Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think. – Ephesians 3:20 (NLT)

You might feel a little stuck right now. Perhaps your school is canceled and you’re really disappointed. Maybe your family is struggling financially during this pandemic, and you’re not sure how you can help.

These emotions can make you feel really stuck. And when you’re stuck, you often feel unsure of what to do, and where to go for help.

Today’s Truth: I’m Not Stuck

So today, even if you’ve felt stuck, know this truth. God is not finished with you. Right now, He’s working. This pandemic might be the best time you’ll have in your lifetime to grow closer to God. So instead of despair, let this time be an opportunity for you.

The truth is, you’re not stuck. Choose to draw close to God. Bring your concerns to Him and let Him direct your paths.

And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. – Romans 8:38 (NLT)

One of the biggest things the enemy tries to do to us in difficulty is to cause us to question God’s love. If we wonder, does God really love me? Does He really care about what I’m going through?

If we spend too much time thinking about questions like these it causes our faith and trust in God to be shaken.

Today’s Truth: I Am Confident

Spend time today focusing on God’s love. God has said He will never leave us. That means that no matter how crazy life gets, God will always be on our side.

Today, challenge yourself to think about God’s love. It’s big enough to see you through this difficult time. Don’t give up on God’s love. He cares, He loves you, and He is seeing you through. Be confident in God’s love for you!

So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. – Isaiah 41:10 (NIV)

Do you ever have those nights where you get really afraid? Maybe you fear that you’re going to get sick. Perhaps your family is struggling with money during this season and you’re concerned about that.

There can be lots of reasons to fear, however, regardless of how real the fear feels, the truth is, you don’t have to be afraid.

Instead, you’ve got to determine to put your trust in Jesus. He’s the one that will help you get through these times.

Today’s Truth: I’m not Afraid

Don’t live your life crippled by fear. Instead, choose to trust in Jesus. He will bring you peace in the middle of the storm. He loves you and cares for you.

Give your burdens to the LORD, and he will take care of you. He will not permit the godly to slip and fall. – Psalm 55:22 (NLT)

Have you ever been really lost? I remember a time on a missions trip where I was in a country and I didn’t speak the language. My goal was to get to a bus, but I didn’t exactly know where the bus stop was.

That was such a scary feeling. I didn’t know where to go and how to get there.

That might be a little how you feel right now. Lost. Not sure what the future holds. Upset about the things you see right now in the news.

Today’s Truth: I’m Not Lost

The truth is God cares about you. He’s not forgotten you, and you’re not lost. He never leaves us without help.

So if you’ve felt lost, take comfort. God really does care for you. He will see you through this and you’ll come out better and stronger in the end. So don’t let the things going on around you rob your relationship with God. Use this time to draw close to Him and see that you’re not lost, God cares for you!

Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you. – 1 Peter 5:7 (NLT)

Where I live, many places have cancelled spring and summer sports. For some of you, school being cancelled wasn’t a huge deal, but now that your activities are being cancelled, you’re probably upset.

Maybe you’re healthy, so you feel bad for being upset that your sports are canceled. You know that others are facing some really bad things.

You might even wonder if in the middle of a pandemic, does God even have time for me? And does He even care?

Today’s Truth: I’m Not Alone

The truth is, you might be isolated, but you’re not alone. God has not left you. He’s not going to leave you. And He is certainly not too busy with other things that He can’t be there for you.

Don’t believe the lie that God doesn’t have time for you or that He doesn’t care. Even in the midst of everything going on in the world, He has time for you.

So give God your cares, give God your worries. Tell Him what’s going on, and know this truth: you’re not alone, God cares about you!

“Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them. – Mark 11:23 (NIV)

This week we’ve talked a lot about monsters. Today we have one last monster to think about, doubt. Doubt is a monster because if it’s left to grow, it can destroy your faith.

Today’s Monster: Doubt

It’s really easy in difficult times to begin to doubt. You might doubt if God really cares about you. It’s easy to wonder if things will ever get better or change.

All these feelings are natural. So don’t feel bad for having them. However, don’t stop here. Don’t spend too much time dwelling on your doubts.

Here’s the truth. God cares about you. He tells us time and time in His word that He loves us. He shows us again and again through stories in the Bible that He takes care of and protects those who place their trust in Him. That’s the truth.

However, when things get tough, it’s easy to lose focus on the truth. It’s easy to let our current circumstances be more real to us that God’s love.

So today, if you’ve been guilty of focusing on your problems and difficulties instead of God, determine to do something different. Choose to focus your attention on the goodness of God. Read scriptures about how much God loves you. As you do, you’ll find that your doubts become less real.

Don’t believe the lie that God doesn’t care or doesn’t love you. Nothing could be farther from the truth! God cares and He hasn’t left you alone.

Get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words, and slander, as well as all types of evil behavior. – Ephesians 4:31 (NLT)

If you like movies or video games, you’re probably familiar with fighting monsters. Monsters can appear out of nowhere and create all kinds of destruction.

Monsters aren’t just in movies or video games, however. We can deal with monsters in our lives too. Yes, they might not be destroying buildings and hurting people, but they are dangerous. If we don’t stop the monsters in our lives, they can keep us from doing everything God has in store for us.

