Working for Good!

Let’s read Romans 8:28

“We know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”

My Ginger and Jeff love this verse and can tell you about hard days. When flames consumed their apartment, they didn’t lose just possessions—they lost their sense of order. She and Jeff moved to a noisy place. Their business ground to a halt. Routines crumbled. Days grew heavy with uncertainty.

But God doesn’t waste our pain. He recycles it.

Within two weeks of the fire, Ginger and Jeff closed on a new home on a quiet cul-de-sac. A fresh start and a dream realized! I couldn’t help but smile, because sometimes the thing we’re running from is actually pushing us toward the thing we’ve been praying for.

This is what Romans 8:28 really means. Not that bad things don’t hurt. They do. Not that loss doesn’t sting. It does. But God doesn’t leave us in the wreckage. He’s working, even when we can’t see His hand moving.

I told Ginger and Jeff something I’m telling you today: “For Christians, everything works out in the end. If it hasn’t worked out yet, then it is not the end.”

Some answers come in two weeks. Some take two years. Some we won’t understand until eternity. But if you love God and follow His calling, He promises to weave every thread—even the dark ones—into something beautiful.

Your ending isn’t written yet. Trust the Author.

I’m Lonnie Davis, and these are thoughts worth thinking.

God Sees Us

Proverbs 15:3 says, 

“The eyes of the LORD are in every place, watching the evil and the good.” 

That verse is both a comfort and a warning. We like the thought that God sees our faithfulness, but it is sobering to remember He also sees the moments we hope no one else notices.

I remember a day on the golf course when I met a man who apologized to me, a preacher, for his language. What struck me was not just his words, but his awareness. He noticed me, but he seemed blind to his 12-year-old nephew beside him. 

More troubling still, he seemed unaware that the Lord Himself was standing closer than either of us. It is easy to forget that what we do in private is just as visible to God as our public moments. 

We clean up our speech at church, hold our temper at work, and try to look like we have it all together. Yet the Lord is not fooled by our polished moments. He sees our hidden thoughts, hears our quiet complaints, and notices the attitudes we excuse because no one else hears them.

David asked, “Where can I go from Your presence?” The answer is nowhere. That truth is not meant to frighten us, but to shape us. 

When we live with a constant awareness that God is near, our behavior changes. We speak with more grace, we think with more purity, and we walk with more humility.

I’m Lonnie Davis, and these are thoughts worth thinking.

Lessons from an Ant

Did you ever notice how God tucks wisdom in the most unexpected places? Solomon did. This wisest of kings pointed his students toward something small, something most of us would step over without a second thought, an ant.

“Go to the ant,” he wrote in Proverbs 6:6, “consider her ways and be wise.”

Consider her ways. What a tender invitation. God doesn’t scold us for needing to learn. He simply says, “Look. Watch. Learn.”

And what do we see?  Verses 7 and 8 tells us that the ant is a creature with no supervisor, no motivational speaker, no life coach, yet she shows up. Day after day, she does what needs doing. She’s a self-starter in a world that loves to sleep in.

The ant works hard, this tiny teacher. No complaints, no excuses. She provides for herself and her colony with steady, faithful effort.

And here’s the part that stirs me most: she prepares. While the sun shines and the harvest ripens, she gathers. She knows winter is coming. She lives with one eye on today and one on tomorrow.

What if we lived like that? What if we stopped waiting for someone to push us, stopped living only for this moment, and instead moved forward with purpose and preparation?

God’s classroom has no walls. Today, your teacher might be six-legged and smaller than your fingernail.

Consider her ways!

I’m Lonnie Davis, and these are thoughts worth thinking.

Be Content!

Our Scripture for today is Proverbs 14:30.

“A tranquil heart is life to the body, but envy rots the bones.”

Ever notice how quickly joy evaporates when we start measuring our everyday life against someone else’s highlight reel?

You’re content with your home until you tour your neighbor’s renovation. Happy with your job until you hear about your friend’s promotion. Grateful for your blessings until social media reminds you of everything you don’t have.

