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Dealing with troubles in this life is not a popular topic covered within Western churches, and as a result many Christians are caught off guard and left unsettled when they must endure difficulty. Yet verses throughout the Bible touch on suffering for God and for being His righteous ones plenty.

These same believers become disillusioned, therefore, whenever they do face suffering and pain within the trials they walk through. They find themselves not prepared when the enemy and the world comes against them. And they lose confidence in their right standing with God and in hope under the weight of the valley season.

When we study the Bible and allow it to penetrate our hearts in meditation, we can find our divinely provided source of comfort, encouragement and the truth of what we will endure as a result of choosing to follow Christ wholeheartedly.

“The righteous person may have many troubles, but the Lord delivers him from them all.”

Psalm 34:19

However, God will be our deliverer out of every trouble and trial we endure. That is a promise we can hold onto with hope and faith.

This too shall pass, Friend, this too shall pass.

If I could go back in time and share one of the most powerful bites of wisdom to my younger self that I have learned the hard way as an adult, I would. And that advice would be: to not allow myself to be pulled down by others and engage with them in their mind games.

Too many times in my life have I been caught completely off guard by people who had wrong motives and tried to hurt and manipulate me by being confusing, unclear with their intentions and covert in how they would passively cause harm.

And it took me longer then it should have to learn that the wrong behavior of others would be hard for me to detect when I, naively believed their kind words spoken to my face instead of believing what their actions were speaking.

Words can be deceptive, but consistent behavior speaks of one’s true intentions.

Wanting to believe the best in others, which I will always do, led me to ignore actions that were clearly revealing a person’s heart. Instead I fell for the honey flowing from their speech.

God is clear in His Word that He looks at the heart of a person in His judgement rather than outward appearances. The heart is behind behavior, not what mask is put before you.

God even rebukes the Israelites for giving Him lip service while their hearts and actions showed they were far from Him.

Clearly we’re not God, but we can learn wisdom from His relationship with Israel. We can make our judgements about others based on their behavior. If someone’s words and actions conflict a lot, then they are playing mind games with us. It’s okay to make that observation in your mind and refuse to engage with what they are doing.

Individuals who manipulate, lie and even gaslight to get their way and control over others play these mind games. And we can simply choose to not participate and ignore what they are doing. They are looking for a reaction from us, so the best response is no reaction.

Believe their behavior, recognize the manipulative game they are playing, do not pick up your game piece and, refusing to play along, walk away.

The world we are living in is producing more and more people who desire to control and manipulate others in order to get what they want. And choosing to use the gaslighting tactic to manipulate others can cause great damage to the recipient of such abuse.

Gaslighting is used in order to cause the victim to question what they know to be true and real. It creates confusion and doubt and can push a person to feel unstable mentally.

This covert type of abuse can go undetected for a long time. Sometimes it is unintentional behavior as a defense mechanism, but often when gaslighting is involved within a trusted relationship or community the gaslighting is done on purpose to control the will of others.

When we yield ourselves to the Lord, giving over to Him our lives, we are choosing not to be our own god.

As followers of Christ, choosing Jesus to be our Lord and acknowledging that He is God and we are not, is an ongoing occurrence.

Because our world around us preaches we can be our own god and choose our own destiny, we need to remind ourselves every day that we must willingly hand our will over to Him.

But what does this practically look like?

It begins in our hearts as we decide to step off the throne that reigns upon it and make room for Christ to rule instead.

When we make choices in how we behave, interact with others and how we live our lives we let the Holy Spirit have reign.

We yield to the sanctification process, knowing we need to be changed and we find growth and maturity in Him.

We develop a genuine relationship with the Lord, making effort to pursue Him as He pursues us.

We let the word of God wash over our minds, renewing how we think and see Him and others.

And we recognize our need for Him as we live our lives each day.

We don’t decide those plans God has for us, we accept willingly what He knows best and trust Him to guide us each step of the way.

Some that are seeking radical empowerment for themselves, having felt helpless one way or another in their lives, will come to the conclusion that making themselves their own god will only disappoint.

There’s only one true God – and, thankfully, we are not Him.

How God chooses to answer our cries for help is His choice.

If we believe Him when He says His ways are higher and His thoughts are above our own, yet we are disappointed when He responds to us in a way we were not at all expecting (maybe even in a way we do not like), then we have allowed our trust in His ways to be challenged.

We have to accept in our hearts that He knows what is best for us when He moves and acts in a way that we either do not understand or do not like.

The Lord is moving in a lot of ways in each of our lives and if we listen and pay attention to His voice, we will learn that He is responding to something we have prayed for (maybe even for years!).

Do not miss when He answers today a request and petition you placed before Him yesterday. Receive what He is doing.

Become aware with how you spend your time.

With tons of distractions in front of us, mainly in the form of our phones, the internet, television and social media, we can find ourselves caught up and engaged with things that actually aren’t satisfying to our souls.

