Monthly Archives: May 2022

You Are Not Alone, New Devotional

You Are Not Alone Devotional

Today is the release day for You Are Not Alone: Promises from Psalms, our newest 30-Day Devotional. As we started the new year, Matt and I made a plan for the projects we wanted to roll out this year. On our list were several devotionals, so we got to work on those. We actually didn’t have this one on the schedule for the year. We had a few others planned instead.

As we sat together on our date day one morning and talked about everything going on around us, we decided we needed a devotional that would comfort people’s hearts. So many people are hurting; our world is so charged right now. We wanted something that could minister to people who needed to be reminded that God was for them and they weren’t alone in their struggle.

Enter the You Are Not Alone Devotional. We really enjoyed creating this devotional. It’s our most favorite yet! We love it in that it can encourage anybody! It also makes a great gift to give to people when you don’t know what to say to help them. Sometimes it’s hard to know what to say to someone when they’re in the hospital, or when they’ve lost a loved one or heard bad news from the doctor. This devotional is the perfect thing to fill in the gaps when you don’t know what to say.

About This Devotional

Matt wrote this for the back of the book:

For the one who feels so lonely, abandoned even, God is ever and always near. For the one whose heart breaks and feels hopeless, find hope in God’s presence and promises. God is ever and always by your side. You are not alone.

In this 30-day devotional, you will discover some of the greatest promises in all of the Bible in the collection of songs called Psalms. Learn about the six times in life we can know we are not alone. From the seasons of stess to family struggles, you will learn the promises for times of uncertainty even the promises for facing your final days on this earth.

Live Training

We did a live training recently where we discussed how to use this new devotional. You can watch that training on our YouTube page for Manney Resources here. As a part of that training, Matt created a free guide. You can download that guide here if you are interested. One of the pages Matt created was this page of where to find hope in the book of Psalms. I think it’s a great resource and wanted to share it with you.

Sometimes we want to encourage ourselves or encourage a friend, but we’re not sure which Psalm would be best to do that. This little cheat sheet helps with that.

Understanding the Psalms

The Psalms are such a rich book because they were written as songs. There are many times that just speaking doesn’t articulate what we’re trying to say or think. Yet, a song can do just that. How many times has a song caught your attention and hit home for you? Maybe it made you cry, or maybe it made you smile and remember something special. That’s the power of a song. That’s why when you read the Psalms, they just bring so much comfort and peace to our hearts.

My life verse comes from Psalms.

As for God, his way is perfect: the word of the Lord is tried: he is a buckler to all those that trust in him.
Psalm 18:30 KJV

Something to Look Forward To

We will be doing an online Bible study this summer using this devotional and the accompanying study guide, which will release this summer. We’d love for you to join us! So stay tuned! If you’re not signed up to be on my email list, be sure to sign up here so you don’t miss the announcement or anything else from Faithfully Stepping.

More Encouragement

For more encouragement on this topic, check out my post 10 Things to Try When Today is Too Hard to Face. A great book to read is A Shepherd’s Look at Psalm 23.

Don’t Live with Regret

Regret

Regret. It’s a word that packs a powerful punch every time we hear it. None of us want to look back on our lives with regret, yet that’s what many of us will face when we come to the end of our lives simply because we let fear keep us from doing what God put in our hearts to do.

So many of us spend too much of our lives on the sidelines wishing, wanting, and hoping instead of jumping into the ring. We dream about the book we long to write, the product that would help so many people, the blog that could make a difference, the small business we know God wants us to start. But fear keeps us back from going after that dream.

The Power of Regret

Danie Pink, the author of several best-sellers including his most recent book, The Power of Regret, collected 16,000 regrets from people in 105 countries. He says that one of the top regrets people have is inaction—not taking a chance.

He posted this picture on social media.

How many of us are living a life we are going to regret one day simply because we have been too fearful to move forward into what God wants us to do?

Reasons We Hold Back

1. We fear what others will think of us.

So often, we let our fear of what others will think hold us back. In reality, most people are too busy living their own life afraid of what others will think of them to worry about what you’re doing. And here’s the deal. So what? What if they don’t approve? What if somebody doesn’t like what you’re doing? It doesn’t matter. Our judgment comes from God. (Proverbs 29:26) It doesn’t matter what others think of us.

2. We think we won’t succeed.

We have this built-in alarm that blares loudly whenever we attempt to do something that is not a guaranteed success. Most of us can’t even allow ourselves to try something unless we are absolutely sure it will succeed. Here’s the thing; you probably will fail. There you go—your encouragement for today. 😁 The fact of the matter is we all fail. Matt and I started a business in 2011 that completely failed. Was it hard? Yes. Discouraging? Yes. But did we learn so much? Yes. Because of that failure, we knew what to do differently for Manney Resources when we launched that business in 2020. We can’t let the fear of failure keep us from trying.

3. It seems like a waste of time, money, and resources.

This one is a hard one. I know what it’s like not to have even a penny to put behind a business, blog, book, product, etc. There are so many ways to get around this. Figure out a way to start without spending any money or little money. It may mean that you don’t have all the bells and whistles when you first start, but start anyway. Just get the ball moving; the money will come in time. If you are doing what God created you to do and fulfilling the purpose he’s given you, then it’s not a waste of time, money, or resources. It’s just the opposite. It’s investing the resources he gave you. When you do that, he can funnel more towards you.