Solomon knew we needed to be warned that “envy rots the bones.” Comparison robs peace. And envy? Envy is comparison with a bitter edge, a toxin that seeps into the marrow of our souls.

Notice the imagery. A contented heart brings life. It breathes vitality into your days, health into your body, lightness into your step. But envy doesn’t just wound; it rots. It decays from the inside out, gnawing away at the framework that holds you together.

We must remember that God hasn’t called you to live someone else’s story. He’s written one specifically for you, with your name on every chapter. Their blessings don’t diminish yours. Their success doesn’t cancel your purpose.

So quiet that voice that whispers, “Why not me?” Replace it with gratitude’s gentle refrain: “Look what God has done for me.”

Choose today to guard your heart against the poison of envy. Celebrate others without diminishing yourself. Trade comparison for contentment.

After all, a tranquil or contented heart isn’t just good theology.

It’s good medicine.

I’m Lonnie Davis, and these are thoughts worth thinking.

After You Fall…

In Proverbs 24:16, Solomon said:

“Though a righteous man falls seven times, he rises again, but the wicked are brought down by calamity.”

I love this text. It has instructed me many times in life. Notice from this text that both the righteous and evil man falls, the difference between the righteous and evil is whether they get up from their fall. 

The righteous man, the good man, falls but gets up. The wicked man falls down and just wallows in his failure.

A man named Harlan illustrates this. He was a sixth-grade dropout. Over his life, He worked as a farmhand, a railroad worker, an insurance salesman, a tire salesman, and had a failed attempt in politics. At the end of all these jobs, he retired broke. With little more than social security checks, he decided to sell chicken, more specifically, a chicken recipe. He went from business to business asking restaurants, cafes, and grills to use his recipe and pay him 5 cents for each piece they sold. He tried for two years. “No, no, no,” he kept hearing. In fact, he heard 1,009 rejections before someone finally said “Yes.”

We all know him now as Colonel Harlan Sanders of Kentucky Fried Chicken fame. When he died in 1980, he was a rich man, a millionaire. He failed 1,009 times, but he tried and tried again.

Winners keep on keeping on. Losers quit!

I’m Lonnie Davis, and these are thoughts worth thinking.

Buried Talent!

Don’t Bury Your Talent

 Not one is a thousand would recognize the name of Reginald Heber. On April 3, 1826 he served as a missionary in India. That day he preached outdoors under a hot Indian sun. To cool off, afterward he went for a dip in a nearby pool. While in the pool he had a stroke and drowned.

 A few days later his wife was going through his belongings and found in his trunk several old songs that he had written but never published. Among those songs was one that he wrote called, “Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord God Almighty.” Since that discovery millions of people, if not billions, have been blessed by the work of Reginald Heber.

 This is not a note about what a great song he wrote, but about how he buried that song in a trunk. He had great talent, but he buried that talent.

 One cannot help wondering how many of us have done the same thing. How many of us have a song, a story, or a sermon that we have never shared? Fear is a powerful force that can cause us to bury our talent. It may seem like no big deal, but we would do well to remember the Lord’s answer to the man who buried his talent, “You should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest.” (Matt 25:27)

 God did not call us to sit on our opportunities or talents. The talents God has given to you is God’s gift to you. What you do with those talents is your gift to God.

 I’m Lonnie Davis, and these are thoughts worth thinking.

Do It Scared!

Our reading for today is Psalm 56:3–4:

“When I am afraid, I put my trust in You. In God, whose word I praise—in God I trust.”

David knew fear. He wasn’t writing from an ivory tower but from caves and battlefields. His words aren’t from a man who never trembled—they’re from a man who did, but who found a place to stand when everything around him shook. He’s saying, “Fear comes—but faith answers.”

We all have our own list of fears. Failure. Rejection. The unknown. Loss. Aging. Financial strain. Change. Even death. Fear whispers in a hundred different voices, but faith only needs one reply: I trust in God.

When David’s men turned against him and spoke of stoning him, Scripture says, “David was greatly distressed…but he found strength in the Lord his God” (1 Samuel 30:6). He didn’t wait for courage to find him. He went and found it in God.

