How would today be different if I really BELIEVED God?
Sometimes my emotional ups and downs make we wonder if I really believe God’s promises.
In my heart, I know I believe in Him, but do I really believe Him?
If I actively BELIEVE God, then I’ll trust He’s working everything out for good today – even though big expenses have drained our savings account and our son needed emergency oral surgery last week.
If I intentionally BELIEVE God, I won’t be anxious today when little inconveniences get in my way. Instead I’ll turn to Him for peace and I’ll thank Him in advance for helping me accomplish what has to be done.
If I truly BELIEVE God, then I’ll go to bed on time tonight, because He doesn’t want me to stay up late working endlessly trying to get it all done. Jesus says He wants to give me the gift of rest.
How could your day be different, if you really BELIEVED God?
- How would your outlook be different?
- How would your relationships be impacted?
I don’t know about you, but I don’t often realize Im not believing God. I need something to help me recognize and redirect my thoughts.
For instance, I’ve said “My life is too hard” to myself, my husband and my God quite often the past few weeks. We’ve just had one thing after the other going on around our house :). And if I believe that my life IS too hard…
- I get overwhelmed and want to quit. That’s my point of belief. Will I give in or will I grab a verse from God’s Word to believe and help me remember God promises to be with me; to give me strength and time to accomplish His purposes that day.
- I get courage to keep going when I focus on His truth over my feelings and choose to really believe Him. And somehow my active believing opens His acts of providing {or my eyes of seeing} and I end up with all I need to get through my days, my dilemmas and my doubts.
As I wrote my A Confident Heart Devotional book, I kept thinking about this and I realized: I need a new thought map.
I included a “When I say…God says…” statement {like the one above} at the end of every devotion to help me {and hopefully you} replace OUR thoughts with GOD’s thoughts!
That way, we find ourselves lost, stuck or struggling we can turn to God’s truth and remember to BELIEVE.
How could YOUR day or week be different it you really believed God today?
Click “share your thoughts” below and do just that. When you do, you’ll be entered to win one of 3 copies of my new A Confident Heart Devotional with 60-days of encouragement and truth to help you really believe God.
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Ive been dealing with clinical depression for the past year and i dont want to medicate it just because i dont like medicine. but with prayer and asking God how can this be different, how can i change my feelings towards you God, lately i have been very needy very ugly and upright mad at God i felt like he left me and no matter how much i cried and asked for help my answers were not yet. i have a lot of unforgiveness in my heart and God was trying to get me to work it out and i was being that rebellious child. and was hold that close to my heart. i Thnak GOd for this trail right now and i have to remember to let him fight for me and not try to take on anything like forgiving into my own hands. God has shown me my faults and im glad he has cuz not only am i hurting myself im dragging my family with me.
I have been struggling with this for quite a while now. Sadly, it seems that I just believe in God’s existence and in the salvation He offers to mankind.
I am trying to recite daily a pledge I learned from Beth Moore:
God is who He says He is.
God can do what He says He can do.
I am who God says I am.
I can do all things through Christ
God’s Word is alive and active in me.
I’m believing God.
Merry Christmas Rachel. We don’t know one another but I felt compelled to send a “thank you” for this daily pledge! I’ve written it on my index cards that I carry with me as reminders of God’s love, promises, etc…when I face the world.
Blessings…
How timely is God’s plan that I read this post now! Having just been diagnosed with yet another sinus infection, merely 10 months post sinus surgery, I have felt so defeated and incapable of just doing life, one day at a time. However, my God is good, my Healer is mighty, my Rest is in Him. Thank you for the reminder and opportunity for grace and peace!
I LOVE this!! I find that even though I am in pain and fatigued every day(from chronic illnesses) and even though my husband lost his job and even though we lost our home, that it is those times that I sing worship music to God, or those times I watch a church service online, or those times I do a Bible study or just read the Bible, God comes so close to me that all those things instead of not mattering, they matter more, but in the sense that God comforts me and shows me how He can now use that to bring others(including myself) to Him!!! But even with this there are still times that in the middle of the day or night that all the stresses and worries and pains get to me, and I am always looking for something just lke that card you wrote!
If I really believed God: then anything that came my way I would kow that God was stronger and that in God I can then overcome it too! I would know that even if I never was cured thi side of Heaven, that God promises me a future with no more pain or tears!
Thank you for sharing this!!! I can only imagine the things we could do if we just put God’s Word up against all of life’s problems!
“And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes: and death shall be no more, nor mourning, nor crying, nor sorrow shall be any more, for the former things are passed away.”- Revelation 21:4
Praying for continued healing & strength. Would love to win the drawing! 🙂
Thank you Renee for helping me recognize gods promises by changing my negative thoughts with God’s word.
1Peter5:9
Remind me to stand firm and alert.
41:10 do not be afraid I’m with you.
Isaiah 43:19
Behold I’m doing a new thing.
Thank you Jesus because you are with me. I’m not afraid. I will stand firm and alert waiting for what you will do in my life.
Allot of times I say I can’t do this …I am not strong enough…then God says but those who hpe in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not faint. Isaiah 40: 31
If I really believed God, then I truly could do all things through Christ who gives me strength. If I truly believed God, I could be content, no matter what. If I truly believed God, then I would know that ALL things really will work together for good. Thank you for this thought provoking question. God bless you for being so real.
