Encouraging Words Devotional

What To Do In A Storm

Jesus was tired. He had taught large crowds of people who were gathered at the Sea of Galilee—crowds so large, in fact, that he taught from a boat to keep from being crushed.

Advice For A Procrastinator

The slogan on the t-shirt said, “Procrastinators, Unite—Tomorrow.”

Can you relate to that? Most of us are very good at putting off until tomorrow what we don’t want to do today. Some of us even go so far as to make lists of what we know we should do. We carefully arrange the tasks in order of importance—and then totally ignore the list and do what we wanted to do in the first place. I know, because I’m a procrastinator.

How To Keep Your Kids From Killing Each Other!

One of the issues of parenting that I hated the most was dealing with sibling rivalry. We have three children, and when they were kids at home, I certainly had my share of listening to them squabble and pick at each other. I hated it—maybe because I’m an only child and did not grow up fighting with brothers and sisters. Sometimes I wanted to walk out the door and not come back—at least for a while.

God Is Big Enough!

Do you want to give someone a unique gift? Starting at $25 you can name a star in your friend’s honor. If you enter “name a star” in your Internet browser, you’ll find a number of sites that offer to do just that. For $54 you can have a beautiful full color parchment certificate personalized with the star name, date and coordinates along with a chart that contains the location circled in red where the star is in the sky.

What God Thinks of You

When I was growing up, a friend of ours had a dog she named “Precious.”  My dad would almost get ill when he heard her call the dog by that name. She was a rather homely little animal—and besides, he reasoned, “Precious” is much too sentimental, gushy and syrupy a name for any dog.

How to Be in Perfect Shape

Most of us are not completely happy with how our bodies look. We’d like to shed a few pounds—without any effort, of course.  We wish we had more muscles or curves. Or maybe it’s more hair you would like. But what you have is what you’ve got, right?

Four Things I Learned as a Mother

I’m a grandmother now. All three of our kids have homes of their own and children of their own. I’m at the stage when it’s interesting to reminisce about the period of life when the children were younger and still at home. One of the great things about this is that you tend to forget how tired you were at the time and only remember the good times you had together.

Should You Be a Missionary?

How do you know whether you’re called to be a missionary? Do you wait until you hear an audible voice telling you to go, or do you sense an urge in your heart that just won’t go away? Listen to the experience of Jonathan Goforth.

How to Handle Interruptions

Have you noticed that Jesus never hurried?  In fact, on the contrary, when His friend Lazarus was dying, He delayed coming to see him until Lazarus was dead. Of course Jesus knew that He was going to bring him back to life in a few days. Jesus could accept delays in life because He had the decided advantage of seeing time from an eternal perspective. He knew the past, the present and future—all at the same time. 

What You Must Do to Follow Christ

You probably remember that some of Jesus’ disciples were fishermen by background. In fact, several were fishing at the moment when Jesus called them. "’Come, follow me," Jesus said, "and I will make you fishers of men.’" Do you remember what their response was? Here it is: The Bible says, “At once they left their nets and followed him” (Mark 1:17-18).