circumstances on Choices

Almighty and loving God, all of us here today are hurting. Some of us are hurting as the result of circumstances beyond our control. Some of us are hurting because of our own choices. Some of us are f...

Sometimes the circumstances at hand force us to be braver than we actually are, and so we knock on doors and ask for assistance. Sometimes not having any idea where we’re going works out better than w...

Everything can be taken from a man (or woman) but one thing: To choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's way.

On a daily basis we’re faced with two simple choices. We can either listen to ourselves and our constantly changing feelings about our circumstances, or we can talk to ourselves about the unchanging t...

The answer to decision-making is not putting the Lord to the test by ascribing arbitrary significance to events in his providence ... God has not authorized us to make oracles of events.

The circumstances we ask God to CHANGE are often the circumstances God is using to CHANGE US.

Circumstances which we have resented, situations which we have found desperately difficult, have all been the means in the hands of God of driving the nails into the self-life which so easily complain...

When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.

If you let your circumstances define the way you see God, you are a prisoner of perspective. Or worse, a prisoner of your past mistakes! But if you let God define the way you see your circumstances, y...

In times like these, it helps to recall that there have always been times like these.

I want to change my circumstances. God wants to change me.

Attitudes are more important than facts

Where transformation is actually carried out is in our real life, where we dwell with God and our neighbors. . . . First, we must accept the circumstances we constantly find ourselves in as the place ...

God doesn’t want to keep changing your circumstances; he wants to change you.

God is in control, and therefore in EVERYTHING I can give thanks - not because of the situation but because of the One who directs and rules over it.

We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.

The novel Martin Chuzzlewit , written by Charles Dickens, is one of his least successful works, though Dickens himself commented to a friend that he believed it was his greatest work up to its pu...

“It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who li...

Through difficult relationships and circumstances, God works to expose your heart so you will seek the grace that can be found only in him.

I found that tides and currents do not determine destination. That is what rudders and engines and sails are for. While you don’t dare ignore the tides and currents, you also never get anywhere if you...

What’s madness but nobility of soul / At odds with circumstance?

Under all the circumstances of life, we shall find that these divine songs suit ourselves and meet our own souls’ need at every turn.

What Determines Happiness?  Imagine a movie theater full of a hundred people. These hundred individuals represent the full continuum of happiness: Some are exceptionally happy, others less so, and ...

My whole outlook upon everything that happens to me should be governed by these three things: my realization of who I am, my consciousness of where I am going, and my knowledge of what awaits me when ...

Christian leaders tend to use the Bible as their exclusive source for framing Christian speaking and living. Yet only through a kind of “thick description” of our present circumstances, being attentiv...

Ira Gershwin (1896–1983), the celebrated American lyricist, was known for his collaborations with his brother George on numerous iconic songs and musicals. He was also an avid, though notoriously unlu...

Lord, You have authority in all places, times, and circumstances. Lord, You are good in all places, times, and circumstances.  Lord, meet us here, now in all our many needs for You to move.

It’s hard to tell what brings happiness. Poverty and wealth have both failed.

Notes on the Passage Besieged from All Angles:  The context of this passage is best summed up with the words recorded throughout the letter: Trouble, Distress, Suffering, Hardship, Death at work, Ja...

It is no stretch to say that the Lord may orchestrate amazingly challenging circumstances for you and your family for the primary purpose of giving your supernatural hope and Christian contentment a p...