Pr. 22:17-21 AMP “Listen (consent and submit) to the words of the wise, and apply your mind to my knowledge; For it will be pleasant if you keep them in your mind [believing them]; your lips will be accustomed to [confessing] them. So that your trust (belief, reliance, support, and confidence) may be in the Lord, I have made known these things to you today, even to you. Have I not written to you [long ago] excellent things in counsels and knowledge, To make you know the certainty of the words of truth, that you may give a true answer to those who sent you?”
I’m reading one chapter of Proverbs a day during August. This phrase stood out to me this morning in verse 18 “your lips will be accustomed to confessing them.” I was thinking how true this is. When I spend time in the Word and speaking it outloud, my mouth gets more and more used to saying God’s Words instead of mine. The less time I spend in the Word, the more I get discouraged and speak words that are against what God has said.
Running a seasonal gift shoppe is the most challenging thing I’m doing right now. My first challenge is to find the scriptures that relate to being prosperous in the business. Oh yes, I know the verses that say God gives me the power to get wealth (Deut.) and I will succeed at whatever I set my hand to (Joshua). However to putting them into reality so that I see customers coming into the shoppe and buying (not just looking and telling me how pretty the shoppe is!) is another hurtle. I know that I need to speak words of life to my business and then roll the care of it on Jesus. Proverbs says that He will cause my thoughts to become agreeable to His and so shall my plans be established.
I know that the gift shoppe is a “gift” from God and that I’m doing what He wants me to in running it. However, when I sit here day after day with not many sales, I tend to get discouraged and say things I shouldn’t. I don’t like people to ask me “how are you doing” in relation to the shoppe because I just don’t have the positive words to say yet. My mouth is not accustomed to speaking positive about the shoppe yet. I need more time to get God’s thoughts about it in my mind, mouth, and heart so that I can be accustomed to speaking His plans over the shoppe instead of what I’m seeing in the natural. After all, faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. I’m not seeing the results in the natural yet, so I need to see the business the way God sees it. I have some work to do yet.
I know that my God will encourage me in His Word and fill my mouth with good things (words) so that my joy and enthusiam will be contagious and the world will see that God is my source and soo, soooo good to me. I have less than two weeks left this season to see the goodness of God in the land of Exquisite Things Gift Shoppe!
I’ll be better prepared next year as my mouth will be accustomed to speaking His Word over the business and not discouragement.
Lighting My World With My Words 