Tuning the Attitude - Martin Wiles

You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had. Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. Philippians 2:5-6 NLT

Ah, the good ole days when a knob, a good ear, and a steady hand were all that was needed.

Radios have changed drastically since their invention. My wife and I once owned two old ones we purchased at an auction. They were heavy and filled with tubes that had to warm up before I ever had a chance of tuning in a station. I eventually sold them to a man who had an interest in old radios. Imagine my surprise when the tubes on one of them warmed up and a station came in that was clearly located in another country.

The radios I remember from my earliest years had no tubes, but finding a station still required fine-tuning. I had to maneuver the dials slowly and carefully to find a station, some of which were close to each other in identification.

And then came radios in cars. Radios where any and everything interfered with what I wanted to listen to. If I drove too far away from the station, I’d lose signal. If I entered a tunnel or went under a bridge, no signal.

Now, in my later years, I have the pleasure of Sirius or satellite radio. Though I may lose signal momentarily when in dead areas, I can normally listen to the radio without interference.

I don’t miss the days when I had to tune in a station—and perhaps look for another one. Sometimes, my attitude is as difficult to tune in as the old radios were.

Paul says my attitude should be like Jesus’. Though God, He humbled Himself and gave His life for humanity’s sins. He did not respond in anger or unkindness when others showed Him those same traits. Even while on the cross, He asked the Father to forgive those killing Him. He did not boast, quarrel, or show jealousy. Rather, He showed love.

Tuning in a bad attitude can’t be accomplished in my own power. Only God can show me a better way to respond to unpleasant situations or unkind actions by others. If I don’t depend on Him, static will cloud my mind, and I’ll find myself acting unlike Jesus did.

Beginning each day with prayer, ending each day with confession, and making many microwave prayers during the day will keep our attitudes tuned properly. And even if we fail, God is quick to give a second chance.

If you’re having trouble with your attitude, God will gladly tune it.

Prayer: Father, give us attitudes that would properly reflect You.

Tweetable: Have you tuned in your attitude? 

Thanks to all our faithful followers who share our posts! We also invite you to follow and like us on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and Instagram. Help us spread God's encouragement through His Love Lines.

Flashback Friday - Am I My Brother’s Keeper - Martin Wiles

Am I My Brother’s Keeper

Series: Practical Advice for Life

As I was enjoying a peaceful evening, a text arrived from my daughter. My middle brother, who was severely depressed because of his family breakup and impending divorce, instructed her to call our mom, tell her he was going to our younger brother’s house for a while, and to call his landlord and inform him that he wouldn’t be back.

His sudden leaving didn’t surprise us, but our concern deepened when our younger brother informed us he hadn’t heard from him. Nor had my brother’s high school friend—the other person he had told some he was going to live with. Since my younger brother is a detective, he immediately contacted our local authorities and requested help. Four days later—after frantic days and sleepless nights, our brother contacted us to tell us he had been hiking in the mountains and was fine. Read more...

Tweetable: Are you your brother's keeper? 

Thanks to all our faithful followers who share our posts! We also invite you to follow and like us on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and Instagram. Help us spread God's encouragement through His Love Lines.

On Call - Martin Wiles

Therefore be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful. Luke 6:36 NKJV

I wondered why I could do a task and stop while my wife kept moving from one task to another.

That was before I attended a seminar entitled Brain-Based Gender Differences in Boys & Girls, Men & Women. I learned fifteen percent more blood flows in the female brain than in the male brain. When a boy listens, he normally listens with only one side of his brain. In women, blood typically flows in both hemispheres of the brain. Not so with boys and men.

The male can “zone out” and enter an “empty box” where they can actually think about nothing. A wife may not understand a man saying “Nothing” when she asks him what he’s thinking about, but he actually can. Women have a difficult time thinking about nothing. Their brains work constantly with constant activity between both spheres. We might say the female brain is always on call. Not so with men and boys.

Somewhat like having a job where the employee is on call 24/7. I’ve had a few of those jobs. Nowhere I went was I off duty. Ever. I worked—or at least had the potential to work—365 days a year, and with no extra compensation. I prefer set hours where I can enjoy downtime. I suppose that’s because I am a man and don’t want my brain—or body—to work continually.

