All things work together and are [ fitting into a plan] for good to and for those who love God and are called according to [His] design and purpose. —Romans 8:28

Life is full of unjust situations that can create a great deal of pain for you, especially in your relationship with other people. You will experience some hurt and pain, but you don’t have to allow these experiences to destroy your happiness. You can’t always choose what happens to you, but you can choose how you respond to it.

If you’ve been hurt, God can take your bad experiences and make them work for your good. Believing this truth is a positive decision that can help stop your pain.

Choose to learn from the hurtful experiences instead of wasting your pain by allowing them to make you bitter. One way to do this is to overcome evil with good by making sure you don’t hurt others. It’s a good place to start!

Out of the fullness (the overflow, the superabundance) of the heart the mouth speaks. —Matthew 12:34

Today’s verse reminds me of a woman who came to one of my conferences and shared with me that she never stopped thinking and talking about her problems, even though she was being taught not to focus on them. She knew she needed to stop thinking about negative things, but she seemed powerless to do so.

This woman had been abused, and she met several other women who shared that pain. As they talked, she realized God had told her everything He had told them, but they had obeyed while she had disobeyed. They had renewed their minds with the Word of God while she had kept driving her problems deeper into her soul by refusing to get them off of her mind.

Whatever we set our minds on eventually comes out of our mouths. Because this woman refused to obey God and stop thinking and talking about her problems, she was in a prison she could not escape. We seek things by thinking and speaking about them. She could have used her thoughts and words to seek God, but she used them to seek more of the very things she was trying to overcome.

I encourage you to seek God by thinking and speaking about the things of God and by asking the Holy Spirit to fill your mind and your mouth with the things He wants you to focus on.

God’s word for you today: Think about things today that make you happy, not things that make you sad.

But be doers of the Word [obey the message], and not merely listeners to it, betraying yourselves [into deception by reasoning contrary to the Truth].—James 1:22

I recall a woman who attended one of my seminars. She had a lot of emotional wounds that had left her insecure and fearful. She desperately wanted to be free, but nothing seemed to work for her. At the conclusion of the seminar she told me that she now understood why she had never experienced any progress. She said, “Joyce, I sat with a group of ladies who all had a lot of the same problems in the past that I did. They also had emotional problems, but step-by-step God had been delivering them. As I listened to them, I heard them say, ‘God led me to do this, and I did it. Then He led me to another thing, and I did it.’ I realized that God had also told me to do the same things. The only difference was they did what He said to do, and I didn’t.”

To receive from God what He has promised us in His Word, we must obey the Word. There will be times when doing what the Word says is not easy. Obeying the Word requires consistency and diligence. There must be a dedication and commitment to do the Word whatever the outcome. “Yes,” you may say, “but I have been doing the Word for a long time, and I still don’t have the victory!” Then do it some more. Nobody knows exactly how long it is going to take for the Word to begin to work in this life. If you keep at it, sooner or later it will work.

I know it’s a fight. I know Satan tries to keep you out of the Word; and once you do get into the Word, he tries everything in his power to keep you from putting the Word into practice in your life. I also know that once you do start putting the Word into practice, he does everything he can to make you think it won’t work. That’s why you must keep at it.

Ask God to help by giving you a desire to get into His Word and to do it no matter how hard it is or how long it takes to produce any results in your life.

. . . for in [your] faith (in your strong and welcome conviction or belief that Jesus is the Messiah, through Whom we obtain eternal salvation in the kingdom of God) you stand firm. —2 Corinthians 1:24

One of the problems in the world today is that people want to “do their own thing” even if it makes them miserable. They don’t want to take direction from anyone or be told what to do, and they certainly don’t want to be accountable to God’s Word.

This kind of arrogant independence and rebellion is responsible for many unpleasant results and even tragedies. I am sure, if you stop and consider it, you know of situations in which people (maybe you) have been determined to go their own way and ended up with terrible problems. This does not have to happen!

To be able to enjoy life and avoid unnecessary problems, you and I must live according to the truth in God’s Word and not according to the lies we hear from other people, the world, or the enemy. We must know how to separate what is true from what is not. You can do this, but the battle for truth takes place in your mind, and you won’t win it without a fight. You must examine what you believe and why you believe it. It is wise to be firmly convinced so when the devil challenges you concerning God’s Word, you are prepared to stand firm.

We often find the children of Christian parents reaching an age where they begin to wonder if they really believe what their parents have taught them or not. Sometimes they go through a “crisis” period concerning their faith in God. They need to find their own faith because they can no longer live on the faith of their parents as they have done in the past. This can be a very healthy process. Most of them usually realize they do believe Jesus is their Savior, but it is a decision they need to make for themselves. You cannot stand through the storms of life based on someone else’s faith. You must be fully assured in your own heart and mind.

Trust in Him Knowing what you believe only makes a difference if you trust it enough to act on it. What transforming truth from Scripture do you need to apply today?