4. It doesn’t seem possible.

If it feels possible, it probably isn’t from God. The thing is that God gives us more than we can handle mostly so that we have to keep returning to him time and again. If God’s given you a big dream, go after it. He will give you the grace and strength for it. On the other hand, even if your dream doesn’t seem huge, go after it anyway. You have no idea what God could do with it once you get started.

5. We don’t think anybody will stand behind what we’re doing.

This is a lie Satan uses to keep us from doing what God wants us to do. I am always amazed at the cheerleaders God sends along the way. Often, it’s not anybody I ever thought of. Somebody sends an email, shares a post, or buys a product and reaches out to me and lets me know how much they appreciated it. It’s usually someone that totally surprises me. Don’t let the thought that nobody will get behind what you’re doing stop you, because you will be surprised. When you step out and start something, people will cheer you on. Will everybody? No. But those that don’t will fall away, and you will find the ones that do.

Choose to Simply Start

There are so many fears that keep us from wanting to move forward on what God has created us to do. We have to turn our back on those fears and just start. Today. There will never be a perfect time. We have to choose to simply start. Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived, had something to say about this principle in the book of Ecclesiastes.

Farmers who wait for perfect weather never plant. If they watch every cloud, they never harvest.
Ecclesiastes 11:4 NLT

If you wait for everything to be perfect, you will never start. If you wait for the finances to come in, for the support of others, for the perfect product or manuscript, you won’t ever get started. So push all that away and start. Don’t come to the end of your life and look back with regret simply because you were too fearful to do what God put in your heart to do.

More Encouragement

For more encouragement, check my post Don’t Give Up on the Dream God has Given You. A great book on this topic is Soar by T. D. Jakes.

Perspective Changes Everything

Our Walk

I learned a thing or two about perspective the other day from my six-year-old. I took a walk a few days ago with my two youngest, Maggie and Macey. We were walking along the sidewalks looking at different houses when Macey stopped suddenly.

“Look at that!” she said loudly. I stopped to see what she was looking at and saw a yard that was in desperate need of a mow. The grass was getting long, and there were ugly white dandelions everywhere. But I stopped to see what she had to say. What she said next surprised me. “That’s not fair! Look at all those wishes they have!” My girls love picking dandelions and blowing them as they make wishes.

She took me by surprise, but I laughed to myself a moment later. Here, we had just walked past this yard that was immaculate. The lawn was neatly trimmed and treated; it looked like you could sleep on it and be totally comfortable. Macey walked right past that lawn and didn’t even notice it or pay any attention to it. Instead, she picked the lawn that looked like a hot mess and liked that one because it had so many dandelions.

Perspective Changes Everything

It’s so funny to me how our minds work, but this is a perfect example of how perspective changes everything. We both looked at the same yard, but our perspectives changed how we viewed the yard. I saw it as a yard full of weeds that needed to be mowed; Macey saw it as a field full of magical wishes.

So often, how we see life and how we react to it is simply a matter of perspective. We see one thing, and somebody else looking at the same thing sees something completely different. That’s one of the reasons we have to be so careful when we’re talking with other people about our opinions, views, preferences, and more.

A New Friend

This week I’ve been thinking a lot about perspective and how it shapes so much of how we act, what we think, and what we say. On Sunday, I talked with a lady I had met for the first time. We were at a baby shower and ended up talking with a group of people for a few hours. She was so easy to talk with and had such a great spirit. She was just one of those people you want to hang around with a little while longer.

Towards the end of our conversation, we got to talking about shingles. I don’t even remember how. Matt told her I had a bad case of shingles after Madison was born. So she asked me about it, and I told her about the pain and how it was hard to do anything for the pain because it was nerve pain. She then proceeded to tell me that she understood all about nerve pain because she has Fibromyalgia.

Chronic Pain

She could have blown me away. I had no idea she dealt with chronic pain; she was so happy and fun and easy to talk to. As soon as she told me that, my respect for her increased even more. When we got home from the shower that night, Malachi told me that he thought she was a really nice person. She even made an impact on my kids.

The fact of the matter is, she has every right to be miserable and cranky. She lives with chronic pain and all the problems that go along with her disease. Yet, she’s chosen to make the most of it. She laughs and carries on and enjoys life; she doesn’t let it get her down.

Some of My Favorite Verses

It makes me think of some of my favorite verses in a very obscure book of the Bible.

Even though the fig trees have no blossoms, and there are no grapes on the vines;
even though the olive crop fails, and the fields lie empty and barren;
even though the flocks die in the fields, and the cattle barns are empty,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord! I will be joyful in the God of my salvation!
Habakkuk 3:17,18

It’s Always a Choice

Even though absolutely everything is falling apart around us, we still have a choice. We can choose to rejoice in God. It’s a choice, just like anything else.

If we can choose to rejoice no matter what; our perspective will change. We will begin to look at the circumstances around us through a different lens. That lens will help us to refocus and shift our perspective so that we can begin to see and understand life the way God sees it. We can begin to see a field of weeds in our lives as so much more. We can see the mess in our lives turn into a field of wishes. It’s all in our perspective.

For More Encouragement

One of the books I think of when I think of changing our perspective is Kisses from Katie but Katie Davis Majors. This book will stay with you a long time and change your perspective about life and how good we really have it.