But two things I should always be on call for are mercy and love. Jesus said when I do I follow the example of the heavenly Father who demonstrates love and mercy. God the Father showed these qualities when He sent His Son to pay our sin debt. He continues to show them daily to His children—and even as a by-product to those who aren’t.

As God’s representative—and the recipient of His love and mercy—I’m to show the same to others. God’s mercy never runs out and ours for others shouldn’t either. Evil destroys our world in many different ways, so the need to show mercy will linger until God creates the new heaven and the new earth.

As the female brain is continuously on call, so our efforts to find ways to demonstrate mercy should be also. God wants us to channel what He has deposited in our hearts.

Ask God to send you daily opportunities to be on call to show mercy to others.

Prayer: Father, may we always be on call to show love and mercy to others.

Tweetable: Are your love and mercy always on call?

Thanks to all our faithful followers who share our posts! We also invite you to follow and like us on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and Instagram. Help us spread God's encouragement through His Love Lines.

Get It Right - Martin Wiles

Jesus replied, “All who love me will do what I say. My Father will love them, and we will come and make our home with each of them.” John 14:23 NLT

“We’ve never had a teacher tell us to do our homework wrong.”

Middle Schoolers are an interesting breed, particularly the sixth graders who are experiencing their first year in Middle School. To have a teacher tell them to do their homework incorrectly confuses them—and I do it every year.

One particular year, we began by studying typos—grammatical or formatting mistakes that we tend to overlook when proofreading. After one day of studying typos, I gave them a homework assignment to write five sentences with typos.

Their eyes got wide, and confused looks decorated their faces. That’s when one of the little tikes made the comment about never having had a teacher tell them to do their homework incorrectly. But I had a reason. The students would switch papers and try to locate the typos in their classmates’ work. I wanted them to get it right, so I asked them to do it wrong.

Not so with God. He doesn’t want us to experiment with the wrong to get it right. He wants us to obey from the start. Jesus says He and the Father will dwell with those who do what He says. Obedience is the key to getting it right in life—or, for my students, getting it wrong.

God has moral standards whether or not we choose to accept them. Some chose to live by relativistic standards. Right and wrong are measured by circumstances—or by what they’d like to be right or wrong. God doesn’t measure right and wrong by those, or any other ways. He measures right and wrong by what He, the ultimate authority, establishes as correct and incorrect behavior, attitudes, and words.

Once established, He then measures our behavior by His standards. Although He gives us the free will to obey or disobey, He doesn’t do so at the expense of discipline or punishment. Total disobedience brings punishment, and periodic waywardness leads to discipline.

Obedience, on the other hand, ushers in a life such as we’ve never experienced before. Through the presence of His Spirit, God gives us the power to obey. When we do, we’ll wonder why we ever wanted not to. Joy, along with a strong presence of God in our lives, accompanies a life of obedience to commands that God designs for our ultimate spiritual, mental, and physical health.

Don’t see how close you can come to getting it wrong. Let God help you get it right so you can experience the best life possible.

Prayer: Father, guide us along the right paths so that we can get it right presently and in eternity.

Tweetable: Are you trying to get life right...or wrong?

Thanks to all our faithful followers who share our posts! We also invite you to follow and like us on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and Instagram. Help us spread God's encouragement through His Love Lines.

Throwback Tuesday - Prayer's Power - Martin Wiles

Prayer’s Power

Series: Practical Advice for Life

A young girl phoned a local pastor. Her father was dying, and she wanted the minister to pray with him. When the pastor arrived, he found the man lying in bed with his head propped up by two pillows. Beside the bed was an empty chair. “I suppose you were expecting me,” the pastor commented. But the man told him no and asked who he was. After identifying himself, the pastor listened as the man told the story of the empty chair.

He had never learned to pray even though he listened to his pastor encourage it on many occasions. He finally just gave up until four years prior when a friend told him, “Joe, prayer is just a simple matter of having a conversation with Jesus.” He suggested I place an empty chair in front of me and pretend Jesus was sitting there. And that’s what he had been doing ever since. 

