CURRENT THEME: BREAK OUT AND LIVE! (For feedback or suggestions about specific themes in this series, send me an e-mail at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)

By Benescke Janse van Rensburg

"Take him away!" the king shouted after sentencing the convicted man in front of him to death. The king did not want to listen to any of the man’s pleas. His servants started to drag the man out of the room.

"Your Highness," the desperate man cried over his shoulder one last time, “if you spare my life, I will make your horse, the one you love so much, fly in a month’s time!”

To everyone’s surprise the king replied. "Wait, I will grant your request. But remember, if the year is over and my horse does not fly, you will die.”

Back at the man’s house, his worried family wanted to know how he planned to make the horse fly. “Oh,” the optimistic soul replied, “who knows, the unjust king might die in this year; the horse might die; or maybe, just maybe I will teach it to fly . . .”

Through which glasses are you looking at life and it’s challenges? Positive or negative ones? Do you realize that your attitude towards life has an influence on your choice of words, and your words on what you experience in your life. In Proverbs 18:21 we read: “Death and life are in the power of the tongue . . . " The Psalmist knew the power of his words and therefore prayed in Psalm 141:3: “Set a guard over my mouth, LORD; keep watch over the door of my lips.”

God has plans for us to prosper and not to harm us (Jeremiah 29:11). In Psalm 23:6 we also read: "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD forever."

So I ask you again: Through which glasses are you looking at your illness, your unemployment, your financial crisis, you rebellious teenager, your broken marriage, your loneliness? And does your words testify of faith or are they making you even more depressed? Do you speak life or death?

Let's make it our goal to look past our challenges and already in our mind's eye, see God's healing, a work opportunity for those who need it, a breakthrough from a financial crisis, a rebellious teenager coming to God, a broken marriage healed and to those with a desire for a spouse, the right one God brings across our paths. Nothing is impossible for Him when we believe with the same mind-set of the condemned man believing the horse can fly! God bless.

Father God, thank you for your goodness and mercy in my life. Help me to look away from my challenges and to remind myself of what You can do for me. I ask this in the Name of Jesus Christ. Amen.