Emily Conrad's Blog, page 28

My Plans vs. God's

Last Friday, I had a day free of other obligations. I was tired, and vegging out on the couch to write and watch movies sounded perfect. So, when my mom asked if I wanted to go to the store with her, I said no. Just as I was starting my movie, I heard two car honks. I looked, and my neighbor was parked in my driveway. When I went out to meet her, my plans changed; she needed me to drive her to the ER.

I spent most of my day with her, waiting on news from various doctors and tests, and in between, she brought up church. I took the opportunity to share my faith with her and to pray for her. Though I ended my day much more tired than I began it, I believe that God arranged my day just the way he wanted to.

If I hadn't been tired, I wouldn't have been home when my neighbor needed me. If I'd spent my day in front of the computer and TV, I couldn't have shown His love to a woman who needed to hear about it.

Now I won't say that my feeling off that morning was the worst thing that could've happened, but I sure would've appreciated feeling better than I did. At the time. But now, in retrospect, I believe that feeling, though uncomfortable, fit perfectly into God's plan.

God has a plan. Good, pleasing, and perfect, even when, at the time, it feels uncomfortable.

I've mentioned it in other posts, but I'm still reading Desiring God by John Piper. I just read the part about how God is in complete control of everything, evil included. What an exciting comfort it is that no matter what suffering I see on earth, God is using it for His purposes. And it's not just that He's reacting to the bad things that happen. He's in control of them from the start. He could stop them if He wanted to. That he chooses to allow them means he has a plan in them. 

(This is a whole chapter in the book, so I won't try to tackle it here; Piper does a much better job than I ever could. If you have questions about God allowing evil in the world, then I highly recommend Desiring God.)

We don't always get to see how He uses our suffering right away, but believers can rest assured that everything that happens passes through His good hands.

Jesus vs. Santa

As I type this, I'm watching my third Christmas movie of the year, and I'm struck by the fact that if Christmas were truly about Santa Claus and the "Christmas spirit" as these movies seem to represent, it would not be worth celebrating every year. Jesus Christ is infinitely more powerful, valuable, and necessary than Santa Claus. And that's good news, because if you think about it, Santa has quite a few limitations!

Santa Claus cannot stop evil or injustice. In the movies, though he represents the good traits of love and hope, he's in need of saving from the bad people of the world. He doesn't see it coming when someone with malicious intentions interacts with him, say to get Santa to act out violently and be admitted to a mental hospital.

On the other hand, Jesus sees right through people and knows them better than they know themselves. Here's an example with one of his disciples: But Peter said to him, “Lord, I am ready to go with you both to prison and to death!”
Santa doesn't offer eternal hope. He encourages "good" lives, but what comfort does Santa Clause offer for eternity? Would he be of help to a person on their death bed?

Jesus, too, encourages his followers to live lives of love and hope, but he also offers peace with God for eternity through a relationship with him. As Jesus says in John 3:16, "For this is the way God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life." (NET)

Santa Claus' power relies on the belief of the people. If the movies are to be believed, Santa's sleigh won't run without people believing in him, or Santa is only Santa if the children believe him to be so.

Unlike Santa, God is real and His power is not diminished if people choose not to believe in Him. Peter explains that though Jesus was rejected, He is still the only way to be saved: "This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, that has become the cornerstone. And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among people by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:11-12, NET)



Santa Claus needs others to fight for him to keep his cause from being ruined. Call the lawyers! Santa was arrested! He stands for something good, and if he goes to jail, that'll ruin everything he stands for.

Now, Jesus does ask His followers to represent Him to the world, but even when the courts of the day crucified Jesus, God's plan was not thwarted. Even a guilty conviction and death couldn't stop his power. He raised from the dead, and His message endures to this day. As Peter declared in Acts 2:24, "But God raised him up, having released him from the pains of death, because it was not possible for him to be held in its power." (NET)

Santa Claus, in the movies, gets tired and/or dies, and a new Santa Claus must pick up the torch.

Not so with our God. “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God – the one who is, and who was, and who is still to come – the All-Powerful! (Revelation 1:8, NET)

With this in mind, celebrate Jesus Christ and His birth this Christmas because He offers hope for eternity--not just for one day of the year. Celebrate God doing for you what you could not do for yourself. Celebrate the relationship with God offered only through Jesus.