Today’s Monster: Bitterness

The monster we’re looking at today is the monster of bitterness. Bitterness is so sneaky. It can show up in our lives in ways we’ve never expected. Perhaps all the time you’ve been spending with your family right now due to social distancing, is making you bitter at your mom.

It snuck up so quietly, and now, you realize that you’ve really began to resent your mom.

Bitterness can show up in our lives in all kinds of ways. The thing about bitterness is that if we let it grow, it will destroy our happiness. It’s hard to be happy when you’re upset and bitter at someone or something.

Even though things are probably less than ideal in your life right now, you need to make a decision to not become bitter. Bitterness in your life will only cause heartache and destruction.

So today, if bitterness has grown in your life, ask God for His help. He’s ready and willing to help you in any way He can. Ask Him to show you how you can begin to let God’s love shine through you and put bitterness aside.

With God’s help, you can destroy the monster of bitterness in your life!

A heart at peace gives life to the body, but envy rots the bones. – Proverbs 14:30 (NIV)

This week, we’ve been talking about monsters. The monsters we’ve discussed aren’t literal or those in movies. Instead, these monsters are things in our lives that if we don’t stop, will grow really big.

Today’s Monster: Envy.

It’s so easy to envy others, isn’t it? Especially because in the age of social media, other people’s lives just look so much better than yours. You might have a friend that has a way better house than yours and it makes you envy them. Or maybe it just seems like they’re just always doing bigger and better things than you.

And the more you watch their lives on social media, the more unhappy you begin to feel.

The thing about envy is that it’s a monster that is never satisfied. For example, you might think if you had the newest shoes that your friend has, then you’d be happy. But once you get those shoes, you see that your friend got newer ones and yours no longer satisfy you.

The Bible tells us in today’s verse that envy is bad. It rots the bones, meaning that it brings no fulfillment, only destruction. Instead of envy, choose to practice peace. Choose to thank God for what you do have.

To live at peace, you might have to put some limits on how much time you spend on social media if it brings you unhappiness. Instead, use that time to take a walk outside, send a friend an encouraging note, or spend a little more time in God’s Word. Peace takes work, but it’s worth it. Choose to put the monster of envy aside and walk in peace today!

If you have watched any superhero movie or cartoon, you probably know all about monsters. You know, the ones that just keep growing and getting more and more destructive, if you don’t deal with them, the whole world will be destroyed.

That might be a little extreme, but we know from superhero movies that monsters never just go away. They keep getting bigger and more advanced, and you’ve got to deal with them.

In our lives we face monsters too. Not giant world ending ones, but things that if we don’t stop, will one day destroy our lives.

Today’s Monster: Fear

One of the biggest monsters we face today is fear. And it makes total sense. In this pandemic, our natural response to everything is fear. We’ve never faced something like this in our lifetime, so it’s unknown and scary.

If we don’t stop fear in our lives, it can destroy us!

Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?” – Mark 4:38 (NIV)

In this scripture, the disciples were afraid. But the interesting thing about it all was the way they spoke. They questioned whether Jesus cared about them.

When we get into fear, it’s often because we’ve forgotten that Jesus really does care about us. He loves us and hasn’t left us alone. Even in a storm, he’s right there.

So if you’ve allowed the monster of fear to grow in your life, take some time to focus on Jesus. Spend extra time reading your Bible. Realize that Jesus cares. He wants to take care of everything that you fear. Let Him bring peace to your heart in the middle of this storm!

I was watching TV with friends one day, and the only thing on was Teen Titans. I don’t know if you’ve ever watched it, but I hadn’t before. It was pretty good, but the interesting thing was the teens in the episode had to defeat a monster. The interesting thing about the monster was that it kept getting bigger as the show progressed.

Finally, they realized they had to do something about the monster. Then all the characters banned together to fight and defeat the monster.

In life, we sometimes face monsters. No, they’re not literal cartoon monsters. Instead, they are areas in our lives that if we leave unchecked will grow really out of control. So let’s look at one of these monsters.

Today’s Monster: Disappointment.

Disappointment was something that Jesus’ disciples faced.

We had hoped he was the Messiah who had come to rescue Israel. This all happened three days ago. – Luke 24:21 (NLT)

After Jesus died, the disciples had to deal with disappointment. They had thought that things would turn out differently than they did. They expected Jesus to free them from Roman rule. Instead, Jesus was dead. (They didn’t realize that He had already risen). At this moment, the disciples were understandably disappointed. They had expected one thing to happen and it didn’t.

You can probably relate to how the disciples felt. Maybe you were hoping to get your driver’s license, and since you can’t attend driver’s ed at school, you’re not sure that’s going to happen. And because of that, you’re dealing with a lot of disappointment.

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The truth is, disappointment can be a monster in our lives if we leave it unchecked. It will grow and grow, leaving us miserable. If we’re going to walk in the joy that Jesus provided for us, we’re going to need to learn to deal with disappointment.

So if you’re struggling with disappointment, don’t let go of your hope. Things will get better. Don’t be discouraged and don’t give up, God is not finished with you yet!