God said that Joshua and the Israelites needed to rid themselves of anything that was standing between them and God. Joshua went to the people and found a man who had been worshipping idols. The people took that man from the city and stoned him to death. It would be very fair to say that that man was “devoted to destruction”. In fact, that might be an understatement.

Moses was used of God to do incredible things for God’s glory, yet Moses, more than many leaders I know, questioned his own abilities. He lacked confidence and would have probably never volunteered for the job. His reasons might have been:

The better goal it seems to me is to learn to balance our lives between difficulties, good and bad times, triumph and tragedy, and the feast or famine the world in which we live tends to experience. In fact, I wonder if learning how to balance our emotions between the extremes isn’t the normality we are seeking, rather than periods where everything is calm. When we learn to live in the joy of every moment, normal may seem more attainable.

Discipline helps develop spiritual fruit, and I believe in practicing private disciplines that help grow your faith, but the discipline is not the goal, the fruit is the goal. Jesus didn’t say His followers would be known by the number of disciplines they can keep. Jesus said we would be known by our fruit.

I think, however, that Isaac, with his wisdom gained through years of experience, shared with his son an important truth. Once Esau grew weary of his unforgiving spirit and he finally offered Jacob forgiveness, and could be free to fully live again.

Sarah lived 127 years. That’s all. Period. End of the writing of her story on earth. Her memory would live on and we are still reading and talking about her today, but as far as altering her story she only had 127 years of days in which to write it.

I am not an advocate of blasting one’s struggles to everyone who will listen. I’m a private person myself. The truth is, however, that one person’s struggle helps another struggling with the same issue. It’s easier to identify with someone once you’ve experienced what he or she is experiencing. It is much more difficult to know how another person feels if you have never walked where he or she is walking.

None of us probably enjoys worrying, yet even Jesus must have recognized our tendency to worry, because He made it a point to challenge us not to worry. The simple truth is that living worry-free is very simple in theory, but it’s the practice of doing what we know to do that is hard for us. Still, in spite of the difficulty, are you up for a challenge? Let me encourage you to follow these steps to a worry-free 2010.

Often one of the hardest things for a person to do is to accept unconditional love. Perhaps it’s because the world is so void of that kind of love. The world often displays a love that is contingent on the recipient’s behavior or form of repayment of the love. It is a give and take kind of love…a “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours” kind of trade-off for love. Sadly, many marriages share this kind of conditional love, where spouses agree to love each other as long as they are given equal or greater love in exchange.

I can imagine the “wonder” going on in Bethlehem shortly after the birth of Christ. There was great wonder in the naming of this baby. Jesus, which means “salvation of God”, was not something someone like Joseph and Mary typically would have named their son. Talk about high hopes for your children!