Merry Christmas,

Claiming My Treasure

I'm slowly making my way through the book Desiring God by John Piper and have been turning in my mind a phrase he used about how the true mark of a Christian is that Jesus is their treasure.  Regardless of whatever else they gain or lose, they count themselves rich because they have a relationship with God, who is good, who is love, and who is Himself is the ultimate source of fulfillment.

Christianity isn't about escaping hell or enjoying the riches of heaven. It's about getting to spend eternity with God. It's about starting that relationship with Him here on earth and about enjoying and valuing that relationship more than anything else. It's about accepting Jesus as our Eternal Treasure.

This kind of belief is why Job could lose all his earthy possessions, including his heath, and yet not curse God. He didn't understand what was happening, but he still had the Ultimate Treasure. And actually, through his hardships, he gained a better understanding of his Treasure than ever before.


In Job 42:5, he says, "I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye has seen you." (NET)


For me, life is pretty good right now, but I'm reminded all of the good things in my life come from God. It's my goal to ensure that I love Jesus more than I love all the gifts He's given me in this life. It's a process. I'm far from perfect. But Paul reminds me in 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 that I'm not working on my own.

Now may the God of peace himself make you completely holy and may your spirit and soul and body be kept entirely blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.  He who calls you is trustworthy, and he will in fact do this. (NET)

Praise God, He's working in me, and one day He'll finish His work and welcome me into His presence, where I'll get to enjoy My Treasure forever.

I suppose that on one level or another, I've known this for years, but I was struck by it when I read it, and maybe you'll be challenged in your faith, too.

Why It Pays to Switch Things Up

My main career goal right now is to publish a novel, but I've lately spent some time writing short stories for contests and for content for my own site/email subscribers. The trade-off is paying off! Today my first story is releasing in the anthology A Bit of Christmas .

It feels like a big deal to finally have something with my name on it listed on Amazon. It's not the novel I've been working on for years, but it is a story I'm proud of, and it's a victory I wouldn't have had if I'd focused all my time and energy on my novels.

I'm reminded of Ecclesiastes 11:6, which says, Sow your seed in the morning, and do not stop working until the evening; for you do not know which activity will succeed –whether this one or that one, or whether both will prosper equally. (NET)

Or, of course, there's the familiar saying, Don't put all your eggs in one basket. 
I'm posting this because I'm sure it doesn't apply to only writing. Whatever goal you're working toward, consider what side or secondary projects you could take on to try to support or supplement your main goal. You may be surprised at how well things turn out! 

Why I'm Happy This Thanksgiving

I'm overwhelmed by how much I have to be thankful for this Thanksgiving. A few separate spiritual truths have combined to bring me to this point.


First, this Sunday, our pastor talked about how it's God's goodness rather than his discipline that is meant to bring us to repentance based on Romans 2:4, which says, Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? (ESV)

For some reason, it seems like people generally see tragedy as God's way of getting our attention. Maybe it is in some ways. I've definitely grown closer to God by going through some valleys. But considering tragedy and heartache as God's main way of capturing our attention and bringing us to repentance paints a picture of an angry God who makes appearances once in a while in the tragedies that make the news and, in between, stands in the shadows, waiting to punish us again.

On the other hand, don't most of us, over the course of our lifetimes, experience far more good than bad? It seems that overall, tragedy is news while everyday graces are so plentiful they're taken for granted unless/until they're taken away. Nature, family, homes, food, life, etc. If those everyday graces are meant to show us God's goodness and our need for repentance, as this verse suggests, then he's constantly present, lavishing blessings on us to get our attention. That's a very different God from the one who is focused on punishing. This is a positive God who woos people to himself.

This fit well with what I then read in the book Desiring God by John Piper. He wrote in the first chapter about how God is happy. He does what he pleases, and though he is saddened by tragedy on an individual level, in the grand scheme of things, he is still happy, still in control, and still working all things to his glory. It's in enjoying and praising him that we also find happiness because he's happy, good, and perfect, even when life is not.  

