Ann Voskamp's Blog, page 105
March 11, 2019
When God is the top priority for a person and family, all other relationships fall into place
Marriage is one of the most beautiful and difficult relationships we enter into . . . something fiction author Jolina Petersheim has experienced personally and also explores in her new novel— How the Light Gets In, a story about marriage and motherhood, loss and moving on. While writing the novel, Jolina and her husband Randy faced several trials that tested their marriage deeply: moving across country with three young daughters after homesteading in Wisconsin; building (by hand) a new home; the looming prospect of Randy’s second brain surgery to remove a benign tumor. Jolina’s desire is that the story that unfolds in the pages of her latest novel will offer hope to marriages, especially those burdened by the stresses of life—parenthood, jobs, health, ministry obligations, and more. It’s a grace to welcome Jolina to the porch today…
guest post by Jolina Petersheim
A
fter our girls were in bed, I sat on the floor beside my husband, Randy, as he rested on the couch.
I asked if he’d seen the picture his mother had shared of Nick Vujuicic with his family. Nick is a world-traveling preacher and motivational speaker. He also has no arms and legs.
“Sometimes I wonder if we just made God up to make ourselves feel better.”
I said, “It’s all about attitude.”
Randy, deep in thought, barely responded.
I knew he was hurting; I knew he needed space. But I pushed him. “Have you written any letters?”
“Letters?”
“To the girls. Or financial information for me and your dad.”
“I’ll have it all together when it’s time.”
“Good.”
His eyes closed.
I said, “Do you even know what you feel?”
His eyes opened. “Yes, at the moment I feel somber. Brain surgery is a sobering thing to face.”
Leaning over my knees, I drilled my fingers into my jaw. Tears stung. I said, “You want to know what I really think?”
I heard the smile in his reply: “Maybe.”
“Sometimes I wonder if we just made God up to make ourselves feel better.” I glanced at him; he didn’t look shocked.
“I know He’s real. I’ve seen how He’s worked in my life.”
My tears fell harder. After a moment, I said, “Is this how we can talk about it?”
“About what?”
“About the surgery.”
“Yes.” His tone softened. “This is much better than telling me to write letters.”
As Randy began sharing what he felt, I was reminded of a similar conversation four years ago: my husband lying in a hospital bed, hours away from an emergency craniotomy to remove a benign tumor, and me telling him to take videos for our girls.
I hadn’t felt kind then, in the hospital, and I hadn’t felt kind while asking him to write letters.
I cannot expect my husband to love me the same way because he came into our marriage with his own hurts and scars, just as I came branded with mine.
His somber behavior over the past few days had infuriated me. It also infuriated me when he decided to stop CrossFit until after surgery, which was still a month away.
I told myself it was because I wanted to have a strong “fighting stance,” but the reality was that I wanted to control what I could.
But my husband wouldn’t let me control him.
How could I have gone through so much and remained unchanged?
My tears turned to sobs. Flipping onto my stomach, I tried muffling them in the carpet so our girls wouldn’t awake.
When that didn’t work, I went out of our apartment into the cold warehouse, where my husband stores his business inventory along with items for our new house, which he’s building across the field.
Still sobbing, I moved deeper into the dim building and sat on the wooden crate containing our new house’s front door.
I sat there, back curled over my knees, and travailed like I was giving birth. It only lasted minutes, but during it, and afterward, I expected my husband to come out into the warehouse and hold me.
He didn’t.
I wondered why he didn’t come, and then I had a flashback to the time, early in our dating, when I became ill and threw up in my parents’ bushes, and he darted inside to give me space.
When I allow my heart to accept God’s whole, perfect love, my gaze shifts from those magnified imperfections, and I am able to love my husband through the grace of God’s perfect example.
Space is his love language.
My love language is hugs.
But there, sitting on that huge wooden crate, I felt God’s presence. It was so tangible that I smiled with tears on my face.
I had questioned Him and run from Him, and He still chased me down into a cold warehouse. His love washed over me as warm and tangible as a hug. His love is perfect.
I cannot expect my husband to love me the same way because he came into our marriage with his own hurts and scars, just as I came branded with mine.
Together, we create an imperfect union, and stress magnifies that imperfection.
But then, when I allow my heart to accept God’s whole, perfect love, my gaze shifts from those magnified imperfections, and I am able to love my husband through the grace of God’s perfect example.
Rising from that crate, I walked back into our apartment. My husband was there, waiting for me. “You okay?” he asked.
“Yeah.” I smiled. “I’m okay. Can I snuggle you a minute?”
He opened his arms, and I laid my head on his chest.
Breathing to his heartbeat, I realized that our marriage will never be perfect, but through the example of Jesus’ perfect love, we are finding that our imperfections are driving us closer to the only One who is without fault.
Jolina Petersheim and her husband, Randy, share a unique Amish and Mennonite heritage that originated in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. They also share a yearning for the simple life that led them to homestead on a solar-powered farm in Wisconsin for two years before moving with their three young daughters to be closer to family.
Jolina is the bestselling author of several novels, including her latest How the Light Gets In, a modern retelling of the biblical story of Ruth set on a cranberry bog in a Wisconsin Mennonite community. Francine Rivers describes the story as “can’t-put-down fiction” with a “heart-wrenching conflict that had me glued to the page” and Lisa Wingate agreed, calling it “compellingly woven . . . a story that will stay with you long after you close the final page and leave you pondering: Which path would I take?”
[ Our humble thanks to Tyndale for their partnership in today’s devotion ]
March 9, 2019
Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins for Your Weekend [03.09.19]
Happy, happy, happy weekend!
Some real, down in the bones JOY to celebrate today! Links & stories this week 100% guaranteed to make you smile a mile wide & believe like crazy in a Good God redeeming everything — and that there’s love everywhere & for ((you))!
Serving up only the Good Stuff for you right here:
Jessica Walker
Jessica Walker
Jessica Walker
the wonder she captures here? just too beautiful not to share…
well, anyone else want a good morning(!) like this every day?!?
Reading Today’s Children’s Books as One of Yesterday’s Kids
so what do you think of this idea?!
maybe just right for you?
consider joining women serving around the world for a Personal Spiritual Retreat —
that comes to you right where you are…
you’ve got to meet her: ‘Action Nan’… what she does every day?!?
“Don’t Wrestle With Pigs” (Thoughts on Handling Criticism)
because we all need to be rescued sometimes
can you even?!? Church destroyed by fire —
but Bibles and crosses remain completely undamaged
nothing but love…this is what married for 79 years looks like
Praising God Saves Me In My Pain
In the face of illness, death, and disability, Lamentations gives me a script for how to suffer.
glory, glory, glory
Doctors said this young woman with autism might never work. Now she’s a lawyer…
she has turned her autism into a strength, becoming an advocate for neurodiversity
the calling of this hospice nurse…helping the terminally ill find the joy to live…
“I always tell the family– you know, you’ll have good days. You’ll have bad days … we’re all here for that ride. We’re all on it together.”
when big things start in small ways…
tears at this one every. single. time.