Even the creators of some social media apps discourage their own children from being consumed with what the world is falling prey too. So why do we not see the damage these addicting forms of entertainment can be for ourselves?

I challenge you to do something I’ve caught wind of from either a book I read or a podcast I heard on creating good habits, and that is to track what you do with your time. Our phones have the ability to track our use of apps on them and that can be a good starting place, maybe even a good wake up call.

Now take your recorded information and subtract the time spent on things just for your entertainment, not forgetting that almost all social media is a form of entertainment.

Evaluate how you feel about the time you are giving away to things that only bring you temporary satisfaction. If you don’t like how you’ve been spending your time, then take time to list out all the activities you’d rather be doing with your time instead.

For myself, this was engaging in a good book, studying Mandarin, connecting well with family and friends, attending a gardening class with my husband and picking up my guitar again. It was an evaluation of the lifestyle I wanted to live that brought me joy, good memories, purpose and living my life fully.

When we choose to focus on how we really want to live and what types of choices we want to make that build up our lives well, we will begin to leave behind those things meant to steal our energy and time.

Live your life well and start today.

You will either love me because of the information I am sharing in this video on the effects of social media use… or you will hate me!

I was personally struggling, and have been, for a long while with my brain automatically making me reach for my phone way too often. It felt like I was literally chained to the device.

The last vacation I went on I made it a rule that I would not be so tied to my phone. And I discovered that I felt really good with the clarity I had, the time to enjoy being in the moment and so on.

I went down a rabbit hole after that vacation, researching what our constant phone use and social media scrolling does to our brains, our mental health and even our relationships.

So join me as we can together explore these negative impacts and how to begin breaking our social media and phone addictions.

When someone in your life claims to be a believer in Christ, but does not reflect that decision in their behavior with you, please do not allow that to impact your understanding of God and your relationship with Him.

There have been many people that have been mistreated by another believer, a church or ministry, or leader within these circles and have walked away from God as a result. They have confused what has happened to them as God being the one who has hurt them, but that is far from the case.

What has happened is the result of us living in a fallen world where man has been given free will. And to be honest, even those of you who have been hurt will end up hurting others as well. It’s hard to not hurt others when we each have our own expectations we place on one another. We still have to fight our flesh daily, not yet having arrived to perfection.

So when another believer has hurt me I choose to remember these things, remembering when I have fallen short in my behavior with others as well.

When someone hurts us and they should know better, their actions are not reflecting God and His nature. Their actions are reflecting their sinful nature not yet sanctified.

There will be believers who reflect God’s heart more than others, yet still are not perfect. Giving one another grace and choosing forgiveness should be priority for each of us.

We will disappoint one another at different times, but we can put our confidence in the Lord Jesus who always reflects His Father’s nature perfectly.

“The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of His being.”

Hebrews 1:3a

God will not mistreat us and will show us how to love well. Let us not allow the wrong doing of others towards us to distort our view of God. He remains the same and we can trust Him.

Are we entertaining bad doctrine? Myths? And leaving behind the roots of our faith in search for something that will distract us from our own issues and wounds?

Are we seeking out things to meet desires we have that are unholy instead of truly seeking the Lord for ourselves?

In this video, I discuss this topic centered around Paul’s warning to Timothy found in 2 Timothy 4:3. Paul warns us of people wanting their ears tickled, wanting to surround themselves with teachers who are more than willing to teach things that lead them astray for their own impure motives.

There has been and will always be false teachers and false prophets seeking their own gain via ministering to others deceitfully. And I’ll admit, some of these false ones might even be unaware themselves of what they are teaching that is incorrect.

This is why it is so crucial that we develop a relationship with the Lord ourselves and study the Word for ourselves as well. The more you understand the Word and the true nature of Him, found in His Word, the harder it will be for you to fall under deception.

I’ve come to learn how any struggle I’ve had with feeling insecure or not liking something about myself happens when my focus is too much on me. And being insecure can threaten to pull our gaze and focus off what truly matters, our affection for the Lord.

I’ve joyfully discovered that when I place Jesus as priority in every area of my life, my focus towards self diminishes. And when I choose to pour myself out for others in service to the Lord, my heart sees them and not myself. John the Baptist said it beautifully, “He must increase, but I must decrease.”

Life is not about just getting our needs met and our desires fulfilled. That will definitely leave us empty and full of ourselves. Will you decrease so Jesus will increase? Will you focus not on your insecurities and fears, but on your Maker? Is the validation, approval and love He has for you enough to pull you away from seeking those things from others?

Life is walking on this earth as Jesus did, living to serve and love others well. It’s allowing the Lord to take root in your heart more and more. And when we make Him the center of our world with all its lovely consequences, we have no room to feel afraid and uncertain, wondering if others will like us.