Combine that with what I read in Ecclesiastes, and you'll see why I'm so overwhelmed with happiness and gratitude. There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God. (2:24, ESV) Why I felt like I needed permission to enjoy my life, I don't know, but there it is. Enjoy your life! It's not meant to be a chore! Instead, the good in our lives should bring us closer to God and inspire us to sing his praises.

God is good to us. He's happy. He wants us to be happy in him and in the lives he's given us.

Sigh. So much happiness and goodness. So much to be thankful for!

What to do with Your Talents

I love watching people when they're in their element--anything from watching my husband drum to seeing my sister teach can be so inspiring.

Given that, it's probably not a surprise that talent became a theme in a story I'm working on. In it, an artist uses her talent with a paint to show her sister how her life could be better. A dancer takes time to dance with his girlfriend and, in so doing, shows her how much she means to him.

If you express yourself best in dance or art or writing or _______, expressing love that way is like giving a compliment in your heart language. Not only does your love come through, but, if you're a follower of Christ, God's love comes through, too. Think about it. Watching others complete amazing feats, especially in the name of love, should lead a person to appreciate not only the one acting, but also God who gave the actor his/her ability.


It's important to take an early opportunity to use your skills in that way because no matter how beautiful or special a talent is, your skills are a limited-time-only gift from God. Maybe you'll have them your whole life, or maybe you won't. Either way, life on Earth is temporary, too.

Losing the ability to write would throw me off, even though I try to ground my identity in God. But the good news is that when you use your talents to show love--not only your own love, but also Christ's love--you're revealing something that won't fade.

1 Corinthians 13:13 says, And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love. (NET)

God is love. He endures, and his relationship with you is the only solid thing to which you can tie your identity. So, while you have the talents he gave you, use them to show love for others.


If you're good at baking, why not whip something up for the neighbor? Have a knack for scrapbooking? How about creating a handmade card for your parents? If you're a writer like me, consider doing something I did recently and write a few notes of appreciation for people.

Talents are as varied as the humans that possess them. What special thing can you do for someone?

Timing Big Leaps Forward

As an overachieving goal-setter, I love big goals that result in gigantic leaps forward, but I'm choosy about when I commit to them because I've found that lofty goals are easier to reach if I pursue them at the right time.

For example, once, I wrote 40,000 words in 20 days. In theory, this means I could handle NaNoWriMo, when writers all over the country attempt to honor National Novel Writing Month by writing 50,000 words in November. However, as November rolled closer, I had projects I was excited about and believed I needed to complete to forward my writing career... hammering out a novel in a month wasn't one of them.

It's not that I don't need to keep writing novels. I do. But my heart wasn't in this challenge, and I recently set my focus on growing my writing career in other ways that I can't put on the back burner just yet. So, I told my competitive nature to cool it, and I passed.

I did this because I know a better time will come for me to write my book. Writing is my passion, and my heart will be drawn to the enormous task of getting a novel on paper--and fast. There will be a time when my time resources aren't as stretched. So, I'll wait until I can go into the challenge with some inspiration and with the necessary energy and time resources to succeed.

Whether you're a writer or not, I'm betting there's something in your life this applies to. You might be trying to tone up, make extra loan payments, or find a better job. The world is full of opportunities and challenges and goals you can chase. The question is, is this is the right time for you to whole-heartedly pursue that goal?

Think of big goals like they're a rope in an obstacle course. You can't just jump onto it whenever. You have to wait for it to swing toward you. Timing is everything.


While you wait, take other, normal steps toward your goal. Not all progress comes quickly. In fact, most of it is built slowly over time. Sometimes, if you try to rush when you shouldn't, you'll end up moving backwards instead. And it's the normal steps forward that will eventually put you in the right place to take a leap.


But, of course, though you can wait for a good time, you cannot wait for a time when success is guaranteed.

If the goal is grand enough, success will never be guaranteed.


What markers do you use to tell when you should tackle a big goal and when you need to wait?

Weighing Advice

With writing, I often seek out the opinions of others to improve my work, but one thing I've learned is that no matter how much advice I take or how good I think a story is, I can't please everyone with it. Someone's always going to have either a different life experience that shades their understanding of the story, different training in the mechanics of writing, or different preferences in what they read. At a certain point, I have to make my own decision about my story.


