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Perhaps as a child, you heard your teacher at school say,
Good, better, best,
never let it rest,
until your good is better,
and your better is best.
God has promised us that His ways are the best path for us. And, in choosing God and His ways our devotion to Him will deepen. Well, I try to apply this in very practical ways to my own decision-making and choices. Here’s just one way that doing so has helped me develop a deeper devotion to God.
While living in Los Angeles I spent a lot of time in the car in traffic. There in the car — all alone — I had options about what I could think and do. For years I drove around with an easy-listening music station on the radio. That was a fairly good choice. However, after some thought, I decided a better choice for me would be to listen to classical music (a passion of mine). After thinking about my choice a little more, I decided an even better choice would be playing a CD of uplifting Christian music. Then I moved up the “better” scale again as I chose to listen to sermon CDs instead — recordings of a man of God teaching the Word of God to the people of God. Next, playing CDs of the Bible seemed even better. Then one day I turned the whole audio system off and landed on what for me was the best choice for my car time — memorizing Scripture. Good to better to best!
When I was a new Christian, I heard a more spiritually mature woman at church tell about a choice she made each day as soon as her husband left for work. She said she could do almost anything she wanted — turn on the TV and watch a soap opera or talk show, read the Los Angeles Times, or — her choice — pick up her Bible and have her quiet time. Here was a woman — a woman after God’s own heart — paying close attention to what was good, better, and best, and striving to make the best choices.
Carole Mayhall of the Christian discipleship organization, The Navigators, once said “Daily I live with [one] fear — a healthy fear — that I will miss something God has for me in this life. And it is mind-expanding to contemplate all that He wants me to have. I don’t want to be robbed of even one of God’s riches by not taking time to let Him invade my life. By not listening to what He is telling me. By allowing the routine, pressing matters of my minutes to bankrupt me of time for the most exciting, most fulfilling relationship in life.”
I also do not want to miss out on God’s best due to merely choosing what is mediocre or just okay. At each moment of decision in your day, ask God to help you choose beyond the better choice to what is BEST!
Read The Difference Between Good, Better, and Best on Elizabeth & Jim George.
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Jim and Elizabeth George are bestselling authors and national speakers dedicated to helping people live a life after God’s own heart. Together, they have written over 150 books with more than 14 million copies sold around the world. For over 35 years, the teachings and steadfast example of Elizabeth and Jim have helped countless men and women:
Jim and Elizabeth George are bestselling authors and national speakers dedicated to helping people live a life after God’s own heart. Together, they have written over 150 books with more than 14 million copies sold around the world. For over 35 years, the teachings and steadfast example of Elizabeth and Jim have helped countless men and women:
When something difficult happens in your life, are you ever tempted to ask, “What good could come out of this?” The event looks like a disaster. It feels like a disaster. Therefore, we quickly conclude, it is a disaster! But God did not forget His people who were suffering in Babylon. And, my friend, He won’t forget you!
Too many times in the past I’ve told others “I’m fine” in order to hide my pain and sorrows from them. The truth is, my thoughts pulled me down so far that, in private, tears regularly streamed down my face. Are you constantly thinking negative thoughts? Being a woman after God’s own heart is all about “minding your mind.”
As a young mother, I endeavored to “train a child in the way he should go,” so that “when he is old he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6). A decade later, however, I wasn’t reaping the results I had expected. Angrily, I said to God, “But this isn’t the way it was supposed to be! This isn’t the way it went for this family here or that family over there. And this isn’t the way it was supposed to be for my family!”