Now he was bedridden, so he had placed the chair beside his bed. The pastor was moved by the story and prayed with him. Two days later, he received a call from the man’s daughter saying he had died. But the posture she found him in puzzled her. She found her father with his head laid on the chair. Read more...

Tweetable: Have you discovered prayer's power? 

Thanks to all our faithful followers who share our posts! We also invite you to follow and like us on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and Instagram. Help us spread God's encouragement through His Love Lines.

Do Right, Even in the Rain - Martin Wiles

Remember, it is sin to know what you ought to do and then not do it. James 4:17 NLT

She pushed her shopping cart … and received an award.

The news story captured my interest. A middle-aged lady pushing a shopping cart full of groceries in a wind- and rain-driven storm. But that wasn’t what stole my attention. When she finished putting the groceries into her car, she left her back hatch up and rolled the buggy to the shopping cart stand.

This happened in a well-known retailer’s parking lot. Whether a fellow customer captured the scene on video and reported it or whether someone representing the retailer observed it on the security camera, I’m not sure. It doesn’t matter.

The retailer decided to reward the woman’s right behavior. After all, shopping carts litter this retailer’s parking lot on a regular basis. Carts that roll down hills and strike customer’s cars or that have to be run down by employees picking up the carts to return them to the store. I suppose they thought they’d make an example … a good example … out of this woman.

And reward her they did. For an entire year, she can call the store, place a grocery order, have an employee gather her items, drive up to the front of the store, and have her groceries placed in her car without ever getting out—or getting wet. All because she did the right thing … even in the rain … when she didn’t even know anyone was observing.

James says when we know to do the right thing, but don’t, it’s a sin.

Integrity, doing the right thing, entails doing the right thing even when others are not looking at us. When we do, our motives are pure. The lady returning the cart had no idea she would be rewarded—or was even being watched.

Doing right isn’t always easy. Some won’t appreciate it, others won’t notice, and some may even bully us because we have. Our audience is made of only one person: God. As long as we please Him, others don’t matter.

Our acts of integrity also make the world a better place as well as influences others positively. Perhaps some who didn’t return carts now will. Acts of good have a way of permeating society and of leading others to do the right thing too.

So, go ahead. Do the right thing … even if it’s raining, or unpopular, or misunderstood, or invites persecution.

Prayer: Father, cause us to do the right thing even if it’s not popular or if there are negative consequences involved.

Tweetable: Do you do right...regardless? 

Thanks to all our faithful followers who share our posts! We also invite you to follow and like us on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and Instagram. Help us spread God's encouragement through His Love Lines.

Influencing Like a Mosquito - Martin Wiles

As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend. Proverbs 27:17 NLT

An old African proverb says, “If you think you’re too small to make a difference, you haven’t spent the night with a mosquito.” But I had.

My maternal grandmother, Grandmammy, lived in an old farm house on highway 210 near Vance, SC. During the long sultry summers in South Carolina, staying with her meant raising the windows so air could creep in through the screens. The only problem is that her screens often had small rips in them—which let in mosquitoes.

Spending the night with this grandmother meant fighting a battle. Before I lay down, she would come into the bedroom with a can of Raid and spray around the screens. Then, as dusk neared, a mosquito truck would amble down the highway, spraying its nose-hair-curling poison.

In spite of all these efforts, no sooner had I lain in the bed than I’d hear that all-familiar sound. A mosquito singing. Since the room was pitch dark, I couldn’t see her; I could only swipe, hoping I’d kill that female who wanted to suck my blood and make me itch.

So the old African proverb was right. I’d spent the night with mosquitoes, and they had a pervading influence. They can turn a night in a hot room—or a camping trip—into a nightmare. The spread of their influence causes us to do any number of things to ward off what they attempt to do. Just think of all the money we spend trying to squash their influence.

But influence doesn’t have to be negative. Wise King Solomon says a friend can sharpen another friend, just as iron sharpens iron.

God gives me the privilege of being a positive influence on almost one hundred Middle School students five days each week. I don’t take the responsibility lightly. Hopefully, my influence will motivate them.