If I really believed God…. Wow, that says a lot. For me if I really believed God I would have thanksgiving on my lips and rest in His continual beauty and since I am made in His image I would rest in my continual beauty that comes from knowing the Lord, spending time with Him and embracing the fact that I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
If I really believed God, I would rest in the fact that what I make happen for others, God will make happen for me-He will put me on others hearts the same way He puts others on my heart. I would trust Him as my way maker and get out of my own way. I would stand in awe that the King of the Universe wants me, and I want Him. 🙂
This book has challenged me, ripped me open, comforted me, and has given me hope.
It is giving me the courage to take the next steps towards understanding God’s unconditional
love and delight in me, Thank you also, for also making this available on the on-line book study.
Sincerely, Yo
Thank you, thank you, thank you! This has really spoken to me ~ I feel like God is reminding me that He is near. I need to focus more on Him then my troubles. Life has been so turned upside these past 3 years & there are days that I feel so lost. I need to find something to get me back on track & focusing on Jesus. Thank you.
When in the mist of a trial, I remember something I read in Charles Stanley’s devotional a couple of years ago…”when you are in the fiery furnace, remember…God’s hand is on the thermostat and His eye is on the clock”.
If I really believed God in my circumstances, I would trust His word that says I am made FREE in Christ Jesus and I would walk in obedience to His will…and be healed. I am overweight, have diabetes, Meniere’s with profound hearing loss, vision decreasing as I age (I’m 60)…I may currently “have” these issues, but they don’t have to “have” me! I know God is bigger than ALL these things and I need to pray and obey! He says “if you love me, you will obey me” and I am lax in the obedience department. I want o change that and am willing to surrender…now!
I imagine my life would FEEL very different for me if I really believed. When the fear comes (and it always does) about the small things…how will I get it all done today? to the big things…..am I making parenting mistakes that will have lifetime consequences for my children? I imagine that I would be stronger inside and be able to push the fear away. If I really believed that God is my advocate, I imagine I might be able to shut my mouth in a disagreement instead of needing to “defend” myself and pushing an argument one step further. If I really believed, I imagine the nagging voice in the back of my mind that reminds me of my mistakes and failures would finally be silent. I would hope that in this place of belief, one day grace would overflow from me to my husband, children, friends, and others, that would bring joy and peace to the chaos of life. That’s how I imagine life would be different. I wonder if I am not there because I don’t do the work of praying and believing enough, or if this is just a journey towards that place and no one ever really gets there all the time. I do know I would like to really believe God all the time.
This was such a timely post for me. I know but often find myself not believing because I see things positively happening in others lives and I feel I have been praying over and over for the same things without change. Daily I seek to let my concerns go but much like Paul I do the very thing I don’t want to do knowing full well what I should! Oh, the road of good intentions….
I read a different devotional that did this and I hadn’t seen one like it until I just read your excerpt. As women I think we get caught up in trying to be everything to everyone and forget that God has it all under control! God’s word provides strength and gives us that BELIEF in Him! Thank you!
Whenever I feel overwhelmed or stressed, I know I’m not believing God in my circumstances. When I am truly trusting that He “knows what He’s doing”, I get this inner peace, even in the midst of some very trying times. Those are the times I’ve looked back on and thought, “there is no way I could have ever made it through that on my own; God HAD to have been carrying me”. It’s not easy to trust. Sometimes I’m not so sure whether I really start out believing at first or whether I’ve just gotten so tired of trying to hold on myself that I just surrender and say “God I can’t do this anymore” and then He shows me, He can. This, in turn, causes my heart to believe, “of course You can”. “Sorry, God!” 🙂
One thing that I have been struggling with lately is the idea that God wants the best for us. I don’t remember the verse, but there is a verse about how we shouldn’t worry because God even cares for the birds, making sure they have enough to eat, so of course we will care for us. Another verse talks about how he has good plans for us, plans not to harm us. How do I explain that to my kids when they ask me about starving children in third world countries? Even here in the U.S. there are hungry people, people who are loosing their homes, schools being shot up. I tell my girls “God has a plan” and “His ways are not our ways”, but my faith is weak in this area. How can we trust is word when we see what is going on this world? I’m trying to believe in His promises, but it can be difficult.
If I really believed God, I would believe He will take care of those I love when I am not there. I will believe that He has plans for them plans to prosper them and not to harm them. Plans to give them hope and a future. And I will be peaceful and rest in believing that.
Praying for your recovery from this current illness! So blessed by your writing and your posts. I struggle with self doubt way too frequently. I believe God is trying to refocus my energy on Him instead of my worries. 🙂 Thank you for your honesty and for believing!
If I truly believed in God, I would not have spent 2/3 of the day today crying! I have been telling God the same thing lately; life is just too hard. I think even the sweet cashier and bag boy at the grocery store today could tell something was wrong. They both, in a more sympathetic tone, told me to have a good day. With life’s struggles, the demands of work, the feelings of inadequacy as a working mother and the overall question of is any of this going to get better, I have to admit that I do struggle with truly believing God in these circumstances. I question Him as to why I do not see Him in that very moment of feeling the most at need. Your blog was one I had to reread to soak in the truth in how I should combat those times of true depression over the state of my life at the moment it all comes crashing in. It usually happens when I’m utterly exhausted (like today). What I have learned over the years is how faithful He is to show his presence in my life, especially when I call out to Him. He is such a loving Father! Tonight I had a wonderful time of fellowship with my family and small group (Women’s Bible Study) around a bonfire listening to praise music. We were also packing shoe boxes for Project Merry Christmas. Being at peace in His creation, and watching the children pack those shoe boxes brought the peace and rest that I so desperately needed. Thank you, Renee, for being open and sharing your struggles. Thank you for comforting with the same comfort in which you have been comforted. Praying for you and your sweet family.