Good morning everyone and welcome to another mornings with the masters where we devote ourselves to the Lord daily with you.

Today we are picking back up in our Bible at Flayon.

You are not behind.

It is day five, so if you have missed the previous couple of days,

make sure to go back and check them out and be encouraged but we are just going to jump into today.

Our verse is John 15. 4. It says remain in me and I will remain in you.

For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine,

and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me. One of my all-time favorite verses.

The devotional is titled,

Be careful how you cope.

And it says this, we at times all have an ache in us for more, a discontentment with life not turning out

the way we thought it would. When we have moments, days, or even years of waiting for it to be our turn.

That discontentment can wear on us.

In the middle of waiting, we can start to believe that we are the only ones who feel this way.

When that happens, we usually try to... We are the only ones who feel this way.

When that happens, we usually try to take control of our circumstances,

sometimes not in a good way.

When people get stuck feeling behind, they try to cope. Coping mechanisms can help us get through challenging emotions and circumstances.

Still, they can easily go too far when they become the source of our satisfaction and escape from reality or the only way we can function.

Another problem with coping mechanisms is that they rarely fix what's going on beneath the surface.

If we don't address what we are trying to avoid, we will never experience the abundance

God has in store. He is the coping mechanism we need to pursue.

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