I also have the privilege of influencing hundreds of people worldwide through the writing ministry God has entrusted to me. I don’t take that for granted either.

These are my areas of the world God wants me to sharpen. You have areas too. Just like the mosquito, God wants us to buzz into the areas He has planned for us, influencing the people in our circle in a way that points them to Christ and helps them become more like the person He wants them to be. The ways we can do it are numerous, but God will help us succeed if we ask Him.

Find your world of influence, and buzz throughout it.

Prayer: Father, help us to be salt and light to a hurting world.

Tweetable: Are you influencing like a mosquito? 

Thanks to all our faithful followers who share our posts! We also invite you to follow and like us on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and Instagram. Help us spread God's encouragement through His Love Lines.

Flashback Friday - Confession: Good for the Soul - Martin Wiles

Confession: Good for the Soul

Series: Practical Advice for Life

Saying “I’m sorry” isn’t the easiest thing in the world to do.

A recent teacher evaluation reminded me of this. Our headmaster’s instructions to the observers were never to score any teacher with the highest ratings in all categories. Doing so eliminates any room for improvement. Reading over the remarks brings me face to face with my weaknesses—which I don’t enjoy admitting. I’m tempted to respond with, “That’s not the way it was,” “I didn’t do that,” or “That rating was too low.” But in order to improve, I must admit my errors or weaknesses—in this case to myself, and then attempt to improve my skills in that particular area. Failing to do so influences my effectiveness as a teacher and in some cases could even affect my job. Read more...

Tweetable: Are you having trouble with confession? 

Thanks to all our faithful followers who share our posts! We also invite you to follow and like us on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and Instagram. Help us spread God's encouragement through His Love Lines.

Choosing the Important - Martin Wiles

No, O people, the Lord has told you what is good, and this is what he requires of you: to do what is right, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8 NLT

He examined piece after piece with his magnifying glass, and each time he shook his head.

My wife and I thought we had acquired treasure. Our neighbor had brought us a bunch of items from an employer who cleaned out some things from their house. Among them, was what appeared to be silver. Since we needed extra money, we called a local antique dealer who buys silver and asked if we could come down for an appraisal.

We loaded our silver in a large box and headed out for our appointed time. As he sat behind his jewelry case, I handed him piece by piece. He looked through his magnifying glass, making sure what we offered was actually silver.

“Silver-plated,” he said and handed one piece after another back to me. As the box emptied, our hopes did too. Out of all we had brought him, only a small fork and a small spoon were silver—not enough for him to make an offer.

What we thought held value didn’t. Instead, we sold it several pieces at a time to those who didn’t care whether or not it was real silver.

The same has been true in my life. Times arose when I thought certain things were important: Levi jeans, Converse tennis shoes. Whatever the name brand was all my friends wore. But since Mom and Dad couldn’t usually afford name brands, I learned brand names weren’t so important after all. I got along fine without them, and the experience taught me a little about priorities.

Micah condenses life’s most important things for us: do right, love mercy, and walk humbly before God. A mix that’s certain to make our lives easier and more peaceful—whether or not doing so follows the norm or what’s popular.

Doing the right thing is never wrong … although it may be inconvenient or misunderstood. Loving mercy and then showing mercy to others will never lead us in the wrong direction. And humility—recognizing I’m nothing without God but can do all things with Him—will give me a proper perspective on everything else in life.

Our silver disappointed us, but loving others, showing them mercy, and living humbly never will. Choose to choose the most important things in life, regardless of what anyone else thinks.

Prayer: Father, give us the wisdom to choose the things that You value.

Tweetable: Are the things you choose important? 

Thanks to all our faithful followers who share our posts! We also invite you to follow and like us on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and Instagram. Help us spread God's encouragement through His Love Lines.

Restoring the Stolen - Martin Wiles

The LORD says, "I will give you back what you lost to the swarming locusts, the hopping locusts, the stripping locusts, and the cutting locusts. It was I who sent this great destroying army against you.” Joel 2:25 NLT

The unsealed envelope lay in my teacher’s mailbox, begging to be opened.

