Talk, Think and Do

Once again, my friends, I'm joining the Five Minute Friday crew on writing for 5 minutes on a one-word prompt. This week's word is one that I think almost all of us have thought about in one way or another:  SUCCESS!

GO:

Joshua 1:8 tells us:

This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success.

I've not done an exhaustive study, but in the King James Version of the Bible, the word success is only mentioned once.

Funny that a concept so important in today's world would only be mentioned one time!

I decided to look in the New King James Version to see if it was mentioned more often. There were 10 references, most often as a root word, think "successive," and all instances were in the Old Testament.

Why? Could it be that as New Testament believers, we are to put to death our earthly natures as the apostle Paul told the Colossians? It's hard for a dead man to be successful!

Just something to think on!  

It matters as to what you define as success. Our American culture defines it as having money and power. Those are not good goals for the believer. Don't get me wrong, money is a tool, and we can certainly use money in ministry!

I know God blesses His children with money sometimes. Look at how He blessed Abraham and Solomon!

[STOP]

My five minutes are up, but as usual, I have more to say!

Instead of looking at the word "success" as our culture looks at it, why not think of it as the culmination of reaching our goals? After all, we work very hard to reach these goals. We don't want our efforts to be wasted, right?

It wouldn't be very smart or productive to start out doing something and not make every effort to actually accomplish what we started out to do.

Joshua 1:8 tells us how we can crush those goals:

1. Talk about the Word.
2. Think about the Word continually.
3. Be careful to do what the Word says.

That's it! Talk, think and do.

If you do those things, your way will be prosperous. I think that means the journey getting there will yield all sorts of gifts. And when you get there? You will be fully equipped for everything you are called to do.

Isn't that what success really means?

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I'm sharing this post at the following communities:
Five Minute Friday
Grace&Truth
Inspire Me Monday
Kelly Balarie's Purposeful Faith Link-Up
#TellHisStory

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Reflection Journal #11

Something That Made Me Smile

We had our Rory girl over for a sleepover at MiMi and PaPa's. She was good as gold, and watching her sunny smile made our hearts happy.

We took her to Chic-Fil-A to eat chicken nuggets and play in the play place. I got tickled watching her take pieces of her nuggets and dip it into the Chic-Fil-A sauce. After a while, she pushed aside the nuggets and just dipped her finger into the sauce and licked it off. You can get away with that kind of behavior when you're only 20 months old.

Something That Made Me Think

I've realized the motivation behind why I feel so driven to accomplish something every day - my time is getting shorter. I didn't mind wasting time at all when I was in my twenties. But in your sixties, you want to make every day count!

(Boy, I really hated admitting I'm in my sixties - but 60 is the new 40, right? However, I comfort myself with the knowledge my inner self is only about 25. I used to say I felt 19 inside, but I have lived and learned a lot, so now it's 25.)

A Win For The Week

I basically only had to do about 2 hours-worth of work on Saturday and had the rest of the whole day free! I've been working hard to get stuff done through the week in order to accomplish that goal. Now, I'm going to try to do it again.

Share Something That Spoke To You

I loved this post I saw on Maree Dee’s blog, Embracing the Unexpected. It was written by Landen Melton, Pursue Peace without the Details. I recommend reading it.

What spoke to me was this:

“While we might never fully understand, we can become more comfortable in not having all the answers”

His point was the more you dwell with God, the more you’re satisfied with knowing Him and not knowing the details.

I sum it up like this:

We don’t have to know the why, just the Who!

Share a favorite picture

Somebody likes to raise their eyebrows when excited - just like MiMi does - and GreatPaPa Winn did!

How about you? What's been going on in your world? Leave a comment and share!

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I'm linking this post at Inspire Me Monday, #TellHisStory #WriterWednesday and Purposeful Faith