Category Archives: Courage

If you need courage, these stories will build up your bravery. Take heart, nothing is a match for Jesus. You might be facing rejection, addictions, anger, complacency, fear, temptations, and problems from all side, but Jesus is bigger than your giants.

What we believe about God projects on to what we believe about life. When life throws the punches, have no fear… the Almighty has got this!

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Your Best Days Are Ahead

best days are ahead, trishakeehn.comThose who live by the law also live in the land of ‘what if’. It’s time to stop rewinding the reel of your broken dreams.
 
The law says, ‘look at what I did’. Grace says, ‘look at what Jesus did.’
 
The devil can’t stand to see you free. He might be surrounding you with discouragement and disappointment now. Hang on, Friend. Wait on the Lord. You shall have your strength renewed soon and mount up on eagle’s wings.
 
Trust the Father with your future. Your best days are not behind you, they are still out in front of you.
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What Complaining Really Says

complaining, your problems are under God's palm, God's power is bigger than your problemThe most powerful words in the world are the ones you use to talk about yourself and your situation. When you choose those words to be praise first, you put your problem in its proper position; under the palm of the Lord.

Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise. (Psalm 100:4)

And if it’s that kind of day and you don’t know where to begin praising Him, Psalm 104 will give you a good start.

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Grace Was Meant For Us

grace, love of God, Jesus gave us graceWe celebrate Love today. Love that woke you up this morning even after…
 
Some of you are still standing at the cross with your hands full of shame; the enemy has you holding onto the pain of your wretchedness. It was really bad what you said, what you did.
 
But Love. Love reached down from the Heavens and asked for everything in your hands and said, ‘it is covered’.
 
The enemy’s primary weapon against you is shame. If he can get you to walk in shame, you won’t come to the altar and ask God for forgiveness. Accepting the high gift of grace draws you closer to the Father and that’s exactly what the devil doesn’t want you to do. The enemy wants you walking around expecting punishment.
 
Here’s what I want you to know: Jesus already went to the cross for that. You can come boldly to His throne with the tears and the pain and leave it there and He’ll be glad you came. His love and grace was meant for you and me.
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Respect Yourself

respect yourselfRespect yourself enough to walk away from anything that no longer improves this better version you are becoming.

It’s a disaster to stay miserable because it’s familiar.

Fear will have you curling up to yourself. I’m asking you to reject the lure; it’s a trap to keep you fixated on the troubles.

If you know Jesus, then tap that reserve to the unfailing spring buried within. It’s time to show the natural life some supernatural power.

Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Hebrews 4:16

 

 

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Failure Is Why You Will Succeed

You said it was the end. Bankruptcy. Foreclosure. Pregnant. An STD. Divorced. Fired. Homeless. Jail. Cancer.

Maybe you’re single and can’t remember the last date. You may be a new small business owner that’s barely scraping by. Or perhaps you quit your job, launched a dream working for yourself and the projects are just not taking off as you imagined they would.

It could be that you moved to a new city with hopes of finding joy and making friends but you come home feeling lonely every night. Or you woke up to 100 pounds overweight and feel overwhelmed by the work it’s going to take to lose it all.

When life doesn’t lay out the way we planned it, it’s easy to surrender to failure with negative thinking. Here are a few folks who walked through failure and have come out with a positive message for you.

“The next day after I got fired, literally the next day, I started a new company. Life is too short to spend your time avoiding failure.” MICHAEL BLOOMBERG

be humble in your success, stay positive in your failures, Jerry Seinfeld quote, Jerry Seinfeld on failure, trishakeehn.com

“Do the one thing you think you cannot do. Fail at it. Try again. Do better the second time. The only people who never tumble are those who never mount the high wire. This is your moment. Own it.” OPRAH WINFREY

“I would say the advice I would give myself, or any young person, would be, ‘Keep your head up in failure, and your head down in success.'” JERRY SEINFELD (He forgot all his jokes on his first night of stand-up)