The week that school started back carried more drama than I cared to relive. The events began early Sunday morning when my daughter’s house was hit by bullets from a drive-by shooting. Luckily, she nor my grandsons were injured.

Later the same day, after going by the school to put a few things in my classroom, I pulled up to the gas station for a little fuel. After swiping my debit card and entering my PIN number, the screen returned to the opening message. A trip inside, I thought. As I waited in line, I noticed motioning for me to return to the car. I did. My wife had our bank account pulled up on her phone. The balance? Zero.

I suppose the crook soon found out they had hacked the wrong account. Spending $82 dollars doesn’t take long—and it only took them three transactions. But it was more painful for us. I needed gas, and we needed a few staples and groceries to get us by until payday.

Mom offered to buy me a few dollars’ worth of gas, along with milk, sugar, and pop tarts. The next day at our first In-Service meeting, I shared our recent dilemmas. Fellow teachers and staff members offered their prayers and support.

Later that day, after most of the meetings were over, I checked my mailbox and found the unsealed envelope. Inside was $82 dollars in cash. No note. No explanation. No name. Of course, that’s what we do around our school. We replenish what the enemy attempts to steal—just as God, through Joel, told Israel He would do for them if they turned from their disobedient behavior.

In my case, I hadn’t been disobedient, but God works even when the hard times aren’t a result of known sin. He loves to put us in situations where we have no way out so we can develop complete trust in His sovereign care. I had no idea whom to thank, so I just thanked the entire school—and, of course, God.

God’s hands aren’t tied by the enemy’s work. He is more than able to defeat anything Satan throws our way. And when we respond correctly, He’ll teach us to depend on Him even more—especially when we have seemed to have reached the end of our ropes.

Trust that God will restore what the enemy attempts to steal.

Prayer: Father, we thank You that no matter how strong the enemy’s tactics are that Yours are stronger still.

Tweetable: Do you trust God to restore what the enemy has stolen? 

Thanks to all our faithful followers who share our posts! We also invite you to follow and like us on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and Instagram. Help us spread God's encouragement through His Love Lines.

Author Interview with Megan Kinney

Today, Love Lines from God welcomes author, Megan Kinney.

Welcome, Megan, Tell us when you decided to become a writer? In other words, what made you actually sit down and write something?

I’ve always loved to write, but my earliest memory of it was in the second grade when I wrote a story about a leprechaun for St. Patrick’s Day. I wrote my first book sixteen years ago when I was pregnant with my first child.  

Every writer is eventually asked this question, but where do your ideas come from? 

Most of my ideas come from hearing about a circumstance and imagining what it would be like to be that person. For instance, with my debut novel, Dakota Peace, I was at a funeral for a fallen police officer. The dispatcher who had taken the call when the officer died called the officer’s number over the radio for the last time and told the officer to rest in peace because they had it from there. I couldn’t get that moment out of my head, and the story of a dispatcher with burnout was born.

Why do you write what you do?

I write women’s fiction because those are the characters I have the most connection to. 

What is the hardest thing about the creative process of writing? 

The hardest part of the creative process for me is finding a conflict that motivates the characters to change and that will continue through the whole book. I usually create the character’s personalities and their struggles pretty easily, but sometimes the plot gives me problems or people who know more about that issue shoot holes in my plot. My husband is a state trooper, and he did that several times in Dakota Peace. But the book is better because he made me rethink the plot.


If you’re a Christian, what are the challenges you believe Christian writers face now and in the future? 

I’m Christian writing in the general market, so I struggled with how to help the characters grow without giving God the credit. 

If you would, please tell us what was the hardest thing about writing your last book? How long does it typically take you to finish your books?

The hardest thing about writing Dakota Peace was working through many of the mistakes first-time authors make. I had a lot of back story that had to be edited out, and I needed to be more consistent in the struggles my characters were trying to overcome. Cutting some great scenes that did not move the story forward was hard, but I see how the finished product is far better than the original. It usually takes me a year to write and edit a book. 

Name your three biggest frustrations about the writing business.

