David C. Cook - Quiet Moments with God for Teens

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QUIET MOMENTS WITH GOD FOR TEENS

Published by David C Cook

4050 Lee Vance View

Colorado Springs, CO 80918 U.S.A.

David C Cook Distribution Canada

55 Woodslee Avenue, Paris, Ontario, Canada N3L 3E5

David C Cook U.K., Kingsway Communications

Eastbourne, East Sussex BN23 6NT, England

The graphic circle C logo is a registered trademark of David C Cook.

All rights reserved. Except for brief excerpts for review purposes, no part of this book may be reproduced or used in any form without written permission from the publisher.

ISBN 978-1-56292-690-8

eISBN 978-0-7814-0741-0

First Edition 2003

Life can get down right busy between school, friends, family, activities, and work. How do you make it slow down? Take a few quiet momentsfor personal meditation, for fellowship with God. We need both in order to live balanced lives while meeting the complex demands we face every day.

As our world moves and swirls past us with great speed and intensity, its tempting to put those quiet times aside and regard them as luxuries rather than necessities. But the truth ismoments of quiet tranquility are critical. They help us define our relationships, our roles, our priorities, and ourselves. Without them, we become slaves to our lifestyles rather than the masters of them.

We hope you will find that the devotions in this book help you make your quiet moments productive and inspiring. We have made them short enough to fit easily into your special time, yet long enough to provide a solid kick-off for your day. As you read, we hope that they will draw you closer to God.

B ob Kempainen was determined to make the 1996 U.S. Mens Olympic marathon team. He was willing to go to any lengths, no matter how gut-wrenching.

On a hilly course in Charlotte, North Carolina, he won the trialsbut was sick five times in the last two miles.

Kempainen, the American record-holder in the marathon, has experienced stomach troubles since junior high school. But that hasnt kept this medical student from pursuing marathoning.

It is God who arms me with strength and makes my way perfect. He makes my feet like the feet of a deer; he enables me to stand on the heights.
2 SAMUEL 22:33-34

To stop was out of the question, he said, when asked about his physical condition. With the goal in sight, he knew there would be plenty of time to rest after the race and five months to prepare for the Olympics.

When God puts a desire in your heart to achieve a specific goal, you can have the confidence that He will give you the strength and the ability to accomplish it.

Every person has his or her own obstacles to overcome in life. In Kempainens case, the condition of his stomach tried to hinder him from making the Olympic team. In your life it will be something else. But we all face difficulties and challenges on the road to successand the difference between those who succeed and those who fail is simply persistence.

Life is not a level, smooth path but rather a series of hills and valleys. There are times spent on the mountain top, when everything seems clear and perfect. Then there are those times when we feel like were wandering around in a dark cavern, feeling our way along and trusting God for every step of faith.

Take a moment and set your heart to be persistent in your faithfaith in God to lead you, pick you up when you have fallen, give you strength to go on, and ultimately bring you to victory.

Obstacles are those frightful
things you see when you
take your eyes off the goal.

HANNAH MORE

We have this treasure in earthen
vessels, that the excellence of the
power may be of God and not of us.

2 CORINTHIANS 4:7 NKJV

I hara Saikuku, the author of two enduring works, The Japanese Family Storehouse and The Millionaires Gospel, had this to say about the challenges we all face in the pursuit of personal success:

To be born thus empty into this modern age, this mixture of good and ill, and yet to steer through life on an honest course to the splendors of successthis is a feat reserved for paragons of our kind, a task beyond the nature of the normal man.

Interestingly, Saikuku wrote this more than three hundred years ago! He lived from 1642 to 1693. His statement confirms the familiar axiom, Nothing ever changes. What was true about human nature three hundred years ago is still true today.

Each one of us is born into what may be likened to a mazewith many options for false starts, unproductive detours, and dead ends. The person who makes wise choices and decisions is the one most likely to make it through the maze of life with greatest efficiency, ease, and productivity.

The analogy of a maze holds true for each day also. In any given day, we face numerous opportunities to make wrong turns or give in to temptation instead of taking that big leap of faith to continue in Gods plan for our lives.

The Scriptures would agree with Saikuku that steering an honest course is beyond the nature of the normal man. Rather than an attribute of the unusual or specially-gifted person, however, this ability to make good moral choices is regarded by the Scriptures as evidence of the Holy Spirit at work in a persons life. It is the Spirit who helps us choose good and refuse evil.

Whenever you are faced with a decision today, ask the Holy Spirit to guide you. Ask Him to show you the way through todays maze!

Before us a future all unknown, a path untrod; Beside us a friend well loved and known
That friend is God.
ANONYMOUS

A traveler at an airport went into a lounge and bought a small package of cookies to eat while reading a newspaper. Gradually, she became aware of a rustling noise. Looking from behind her paper, she was flabbergasted to see a neatly dressed man helping himself to her cookies. Not wanting to make a scene, she leaned over and took a cookie herself.

The pride of thine heart hath deceived thee, thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock, whose habitation is high; that saith in his heart, Who shall bring me down to the ground?
OBADIAH 1:3 KJV

A minute or two passed, and then she heard more rustling. He was helping himself to another cookie! By this time, they had come to the end of the package. She was angry but didnt dare allow herself to say anything. Then, as if to add insult to injury, the man broke the remaining cookie in two, pushed half across to her, ate the other half, and left.

Still fuming later when her flight was announced, the woman opened her handbag to get her ticket. To her shock and embarrassment, there was her pack of unopened cookies!

Its so easy to make assumptions about what is happening around us. We expect things to be a certain way based on past experience, what we know, or what we have been told about a situation. Assumptions are not always wrong, but they are never to be trusted. Too many times they lead to embarrassment and even destruction.

The Bible tells us that assumption is based on human reasoning and the driving force behind it is pride. As Obediah 1:3 says, it is pridethinking we know everythingwhich allows us to be deceived.