Forged By Faith

Ecclesiastes 9:17 NIV Wisdom's power doesn't rely on quantity of words or the loudness with which they're spoken. In fact, wisdom demands a peaceful platform from which to deliver its message because it genuinely wants people to be able to hear the message without the excessive noise that much of the world is lost within. Rather than just being heard, wisdom desires people to actually listen. I've always been a quiet person, sometimes almost to what many would perceive as awkward. But I've always thought that the world was already loud enough, and I just don't feel the need to add to the noise. I guess I just don't have that need to be seen or heard or to make my presence known. Personally, I don't really care to be the center of attention. I don't need an audience hanging on my every word. This ride I'm on has never been about me, and as I've grown older, I've realized that has been my mindset all along, just didn't ever really stop ...

Ecclesiastes 9:17 NIV This is another incredible bit of advice that I think we’d all do well to keep in mind moving forward. It seems that the one who talks the loudest is the one who is heard the most. The one who makes the most noise is the one that makes the biggest difference. Whoever manages to yell the loudest is the one who has the biggest, most important, and most powerful message to share. Or at least that’s how we’ve all learned to see it. But maybe volume is hiding a lack of value. That’s something that we’ve seen first-hand in recent years. A lot of screaming and yelling. A lot of talking with very little being said. A lot of enraged argumentation with little to no progress or purpose. It’s just like everyone wants to be the one who makes the next big ripple in our society and they think that being louder and more obnoxious is the way to get it done. But being loud and making a spectacle of ourselves doesn’t mean our message is any more important. In fact, if we feel the ne...

James 1:19 NIV What's the first thing someone does when you tell them to not look down. They look down! Our world has pretty much done the same thing with the message of this verse. We've gone the opposite way. Not really sure why we do the opposite of what we're asked to do, but when it comes to this one, it's undoubtedly caused far more problems than solutions. These days far too many are extremely quick to be angry. They're triggered by anything they don't agree with. It's as if they actively go looking for things to be offended by just so they can scream and yell some more. Not many are slow to speak. Most never stop speaking. I guess they think that the way to prove their point or win some foolish battle is to say more or say it louder. And as for listening, well, there's little hope of that period. And yet we wonder why things aren't getting better? Why do we still have so much strife and division? Why haven't we figured out a way to calm t...

Psalm 46:10 NIV Running ahead with this string of hope and peace as we head toward the new in front of us. Nothing we ever face will change who God is or what He has planned. None of the challenges we face up ahead will ever catch Him by surprise or force Him to alter His plans for us. The future He has in store will be fulfilled no matter how hard life or this world tries to change it. He is King. He is Lord. He is out Father and He always will be. We need to gear our lives to living for Him by following Him. Spend your time thinking about who you are in Christ and not who you may be in the eyes of anyone else. Devote time to reading His word and humbly accepting the truth found in those pages. Make your faith a priority and never let anything change that. As this verse is teaching us He will reign victorious when all is said and done. The world might not care about Him or His ways. Some people may mock our faith and laugh at our desire to live good and wholesome lives. We may not fit...

James 1:19 NIV Everything we do is open to interpretation. Unfortunately, sometimes things like anger and frustration cloud our ability to think clearly and we take things wrong. It's amazing how fast things get blown out of proportion all over a misunderstanding. You'd think that we would learn to slow down, calm down, make sure we have everything understood clearly, and then respond. Alas, I reckon we're just sometimes too impatient to take the slow and careful route. What we need to understand is that we're all human. Sure, we say and do things that we don't mean without thinking about them. We run ourselves headlong into messes and problems that simply wouldn't exist if we slowed down a bit. But people also take things out of context. They allow their rage or stress or whatever else to cloud their judgement and blind them to other perspectives. The point is that we're all human and we all make mistakes. So maybe we ought to give each other a little room....

Lamentations 3:26 NIV Seeing as how I'm a very laidback and simple person, I often find myself looking at the world around me and just not understanding how or why people make things so hard on themselves. Personally, I try to make my life as simple and uncomplicated as I can. And, for me at least, getting all worried and stressed out all the time only prevents me from doing that. I guess I don't really understand the way that our world has made stress and worry a couple of our biggest hobbies. I know that I've been talking about this for a day or two now, but there's just no point in getting ourselves all worked up over things that we don't know. We don't know what's going to happen from one day to the next so I really don't see the point in fretting about what the future may hold. Guys, God's got this. That seems to be a point that I like to share rather frequently, but it's the absolute truth. He will always take care of us. Look, He calls us ...

Matthew 6:34 NIV Been thinking a lot about how much we tend to worry about things in life. We sit around and dread what tomorrow may bring. Eventually we can turn this beautiful journey into a trip through a haunted house with various terrors around every corner. So today I wanted to encourage everyone to slow down and start living a little more in the here and now. We miss so many incredible things because our focus is on what comes next. Whether it's our goals that we're working toward or the inevitable changes that we dread coming, there is always something on our minds that keep us from enjoying the simple moments in between. And that really is a shame. Life isn't the big moments. Life's what happens in between them! So while we're living in the future and trying to stay one step ahead, we're missing out on the life that we've been given now. We're so worried about the next day, the next week, or five years down the line that we skip this day that we...

Psalm 46:10 NIV Stillness. Quiet. Tranquility. Those are some rare things in life anymore. So much of our day-to-day life is all about the rush. Everybody's running around like crazy trying to stay ahead of things. We're all so worried about potentially falling behind in this man-made rat-race that we inevitably forget all about the peace and calm that we once prioritized.  My family and I have really gotten into the little evening drives out to a local Civil War battlefield near where we live. There's just this amazing peace that you find once you get out of the city and out of cell coverage. No checking emails. No getting caught up on social media. No worrying about what we're missing or what the latest headline happens to be. Just calm. I think we get so caught up in trying to be the best we can be that we forget to just be. We forget to live. We forget to take time to break away from everything. And in doing so, we allow the things that bring us peace and happiness ...

James 1:2 NIV Our post yesterday talked about how faith isn't about asking God to take away the storms but to help us find peace within them. My Mom mentioned this one in her comment on yesterday's post, and yeah, it goes perfectly! In my opinion, this is one of those keys to life. It's one of those secrets to peace and happiness. In truth, it's not all that hard to find joy in our lives, we just tend to go about it the wrong way. I love how it says to find it purely joyous to face trials. What, are you nuts? Trials aren't any fun. They're not enjoyable. They're not comfortable. So where's the joy? Well, the joy is in realizing that those trials are chances to grow. It's in learning that we have plenty to learn and a God that is always trying to help us do so. There's the joy! Not in seeing the bad in things, but knowing there's good to be found somewhere. It's easy to gripe and complain when we're in the middle of life's messy ti...

Matthew 8:25 NIV How many times have you prayed for God to calm the storm's raging in your life? If you're like literally everyone else, then you've probably done it more times than you can remember. Nobody likes the uncomfortable moments that we face in life, so we almost instinctively start asking for it to just be taken away. We only see the difficulty, the fear, the worry whenever we're in the middle of the turbulent times. We rarely think about why we're facing them. Yesterday's Random Thought over on the blog that I've started talked about how we might be approaching this common practice the wrong way. Instead of asking God to always calm the storm blowing wildly around us, maybe we should be more worried about calming the fear welling up inside. Maybe it's not about the storm but about learning to not let it instill doubt in our hearts. You know, I honestly believe that none of us face anything in life without a purpose. There's a reason for e...