Esther Havens for The Seed Company
Post of the week from these parts here
… this woman, this miracle, this story? Flat-out undone. You have got to read this.
I didn’t see this one coming at all. The straight-up miracle she experienced — I can’t stop thinking about it. It’s changed my life — my loves.
I’m telling you: What if this — was a season of more? A Lent of More?
(Free 40 Day Lent Devo) Want a Lent of More? How to have a Lent of Abundantly More God (Part 1)
YES, yes, yes: a 5 star business owner right here
“If you take care of God’s business, he’ll take care of yours. Step up; reach out; pay it forward. I think if we’re blessed with those kinds of resources, it’s our job to give it back.”
socially_fit on Instagram
marehoops_warriorlife on Instagram
How do you live a genuinely abundant life?
In sixty vulnerably stories, the tender invitation of The Way of Abundance moves you through your unspoken broken — into the abundant life.
Pick up your own Way to Abundance & start your journey to the abundant life
Christine Caine sharing some good words:
“A gift will fill a room, but the anointing breaks yokes, chains, and bondages.”
on repeat this week: Different
Want a Lent of More? How to have a Lent of Abundantly More God (& a Free 40 Day Lent Devo):
Note to Soul:Give up yesterday’s ways
and trust He can still make new ways
and remake you.#GiveUpToGetMoreGod #LentofMoreGod#LessIsMoreGod #40DaysGodSpeaking#LentofListening #GODSWORDSPOKENHERE
[excerpted from our little Facebook family … come join us each day?]
That’s all for this weekend, friends.
Go slow. Be God-struck. Grant grace. Live Truth.
Give Thanks. Love well. Re – joy, re- joy, ‘re- joys’ again
Share Whatever Is Good.
March 8, 2019
How to Cultivate Comfort and Peace
Christie Purifoy has called the city, the suburbs, and the countryside home, but it was an old red brick farmhouse in Pennsylvania that finally convinced her the trees really do sing songs of joy, and we are—always and in every place—invited to join in. Her lyrical new book Placemaker is a call to tend the soul, the land, and the places we share with one another. As Christie discovered, if you tend the land with others in mind, you might just find grace growing in a garden. It’s a grace to welcome Christie to the farm’s front porch today…
guest post by Christie Purifoy
It isn’t easy to spend money and have only flowers to show for it.
It isn’t like a donation to a charity. It isn’t like a deposit in a savings account. A flower isn’t even a carrot. I cannot fill my stew pot with flowers.
Dreams ask for commitment. They require a running leap.
That first winter of our flower garden dream, the balance on our bank statement dwindled with the purchase of each bare-root rose and lily bulb, yet the view from the parlor window remained the same: bleak and brown.
Dreams ask for commitment. They require a running leap.
There could be no going back. In a month or two, cardboard boxes labeled “fragile,” “this side up,” and “live plants” would begin showing up on the porch near the back door.
I looked forward to planting antique roses with beautiful names and romantic histories yet still I worried.
E ven if this flower garden dream is one day realized, even if the roses take root and grow, will Jonathan and I say it was worthwhile?
Spring arrives in the garden long before it arrives anywhere else. As soon as the last snow melted, as soon as the muck began to thaw, we were out in it.
Christie Purifoy
Christie Purifoy
Christie Purifoy
Christie Purifoy
Christie Purifoy
Christie Purifoy
Christie PurifoyJonathan built a fence. Together we marked the paths with twine and a few well-placed stakes. With freezing hands I buried lily bulbs and the woody bare roots of roses along the edges of the still-theoretical paths.
I tended seedlings in the basement. Zinnias, in white and salmon-pink, cosmos, sweet-scented alyssum, and laceflowers stretched beneath the faux sunlight of fluorescent shop lights.
My gardening books talk of plant combinations and color palettes, but designing a garden is all so much more uncertain than paint on a canvas or words on a page.
The wild thing about next year is that it always does come. And so much more quickly than we ever dare to hope.
With the help of my sister Kelli, my father, and many books, I chose my varieties with care, but I could not know then that the newly amended soil would be too fertile for cosmos and laceflowers—the cosmos would grow into feathery green monsters but never bloom, and the laceflowers would leap and flower but quickly rot away. I could not know that the salmon-pink zinnias would turn out to be more of a garish orange.
I could not know that the white zinnias would glow in the evening like moonlight and starlight and magic.
We hosted an Easter egg hunt for our neighbors, as we had done every year since our first spring at Maplehurst. Nothing yet grew in the garden except candy-filled eggs and tiny green boxwood shrubs. Paths were merely the suggestion of rain-sodden string.
“What is that?” my neighbors asked, pointing toward the great brown square. “What are you doing?”
“Dreaming,” I did not answer them.
“Hoping,” I did not say.
“That’s our new flower garden!” I explained with a hearty voice and a trembling smile.
Jonathan and I consoled ourselves with every gardener’s favorite refrain: Next year. Next year, won’t this be the perfect spot for an Easter egg hunt? Next year, won’t the roses be beautiful?
Next year, won’t we say how glad we are to have done this?
The wild thing about next year is that it always does come. And so much more quickly than we ever dare to hope.
When you tend gardens and young children, this is both a marvelous and a heartbreaking thing.
We hosted another Easter egg hunt for our neighbors this spring. This year, toddlers crunched across the garden’s gravel paths scooping up eggs. The window boxes in the potting shed spilled the old-fashioned violets called “Johnny Jump-Ups.” The green boxwoods edged beds that, while still mostly brown and mostly empty, at least looked like what they were: places where flowers would soon grow.
Next year gives and it takes away, but what it gives and what it takes are so often unexpected.
This year gave perfectly formed daffodils despite our strangely warm El Niño winter.
This year took the life of my sister Kelli’s husband Shawn in a military helicopter crash off the beautiful blue coast of Oahu.
In January, I flew with my daughter to Hawaii. When we boarded the plane, we still hoped that Shawn was not dead but lost.
We imagined what was never true: twelve marines, together, on a life raft. Twelve men heading home from the sea.
When I count the costs, I begin to doubt.
In April, we buried Shawn in Texas prairie soil.
In June, I snipped roses and gathered the first lilies with Shawn’s children, my two nieces and my two nephews.
Every day of her visit at Maplehurst, my youngest niece helped me fill a collection of buckets with weeds. We fed the weeds, one by one, to the chickens. “These eggs will be full of vitamins!” we took turns saying to one another.
Of course, a flower garden costs so much more than a carton of free-range eggs from the market. There is the money for bare roots and bulbs. There is the time spent pruning and weeding. There is the frustration of watching Japanese beetles devour rose buds from the inside out.
One moment it is Eden, and the next a sudden rainstorm has flattened half of the trumpet lilies.
When I count the costs, I begin to doubt.
But when I remember my sister taking photographs of the roses in delicate rainbow colors, when I think of my niece pulling green velvet weeds, I say, “How glad I am to have made this garden.”
With an Amish-made shed for shelter, two benches for rest, and a wild abundance of blooms, the flower garden has grown into a sanctuary.
Of course, a sanctuary is also a good place for prayer.
It is a place where peace dwells, the kind of peace that persists regardless of grief or thunderstorms or insects.