 “Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.” TRUMAN CAPOTE (writer & actor known for Breakfast at Tiffany’s)

“I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.” STEVE JOBS

 “It’s fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure. Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.” BILL GATES

Michael Jordan, basketball pro quote, failure is why you will succeed“I have missed over 9,000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to take the gam winning shot, and I have missed. I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” MICHAEL JORDAN

“You’ve got to get a real job and get a real career, and you’ve got to go to work. And, you’ve got to live. And, you’ve got to succeed and fail, and suffer, a little bit, or see suffering, heartache and heartbreak and all that before you really have anything to write.” JOHN GRISHAM

 “You don’t need anybody to tell you who you are or what you are.” JOHN LENNON

“The higher up you go, the more mistakes you’re allowed. Right at the top, if you make enough of them, it’s considered your style.” FRED ASTAIRE

Fred Astaire quote, Fred Astaire on failure, failure is your style, fail often

“It’s the way of all ancient stories. The young man must go ‘down’ in order to find the right path for going ‘up.’” SIDNEY POITIER

“One who fears the future, who fears failure, limits his activities. Failure is only the opportunity more intelligently to begin again. There is no disgrace in honest failure; there is disgrace in fearing to fail. What is past is useful only as it suggests ways and means for progress.” HENRY FORD

 “Most of us are acquainted with losing. Very few of us ever win.” CHARLES SCHULTZ

 “I do not live for what the world thinks of me, but for what I think of myself.” JACK LONDON

Tom Landry quote, Tom Landry on failure, constructive comes from every defeat, football coach quote“I’ve learned that something constructive comes from every defeat.” TOM LANDRY

 “To bear up under loss — to fight the bitterness of defeat and the weakness of grief — to be victor over anger — to smile when tears are close — to resist evil men and base instincts — to hate hate and to love love — to go on when it would seem good to die — to seek ever after the glory and the dream — to look up with unquenchable faith in something evermore about to be — that is what any man can do, and so be great.” ZANE GREY (author best known for making the ‘Western’ genre popular)

 One lasting thought…

“At some point, you are bound to stumble. If you’re constantly pushing yourself higher and higher, the law of averages predicts that you will at some point fall. And when you do, I want you to remember this: There is no such thing as failure. Failure is just life trying to move us in another direction. Now, when you’re down there in the hole, it looks like failure. When that moment comes, it’s okay to feel bad for a little while. Give yourself time to mourn what you think you may have lost. But then, here’s the key: Learn from every mistake, because every experience, particularly your mistakes, are there to teach you and force you into being more who you are.” Oprah Winfrey

You thought it was the end, but it’s only the beginning.

Save this post so that the next time negative thinking comes knocking at the door of your failure, you can declare all the great successes that are about to come from this ‘defeat’.

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A New Way of Seeing Things

One’s destination is never a place but a new way of seeing things. – Henry Miller

The lacing of snow gracing all that is within sight is just stunning. Snowbound in Nashville, and temps in the teens/20’s, inspiration came knocking at my door, asking if I’d like to come out and play.

Just because something is here one day, it might not be the next. This heart inside is adorned only in the beauty of journeys we take. Friendship with ourselves is recognizing that I deserve to live this adventure. So I said ‘yes’ to the proposition of this mysterious guest and bundled up tightly. There were drifts, stacked by the foot, of snow to climb through; I don’t even own a pair of boots for crying out loud.

The streets were bare of human beings. Only the crunching of snow beneath my feet filled the hollow echoes in the atmosphere. I said, ‘hello’ just to hear the sound of something other than silence. Nothing moved. When the apocalypse happens, is this how it would feel to be on the outside?

Tony Robbins quote, expectation for appreciation, positive living, change your focus, change your thinking, trishakeehn.comThe cold was quite critical to me. The tips of fingers and toes were now numb, yet in this moment, I felt understood. My mind negotiated through the uneven terrain of contradictions I believe and buried wounds decaying inside.

