Dealing with Rumors and Negativity

Conference is over and what a time we had with Jesus. I believe we experienced the best conference ever. Gods word was spoken, lives were changed, and students responded to the voice of God. It never gets old to see students respond to the altar of God telling Him that they Need Him. Don't we all need the Lord. I know I do! I do not want to live one day without the word of God speaking into my life.

I just came back from vacation with my family and it was so refreshing. God has blessed me with such amazing kids and a loyal and beautiful wife. We have so much fun together, we went to Dallas for a few days, then we went on to San Antonio. Great Fun!

Have you ever had someone start a rumor or speak negative about you? It happens. What do you do? Your flesh wants to react, say something back, get even, try defend yourself, etc... It is so hard! You see satan wants to get you off track, get you off center with God! He wants all your thoughts and time to be focused on the negative. If he can get you distracted from the will of God for that day or week, he can get Gods plan delayed in your life.
I was reading in Nehemiah 6:2-9 Sanballat was trying to distract Nehemiah from rebuilding the wall in Jerusalem. This was a God's will for Nehemiah to get this project done and restore Jerusalem. But, satan did not want this to happen, so he used sanballat to try to distract this plan by starting rumors about Nehemiah. He also tried to get Nehemiah off the wall and come down and meet him. Nehemiah knew this was not right, so he told the people this was all untrue and the rumor was all made up and he refused to go and meet him. I love also what Nehemiah said, "Sanballat is trying to intimidate us, imagining that they could discourage us and stop the work. So I (Nehemiah) continued the work with even greater determination." Nehemiah developed the attitude that I will stay focused not on the negative but on the vision that God had given him, he even became more determined. He allowed the negative voices to actually fuel the vision of the Lord.
This is what we must do when rumors or negative comes our way. We must not rehearse it, replay it, or repeat it. Just move forward in Gods word and plan for our lives.
The key to the Christian walk is to keep your heart clean and move forward in the word of God for your life. God is so good!