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January 7 - April 29, 2025
What we look for is what we will see. What we see determines our perspective. And our perspective becomes our reality.
My ability to heal cannot depend on anyone’s choices but my own.
“For me to move forward, for me to see beyond this current darkness, is between me and the Lord. I don’t need to wait on others to do anything or place blame or shame that won’t do anyone any good. I simply must obey whatever God is asking of me right now. God has given me a new way to walk. And God has given me a new way to see. It’s forgiveness. And it is beautiful.”
My ability to heal cannot be conditional on the other person receiving adequate consequences for their disobedience but only on my obedience to trust God’s justice whether I ever see it or not.
My healing is my choice.
I wanted to know I was accepted.
Any sacrifice placed in the hand of God, God can bring good from.
The experiences I have affect the perceptions I form.
The perceptions I form eventually become the beliefs I carry. The beliefs I carry determine what I see. My eyes can only see what’s really there—unless the perceptions informing my vision change what I believe I see.
Basically, files of proof left unattended turn into grudges and resentments that weigh us down and skew our perspectives.
•Are there positive qualities about myself that can emerge if I choose to move forward without holding on to grudges?
These feelings of disillusionment left unattended start to seem like facts about God when our circumstances don’t turn like we believed they would.
God loves us too much to answer our prayers at any other time than the right time.
The most devastating spiritual crisis isn’t when we wonder why God isn’t doing something. It’s when we become utterly convinced He no longer cares.
What makes faith fall apart isn’t doubt. It’s becoming too certain of the wrong things.
Today is part of the story, but it’s not the whole story.
When I know help is coming in thirty minutes, twenty minutes, the next five minutes, I hold on. With God, it just seems mysterious at first and then cruel when long stretches of time pass with things maybe even getting worse instead of better.
The more we forgive, the more we can know we are right in step with God, no matter what direction our life goes.
forgiveness is always healing in the right direction.
He didn’t promise their grief would be taken away and replaced with joy. He promised the grief would turn into joy. The grief would produce the joy. The grief was a part of the journey, but it would not be the way it would all end.
And don’t miss that part of the script of the eventual resurrection was “forgiveness.” Some of the last words recorded that Jesus spoke were, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34).
With prayer, I’ve expected too little of God and too much of myself.
But when you love deeply, you are at the greatest risk of being hurt deeply.
Our reactions are manipulated by the lens of unresolved past hurts. Bitter lens. Bitter reaction.
“If our reaction is hysterical, it is historical.”
Resentment is usually attached to a specific person for a specific incident. Bitterness is usually the collective feeling of all our resentments.
Not forgiving someone isn’t teaching the other person a lesson, nor is it protecting you in any way. It’s making the choice to stay in pain.
The Lord’s Prayer reminds us what the human heart needs every day: we need God, we need to be forgiven, and we need to forgive. Forgiveness is supposed to be as much a part of our daily lives as eating and sleeping.
I can’t expect a perfection in others I’m not even capable of living out myself.
