Today I will:
“Blessed (happy, enviably fortunate, and spiritually prosperous—possessing the happiness produced by the experience of God’s favor and especially conditioned by the revelation of His grace, regardless of their outward conditions) are the pure in heart, for they shall see God!” Matthew 5:8 (AMP)
What is the really important thing in life? It always seems that if we can just get the answer to this question, then everything else will work out around us. But the answer seems to change depending on the place we are in our lives, the time of month it is and what bills are due, the season of the year it is and what activities each brings, as well as any number of factors that can change our focus in a given moment. It seems that wherever we are in our lives, we believe that just as soon as we get through this next thing this next project is done, soccer season is over, the play is finally performed, that next promotion comes, or whatever else we have going on-we can finally relax a bit and get a better direction for our lives.
Yet hearing from God hasn't changed in six thousand years. It is still done the same way today as it was by Adam, Abraham, Joseph, and Moses. Perhaps none of them had so many other "noises" around them to constantly contend with. But even in the relatively quiet and slower-paced world they lived in, only those who truly sought God heard Him. To hear God's voice, they had to go out of their way to find a quiet place, sit, pray, and listen patiently for the answer. And God didn't reveal himself to them all at once. Over time they got to know Him more and more as they showed the desire to know Him more and more-whether they were in a field tending sheep or in the midst of a battle to protect God's people.
We need to learn to do the same. We need to seek God every day regardless of our circumstances. Once we get that right, we might start seeing more of Him in the world around us.
Today I will:
“Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.” Matthew 5:7 (NIV)
In the competitive environment of business, the value of a second chance is difficult to estimate on a spreadsheet, calculate in a profit and loss statement, or record on a performance evaluation. There are times when all of the evidence points to letting someone go-yet at the same time, it is exactly the wrong thing to do. True mercy, however, is not just giving someone a second chance, but staying diligent in one's management of resources and staff so that layoffs or dismissals for performance reasons are dealt with before they become big enough to cost people their jobs.
One thing we should know from the Bible is that there will always be cycles of prosperity and lack on the earth, as in the seven years of abundance and then seven years of famine from which God helped Joseph deliver Egypt and Israel. As Ecclesiastes 3:1, 6 NKJV says: "To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven: ... a time to gain, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to throw away." We cannot believe that times of increase and profit will last forever. If companies spent all of their money during the time when things are going well, what can we expect when things slowdown?
The wise and merciful businessperson will be prepared for such occurrences, putting money aside for bad times so that when things slow down for a time, the company will not need to lay off employees just to keep the doors open. Planning for such eventualities and using wisdom in managing resources can give employees that second chance to make it work without even threatening their personal futures, After all, true riches are measured by the lives that we touch for the better, not what we can store up in barns or banks on the earth.