We made it with our own hands, yet it feels like a gift I did nothing to deserve.
Whether I am picking weeds, or squashing beetles, or cutting a frilly pink dahlia the exact size of my youngest child’s head, I keep looking for someone to acknowledge.
Of course, a sanctuary is also a good place for prayer.
Perhaps that is why, as I work, I do not whistle. I only whisper, Thank you.
Christie Purifoy is a writer and gardener who lives with her husband and four children in an old red brick farmhouse called Maplehurst in southeastern Pennsylvania. She co-hosts the Out of the Ordinary podcast with her longtime friend Lisa-Jo Baker and writes a twice-weekly column for Patheos called “Cultivating Glory.” Christie is convinced that God is inviting each one of us to live as placemakers, whether we have green thumbs or not.
Weaving together her family’s journey with stories of botanical marvels and the histories of the flawed yet inspiring placemakers who shaped the land generations ago, Christie’s latest book Placemaker: Cultivating Places of Comfort, Beauty, and Peace is a reminder that the cultivation of good and beautiful places is not a retreat from the real world but a holy pursuit of our God-given calling to create.
[ Our humble thanks to Zondervan for their partnership in today’s devotion ]
March 6, 2019
(Free 40 Day Lent Devo) Want a Lent of More? How to have a Lent of Abundantly More God (Part 1)
I
meet a woman named Ndubaayo who gave up four hours of her day to walk — one way, barefoot— over a range of rugged hills — to hear the heartbeat of God.
And when the tiny frame of a woman leans forward to tell me the bona-fide miracle of how she heard the Word — my heart is a bush burst into flame, and God’s Word is holy ground, and there are miracles that move us who are dust to tears, so the Potter can reshape softened hearts into more of His glory.
There’s a giving up — that only gains. There’s a sacrifice that only fulfills. There’s a sacrifice — that is no sacrifice at all.
It’s Ndubaayo I think of on Ash Wednesday. There are teachers all around us, who look gloriously different from us, who guide the willing higher up and deeper in.
There are those who want God more than all other wants.
When I sit in front of Ndubaayo’s house, several of her neighbors join us, and I lean forward on this tipsy white plastic chair to hear her tell her story.
How she walked 8 hours a day — with no shoes — five days a week.
26 miles a day.
A marathon to get more of God.
For four years.
For everything was worth giving up to get to literacy classes to hear God’s Word spoken from the book of John, to learn to read from the Book of John, to learn to write, to write her own name — to learn her name as His Beloved.
I search Ndubaayo’s eyes, like the woman knows something I need to memorize.
There’s a giving up — that only gains.
There’s a sacrifice that only fulfills.
There’s a sacrifice — that is no sacrifice at all.
Esther Havens for The Seed Company
Esther Havens for The Seed Company
Esther Havens for The Seed Company
Esther Havens for The Seed Company
Esther Havens for The Seed Company
Esther Havens for The Seed Company Ndubaayo’s neighbors nod when she tells me that all her giving up for the word of God, earned her the hostility of her neighbors who deeply resented that she gave up the ancient cultural practice of monthly animal sacrifice, but chose to take Christ alone as her sacrifice.
In a season of sacrifice — there is only One sacrifice.
When we know we are but dust, when our hearts have been crushed — is exactly when we are meant to entrust all into the hands of the Potter, so He can remake all to be more like Christ.
Ndubaayo tells me, that after the birth of her twins, she fell direly sick. Her neighbors, believing she was cursed for her taking Christ as her only sacrifice, wished death upon her. Two men sitting at the corner of the house, Henry and Lawrence, they nod, remembering Ndubaayo’s account.
For weeks, Ndubaayo lay on her bed, knowing she was but dust, knowing her own mortality, knowing her time could be short. I feel Ndbuaayo’s story in this ache between sternum and pounding arteries. And I know it on a Friday in northern Kenya and on an Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent:
When we know we are but dust, when our hearts have been crushed — is exactly when we are meant to entrust all into the hands of the Potter, so He can remake all to be more like Christ.
Ndubaayo looks up at me. I can see it in her eyes — this radiating reflection of Him.
“The Pastor came.” Ndubaayo speaks softly. “He spoke the Word of God over me: ‘Any challenges, any obstacles that you are going through — your God is with you, and God will make sure a way in your challenges.’”
Ndubaayo breaks into this smile.
“And right then: I no longer see my great problems — I only see my great Hope.”
Those of us who are dust have a certain Hope that cannot fade, and those of us who give up our ways, find God to make a sure Way, and those of us who want His word most, find ourselves wanting for nothing.
Ndubaayo tells me how she lay there in her bed, talking to God: “God, look at the way people are speaking of me. Because I leave everything for You, because I give up the sacrifices for Your sacrifice, they say that this is why I am sick. I want Your courage.”
And in the darkened stillness of her room, of her open heart, Ndubaayo suddenly resonated with Word in the inner chambers of her being:
“I hear you, and I see you, and I know the goodness that you are doing.”
Esther Havens for The Seed Company
Esther Havens for The Seed CompanyNdubaayo lay still. What — had she heard?
An answer?
And then — a word reverberated in Ndubaayo that she had never heard or known in her life: “Galatians. Galatians, verse 9.”
Ndubaayo lay motionless in the dark — confused.
What was Galatians?
The enemy plots our destruction through distraction —
distraction from God’s Word, God’s voice, God’s ways. Give up distractions — to keep your soul from destruction.
Bedridden, in her fevered stupor and aching sickness, Ndubaayo replayed it again and again, what had reverberated unmistakably, unforgettably, in her heart, words that came from somewhere she had never heard of:
“I hear you, and I see you, and I know the goodness that you are doing. Galatians, verse 9.”
What did — Galatians mean?
“Then the church mamas came,” Ndubaayo gestures to the west. “Forty church mamas come to tell me to keep on. Keep on. Do not lose Hope, sister. God is with you.” Ndubaayo’s eyes glisten. She leans closer.
“And I tell the church mamas, I tell them: ‘A voice comes within me, telling me, ‘I hear you, I see you, the goodness that you are doing … Galatians. Verse nine.’ ”
Galatians?
Ndubaayo’s neighbour, Judy, sitting across from Henry and Lawrence, she interrupts Ndubaayo’s story now, tells me she was there that day, standing over Ndubaayo’s bed, watching the deathly-ill woman murmur what she insisted she had heard in the chambers of her heart.
“Galatians. This is not a word any of the church mamas know,” Judy is animated, adamant. “Not a word in our Rendille language, not a word in the Gospel of John, the only book of God’s Word that we had in our mother-tongue.”
Give up — whatever you need — to hear God speak.
Judy moves closer to Ndubaayo: “Someone asks if anyone has an English Bible? Pages are turned — and someone reads it in English: Galatians! This is a word in the Word of God! Ndubaayo has heard a word from God! And all of us in the room, we start to cry. Because of the Bible. Because God speaks.”
I look into Ndubaayo’s face, Judy’s face.
God speaks to those who give up the loud for the love of His heartbeat.
I want what they have. God’s Word is spoken here.
