error. We are not very much different than that animal. God sees what we should do, yet, we do not see the complete picture and go around bumping into walls and making all sorts of mistakes. If we would only look to God, He can guide us through this worldly maze.

Are you lost, or do you know exactly what God wants for you?

Copyright 1998 – 2017 Dennis J. Smock
Daily Living Ministries, Inc.
http://www.dailylivingministries.org
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We all need to lean on God’s understanding!

Be Still . . .
Devotionals for Daily Living ^©

Trust in the LORD with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
in all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make your paths straight.
(Proverbs 3:5-6 (NIV))

Do you like to be the master of your own destiny?

Are you the type of person who has to fix all of the problems?

Do you think of yourself as self-sufficient in all that you do?

These are all traits that our society has instilled in us as traits to be admired. We have been conditioned to look upon people who look to someone else for support as weak and less than worthy of success. We have been conditioned to respond to any problem in such a manner that we think that we can do anything. We have to be able to solve anything that we face all on our own wisdom and insight. This is expected even when we literally know absolutely nothing about what we are facing.

Take a long and serious look at your life.

What if you lost everyone that you love in an accident? What if you had to face what Job faced? Could you find the strength to continue based on your own understanding? Could you truly say that you could fix this problem?

Human life is frail. We are not designed by God to lean on our own understanding. We were created to be in constant communication with God. When this constant communication ended because of the fall from grace in the Garden of Eden, we lost our “Father” with whom we could talk and confide in. We lost that intimacy that allows us to lean on God. Ever since then, we have been trying to say to God that we don’t need Him. Just like a two year old who thinks he is a big boy, our desires are saying that we can do it, but the results are saying that we need God.

Do you want to do it, or do you lean on God?

Copyright 1998 – 2017 Dennis J. Smock
Daily Living Ministries, Inc.
http://www.dailylivingministries.org
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Are you on the right path?

Be Still . . .
Devotionals for Daily Living ^©

Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.
(Matthew 7:13 (NIV))

Sin takes on many forms and the road that we travel on is wide because of this. Think of the multitude of sins that we can commit. It only takes one to stray from God’s Will. Lay out all of the sins that you can think of side by side. You have a wide road upon which to travel, and the bad thing about it is that no two people have to really travel the very same path to get to the end of the road and it’s promised death.

Now, take away all of those sins and replace it with a single, straight line that leads you to your goal. You can even think of this straight line as a tight-rope. Any deviation from that straight line is going to get you back on the wide road that we have paved with sin. The task of reaching the goal without swerving from our desired path is not physically possible.

Now, take a look at Jesus and that same path. If we call upon Jesus to carry us, then imagine the security in knowing that Jesus can walk that path, and has walked that path, without a single deviation. Because of His unswerving devotion to doing the Father’s Will, we can call upon Jesus to carry us on that straight path even though we may drag our feet on the wide road.

Through Jesus, we will be made whole and our sins will be forgiven.

Copyright 1998 – 2016 Dennis J. Smock
Daily Living Ministries, Inc.
http://www.dailylivingministries.org
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