There were times the heart had mistaken me for a distant friend and tried to slide through the conversation too fast, thinking I won’t notice the parts we were skirting.

So I circled the questions one more time. Secrets that had stayed concealed in the valleys between the words now started to surface.

 For fear of feeling like my soul had been dragged out here to suffer in the cold-hearted truth, I listened for the company of its own compassion to warm my thoughts again.

And in the stillness, I heard love. The Spirit gathered kindling within and lit the embers of a cozy fire. The Divine had awakened and came running to welcome me with it’s tender affection.

Peace and joy interrupted what pain I had stirred. The warmth of their embrace sheltered the vulnerabilities between us, as we shuffled through the snow together on the way back home.

Love your soul. When this mysterious guest of adventure shows up, often looking like a giddy child in the cold, I pray you’ll abandon what is comfortable and spring at the delight of awakening the Divine. May it unlock what is hidden deep within you and bloom into a beautiful, transparent life, laced with love.

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What You Need When You Need It

Whatever God tells you to do, He will help you to do.

We don’t have to live concerned about having the courage to do the things He hasn’t called for us to do.

A couple years ago I took a solo backpacking trip for about a month through the country of Italy. I hadn’t done something like that before and had no training, but I also wasn’t scared because it was a journey the Lord called me to and I trusted Him to give me what I needed to make that happen.

Recently my mind has been going back to that adventure as I finish up the writing of a manuscript I started back then. My head shakes with disbelief. The courage that girl had doesn’t sit naturally in me. That was a supernatural, God-ordained courage.courage, God gives you what you need, when you need courage God will give it, no fear, www.trishakeehn.com

Incredible courage isn’t something you can cultivate. God gives you what you need when you need it.

If you’re unsure about the Lord’s direction over a particular idea or plan in your life, pray about it and keep your eyes open.

Look for those swinging doors and don’t discard the one’s He slams shut. Sometimes we get caught up in our own desires and it’s easy to trail-blaze through the frustration and pry open what was meant to stay closed.

Don’t let your courage get caught up in the details. Bravery is trusting in something you cannot see because you believe the prayers and promises in His Word.

It takes audacity to walk away from a dream, knowing God has something better. It takes a Holy Spirit fearlessness to walk on His Word into the unknown. When your focus is on His lead, you can’t go astray.Peter didn't walk on water, Peter walked on the Word, Peter walks on water, Jesus said Come, courage takes stepping out on His Word

There was a prophet who opened my eyes to a familiar story (Matthew 14:22-33) with this bold statement: Peter didn’t walk on water, He walked on the Word. The stormy seas weren’t pulling Peter out of that boat and hoisting him to his feet. But when Jesus said, ‘Come’, Peter stepped out on the Lord’s command.

Courage is stepping out on God’s word, come. Listen for His Spirit to speak it and be ready to step out into some stormy seas on His command.

I pray for you now, that as the Spirit stirs up some supernatural courage in you for the season of adventure just up ahead, that your ears will perk up and your eyes will be peeking around the corners for His hand guiding you in the direction of His will.

I pray that every hindrance holding you back and every burden keeping you down, won’t have any weight on your obedience to step out when the time is ready. Lord, help us to focus on trusting You and letting the plans fall into place as You see best. We love you and we are ever grateful to be called yours, In Jesus’ name, Amen.

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Finishing doesn’t require being first

Starting isn’t easy.

Yesterday just wasn’t mine to move forward. I didn’t work out. Didn’t work on my dreams. Didn’t work on much of anything.

On the first day of the year, I was still in the starting blocks as the calendar took off.

Last night, I laid in bed talking my goals off the ledge of failure because here’s what I know about the race we’re in:

You don’t have to be at the front of the pack to finish.

Today is another chance. On your mark. Get set… Go!

you don't have to be first, you can still finish, you don't have to be at the front of your dreams, there's still time to finish