Number one
Resist the tendency to live an isolated life
Select a few individuals not a lot. Nobody has a lot of intimate friends
Throughout our lifetime four maybe five if that many
Stay close to those people
Even though your lives may be
geographically removed stay close thanks to the
Electronic world in which we live your you're a few clicks away
Be in touch
Talk to them
Have them enter your life and you enter their life if you wait till later to have the friends, it's too late
Pull them up closer now
Number two get over those who disappoint you
Get over those who disappoint you people are people
Every one of us is sinners. Some are disloyal others simply let us down
Others have a way of breaking their promises
We'll go on even though they break their promises. Don't waste your time on those who have disappointed you
Refuse to let those people steal your joy or drain your energy
Believe me there will be those who will disappoint you
Hopefully you will come toward the end of your life and hardly be able to name one of them
because you've lived on and not allowed them to become the focus
of your thoughts
There will be those who simply walk out of your life let them walk
Number three lift up and encourage those who have failed
Lift up and encourage those
who are recovering from failure. It's a better way to put it who are recovering from failure
I'll tell you what folks the passing of years will do a whole lot to your rigid mindset
Your narrow convictions, especially your judgmental attitude toward failures
The reason it will help is because during those years you have failed
even more often
that mellows you
and you're able to see beyond a
a great
failure of another person way back when
Do your best
to treat people with grace
I've never regretted helping a failure recover never once
I've been warned by friends that I will be sorry I did that
I've been told by some that it'll hurt my ministry
neither happened
Some are engaged in
God's work today with full energy
Because some of us cared enough to help them back on their feet
Lift up and encourage those recovering from a failure
Number 4 let the Lord handle your critics
Let the Lord handle your critics
Stop going to the internet and see what it says about you
This is always a bunch of fools out there that have come to conclusions most of which are false
But they've decided they're true. So they think what they need to do is to
Spread the gospel
Their kind of gospel
Nothing your critic wants more than for you to fight back because he loves to fight
And he never runs out of ammunition. It seems like he has a lot of time to do it or she does
Let the Lord handle your critics
Greatest thing you can do with a critic is ignore them
Just absolutely give them over to the Lord
He can handle them. Number 5
Stay fully focused on the Lord Jesus Christ
I have no idea what the Lord has in mind for you
I hope it is absolutely beyond all you could even imagine or think
Be ready for surprises, he's full of them
I've never regretted
One time when I decided I would at this moment
I will at this moment focus on my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ
Now that is the way