Verse 9?
“I can read English better than most, so I look through Galatians for every verse 9.” Judy nods. Galatians 1:9, 2:9, 3:9, 4:9, 5:9.
Last chapter of the book —Galatians 6:9.
“And I read what it says, Galatians. 6:9,” — Judy knows it by heart now.
“Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary.”
Ndubaayo smiling, tears brimming at the memory that never leaves, that God sees and speaks: “I hear you, and I see you, and I know the goodness that you are doing. Galatians, verse 9.”
Judy whispers: “Let me tell you.”
I’m blinking it back.
“We got courage —“ Judy reaches over to grab Ndubaayo’s hand.
And I’m the one seized:
What am I giving up to get the courage of God? The Word of God?
Esther Havens for The Seed Company
Esther Havens for The Seed Company
Esther Havens for The Seed Company
Esther Havens for The Seed Company
Esther Havens for The Seed Company
Esther Havens for The Seed Company“Ndubaayo?” I pull closer.
What if this — was a Lent of Listening? A Lent of More of His Word? A Lent of More of God? Your loves alone limit how much of God you have. You can have as much of God as you actually want.
“You’ve personally been waiting almost 18 years — to hold in your own hands God’s Word in your own language.” I nod toward the fresh-off-the-press New Testament there in Ndubaayo’s lap, a 30 year undertaking of Wycliffe translators and The Seed Company.
Not 24 hours prior, I had witnessed Ndubaayo lead a celebration of more than 1000 Rendille people and their neighbors, gathering like a people to holy flame, to welcome the long-anticipated coming of God and His Word.
I’ve never seen anything quite like it: She traces the lines like she’s tracing a lover’s face.
God’s Word is cherished here, wanted here, spoken here.
And all I can think is: For all the duotone leather-imitation Bibles collecting dust on forgotten shelves or suffocating under stacks of glossy celeb mags and rags, what is most spoken under suburban and comfortable roofs?
Stress is spoken here, Basketball is spoken here, Hurry is spoken here, Politics is spoken here, Worry is spoken here, Facebook is spoken here, Celebrity Gossip is spoken here, Football is spoken here, Frustration is spoken here — and in all the deafening noise, there is a still, small whisper:
Giving up something for the love of Jesus —isn’t really giving up anything when He gave up everything for the ones He loves.
Is God’s Word spoken here? Longed for here, sacrificed for here, wanted here, heard here?
Who is willing to give up whatever it takes — so God is spoken here?
What if there was leaning into a season of giving up lesser things — so there were 40 Days of God Speaking?
What if this — was a Lent of Listening? A Lent of More of His Word? A Lent of More of God?
What if:
Give up — whatever you need — to hear God speak.
I look down at Ndubaayo’s worn feet. Giving up 8 hours a day, 26 miles a day, for four years, a marathon to get to God.
It’s never that we don’t have enough time — it’s always that we have different priorities.
The enemy plots our destruction
through distraction —
distraction from God’s Word, God’s voice, God’s ways.
Give up distractions — to keep your soul from destruction.
What if you gave up 30 minutes more of your day to spend more time in His Word?
There is always a way to shave minutes off here, carve out more there, trim a few there, pare a bit here — and then gather up the moments, and make time for what you want. Time is made for what we love.
It’s never that we don’t have enough time — it’s always that we have different priorities. Time is made for what we love. Wherever love and priorities meet, time is made.
Wherever love and priorities meet, time is made.
We always make time for what we love.
Giving up something
for the love of Jesus —
isn’t really giving up anything
when He gave up everything
for the ones He loves.
I watch Ndubaayo’s face.
Your loves alone limit how much of God you have.
Your wants, your habits, your priorities, your choices, limit how much of God you have.
Declutter what fills the mind, fills the screens, fills the heart.
Less is more
God.
Esther Havens for The Seed Company
Esther Havens for The Seed Company
Esther Havens for The Seed Company
Esther Havens for The Seed CompanyAnd then, overcome, Ndubaayo clutches God’s Word up to her chest, arms clinging, heart wrapped around Word, and tilts her face heavenward.
“I slept with it under my pillow last night.”
Give up what is lesser — to get more of the Greater.
This is the glory I memorize, and in a moment, I am but dust mingling with brimming liquid love, malleable clay for the Potter to remake. There’s is a sacrifice — that is no sacrifice at all. There’s a sacrifice that only fulfills.
I meet a woman named Ndubaayo who has lent this longing to only want more of God.
Ndubaayo flings her arms open wide over the word and, there between heart and sternum, you can feel it, like a burning that isn’t a sacrifice but a passion for more: You can have as much of God as you actually want.
This Lent: Give up — whatever you need — to hear God speak:
A FREE 7-week, Lent devotional to build spiritual foundations under your roof
Speak Words of Life Over Your Home
Apply practical steps to bring God’s presence, God’s Word into your home.
Reflect through guided questions, and involve your people in creative ways.
Give up what is lesser — to get more of the Greater.
#GiveUpToGetAwayWithGod #40DaysGodSpeaking #LentofListening #GODSWORDSPOKENHERE
March 4, 2019
Three words to help your family grow together and not grow apart
As someone who wants to do more than guess in my parenting, I’m so grateful for Growing With, my new favorite parenting book by Kara Powell and Steve Argue. Kara and Steve are veteran church leaders and world-class researchers, but most of all, they are parents who find that growing with their teenagers and young adults (three kids each!) is one of their greatest joys and privileges. In the midst of all I juggle and wonder about as a parent, I love learning with and from these two, and no matter what ages your kids or grandkids, I know you will too. It’s an absolute joy to welcome them both to the farm’s front porch today…
guest post by Kara Powell and Steve Argue
“But I don’t want to ride with you. I want to keep riding with my cousins.”
Having quarantined myself for the first three days of our extended family vacation because of bronchitis, I (Kara) was finally feeling germ-free and asked our three kids to hop in our rental car.
Two did happily, but Krista wasn’t having it. With her arms crossed and her hazel eyes cool with determination, our 14-year-old bluntly told me and my husband that she liked riding with her cousins better than us.
Instead of being a wall for our kids to return to, we put up walls that keep them away.
I had a 3-Dpicture in my mind of what our family time was supposed to be like. Our daughter’s assertion of her independence—a normal and appropriate tendency for an eighth grader—was ripping that image into shreds.
On the drive to the beach without her, God reminded me of an image from psychologist Lisa Damour that has saved me as a mom. It weaves its way through our Growing With philosophy of parenting.
“Your daughter needs a wall to swim to, and she needs you to be a wall that can withstand her comings and goings.”
While this research-based insight is addressed to daughters, I’ve clung to these words for my son, too. Your kids and stepkids need you to be a consistent wall they can cling to.
Levi Voskamp
Levi Voskamp
Levi VoskampAs I found at the beach with Krista, sometimes when our independence-seeking children move away from us, they don’t just let go and drift; they kick off the wall.
And they kick hard.
So hard that it hurts, leaving us feeling cracked, dented, and leaky.
Motivated by either our anger or self-protection, it’s tempting to turn our backs on our kids when they turn their backs on us.
