The Ripple Effect

This morning I picked up Streams in the Desert, a 366-day devotional, with hopes of grasping a "God-nugget" just for me. I did.

Yesterday on facebook, a lifelong family friend commented on my recent YouTube video in which I sang and shared a very brief testimony. My testimony centers around the Christian example my mother showed all before passing away in 1996. He, now a nurse, commented that he still shares the story of my mother's complete faith in God to heal her in spite of her pain from cancer. He also went on to say he could still hear her singing and playing the piano in his mind.

My mother was a wonderful lady who LOVED God and, in a gentle way, let everyone know it. Now, 14 years after her passing, a young man who was probably 10-years-old when she died, is commenting to strangers about her testimony of faith. Wow.

"Do the most everyday and insignificant tasks knowing that God can see. If you live with difficult people, win them over through love. If you once made a great mistake in life, do not allow it to cloud the rest of your life, but by locking it secretly in your heart, make it yield strength and character.

We are doing more good than we know. The things we do today - sowing seeds or sharing simple truths of Christ - people will someday refer to as the first things that prompted them to think of Him. For my part, I will be satisfied not to have some great tombstone over my grave but just to know that common people will gather there once I am gone and say, "He was a good man. He never performed any miracles, but he told me about Christ, which lead me to know Him for myself." (George Matheson,Streams in the Desert, February 24)

Today, you may encounter someone at work, school or the grocery store who doesn't know what Christ "looks like". Pray for wisdom and discernment and live your life to represent Him...the eternal ripple effects are endless.

And there came a lion...

This morning I read from the devotional "Streams in the Desert." Some devotions resonate more than others. I can't shake this one. So...I thought I would post it. I hope you get something out of it, too!


"It is a source of inspiration and strength to us to remember how the youthful David trusted God. Through his faith in the Lord, he defeated a lion and a bear and later overthrew the mighty Goliath. When the lion came to destroy his flock it came as a wonderful opportunity for David. If he had faltered and failed, he would have missed God's opportunity for him and probably would never have been the Lord's chosen king of Israel.

"And then there came a lion" (I Samuel 17:34). Normally we think of a lion not as a special blessing from the Lord but only as a reason for alarm. Yet the lion was God's opportunity in disguise. Every difficulty and every temptation that comes our way, if we receive it correctly, is God's opportunity.

When a "lion" comes to your life, recognize it as an opportunity from the Lord, no matter how fierce it may outwardly seem. May the Lord open our eyes to see Him, even in temptations, trials, dangers and misfortunes."


What's your lion story? Can you look back on your life and recognize a scary situation or temptation that changed the course of your journey? Maybe you're facing a potentially deadly attacker and wonder if you will make it through this one. Stand strong. Through Christ, fight the fight and know...God can use ALL things for His glory and we are MORE THAN CONQUERORS through Him.

Don't Forget God

Deuteronomy 8:11-20 (The Message)

"Make sure you don't forget God, your God, by not keeping his commandments, his rules and regulations that I command you today. Make sure that when you eat and are satisfied, build pleasant houses and settle in, see your herds and flocks flourish and more and more money come in, watch your standard of living going up and up—make sure you don't become so full of yourself and your things that you forget God, your God,

the God who delivered you from Egyptian slavery;
the God who led you through that huge and fearsome wilderness, those desolate, arid badlands crawling with fiery snakes and scorpions;
the God who gave you water gushing from hard rock;
the God who gave you manna to eat in the wilderness, something your ancestors had never heard of, in order to give you a taste of the hard life, to test you so that you would be prepared to live well in the days ahead of you.

If you start thinking to yourselves, "I did all this. And all by myself. I'm rich. It's all mine!"—well, think again. Remember that God, your God, gave you the strength to produce all this wealth so as to confirm the covenant that he promised to your ancestors—as it is today.

If you forget, forget God, your God, and start taking up with other gods, serving and worshiping them, I'm on record right now as giving you firm warning: that will be the end of you; I mean it—destruction. You'll go to your doom—the same as the nations God is destroying before you; doom because you wouldn't obey the Voice of God, your God."

YOUR JOURNEY…

Take some time to write out what God has done for you. Let it be an exercise in remembering His goodness and grace in your life!

Janet Roller - Need Motivation?

This motivational message was delivered at the SC WIC Annual Meeting in 2009. For more information about having Janet at your event, contact her at www.janetroller.com.

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com