How many times have you thought, \u201cI wish things were different?\u201d I confess to having that thought a few times. On one occasion, I was so disturbed about circumstances; I went to three trusted friends for advice. One of them encouraged me to stop focusing on the circumstances and start focusing on my response to them. I did not know until later (and perhaps he didn\u2019t know either) that my friend was quoting from Epictetus, an early Stoic philosopher, who said, \u201cWe cannot choose our external circumstances, but we can always choose how to respond to them.\u201d Our circumstances, which can so easily get out of our control, range from relational, to medical, to financial, and beyond. Our responses range from pro-active, to reactive, to passive. One day Moses faced the Red Sea before him, the Egyptian army behind him, and the people complaining against him. His circumstances were almost overwhelming. That\u2019s when he responded with, \u201cDo not be afraid. Stand still, and see the salvation (deliverance) of the Lord, which He will accomplish for you today\u201d (Exodus 14:13). Next time your circumstances become overbearing, try the response of Moses. Don\u2019t panic. Stand still. Watch the Lord work on your behalf.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
How many times have you thought, \u201cI wish things were different?\u201d I confess to having that thought a few times. On one occasion, I was so disturbed about circumstances; I went to three trusted friends for advice. One of them encouraged me to stop focusing on the circumstances and start focusing on my response to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-monday-morning-manna"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1718\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}