Instead of being a wall for our kids to return to, we put up walls that keep them away.
In the midst of our family time in a coastal paradise, everything in me wanted to punish Krista.
To shame her into getting in the backseat.
Or take away her phone as a consequence for her attitude.
Or verbally lash out at her so she understood how she had hurt me.
Or all of the above.
I’m sure that in my disappointment, traces of all those so-called parenting strategies seeped into my interactions with Krista.
But in the midst of my frustration, and even a few parental threats, I mentally repeated this mantra: Be a wall. Be a wall she can come back to. Be a wall. Be a wall she can come back to.
With two days left on the trip, Krista did come back. I can’t point to why it happened. There was no breakthrough conversation. No fantastic sunset walk along the beach or heartfelt apology.
Krista simply started to act like herself. Whatever thoughts and feelings had caused the rift between us seemed to disappear.
While Jesus is the ultimate “wall” we want our kids to cling to, during the ups and downs of our parenting, sometimes all we can do is cling to this phrase: Be a wall. Be a wall they can come back to.
We know what it’s like to fear our kids will one day kick away from us and never come back.
Like you, we have both lost sleep in the past, wondering if someday our teenagers and young adults won’t need us. Or even want to spend time with us.
But when your kids grow up, you don’t have to grow apart. You can grow with them.
You can take steps toward your teenager or young adult in a mutual journey of intentional growth that trusts God to transform your entire family.
This is parenting that changes you … and changes your kid.
And it can be fueled by three short words.
Tell me more.
In my (Steve’s) home, we hung a simple “Tell me more” sign to remind all who enter of one of our family mottos.
We chose this family mantra when our oldest was in high school and our youngest was in elementary school. In the midst of a society that is relentlessly self-focused, we wanted to fight for conversational momentum in our family. So we made the invitation explicit.
No matter how close you feel to your kids, you are probably getting an edited version of their lives. There’s likely so much more to your kid’s story, but fear of your lectures or your increased anxiety may prevent them from sharing.
Tell me more.
“Tell me more” might open up some conversational doors that are otherwise locked tight.
These three words help us be a wall for our maturing kids—whether they are clinging to us, edging away from us, or treading relational water a few (or more) feet away.
“Tell me more” helps us go deeper in talking about everything — from last night’s movie to our twentysomething’s new boyfriend.
“Tell me more” helps us navigate tense conversations. When discussions with our children about their curfew or post-college career options (or lack thereof) get heated, these three words help us work toward solutions instead of wallow in problems.
“Tell me more” might open up some conversational doors that are otherwise locked tight.
When our family’s busyness or our kids’ growing independence makes it easy to let walls grow between us, “Tell me more” tears down those barriers and instead helps us be a wall for our sons and daughters.
Growing up doesn’t mean we have to grow apart from our kids.
We can grow with them instead.
Kara Powell and Steve Argue team together at the Fuller Youth Institute and are both faculty members at Fuller Theological Seminary. Kara was named by Christianity Today as one of “50 Women to Watch” and is the author or coauthor of over 20 books, including Growing Young and The Sticky Faith Guide for Your Family. Steve serves on the board for the Association of Youth Ministry Educators and writes regularly on topics surrounding adolescence, emerging adulthood, faith, and spiritual struggle.
Thanks to Kara and Steve’s passion for young people, their research savvy, and their empathy for parents and grandparents, their landmark book, Growing With, is every parent’s best guide to helping 13- to 29-year-olds thrive in their faith, family, and future. Building on 10,000 hours of research, over 1,300 interviews and focus groups, and decades of world-class scholarship from the Fuller Youth Institute, Kara and Steve tackle your toughest questions about parenting today.
[ Our humble thanks to Baker for their partnership in today’s devotion ]
March 2, 2019
Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins for Your Weekend [02.02.19]
Happy, happy, happy weekend!
Some real, down in the bones JOY to celebrate today! Links & stories this week 100% guaranteed to make you smile a mile wide & believe like crazy in a Good God redeeming everything — and that there’s love everywhere & for ((you))!
Serving up only the Good Stuff for you right here:
Matt Trivett
Matt Trivett
Matt Trivett
he captures the extraordinary everywhere he goes
how she celebrated turning 100?!? yep, really, really
completely amazed: an orchestra of ice instruments!?!
how this gym teacher stepped up to help in a big way
because we all need a friend
they didn’t know her…but they chose to help #BeTheGift #TheBrokenWay
thank you, Barbara Rainey: Awed by the cross, Easter truly is my favorite holiday
at 16? She’s tackling this poverty head on…
come on! While this bookstore owner was in the hospital? His competitors went and did this…
a community determined to pay tribute to someone they never met
good thoughts here: You’re With Your Children, But Are You Present?
cheering about this finish
Paweł Uchorczak on Facebook / Instagram
Paweł Uchorczak on Facebook / Instagram
Paweł Uchorczak on Facebook / Instagram
exhale at all this wonder… anyone else wanna go visit?
glory, glory, glory
what a story here: A rare disease almost destroyed him. A stranger, his faith and a new mission saved him
you’ve got to meet him: we circled ’round this one
tears… one last trip
a most beautiful story of paying it forward…
Post of the week from these parts here:
Told You’re “Too Much”? Dear Me: Lifelines to the Person I Long to Be
and what a beautiful dream he has… please don’t miss this.
never, ever give up…Born in a homeless shelter, he’s now the mayor of a city
Want the gift of light breaking into all the broken places, into all the places that feel kinda abandoned?
These pages are for you. It’s possible — abundant joy is always possible, especially for you.
Break free with the tender beauty of The Broken Way & Be The Gift …
And if you grab a copy of Be The Gift? We will immediately email you a link to a FREE gift of THE WHOLE 12 MONTH *Intentional* Acts of Givenness #BeTheGIFT Calendar to download and print from home or at your local print shop! Just let us know that you ordered Be The Gift over here.
You only get one life to love well.
Pick up Be The Gift & live the life you’ve longed to
on repeat this week: He Will Hold Me Fast
No matter how bad yesterday went or how impossible today feels or how overwhelming tomorrow looks?
Always — Just these three words:
God. is. Greater.
It’s going to be okay — promise.
Nothing is a surprise To God.
Nothing is a problem For God.
Nothing is a mistake By God.
Anything is possible With God.
[excerpted from our little Facebook family … come join us each day?]
That’s all for this weekend, friends.
Go slow. Be God-struck. Grant grace. Live Truth.
Give Thanks. Love well. Re – joy, re- joy, ‘re- joys’ again
Share Whatever Is Good.
February 28, 2019
Told You’re “Too Much”? Dear Me: Lifelines to the Person I Long to Be
Dear Me:
You aren’t too much; like the stars are never too bright, like the moon is never too large or luminous, like the wonders of the world are never too much.
What if you stopped apologizing for being you,
stopped apologizing for the way you laugh only like you do,
for the way you drive your decisions like a stake into the landscape of debates,
for the way you let the thoughts that singularly unfurl in the curling neurones of your brain alone,
find their brave way to the tip of your willing tongue as wholehearted words,
for the way you say only what you can, only how you can, only you can do what you can,
for the way you look in the mirror when you get out of bed first thing
or when you crawl into bed at the end of everything —
and all your apologies for being,
and being as you are,
ended right now.
