No One Can Steal Your Destiny.

No one can steal your destiny.

No matter what anyone “does to you” along your path to either personal or professional happiness, that person cannot interfere with your destiny. Only you are in control of that, within the master plan created with God. You will encounter setbacks in this crazy world of seven billion souls that will frustrate and challenge you. We all do. But your destiny cannot be changed or diminished by another human being’s actions when you are firmly on your path toward carrying out God’s plans.

The old adage “When one door closes, another one opens” is absolutely true. God will always provide new opportunities for you if the actions of another interfere with your divine mission. Such interference is only temporary. How can it be anything else? God is bigger than any human being’s free will, and he will always steer you in another, healthier, and more abundant direction. The divine architect will not have his master plan thwarted because one of the laborers doesn’t want to do his or her part on the building site that day. He will find new laborer for you to partner with so that you can continue to build your monument. And when you know that all such setbacks are temporary, you will find it much easier to forgive humans for being human.

— Kathleen McGowan, The Source of Miracles, p. 134-135

Hearing God’s Voice, Together

The secret of the Christian life — and the Christian marriage — is that you don’t have to figure it out. You don’t have to figure life out, you don’t have to figure each other out, you don’t have to figure parenting out, or money or family. You have a counselor, you have a guide — you have God. What a relief that we don’t have to figure it all out! We get to walk with God. That is the beauty of Christian spirituality. This is not about mastering principles; it’s about an actual relationship with an actual person who happens to be the wisest, kindest, and, okay, wildest person you will ever know.

— John and Stasi Eldredge, Love and War, p. 130-131

Reluctance to Forgive

The inability, or reluctance, to forgive is our greatest failing. It is the cause of the majority of personal strife as well as global war. When you hold on to your anger, resentment, or disappointment in other people, you sabotage your own happiness. You use your precious spiritual energy on those negative emotions, when you could be using that power to live a joyous life, attract abundance, and improve the conditions of the world around you. An inability or unwillingness to forgive constricts you, draws you inward, whereas forgiveness gives you the opportunity to expand and open the channels of abundance in your life.

— Kathleen McGowan, The Source of Miracles, p. 125-126

Charmed Moments

Maybe this is what I’m meant to understand during this slow descent into winter and all the changes that lie just around the corner. That there is no such thing as a charmed life, not for any of us, no matter where we live or how mindfully we attend to the tasks at hand. But there are charmed moments, all the time, in every life and in every day, if we are only awake enough to experience them when they come and wise enough to appreciate them.

— Katrina Kenison, The Gift of an Ordinary Day, p. 224