Bible Society of South Africa
Benescke Janse van Rensburg

Break Out – Day 11

Break out and start living with a positive attitude

Bible text(s)

Proverbs 18

21What you say can preserve life or destroy it; so you must accept the consequences of your words.

Proverbs 18:21GNBOpen in Bible reader

Psalms 141

3LORD, place a guard at my mouth,

a sentry at the door of my lips.

Psalms 141:3GNBOpen in Bible reader

Jeremiah 29

11I alone know the plans I have for you, plans to bring you prosperity and not disaster, plans to bring about the future you hope for.

Jeremiah 29:11GNBOpen in Bible reader

Psalms 23

6I know that your goodness and love will be with me all my life;

and your house will be my home as long as I live.

Psalms 23:6GNBOpen in Bible reader

“Take him away!” the king shouted, after sentencing the convicted man in front of him to death. The king did not want to listen to any of the man’s pleas. His servants started to drag the man out of the room.

“Your Highness,” the desperate man cried over his shoulder one last time, “if you spare my life, I will make your horse, the one you love so much, fly in a year’s time!”

To everyone’s surprise, the king replied: “Wait, I will grant your request. But remember, if the year is over and my horse does not fly, you will die.”

Back at the man’s house, his worried family wanted to know how he planned to make the horse fly. “Oh,” the optimistic soul replied, “who knows, the unjust king might die in this year; the horse might die; or maybe, just maybe, I will teach it to fly …”

Are you looking at life and its challenges through positive or negative lenses? Do you realise that your attitude towards life has an influence on your choice of words, and your words on what you experience in your life? In Proverbs 18:21 we read: “Death and life are in the power of the tongue …” The psalmist knew the power of his words and, therefore, prayed in Psalm 141:3: “Set a guard over my mouth, LORD; keep watch over the door of my lips.”

God has plans for us to prosper and not to harm us (Jeremiah 29:11). In Psalm 23:6 we also read: “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD forever.”

So, I ask you again: Through which lenses are you looking at your illness, unemployment, financial crisis, rebellious teenager, broken marriage, or loneliness? And do your words testify of faith or are they making you even more depressed? Do you speak life or death?

Let’s make it our goal to look past our challenges and see, in our mind’s eye, God’s healing, a work opportunity for those who need it, a breakthrough from a financial crisis, a rebellious teenager coming to God, a broken marriage healed and to those with a desire for a spouse, the right one God brings across their paths. Nothing is impossible for him when we believe with the same mind-set of the condemned man believing the horse can fly! God bless.

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