Levi Voskamp
Levi Voskamp
Levi Voskamp
Levi Voskamp
Levi VoskampWhat if:
No more apologizing for being you- but more being fully you in Christ.
Deep repentance for what you have done is profoundly different — than deeply reviling who you are.
You aren’t too much — to the people who choose to see all of you.
No more being sorry for who you are— and more feeling how you are entirely His.
Praying to become more like Christ is profoundly different — than praying to become someone else.
Shame of being who you are, is an addiction to self-harm, self-destruction, and slow death by self.
Shame drives you to you desert the call, abandon the Way, abdicate and evacuate your life, and when you exit yourself, you exit God’s plan.
Shame is a bully and grace is a shield and you are safely protected behind the defense of Him naming you His Beloved. You are embraced, wrapped and protected in His Kevlar Love and you’re bullet proof against the shrapnel lies of being not enough or too much.
You aren’t too much; like the stars are never too bright, like the moon is never too large or luminous, like the wonders of the world are never too much.
You aren’t ever too much to the people who love you so much.
You aren’t too much — to the people who choose to see all of you.
You do not have to disappear. You will not have to disappear.
Levi Voskamp
Levi Voskamp
Levi Voskamp
Levi Voskamp
Levi Voskamp
Levi Voskamp
Levi Voskamp
Levi VoskampYou aren’t alone: We all come into the world, seeking out someone — who is seeking out us. What we all want most, is someone to want us.
We all want to be seen — and see how someone’s seeking us out.
And what makes each of us feel less on the outside is knowing that we are sought out.
You are not too much. You do not have to disappear. This can change all the things beating loud in your heart, to feel the truth of this.
Feeling like you’re too much and not enough at all, is maybe the same impossibly vulnerable feeling: the vulnerability of being wholly seen just as you are — and the seeming impossibility of being wholly loved just as are.
But what if there was no fear, because Perfect Love’s moved in here?
You don’t have to become less — you only have to come and let yourself be loved by Him — and this will transform everything.
Let yourself be loved by the Lover of your soul, by the Maker of all of you, let yourself be loved by those who get you, by those who don’t get you, those who get all of you, those who get some of you, those who get to be themselves too, and let Love be enough for all our much and not enough, because the surrendered humility of Cruciform Love is the form of everything that abundantly fulfills us.
You can be more than just loved — you get to be understood.
There is a place for you — a safe place for all of you. Do more than find that place. Forget that place. Trust that place. Rest in that place.
Feeling like you’re too much and not enough, is the same impossibly vulnerable feeling : the vulnerability of being wholly seen as you are — and the seeing impossibility of being wholly loved just as are.
Forge somewhere safe: Lay all your heart down on the table just somewhere. And be that place for one other heart looking to see if someone’s looking for them. When a soul doesn’t feel like too much — it becomes even more beautiful.
Don’t take it down a few notches. Take risks — and take all of you to the table.
It can feel terrifying — but it is far more terrifying to live anything less than being fully seen — so His work can be fully seen in you.
The world is fixed a bit when we fix our eyes on one person’s soul, and take all of them, turn to all of them, follow all of them, seek out all of them, return to all of them.
Jesus’ eye is on the sparrow and our eyes can make every deeply dismissed place feel deeply seen.
Let yourself be fully seen? This is what you want and how you take courage, BraveSoul. Meet someone’s eyes and let them see all of you.
You can feel like you’re too much — when maybe you haven’t vulnerably shared enough. When you actually haven’t shared enough of your brave heart.
You aren’t too much; you just feel much, see much, love much.
You can breathe:
Because the world’s much too apathetic, the world need s how you ferociously feel much.
You aren’t too much; you just feel much, see much, love much.
Because the world’s much too distant and indifferent, the world needs how you passionately and compassionately give much of your attentive soul.
Because the world has lost much of its heart, the world needs more of us to come with so much of our heart instead of so little.
And it’s better to feel much than to feel much of nothing at all. It’s better to love with your whole broken heart than to love anything half-heartedly.
Those who are told they are too much — are those who awaken the world in much needed ways.
And it is the most beautiful to see, deeply see — a whole glory tribe stops apologizing for their large hearts — and the world stirs, awakened to abundantly more.
What do you do when you wake up and feel like you’re not enough for your life? Or when you look out the kitchen window as dusk falls and wonder how do you live when life keeps breaking your heart?
In sixty vulnerably soulful stories, The Way of Abundance moves from self-weary brokenness to Christ-focused givenness.
Christ Himself broke like bread, giving Himself to us so we might have a lifelong communion with Him. Could it be that our brokenness is also a gift to the world? These tender devotionals dare us to embrace any and all brokenness as a gift that moves us closer to the heart of God.
February 27, 2019
How Your Marriage is a Message and People Are Watching You Preach
This Michigan mama’s blog was one of the first I ever read and she’s never stopped being a mentor to me. Karen Ehman and I have prayed for and cheered each other on as we’ve baked bread, raised kids, loved our husbands, and humbly endeavored to surrender to Christ to make our homes and lives reflect the good news of the gospel. Her new book, Keep Showing Up, shows us how the marriage we’ve always wanted can be the one we already have. Karen pulls up a chair on the farm’s porch today to teach us how a spouse who might sometimes drive us crazy is a blessed and beautiful thing… because it drives us to our knees. As we seek to fight fair and love despite we learn to behave like Jesus would…
Marriages today have become a grandstand of sorts.
We love to observe over-the-top nuptials unfold on our television screens.
The extravagant marriage of reality star Kim Kardashian and NBA player Kris Humphries in August of 2011 cost a reported 10 million dollars and was viewed by over 4 million people over the two nights the whole grand affair was aired on television that year. Then, the new bride filed for divorce—just 72 days into their marriage, citing as her reason “irreconcilable differences.”
Hanging in there in marriage doesn’t draw quite as big a crowd.
Some may argue that the marriage was all for show anyway—as in the literal reality show Keeping Up with the Kardashiansthat drew so many gawkers when it aired.
Whatever the case, the ins and outs of their courtship, marriage, and subsequent divorce were watched by curious people all over the globe.
Hanging in there in marriage doesn’t draw quite as big a crowd.
If you commit to do the hard behind-the-scenes work of continuing to show up and show Christ in your marriage, there will be no great applause.
Most usually you will find yourself alone—just you and the Lord.
He may be the only one to witness your marital tenacity.
Levi Voskamp
Recently I took a train to Chicago to spend a few days with a friend. After making a scheduled stop the train pulled out of the depot, slowly meandering through the countryside of southwest Michigan.
If you commit to do the hard behind-the-scenes work of continuing to show up and show Christ in your marriage, there will be no great applause.
Before it got up to full speed, we came to a wide space of fields, where mostly brown and beige weeds and overgrown briars grew as far as the eye could see. However, up ahead in the distance, my eye caught a sudden splash of brilliant lavender that stood in stark contrast to the bland, unbecoming foliage.
