by Marie | Dec 3, 2025 | Archives, Inspiration
ANGER IS often the product of frustrated expectations. We expect something, and when we don’t get it we end up disappointed and angry. And our anger leads to a dysfunctional personal, spiritual and relational lifestyle. Frustrated expectations are often rooted in early experiences with our parents, siblings and authority figures. Perhaps our needs for love, acceptance, security and significance were never met; then later we experienced broken commitments in marriage, business and friendships. Ultimately, smouldering anger becomes a weapon in our arsenal, threatening to hurt everything and everybody we care about. We become bitter people—avoided, excluded and lonely. God instructs us to ‘get rid of all bitterness’, so that ‘no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many’ (Hebrews 12:15 NIV). How do we obey His command? 1) By accepting and acting on His Word. Without a Scriptural foundation, old emotions will repeatedly undermine your efforts to overcome them. ‘Get rid of all bitterness’ is an order that implies the promise of success when you obey it. 2) By choosing to be released from bitterness. Choice isn’t an emotion, and it doesn’t require an emotional response. God won’t control your emotions, but neither will He let them influence Him. Believing God’s Word and making the choice to obey it always results in success. So start strengthening your will
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by Marie | Dec 2, 2025 | Archives, Inspiration
Picture a big ship being worked on in a dry dock. Beneath the waterline is all the ‘junk’ it has picked up during its voyages. Nobody can see it, but an experienced captain can feel it because his ship lacks the ‘oomph’ it once had. As a result, companies complain that it takes too long to get goods to their customers, and the ship’s owners are unhappy because it hurts profit margin in a competitive market. The effort required to remove the ‘junk’ is back-breaking and time-consuming, but there’s no other way to do it. Finally, after months of hard work, the dry dock is flooded with water, the gates open, and the big vessel heads out to sea and back into the profit column. Writing to the believers at Corinth, Paul says, ‘Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves’ (2 Corinthians 13:5 NKJV). Let’s be honest; it’s easier to examine your neighbour than to examine yourself, or to talk about what you once accomplished rather than what you’re accomplishing now. Are you slowing down? Are you losing spiritual momentum? Are you in the profit or loss column? You’ll find the answer under the waterline where only God and you can see. Carelessness, a critical spirit, compromise, conformity to the world, and coldness of heart:
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by Marie | Dec 1, 2025 | Archives, Inspiration
The Disciples were overwhelmed by a sense of failure: ‘We have toiled all night and caught nothing’ (v. 5 NKJV). Look at them, washing their nets—the last thing fishermen do before they pack up and head for home. And that’s when Jesus showed up! He waits until you’ve reached the end of your rope, then He steps in. Why? Because as long as you think you can solve the problem on your own, you won’t reach for Him. Do you feel overwhelmed by failure today? Are you saying, ‘Lord, I tried so hard, but look at my marriage, my finances, my career. I’ve been mistreated and overlooked. Perhaps they’re right about me; maybe I’m not supposed to be blessed.’ No, Jesus can turn your situation around if you’ll go to Him and say what Peter said: ‘Master…because you say so, I will.’ Obedience, even when it doesn’t seem to make sense, is what leads to blessing. Notice what happened next: ‘They caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break’ (v. 6 NIV). On the other side of your decision to obey God waits a blessing so great that it’ll also touch the lives of those around you. One word changed everything—‘Master’. It’s an expression of worship. It’s an acknowledgment that He’s in control of the
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by Marie | Nov 29, 2025 | Archives, Inspiration
WHEN ASKED, ‘How do you grow old so gracefully?’ Alexandre Dumas replied, ‘Because I give all my time to it.’ If you’re over fifty, let your age be measured by your spiritual progress instead of a date on the calendar. How would you like to have these words engraved on your headstone? ‘Enoch lived…365 years. Enoch walked …with God; then he was no more, because God took him away’ (Genesis 5:23-24 NIV). Picture this: Enoch goes for a walk with God and when they reach a certain point, God says, ‘It’s closer to My house than yours, so just come home with Me.’ Like an old oak tree, a mature Christian’s roots have weathered life’s storms. But don’t take your wisdom to the grave with you; share it with people who’ll listen. And those who are wise will listen, because they recognise the foolishness of paying twice for the same information. Don’t retire—refocus. Victor Hugo once said, ‘Forty is old age to youth, fifty is youth to old age.’ With God, availability, not age, is what counts. The Bible says: ‘There was…a prophetess, Anna…she was eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshipped night and day, fasting and praying. Coming up to them (Mary and Joseph with the Christ child) at that very moment, she gave thanks to God and
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by Marie | Nov 28, 2025 | Archives, Inspiration
One of the greatest breakthroughs in modern psychology is the Law of Reversibility. It works like this: when you feel a certain way, you act accordingly. And when you don’t feel like doing something, but you do it anyway, that same dynamic creates the feeling consistent with your actions. Dallas Willard put it like this: ‘You can live opposite of what you profess, but you can’t live opposite of what you believe. Invariably what you believe is revealed by what you do.’ Because fear is a learned response, it can be unlearned. There are two kinds of courage. The first kind calls for action. President Andrew Jackson said, ‘Take time to deliberate, but when the time for action arrives, stop thinking and go in. One man with courage makes a majority.’ The second kind calls for patience: the tenacity to keep persevering after you’ve done your best and before you’ve seen results. Often the difference between a hero and a coward is that a hero hangs in there five minutes longer! When you run from intimidating situations, fear multiplies until eventually it controls your life. But when you tackle your problems head-on, ‘not in human wisdom but in the power of God’, your confidence rises until you reach a point where you’re no longer controlled by fear. Meditation: ‘Not in
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by Marie | Nov 27, 2025 | Archives, Inspiration
There are different kinds of fear. There’s the kind that warns you to stay away from fire. There’s the kind that cultivates respect for God (Psalms 2:11). Oswald Chambers said, ‘When you fear God, you don’t have to fear anything else.’ There’s fear that makes you feel helpless; sometimes it’s rooted in parental criticism or a bully’s threats, and although it’s groundless, it still haunts you. There’s the fear of failing, which, if left unchallenged, becomes the father of failure. Job said, ‘What I feared has come upon me’ (Job 3:25 NIV). There’s fear of the unknown, where your imagination runs amok. What if you never meet the ‘right person’, or you lose your job, or the biopsy confirms the worst? Over and over in His Word, God says, ‘Don’t be afraid…I am with you.’ Paul Tournier notes: ‘Life and faith always insist on moving on—and I cannot move forward without leaving something behind. The trapeze artist must let go of one trapeze at precisely the right moment and hover in the void before grabbing the other. Faith calls us out of our comfort zone…to learn new skills and minister in different ways.’ But we get uptight. We think, ‘What if God asks me to do something I can’t do?’ or ‘I don’t have the strength, wisdom, or faith.’ If
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