As you begin each day on your journey, remember your situations have a greater purpose: intimacy with God, character development, healing of relationships, and their overflow into loving and serving others. See yourself taking one step at a time to develop your daily habits of intimacy within your life experiences. Daily habits are also the steps that you take in any given situation to becoming a stronger, healthier, and wiser you...

I hope that you are developing more consistently your intimacy with God, inviting Him in on all of your life circumstances. Where you need to be truthful, you choose to tell yourself the truth; where you need to accept the grace of God, you receive the fullness of His love by His death for you; where you need to forgive, you forgive; where you need healing, you invite the Presence of Jesus to heal your heart; and where you need to grieve, you welcome the God of Comfort to sit with you. I hope that you...

Truth is like a life preserver. The purpose of a life preserver, of course, is to prevent drowning. If you are sent plunging into stormy waters, you will hang onto that life preserver because your life depends on it. Truth is every bit as essential to your well-being. Without truth at the core of your being and your belief system, you are vulnerable to distortions and deceptions. And when life throws you into an emotional, raging sea, truth will be your life preserver while you are waiting for rescue. Three truths are fundamental...

How willing are you to risk being open and vulnerable in sharing the hidden parts of your internal world with another human being?  With yourself?  With God? How often do you keep parts of you hidden: your dreams, desires, hurts, mistakes, sins, or struggles for fear of judgment or rejection? How often do you share only parts of you, because other parts of you have a Do Not Enter sign written on them, or they are locked away, and you don't believe you have the key to unlock them? How many times...

Life is a journey, a daily process towards change, growth, and betterment.  Results are not the only or primary aim. I want to present a broader perspective to you of growth-focus. We live in a culture that focuses almost exclusively on goals and results. Achieving a goal does give results which at times are needed. But if setting and achieving goals is the only way you proceed with your life, you will often get discouraged and quit. Goals have their purpose within the growth-focus, but your eyes must be focused on the growth, not...

It is important to understand that there is a real, live battle between God and the forces of darkness for your life. Peter communicates this in I Peter 5:8: …Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour (NIV.) In your sit place with Abba God, give Him permission to teach you and give you understanding of the way Satan influences you in your past and present hurts, disappointments, desires, attitudes, thoughts, emotions, choices, and relationships. I define "darkness" as...

As you position yourself in your sit place with God, hear Paul’s words: Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into His image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit (2 Corinthians 3:17, 18, NIV). It is wisdom to understand how...

There is great value in having a financial, health, or retirement plan to be prepared for the future. Most of us also want to be prepared for any unforeseen crisis that could occur, such as a job loss or serious health challenge. What we don’t prepare for in advance are the inevitable and sometimes devastating hurts and disappointments we will face during our lives. We tend, rather, to ignore the hurt and the pain and continue down the road or we get stuck in our emotions—neither response cares for the wound well. Thus, perhaps we can agree that a healing plan would be a great strategy for our personal lives to care for each of us daily or when any challenge enters into our world unexpectedly...