Maybe that’s where you are today—standing in the middle of something that scares you. Don’t deny the fear. Just don’t let it have the last word. Like David, talk back to it. Remind yourself that God’s promises are still good, His presence still near, His love still strong.

I’m Lonnie Davis, and these are thoughts worth thinking.

Doing Scary Stuff

Our verse for today is Ecclesiastes 11:4.

“He who watches the wind will not sow, and he who looks at the clouds will not reap.”

In other words, if we wait until fear is gone or the conditions are perfect, we’ll never leap. Faith means acting even when we feel afraid, knowing that obedience brings its own reward.

A few years back, Liz and I took the grandkids swimming at the health club. Our gym has a giant fifteen-foot water slide for the kids. Grandparents are not allowed on it, at least that was my official position. Our little five-year-old granddaughter came over to me and said, “I want to go down the waterslide.” She took a breath and then added, “I wish I was used to it.”

Kids often make profound statements, and this was one of them. It is a profound truth that great opportunities usually come with great anxiety. But if you face your fears, they can bring great blessings.

Winston Churchill said, “If I do that which I fear, fear will leave me.”

After our then-little five-year-old got used to the waterslide, she had a great time. The next time you have a daunting task before you, smile and say, “I will get used to it.” In the end, you will have a great blessing.

I’m Lonnie Davis, and these are thoughts worth thinking.

Dog Bites & Prayer

Our verse today is Proverbs 19:3.

“A man’s own folly subverts his way, yet his heart rages against the Lord.”

When you understand this verse, you will understand that it says we do things that hurt us and then wonder why God did this to us!

It reminds me of the story of the father who walked up on his son and his dog. The dog (named Kelly) and the four-year-old Josh had a wonderful relationship. Although the dog and the boy loved each other, the dog often had to put up with the boy’s behavior. Josh loved to hug the dog. Kelly would take as much as he could, but would eventually turn around and nip at the boy to make him turn loose.

One day, the father walked up on Josh and Kelly. Josh had his arms around the dog and his head tucked into the dog’s body so that Kelly could not bite him so easily. As Dad noticed that Josh’s eyes were closed and he heard him say a little prayer, “Dear God, please don’t let Kelly bite me.”

“Josh,” the father said, “God would be more apt to answer your prayer, if you would let go of the dog.”

We, too, are like the little boy holding on to the dog. He knows the dog will bite him, but prays that he won’t bite. We also do things that will bite us, but we don’t want to feel the bite. What do we do to stop the biting? We pray. We only pray!

We pray for a happy marriage and then neglect one another. We pray for a closer walk with God, but do not read His Word. We pray for peace, yet we live life at a frantic pace.

Each of us should examine the things that we pray for and then decide what we can do to help make the prayers come true. 

Continue praying, but also do your part.

I’m Lonnie Davis, and these are thoughts worth thinking.

Live Until…

Our reading is Genesis 27:1-2

It is the story of old Isaac asking a favor from his son. 

“Now it came to pass when Isaac was old and his eyes were so dim that he could not see, that he called Esau his older son and said to him, ‘My son,’ and he answered him, ‘Here I am.’ Then he said, ‘Behold now I am old, and I do not know the day of my death.'”

Isaac feels his life ebbing away and seeks a favor of his son. He used the line, “I do not know the day of my death,” and then asks his son for a favor. Interestingly, Isaac lived somewhere between 20 and 40 more years, before he died. Maybe Isaac would have done well to hear the old adage, “If you ain’t dead, you ain’t done.”

What is the point of remembering that story? Simply this: Wake up each day and remember that God has given you the gift of another day, rejoice and use it. 

I close with the story of a teacher who lost her mother. On her first day back teaching, one little girl gave her wisdom beyond her years. She told the teacher, “I’m sorry about your mother,” and then added, “But I hope you live until you die.” 

Maybe Isaac’s story will remind us all to live until we die. 

I’m Lonnie Davis, and these are thoughts worth thinking.