I’m just starting my journey through the writing business, so my frustrations were more from my own ignorance of the process. Learning to market, especially online when I didn’t have much of a platform to begin with, was tough. I could have used some more instruction from the beginning, but I’ve found some amazing people who have guided me through it. Finding a publishing company that wanted to take a chance on a first-time author was difficult as well. 

On the flip side, what excites you the most about the creative process?

I love when the words flow and a scene comes together, especially when it’s unexpected even to me. And I love it when I get positive feedback on my work. 

What are you reading now, and who are a few of your favorite authors and why?

My favorite genre to read is historical fiction because I love to step back into a different time period. I just finished On Wings of Devotion by Roseanna M. White. It’s about a nurse and a code breaker/pilot during WWI. I love reading Elizabeth Camden, Melanie Dickerson, Jody Hedlund, and Jen Turan’s historical novels. 

Can you give readers the buy link for your book? 

https://shoplpc.com/dakota-peace
https://www.amazon.com/Dakota-Peace-Megan-Kinney/dp/1645262553

And can you provide your social media links so readers can follow you?

Facebook
Instagram

A foster mom and policeman’s wife, Megan Kinney combines her experiences and love of writing in her debut novel. When she’s not behind a book or computer, she’s enjoying the Black Hills of South Dakota with her husband and four daughters. 

Throwback Tuesday on Monday - When Suffering Comes - Martin Wiles

When Suffering Comes

The brother’s hugged before one entered surgery. Little did they know what lay ahead.

Two brothers, Chad and Ryan Arnold. One with a healthy liver, the other with incurable liver disease. But love won out. In Denver, Colorado, Ryan…age 34…the brother with the healthy liver, was donating a part of his liver to his brother who needed it to live. The surgery was complicated and dangerous. Everything seemed to go well, but complications set in. Within four days, the brother with the healthy liver had died while the sick brother survived. Read more...

Tweetable: Where do you turn in times of suffering? 

Thanks to all our faithful followers who share our posts! We also invite you to follow and like us on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and Instagram. Help us spread God's encouragement through His Love Lines.

Love Works Everything Out - Martin Wiles

Series: Love Unchained

And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. Romans 8:28 NLT

“My house has been shot.”

The early morning text from my daughter was not how I wanted to begin my day of worship. I wanted details, and they came too slowly by text. But my daughter is a Millennial, and that’s how she communicates best.

Over the course of the next half hour, my wife and I pieced together what had happened. Our daughter lives in a less-than-desirable section of town. Since moving into her new house, several shootings have occurred either in her neighborhood or in the nearby apartment complex. This case was a drive-by and was aimed at one of our daughter’s neighbor’s children.

As the car sped by the young man who walked down the street, three shots rang out. He dropped and rolled, but one bullet struck my daughter’s house and two her neighbor’s house. Fortunately, no one in either house was harmed. The one bullet which pierced our daughter’s house plowed through wall after wall until it finally stopped in the back bedroom after having passed through our two grandsons’ bedrooms and their bathroom. Luckily, one of them slept on the couch, and the other slept in the bed with his mom.

The bullets that struck her neighbor’s house entered low and could have easily struck and killed anyone standing or sitting. The mom happened to be lying in bed. The bullet which entered our daughter’s house went in high near the roof, and continued that way as it made its path through the house.

As believers in God’s sovereignty, we believe God protected our daughter and grandchildren. Had it not turned out as it did, we would not have stopped believing in God’s sovereignty or love. Paul says God takes everything, good and bad, and works it all together for good in His children’s lives.

How God will use this for good in my daughter’s life remains to be seen. Perhaps she’ll move to a safer area. Maybe she’ll install a security system. Maybe she’ll draw closer to God or use this as an illustration of God’s protection when talking to someone going through a similar experience.

Whatever God does with the “bad” things in our lives, they’ll be good when He gets through with them. Our part is simply to trust and obey and to leave the consequences to Him.

Trust all events in your life to God, and watch what He does.

Prayer: Father, we give our lives—and everything in them—over to Your providential care.

Tweetable: Have you placed your safety in God's hands? 

Thanks to all our faithful followers who share our posts! We also invite you to follow and like us on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and Instagram. Help us spread God's encouragement through His Love Lines.