Daniel,
Chapter 3, Verse 40-42
40 So let our sacrifice be in your presence
today and find favor before you; for those who trust in you cannot be put to
shame. 41 And now we follow you with our whole
heart, we fear you and we seek your face.
Do not put us to shame, 42 but deal with
us in your kindness and great mercy.
Has
your way of living been less than you wanted? Well? Welcome to the human
condition. Emotions are what being human is about. Imagine the emotions of
Peter after the resurrection. If your emotions or sinfulness despite your best
efforts have left you flat. You are human. Remember the disciples on the road
to Emmaus; they were at left flat at the loss of the Christ. Like Peter they
felt they could have done more. Today walk with our Lord tell Him all.
In
a sermon by Rev. Margaret Bullitt-Jonas she states:
“Put
away the gods that your ancestors served...” Joshua declares. Doing that
requires an act of self-examination. Spend at least five minutes with each
question; even if all you do is listen to your heart.
·
What
are the gods that I serve?
·
What
does my bank statement or my credit card statement say about my values?
·
What
does the way I spend my free time say about what matters most to me?
·
How
does the way that I treat family-members and co-workers, neighbors and friends
show which gods I serve?
·
To
what do I give my best, most focused attention and care?
·
What
do I Really care about?
·
What
motives really drive me?
·
What
goals really draw me forward?
·
Are
there compulsive patterns of thought or behavior to which I am excessively
attached?
You and I can go to church and
say very sincerely that we worship God, but in the hurly-burly of daily life
there are all kinds of lesser gods that tug at us and clamor for our attention
and our devotion.[1]
My dear brothers and sisters, not
only is prayer very powerful; even more, it’s of the utmost necessity for
overcoming the enemies of our salvation. Look at all the saints: They weren’t
content with watching and fighting to overcome the enemies of their salvation
and with keeping
well away from all that could offer them temptation. They
passed their whole lives in prayer, not only the day, but very often the whole
night as well. Yes, my dear children, we watch over ourselves and all the
motions of our hearts in vain, and in vain we avoid temptation, if we don’t
pray. If we don’t continually resort to prayer, all our other ways will be of
no use at all to us, and we’ll be overcome. We won’t find any sinner converted
without turning to prayer. We won’t find one persevering without depending
heavily on prayer. Nor will we ever find a Christian who ends up damned whose
downfall didn’t begin with a lack of prayer. We can see, too, how much the
Devil fears those who pray, since there’s not a moment of the day when he
tempts us more than when we’re at prayer. He does everything he possibly can to
prevent us from praying. When the Devil wants to make someone lose his soul, he
starts out by inspiring in him a profound distaste for prayer. However good a
Christian he may be, if the Devil succeeds in making him either say his prayers
badly or neglect them altogether, he’s certain to have that person for himself.
Yes, my dear brothers and sisters, from the moment that we neglect to pray, we
move with big steps towards hell. We’ll never return to
God if we don’t resort to prayer.
ST. JOHN VIANNEY
Despite West Point Military Academy’s
rigorous selection process, one in five students drop out by graduation day. A
sizeable number leave the summer before freshman year, when cadets go through a
rigorous program called “Beast.” Beast consists of extreme physical, mental,
and social challenges that are designed to test candidates’ perseverance. University
of Pennsylvania psychologist Angela Duckworth conducted a study in which she
sought to determine which cadets would make it through the Beast program. The
rigorous interviews and testing that cadets went through to get into West Point
in the first place told Angela that IQ and talent weren’t the deciding factors.
So, Angela developed her own test to determine which cadets had the mental
strength to conquer the Beast. She called it the “Grit Scale,” and it was a
highly accurate predictor of cadet success. The Grit Scale measures mental
strength, which is that unique combination of passion, tenacity, and stamina
that enables you to stick with your goals until they become a reality. To
increase your mental strength, you simply need to change your outlook. When
hard times hit, people with mental strength suffer just as much as everyone
else. The difference is that they understand that life’s challenging moments
offer valuable lessons. In the end, it’s these tough lessons that build the
strength you need to succeed. Developing mental strength is all about
habitually doing the things that no one else is willing to do. If you aren’t
doing the following things on a regular basis, you should be, for these are the
habits that mentally strong people rely on.
