God did not create you to live a little life with little dreams, little goals, little passion, little influence. God thinks big. He thinks abundance. He thinks expansive. He told the Israelites, “I am bringing you into a wide land, a spacious land flowing with milk and honey.” God has something bigger, something better, something more rewarding in front of you. Don’t get comfortable where you are. It’s easy to think, “Well, God’s blessed me. I’m happy. I’m healthy. I have no complaints.” That’s good to always be grateful. You should learn to be happy where you are, but don’t settle where you are. God never performs His greatest victories in the past. They’re always in the future.
Remember today, you haven’t touched the surface of what God has in store for you. He’s going to open doors you never dreamed would open. He’s going to bring talent out of you that you didn’t know you had! You’re going to see explosive blessings that thrust you to a new level. Keep praying, keep hoping, keep believing and don’t settle where you are. Embrace the blessing God has in store for your future!
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Father, thank You for big dreams and visions for my life. I trust that You are taking me higher and leading me to increase, first in You, and then in my influence in the world around me. I refuse to settle and trust that You are at work in Jesus’ name! Amen.
Fix the Problem, Not the Blame
BY RICK WARREN — JULY 29, 2014
“You must also rid yourself of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips.” (Colossians 3:8 NIV)
You only have a certain amount of emotional energy. In a conversation where you’re trying to resolve conflict, you can either use that energy to fix the blame or you can use that energy to fix the problem. You don’t have enough energy to do both. So you’ve got to ask yourself what’s more important, to blame the other person or to resolve the conflict. Fix the problem, not the blame.
Every married couple needs some ground rules for fighting fair along with certain words you both agree not to use. There are some things you should never, ever say in a marriage — they become weapons of mass destruction.
During the Cold War, when the Soviet Union and the U.S. were at each other’s throats, the U.S. had thousands of intercontinental missiles aimed at the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union had thousands of intercontinental missiles aimed at us, too. Even when we were at the worst point in the Cold War and there was enormous tension, both sides still had enough sanity to say, some weapons we just aren’t going to use because they’re “MAD” — mutually assured destruction. If you use yours, we’re going to use ours, and we’re going to destroy each other, and there won’t be anything. So even when we were on opposite sides of an issue, we could at least agree not to use those weapons.
There are some personal weapons of mass destruction that should never be used in your marriage, like threatening divorce or threatening to walk out or bringing up somebody’s parents. You have to agree that no matter how upset you are with each other, those words are off limits, because they destroy the relationship by tearing down trust.
The Bible is very specific about what’s out of bounds. Colossians 3:8 says, “You must also rid yourself of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips” (NIV). Those are like weapons of mass destruction.
The reason we need to focus on fixing the problem and not the blame is because blaming is a form of judging, and only God has the right to judge. You’re not the judge. You can’t figure out anybody else’s motivation. You don’t know your own motivation most of the time! Only God knows. Let him be the judge.
Talk About It
- What are the “weapons of mass destruction” in your relationship(s)?
- Why is it important to set boundaries for “fighting fair” in a relationship?
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