As the train traveled on, this patch of purple came more clearly into view. There in the landscape stood the biggest and most gorgeous lilac bush I have ever spied in my life, the blooms so enormous I thought they might topple the bush right over.
I thought to myself what a shame it was that this magnificent spectacle of nature was situated way out there in the boondocks where hardly anyone could see it.
But you know what? The remote location of that breath-taking bush does not detract from its splendor.
It matters not that it draws few onlookers. It is still a stunning display of growth and life. Not having an audience does not make it any less lovely.
Your marriage is that bush.
As you grow and blossom, showing up and showing Jesus, most likely you won’t gather a large audience.
Grow and blossom anyway.
The gospel of Luke records an account of Jesus and Peter—and also Peter’s fellow fishermen, James and John.
One day as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret, the people were crowding around him and listening to the word of God. He saw at the water’s edge two boats, left there by the fishermen, who were washing their nets. He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from shore. Then he sat down and taught the people from the boat.
When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.” Simon answered, “Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets.”
When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink.
When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!” For he and all his companions were astonished at the catch of fish they had taken, and so were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, Simon’s partners.
Then Jesus said to Simon, “Don’t be afraid; from now on you will fish for people.” So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him. Luke 5:1–11 (NIV)
What was the key to this miraculous snagging of fish?
As you grow and blossom, showing up and showing Jesus, most likely you won’t gather a large audience. Grow and blossom anyway.
Verse 5: “But because you say so, I will let down the nets.”
Peter and his buddies had been fishing all night—doing things their usual way—to no avail.
But when Jesus showed up, it changed everything.
Even though the rough-and-tumble fishermen didn’t understand, they did what the Lord told them to do. When Peter witnessed the power of Jesus by the change in his circumstances, he fell at his feet, recognizing his sin in stark contrast to the sinless Savior that stood before him.
But Jesus didn’t allow him to stay stuck in his sin. He calmed his fears, lifted his spirits, and gave him a new, more eternity-minded assignment.
From now on you will fish for people.
Peter and his friends abandoned their normal; they left everything behind and followed Jesus.
Fishing for people means spreading the gospel—both with our words and by our actions.
There is no better place to display the gospel than smack dab in the center of your marriage.
You see it isn’t just pastors who deliver a sermon.
Your marriage is a message and people are watching you preach.
In your marriage, pray in secret. Love even when no one else is looking.
Show the gospel to your husband. Your kids. Others in your life who may also be watching. Stop doing things the same old—dare I say normal?—way.
Listen to Jesus and then cast your net. Why?
Because He says so.
In your marriage, pray in secret. Love even when no one else is looking.
Grant grace. Forgive. Over and over again.
Never stop starting over.
Do it now.
Do it daily.
Do it just for Jesus.
Just keep showing up.
Karen Ehman is a New York Times bestselling author, Proverbs 31 Ministries speaker, and writer for Encouragement for Today an online devotional that reaches over 4 million women daily. Married to her college sweetheart, Todd, and the mother of three, she enjoys collecting vintage kitchen cookware, cheering for the Detroit Tigers, and feeding the many people who gather around her 130-year-old farm table for a taste of Mama Karen’s cooking.
Her latest book, Keep Showing Up: How to be Crazy in Love When Your Love Drives You Crazy, will equip you to act—and react—like Jesus, even in the midst of a frustrating relationship. It gives guidance for dealing with the top three reasons for conflict in marriage and teaches you how to rediscover the magic of marriage in the midst of the daily mundane. Also included are date-night discussion prompts, seven one-sentence sermons to preach to yourself to help keep your attitude and actions in check, and a questionnaire for unearthing your unique calling as a couple.
Practical. Biblical. And most of all, truly helpful. Discover how your “incompatibility” can become the strength of your marital team in this real-life guide to both living with and loving your spouse–differences and all.
[ Our humble thanks to Zondervan for their partnership in today’s devotion ]
February 25, 2019
Why Jesus needs to be more than our Lord and Saviour for the church to thrive in a post Christian world
When I first heard Pastor Jon Thompson, dots began to connect in a powerful way —- and when we sat together later, he spoke about Jesus not just being our Saviour and Lord but our Model. Spiritual gifts, spiritual disciplines, spiritual experiences — he gave me handles that I had been looking for. This was the word we all needed right now:
When I was an eighth grader. I said to my pastor, “Where’s all the cool stuff?”
He answered, “What are you talking about?”
I tried to explain to him that as I read the New Testament I realized even at my age that the amazing stories on the pages were not replicated in ways I could see around me among Christians.
Jesus and His followers had all these cool things happen around them. I wanted to know where all the cool stuff was today!
He then said, “Jon, Jesus was God; you’re not God. Your expectations have to change.”
I had already accepted the fact that Jesus was God, so I reluctantly changed my expectations.
Years later, I understood why he responded the way he did, but I came to realize that though his basic statement was true, it didn’t go far enough.
As God come in the flesh, Jesus isn’t just our Saviour and our Lord; He is also our model.
That might not sound all that earth-shattering to you, but I believe you’ll realize as you read this book that Jesus’ role as our model should have just as much impact on our lives as the fact that He is Lord and Savior.
This is because Jesus, though always God, deliberately chose to limit His divine attributes and power in order not only to show us who God is but also to demonstrate for us what the normal Christian life should look like.
Jesus used spiritual disciplines to walk with the Father, and develop and learn as we do: “Jesus grew in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man” (Luke 2:52).
Jesus also used spiritual gifts (not His inherent power) to actually carry out His ministry while on earth. And He used the promptings He received from the Father and the Spirit to lead His disciples into moments of revival.
His life is the ultimate example of convergence.
You see, convergence is when three unexpected things come together. Spiritual gifts, spiritual disciplines (or practices), and unusual works of the Spirit (revival) converge to form the authentic Christian life.
These are signs of the living Church; the one Jesus founded and that He promised would prevail even against the gates of hell.
Perhaps many of us live out our spiritual lives in ways where those three things aren’t taught or practiced.
Sometimes we tend to focus on one of these and exclude or minimize the others.
Sometimes we make spiritual practices the central point of discipleship.
Or, other times, we emphasize spiritual gifts as the main thing.
Convergence describes believers determined to see all three come together.
If Jesus provided that model, that should be the walk of every believer, no matter how we might differ in other ways.
Though spiritual gifts are normal and assigned, and though the spiritual disciplines are normal and should be practiced by everyone, during times of revival/renewal there is a greater openness to what God is doing. This leads to heightened awareness and prayer to recognize and encourage gifts that have not been seen before.
It’s not about the giving of the gifts, but fanning them into flame.
Remember when Jesus talked about wineskins? Many attempts at adaptation by local churches have focused only on changing models, but Jesus said, “And no one after drinking old wine wants the new for they say, ‘The old is better’”(Luke 5:39).
Convergence recognizes the usefulness of new “wineskins” and new “wine” but doesn’t lose sight of the “old wine.”
