Devotional idea

Devotionals are a hard thing to come by because we all want them our own way.  We want a devotional series that we like, and thats not necessarily a bad thing.  But, we look at devotionals for only ourselves.  We want to be spiritually filled by them, and do not really care if we have a personal relationship with the very God of the universe through them. 

I find it very ironic that I am even the one typing this because very often in my own devotionals, I neglect the time that I get to have with God.  I do not want to neglect the time, but more times than I would like, I feel myself just trying to get them done and out of the way, almost like they are a chore that I am supposed to accomplish.  It has not taken me twenty years to figure out that I am not supposed to have this set mentality, but it has taken me twenty years to want to change that idea of marking it off my list to actually having an encounter with God.
Now, I want to say this before I go on.  When I say "encounter", I do not mean that God is going to come down and sit right beside you (I tried that and He took to long to come down).  But, I personally believe that He is already with us.  We all may have different views about this, whether He is in our hearts, in the space around us, in an object, in our minds, or what have you, but I personally believe that when we begin to speak to Him, he does come beside us.  I do not know how or anything, but He does come with us and He is with us (see the whole Bible for details :)).
Some of you reading this may be struggling to find time to have devotionals, or some may not even know what to do.  Well, I do not have the best solution, or I could probably make a lot of money by publishing a book and speaking around the world (and neither of those are happening).  But, this is an idea to take into consideration.
An idea that I have personally tried is translating the Greek text to English, and then writing comments next to them of how they apply to me and what these words mean.  A lot of you may not be able to do this, but an idea that I am also working on is translating the text from English to English, but in your own way.  Now, please do not misunderstand me because this is crucial, YOUR TRANSLATION DOES NOT BECOME THE BIBLE.  Do not take your own translation of the text and sell it on Amazon.  Revelation 22: 18-19 says, "I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book.  And if anyone takes words away fromt this book of prophecy, God will take away from him his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book".  Not only must you be careful looking at the book of Revelation, but let the text become a part of you.
I would like to see what people get from this, I hope that when you look at the text you ask yourself several things:
1. What does this text mean to me and how can I apply it? 
2. What is the good news here?
3. How can I tell others about this?
Devotionals are a good practice to live by, and I encourage you if you have not started a devotional series, or reading the Bible to be in communication with Him, I strongly encourage that you do.

Loss of confindence

Wow, I have not had the chance to write one of these in awhile.  A lot of things have been going on in my life that have made getting some free time really hard.  But, I often view myself as the only one in the whole world (which if you do not know there are 6,840,507,003 people in the world http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=sp_pop_totl&tdim=true&dl=en&hl=en&q=how+many+people+are+in+the+world) that does not have confidence in myself.  I have come to believe that there are a lot of other people that feel the same way like me.  But, what are we supposed to do then?
We, as humans, like to find ways that cheer us up and make us feel better.  Some do good things like talking what happened out with a friend, or journaling your thoughts and reflecting on good ways to react, or handle the situation.  But, more and more people are getting into bad habits.  There are some who like to drink their problems away, or eat until they have forgotten what happened, or they end up playing video games all day.  I would like to think there are ways to handle these problems better.
When I was in high school, my carpentry teacher was upset with us quite a lot because we were not excellent at building houses.  We made mistakes, and sometimes really big mistakes that could effect the whole project.  Even though our lives would be threatened, he would always find a way to fix the problem without it causing much harm.  This may be a poor example, but bear with me as I try my hardest to make this work.
When we look at a situation, we often look at the bad angle of what has happened.  If our paper is lost (like mine was so many times) we say that all our hard work is gone, we ask what is the point of typing it again.  Well, on the brighter side you get to learn your subject really well, and even though you have to put double the effort into it to get back where you wanted to end up, you know the subject a little bit better.  I am NOT saying here that you need to delete your paper whenever you finish it to know your subject, this is merely an illustration to try and look at the bright side of things.
I encourage you to look at the brighter side of things.  It will be really hard, and you may be suffering from a lot more than just a paper being lost.  Some of us have experienced death of a loved one, a friend or family member diagnosed with cancer, and other things.  But, I encourage you, there is hope in our world.  Right before Jesus' high priestly prayer, he said this simple phrase that I hope will give you hope: "³³ “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (Jn 16:33).
What a great message that is, and no "everythings going to be okay" or the like can compare to this message.  Because we have learned that reality shows us the pain in today's world.  There is so much struggle that we do not know where to go.  But, Jesus speaks into our hearts and he says have hope!  He says to us to look on the bright side of things, do not let the world get you down, because "I (Jesus) have overcome the world".
I hope this will encourage you to see Jesus in all things, more importantly in the struggles in life.  Do not hide this message, but go out and live it, and show the world that you are not fearful of what it has, because we are children of the overcomer (1 Jn 2:12-14).