Tag Archives: enterprise

Our Daily Bread

Our Daily Bread — Every Hardship

Leave a comment

Our Daily Bread

2 Corinthians 12:7-10

My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness. —2 Corinthians 12:9

Like many towns, Enterprise, Alabama, has a prominent monument. But the monument in Enterprise is unlike any other. The statue doesn’t recognize a leading citizen; it celebrates the work of a beetle. In the early 1900s, this boll weevil made its way from Mexico to the southern US. Within a few years it had destroyed entire crops of cotton, the primary source of revenue. In desperation, farmers started growing another crop—peanuts. Realizing they had been dependent on one crop for too long, they credited the beetle with forcing them to diversify, which led to increased prosperity.

The boll weevil is like things that come into our lives and destroy what we have worked hard to accomplish. Devastation results—sometimes financial, emotional, or physical—and it is frightening. We witness the end of life as we know it. But as the people of Enterprise learned, the loss of what is old is an opportunity to discover something new. God may use hardship to get us to give up a bad habit or learn a new virtue. He used a thorn in Paul’s flesh to teach him about grace (2 Cor. 12:7-9).

Instead of striving to preserve old habits that are no longer effective, we can view every hardship as an opportunity for God to cultivate a new virtue in us. —Julie Ackerman Link

O much-tried saint, with fainting heart,

The thorn with its abiding pain,

With all its wearing, ceaseless ache,

Can be the means of priceless gain. —Anon.

God often uses bitter experiences to make us better.

Bible in a year: Isaiah 5-6; Ephesians 1

Insight

In Paul’s letter of 2 Corinthians, he repeatedly bares his soul. In the early portions of the letter, he is forced to defend his role as an apostle, while later he shares the heartaches of all he suffered for Christ. Paul concludes by describing how a painful condition (an undefined “thorn”) is being used as God’s instrument to teach him lessons about grace (12:7-10). This is indeed a very transparent and pain-filled epistle.

Joyce Meyer

Joyce Meyer – Don’t Make Small Plans

Leave a comment

Joyce meyer

Any enterprise is built by wise planning, becomes strong through common sense, and profits wonderfully by keeping abreast of the facts. —Proverbs 24:3,4 (TLB)

I hope you have a dream or a vision in your heart for something greater than what you have now. Ephesians 3:20 tells us that God is able to do exceedingly abundantly above and beyond all that we can hope or ask or think. If we are not thinking, hoping, or asking for anything, we are cheating ourselves. We need to think big thoughts, hope for big things, and ask for big things. I always say, I would rather ask God for a lot and get half of it, than to ask Him for a little and get all of it.

However, it is an unwise person who only thinks, dreams, and asks big but fails to realize that an enterprise is built by hard work and wise planning. Dreams for the future are possibilities, but not what I call “positivelies.” In other words, they are possible, but they will not positively occur unless we do our part. When we see a twenty-year-old athlete who is a gold medalist in the Olympics, we know that he spent many years practicing while others were playing games. He may not have had all the “fun” his friends had, but he did develop his potential. Now he has something that will bring him joy for the rest of his life.

Far too many people take the “quick fix” method for everything. They only want what makes them feel good right now. They are not willing to invest for the future. Don’t just enter the race for the fun of being in it—run to win! (See 1 Corinthians 9:24,25). There is a gold mine hidden in every life, but we have to dig to get to it. We must be willing to dig deep and go beyond how we feel or what is convenient. If we will dig down deep into the spirit, we will find strength we never knew we had.