If it’s hard for you to imagine what I’m describing in today’s setting, here’s how I’d put it: If we could get Tim Keller, John Wimber, Dallas Willard, and J.I. Packer to take turns speaking, while we sing Bethel and Hillsong worship music and celebrate communion like Anglicans!
There’s no scarcity of fine “old wine” and very good “new wine” too. You see, the various “streams” of old and new traditions I just mentioned seldom converge in one place—but they should.
I remember sitting in a class when my professor pointed to a three-legged stool and changed my life forever.
He said, “See that stool? Take away one leg and what happens? If you’re sitting on it, you’ll fall over.”
That is what’s happening in hearts all over the world.
Having a clear view of Jesus doesn’t in itself ensure personal discipleship. We can know a lot of truth about Christ and still live ineffective, disobedient, and powerless lives.
The first leg of the stool represents allegiance, primarily faith in Christ as Lord and Savior. This is faith as an active verb as well as a body of belief. It is a growing trust that allows God to do His saving work on our behalf completed in Christ on the cross and continued by the Holy Spirit daily.
This matches up with Jesus’ claim in John 14:6 to be the Way.
The second leg represents truth. This is the teaching of the whole counsel of God, continuously displacing lies and training followers of Jesus to greater understanding of God’s will and God’s ways.
Though we come across truth and insight continuously throughout life, the Scriptures, as stated, are the Supreme Court in our quest for truth and present the final word.
Jesus told us in John 16:13 that the one He would plant within us would guide us into all truth. That is why, in Acts 2, the first description of the early church starts with the Apostles teaching.
It’s also why Paul wrote in 2 Timothy 3:16, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.” Jesus also called Himself the Truth (John 14:6).
The third leg of the stool represents spiritual power. Because every single one of us is a part of the fallen human race and can be under the influence and power of the devil, it is crucial that we depend on the power made available to us by Jesus and the Father sending the Holy Spirit to indwell His people.
Jesus is not just our Savior and Lord; He is our model.
We are not just talking about the correct doctrine of the Holy Spirit as the third person in the Trinity, but also the active, immediate, promised, and experienced work of the Holy Spirit in this messed up place we call the world.
Asserting the power of the Holy Spirit as a line in the Apostles’ Creed is not quite the same as relying on and seeing the Holy Spirit very much at work in a myriad of ways in people’s lives, much as we see happen in the pages of Scripture. This matches up with Jesus’ claim in John 14:6 to be the life.
Jesus is not just our Savior and Lord; He is our model.
In Him and through history, though under many different names, we see convergence happen again and again, with world-changing results.
Now is the time to return to the only place of guaranteed power, of guaranteed transformation, and guaranteed life change–the place where the world truly is changed and where the kingdom comes on earth as it is in heaven.
Lord hear our prayer, and make us like this. Amen.
Jon Thompson is the Lead Pastor – Vision & Preaching of C4 Church, a multi-site church in the Greater Toronto Area where he has been on staff for more than 20 years. Jon has a Masters of Theological Studies from Tyndale Seminary, Toronto and a Doctorate of Missiology from Fuller Seminary, California. Listen in on this recent podcast interview with Jon and Pastor Carey Nieuwhof.
Convergence shows how Jesus, though always God, deliberately chose to limit His divine attributes and power in order not only to show us who God is, but also to demonstrate for us what the normal Christian life should look like.
As you read this book, you will come to realize that Jesus, as God come in flesh, isn’t just our Saviour and our Lord, He is also our model for Christian life and ministry.
To accompany the book, we have also produced an 8 Week Convergence Video Series curriculum and robust study guide – the video sessions are available right now here.
February 23, 2019
Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins for Your Weekend [02.23.19]
Happy, happy, happy weekend!
Some real, down in the bones JOY to celebrate today! Links & stories this week 100% guaranteed to make you smile a mile wide & believe like crazy in a Good God redeeming everything — and that there’s love everywhere & for ((you))!
Serving up only the Good Stuff for you right here:
Meg Loeks
Meg Loeks
Meg Loeks
her photos take my breath away – time and time again. Too beautiful not to share…
can you even?!? at 100 years old?!!
too good not to pass along! a free 7-day devotional from our friends at Wycliffe Bible Translators
Because of Jesus, we all have a place at God’s table. Discover how your gifts and talents can invite others into His kingdom.
the kid in you will love this one
Your Suffering Is Never for Nothing
suffering with a disease herself, she’s opened an end-of-life home care facility for animals…
“I’m glad I have something to get me out of bed in the morning…even on my worst days, when it’s miserable… it’s what makes life worth living…”
police officer leaves a generous anonymous tip for pregnant waitress #BeTheGift #TheBrokenWay
because we all need to be loved
kinda undone
Dear daughter: I pray you always see the beauty in your reflection and in your soul
cheering loudly: “I don’t want to live with fear and doubt everyday….there’s one thing that defines me and that is what God says about me”
so this is what happened when one school started giving 4 recesses a day…
some inspiring words on living and loving well
When the three generations of the Haven clan — eight members in all — gather for a family get-together, no one has to travel very far.
3 generations in one apartment building? That was the grandparents’ idea
grandparents helping and loving in their local schools? YES : just priceless
thank you for sharing your beautiful heart with us, Mattie Selecman:
On Young Widows, Hot Tea, and Heaven
To God be the glory
you’ve got to meet him: ‘Guardian’ Officer Has Saved Over 200 People From Jumping Off the Golden Gate Bridge
tears at this one: a program that helps incarcerated moms stay connected with their children
“I’ve made mistakes, I haven’t always done the right thing… but I’m still forgivable and still matter…”
ALEX SANISLAV
ALEX SANISLAV
ALEX SANISLAV
anyone else wanna visit here?!? stunning photos we had to share
some words for thought right here
THIS. Little girl cries after receiving her first Bible. tears
Only God – please watch and share
5 star in every way: love, love, love this
just so good and one to share:
He Made Me Lean on Him: Four Tips for Your Twenties
come along? for a virtual tour around our world… glory
faithfilledgrace on Instagram
sanctuaryfarmstead on Instagram
How do you live a genuinely abundant life?
In sixty vulnerably stories, the tender invitation of The Way of Abundance moves you through your unspoken broken — into the abundant life.
Pick up your own Way to Abundance & start your journey to the abundant life
wait for it – beginning at 1:18? words for all of us to return to again and again:
there is nothing you can do to make Him love you more…
on repeat this week: Not Today
…just for today — DO. NOT. WORRY.
“Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.” Matt6:34MSG
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Just for today: Be a prayer warrior — not a panicked worrier. You either leave your worries with God . . . or your worries will make you leave God.
Worry is just the facade of taking action — when prayer really is.
Bottom line — keep breathing deep and give your worries to God — He’ll give you His peace.
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His Word gently lifts our chins:
“The Lord bless you & keep you;
the Lord make His face to shine upon you & be gracious to you;
the Lord lift up His countenance upon you & give you peace.” Nu.6
[excerpted from our little Facebook family … come join us each day?]
That’s all for this weekend, friends.
Go slow. Be God-struck. Grant grace. Live Truth.
Give Thanks. Love well. Re – joy, re- joy, ‘re- joys’ again
Share Whatever Is Good.
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