Small Business Consulting

Posts Tagged ‘Inspirational Words’

“The peace of God which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” (Phil. 4:7 NIV)

With so many wars, terrorism attacks and prejudice, fear abounds in the hearts of many. Working full time and running the kids from one activity to another. Trying to keep up with the Jones’ or how society tells us we should be living. Our fast paced lifestyles make it hard to find rest and with peace being an elusive thing, even for many Christians.

So how do we go about finding this peace of God which transcends all understanding?

We find it first by recognizing Jesus as our source for peace.

“Peace I leave with you, my peace I give you. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” (John 14:27) Those were Jesus’ words to us before He joined our Father in Heaven. And in John 16:33 He says “I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” We should not be surprised at our trials in life. Instead, we need to watch where we put our focus. If we keep looking at our circumstances, worry and fear will abound in our hearts. If we choose to focus on Jesus, peace can abound in the midst of our trials. He is our source of peace.

It is never easy to keep our focus on Him, especially as we move through trials. In those difficult moments, how can we experience transcending peace? We learn to pursue it. This requires action and great effort on our part. Many times, we are not willing to put in the effort it takes; we choose instead to live our lives with worry and fear.

So how do we seek and pursue peace? We do this by reading and meditating on the Word of God since that is where Jesus, our source for peace, is found. As we meditate on the Word and hide it in our hearts, the Word of God is no longer just another book for us to read that doesn’t get applied. It becomes a living book with great power for us to live our lives by.

Finally, we must then let the peace of Christ rule in our hearts (Col. 3:15) on a daily basis. When we find ourselves in trouble, we need to trust in His Word over our circumstance. It isn’t easy to do but it will become easier the more we do it and find peace in the midst of our circumstances.

Because peace is not something we automatically gain once we become a Christian, nor is it something we will always have with us every moment of our day, it is something we need to work towards each and every day. When we choose to let the peace of Christ rule in our hearts instead of the dwelling on the circumstance, peace will no longer be an elusive thing to us.

Heavenly Father, I pray the Lord himself give us peace at all times and in every way (2 Thes. 3:16) giving us a heart at peace that gives life to the body. (Proverbs 14:30) Help us to seek and pursue it by meditating and hiding your Word within our hearts. Thank you for your powerful life giving Word, help us to choose to let the peace of Christ rule in our hearts over our circumstances each and every day. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

Closing Thoughts

If you find yourself always worrying and fearful, have you recognized Jesus as your source for peace?? And have you made an effort to seek after it by meditating and hiding the Word of God in your heart?? Next time you find yourself worrying or fearful choose to let the peace of Christ rule in your heart in each and every circumstance instead.

All my life I have never really cared much for food (the food that is good for you anyways) nor did I understand the importance of meal planning when it was just me.  So when I began to date a cook I thought it was great.  One day he overheard me telling a friend my favorite dessert is blueberry cheesecake and surprised me after church one Sunday with one that he made from scratch the night before.  Needless to say, I knew I had a keeper at that point and we have now been married over ten years.

Since getting married and starting our own family, I now see the importance of meal planning but it hasn’t been easy by any means for me and there have been plenty of times I wanted to throw in the towel on meal planning. To be honest, I had hoped my husband would take over this department since he was obviously so much better at it then me.

Well, after ten years of struggling terribly to learn how to cook meals everyone loves and get this meal planning thing down, I realized I needed to stop trying to do it all by myself.  I decided it needed to be made into a family affair if I was ever to be successful at it.  I knew we needed to start eating healthier and stop spending so much on food unnecessarily from our eating out and last minute trips to the store, but I also knew it wouldn’t happen without first learning how to plan our meals.

I tried to teach everyone to eat their dinner regardless if they like it or not rather then waste food but it hasn’t made for a very happy husband and kids in our household and often the dinner I prepared would just get thrown out and we’d make a trip to McDonalds.  So considering my kids and husband are very vocal about what they like and don’t like I decided we all should take turns choosing what’s for dinner and the person who chooses dinner for the night gets to help me with the preparation and cooking.

I have been doing this almost a month now and my daughter has been loving it and my husband has also been helping out a great deal by telling me what he wants to eat in the upcoming weeks rather then telling me to surprise him. Whenever I would surprise him  in the past, more times then not, it isn’t what he wanted to eat for dinner.  My son on the other hand, I still need to work on.

Some of the benefits we’ve received so far from making meal planning a family affair have been:

* There hasn’t been as much complaining about what’s for dinner.
* We haven’t eaten out as much thus cutting down on our unnecessary food spending.
* Me and my daughter have enjoyed more time in the kitchen together then ever before.
* It has created a family team spirit in regards to doing the meal planning.
* It has alleviated a tremendous amount of stress and pressure on me to make dinners that everyone likes.

It may not be the perfect solution but it has been a tremendous step forward in getting meal planning down for our family. It has given me hope that I might just begin to enjoy meal planning and cooking. Wouldn’t that be a miracle?