1. You have to fight when you
already feel defeated.
A reporter once asked Muhammad Ali how many sit-ups he does every day. He
responded, “I don’t count my sit-ups, I only start counting when it starts
hurting, when I feel pain, cause that’s when it really matters.” The same
applies to success in the workplace. You always have two choices when things
begin to get tough: you can either overcome an obstacle and grow in the process
or let it beat you. Humans are creatures of habit. If you quit when things get
tough, it gets that much easier to quit the next time. On the other hand, if
you force yourself to push through a challenge, the strength begins to grow in
you.
2. You have to delay
gratification. There was a
famous Stanford experiment in which an administrator left a child in a room
with a marshmallow for 15 minutes. Before leaving, the experimenter told the
child that she was welcome to eat it, but if she waited until he returned
without eating it, she would get a second marshmallow. The children that were
able to wait until the experimenter returned experienced better outcomes in
life, including higher SAT scores, greater career success, and even lower body
mass indexes. The point is that delay of gratification and patience are
essential to success. People with mental strength know that results only materialize
when you put in the time and forego instant gratification.
3. You have to make mistakes,
look like an idiot, and try again — without even flinching. In a recent study at the College of
William and Mary, researchers interviewed over 800 entrepreneurs and found that
the most successful among them tend to have two critical things in common:
they’re terrible at imagining failure and they tend not to care what other
people think of them. In other words, the most successful entrepreneurs put no
time or energy into stressing about their failures as they see failure as a
small and necessary step in the process of reaching their goals.
4. You have to keep your
emotions in check. Negative
emotions challenge your mental strength every step of the way. While it’s
impossible not to feel your emotions, it’s completely under your power to
manage them effectively and to keep yourself in control of them. When you let
your emotions overtake your ability to think clearly, it’s easy to lose your
resolve. A bad mood can make you lash out or stray from your chosen direction
just as easily as a good mood can make you overconfident and impulsive.
5. You have to make the calls
you’re afraid to make. Sometimes we
have to do things we don’t want to do because we know they’re for the best in the
long-run: fire someone, cold-call a stranger, pull an all-nighter to get the
company server back up, or scrap a project and start over. It’s easy to let the
looming challenge paralyze you, but the most successful people know that in
these moments, the best thing they can do is to get started right away. Every
moment spent dreading the task subtracts time and energy from actually getting
it done. People that learn to habitually make the tough calls stand out like
flamingos in a flock of seagulls.
6. You have to trust your gut. There’s a fine line between trusting
your gut and being impulsive. Trusting your gut is a matter of looking at
decisions from every possible angle, and when the facts don’t present a clear
alternative, you believe in your ability to make the right decision; you go
with what looks and feels right.
7. You have to lead when no
one else follows. It’s easy to
set a direction and to believe in yourself when you have support, but the true
test of strength is how well you maintain your resolve when nobody else
believes in what you’re doing. People with mental strength believe in
themselves no matter what, and they stay the course until they win people over
to their ways of thinking.
8. You have to focus on the
details even when it makes your mind numb. Nothing tests
your mental strength like mind-numbing details, especially when you’re tired.
The more people with mental strength are challenged, the more they dig in and
welcome that challenge, and numbers and details are no exception to this.
9. You have to be kind to
people who are rude to you. When people
treat you poorly, it’s tempting to stoop to their level and return the favor.
People with mental strength don’t allow others to walk all over them, but that
doesn’t mean they’re rude to them, either. Instead, they treat rude and cruel
people with the same kindness they extend to everyone else, because they don’t
allow another person’s negativity to bring them down.
10. You have to be accountable
for your actions, no matter what. People are far
more likely to remember how you dealt with a problem than they are to recall
how you created it in the first place. By holding yourself accountable, even
when making excuses is an option, you show that you care about results more
than your image or ego.
Daily Devotions
·
Manhood of
the Master-Day 3 week 11
·
Please
pray for me and this ministry
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