Maybe you've noticed something similar in your own life or line of work. Everybody has a different opinion about you, what you're doing, and how you're doing it. If you bend to every piece of advice, you won't achieve your potential. There's a time to adjust and change, but there's also a time to stop people-pleasing and to stand up for what you believe is best.


Sometimes, it's hard to know the difference, so today I'm sharing some of the questions I've learned to consider when I weigh feedback.

Is this one-time advice or a recurring theme? It's a rule with writing critiques that if only one person suggests a change to something, it's just one person's opinion. But once two or especially three people point out an element of a story as a problem area, it's time to take a serious look at revising. If you've had a few people warn you about something, it might be time to take notice.Are you considering the change only because of what someone else said? If the advice doesn't motivate you on a deeper level, it's probably time to toss it.What do your conscience and moral compass tell you? Thankfully, the Bible doesn't say 'Thou shalt not use semicolons.' That takes some of the pressure off when I'm told not to use them in my writing; it means the decision is, at the very least, not a matter of right and wrong. However, if a writing partner points out something that a character says or does that goes against my faith, I have to consider whether or not I'm reinforcing something I shouldn't with my fiction. This can be applied to all kinds of advice in all areas of life from parenting to finances. Will you be proud of the result? Ultimately, it doesn't matter who told you to do what. You're the one who will live out the consequences, good or bad, of your decisions. Your life and the outcomes of your decisions matter to no one else more than you. What do you consider when weighing advice?

Runover by Bandwagons

I spend a fair amount of time on social media, and if you do, too, you've probably noticed there are some debates raging. I won't name the latest thing people are fired up about because 1) you probably already heard more than enough about it, and 2) wait a week or two and they'll be debating something new.

Sometimes, when I see an opinion on Facebook, I initially agree and actually consider jumping on the bandwagon.

But a day or two later, when other perspectives begin to chime in, I realize the fault in the logic I heard initially.

Then, I'm glad I didn't take advantage of how easy it is to publish an opinion these days.

That's probably why Proverbs 18:17 keeps coming to mind.

Instead of jumping on the first bandwagon that comes along, let's take time to consider what we're standing up for, if social media is really the place to take the stand, and--most importantly!--if the bandwagon is one Jesus wants us on.

Don't get me wrong. There is truth in the world, and that means there are causes worth standing up for.

We need to hesitate long enough to run our opinions through the filter of our faith before we post.

But of course, that's a bandwagon too, isn't it?

Accepting the Best Gifts

What's the worst thing a person could do with a gift they couldn't repay? For my purposes, since this is about accepting gifts, not giving them, let's assume the giver is acting with pure motives. The giver really wants to give this gift, and they're giving it free and clear of any expectations.

I've put some thought into this question, and here's what I've come up with:
They could refuse to accept it and/or give it back.They could underestimate the value and return it to a store for less than it's worth.They could use the gift to their own advantage without appreciating the giver of the gift.They could accept it and then run themselves ragged trying to repay the giver/earn the gift.

We know how we're supposed to react, though, don't we? We're supposed to accept the gift with joy and gratitude toward the giver.

It's a no-brainer. Right?

But how do we react toward heavenly gifts? For Christians, the most obvious gift is our salvation, which came at the cost of Jesus dying at the cross. We can never repay that.

But let's take it even further. Everything in our lives is a gift from God. How would I ever even pay God back for the joy and fun of my dogs, let alone for the companionship God has given me in my marriage or the support and love of my family?

I can go another step further: how do I react to gifts I can't see the value in at first? It's so easy to fight against and bemoan suffering and trails, but that's not what the Bible says we should do. 

So, how should we react to all the gifts from God that fill our lives? With joy and life-changing gratitude toward the Giver.

I need this reminder, and I trust I'm not the only one. As we rush toward Thanksgiving and into the busy, gift-giving season beyond, let's take the time to gratefully remember the greatest gift God's given us. Let's also thank Him for all the other gifts He showers on us.

God is so good.

What gift from Him are you especially thankful for today?







P.S. This post was inspired by "Returning Christmas," a short story of mine that's coming out next month as a part of this anthology. As I write this, it's only $.99. Proceeds go to ACFW Virginia :)