Ann Voskamp's Blog, page 107
February 4, 2019
Lost sight of things in your marriage? how to recapture its meaning and impact
The truth is this: what your marriage will become is determined by how you pray. In the new book Praying Circles around Your Marriage, you’ll be challenged to identify your greatest dreams for the most important relationship in your life, and to pray the kind of audacious prayers in which God finds delight. It’s a grace to welcome Mark Batterson and Joel and Nina Schmidgall to the farm’s front porch today…
guest post by Joel and Nina Schmidgall
Marriage starts out with grand vision—a shared way of seeing what you hope your future together will be.
It is exciting and full of possibilities. But for many, marriage becomes filled with problems we never anticipated and for which we do not have the tools to navigate.
Your marriage has a unique identity.
Unanticipated problems throw us off course, and we don’t know how to reorient.
Some couples lose sight of their destination, while others never had a clear vision in the first place.
Your marriage has a unique identity.
Think of the way fingerprints are the physical attribute that help us understand how perfectly unique each person has been created.
The tiny ridges, whorls, and valley patterns on a person’s finger are entirely distinct to that person. In fact, no two fingerprints have ever been found alike in billions of comparisons.
Similarly, each marriage also has an identity that cannot be replicated by any other couple.
Before a couple gets married, they exist as two separate individuals. Their respective personas are entirely individual and unduplicated.
By identifying your unique marriage print and determining how to lean in and maximize it, you can leverage your marriage for meaning and impact.
When two people come together in marriage, they create a unique marriage print. Together you and your spouse can leave an imprint on the world in a way no other couple can.
It is the joint dedication to a greater vision—a vision that is realized through your marriage in a greater way than it could be realized individually.
By identifying your unique marriage print and determining how to lean in and maximize it, you can leverage your marriage for meaning and impact.
Most couples have not taken time to consider God’s larger purpose for their marriage, but there’s great hope for your future if you can start here and now. When you buy in to a shared vision, it is like pre-deciding a thousand decisions before they are ever made.
You may have a strong sense that there is a purpose for your marriage, but it hasn’t been revealed to you yet.
Years ago my family took a vacation to the mountains of Colorado. We arrived late at night and drove to our little cabin in a small town at the base of the mountains. It was dark when we arrived. The air was fresh, and the mood was calm. I had been told of the beauty of the region, but because it was dark, I wasn’t able to see it for myself.
We went to bed, but when I got up the next morning and walked outside, my jaw dropped. The Rocky Mountains were on full display, spread out before us in full grandeur. The mountains were framed with clouds that brought new revelation to the color silver. It was breathtaking.
Though it had gone unseen the night before, that didn’t mean it was not present. But when what was present was revealed to me, I saw it all new. As the apostle Paul writes in Ephesians 1:8–9, “With all wisdom and understanding, [God] made known [revealed] to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ.”
Perhaps you want clarity on the purpose for your marriage but it feels unclear. Just like the mountains hidden in the night, you know God’s vision is there, but you just can’t see it yet. You want to know how to get a clear revelation of that vision.
The unique vision for your marriage will be revealed in prayer.
In the Scriptures, each time vision was granted, it was given from God. A passage in Mark’s gospel tells of a miracle Jesus performed. In Mark 8, Jesus pulls a blind man out of his routine and takes him outside the city. He puts mud on his eyes and touches him. The man experiences a miracle and gains his sight!
But when Jesus asked him what he saw, the blind man responded in verse 24, “I see people; they look like trees walking around.” He could see, but his sight was blurry.
This can be a theologically troubling passage for those who believe in the omnipotence and omniscience of Jesus. Why would Jesus ask the blind man what he saw if He is all-powerful and all-knowing?
Keep asking God to give you clear sight.
Jesus would often ask a question not so much to glean information as to impart revelation. Jesus forces the man to acknowledge the work of God on him but also to confront its lack of completion.
He wanted him to come back for another touch. Jesus touched the man’s eyes again, and he received clear vision. “Once more Jesus put his hands on the man’s eyes. Then his eyes were opened, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly.”
Some of you feel like God has touched your marriage. You’ve seen good moments in your marriage. You have a love for the other person.
But you also have frustration. There is confusion. It often feels like you are pulling in opposite directions? Your vision is cloudy, and if you’re honest, God’s purpose for your marriage isn’t clear right now.
We suggest that God is not finished with the miracle yet.
You have seen evidence that God is at work, even if it doesn’t make sense right now. Don’t give up on your spouse or yourself in this season.
Keep asking God to give you clear sight.
Don’t walk away from your marriage before God gives the final touch.
In Mark 8, grace happened in the first touch when Jesus put His hand on the man to lead him out of the city.
Sight happened in the second touch.
But vision didn’t come until the third touch!
Don’t walk away from your marriage before God gives the final touch.
Grace prepares us in marriage.
Sight gives faith to us in marriage.
But vision launches us forward in marriage.
Don’t stop short of God’s full and clear vision for your marriage.
Don’t be satisfied with the attachment version of marriage.
Ask God to reveal your marriage print. God is doing a completing work.
Your invitation is to press into His presence until He grants revelation through prayer.
Mark Batterson is the New York Timesbestselling author of fifteen books, including The Circle Maker. He is the lead pastor of National Community Church, one of the most innovative and influential churches in America. Joel is Executive Pastor of National Community Church and Nina serves as Director of Family Ministry.
Their book, Praying Circles Around Your Marriage will provide the foundation you need to begin praying the kind of audacious prayers in which God finds delight. The book draws from the life-changing principles Mark outlines in The Circle Maker. Joined by Pastor Joel and Nina Schmidgall they draw from personal stories, Scripture, and practical insight. Marriage is your most sacred relationship on this earth, and prayer is the single most powerful way to transform it. You’ll discover seven key prayer circles for your marriage: Vision Circle, Romance Circle, War Circle, Dance Circle, Support Circle, Storm Circle, and Legacy Circle.
The truth is this: what your marriage will become is determined by how you pray. Bold prayers honor God. God honors bold prayers. Praying Circles around Your Marriage will empower you and your spouse to identify your greatest dreams for the most important relationship in your life, and pray the kind of audacious prayers in which God finds delight.
[ Our humble thanks to Zondervan for their partnership in today’s devotion ]
February 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:
Esther Havens in Norway
Esther Havens in Norway
Esther Havens Mann in Norway
no ones captures our world quite like she does
now who doesn’t just love this?
20 Times Libraries Surprised Everyone With a Great Sense of Humor
we gathered ’round this one: fascinating
Lord willing, I’ll be going to Dallas on Feb 8-9 for #ifgathering2019! Who’s joining me!? If you’re not coming to Dallas you can be a part by hosting or attending an IF:Local.
There’s over 1,500 different ones gathering across the world and the number is growing every day! Check the map at iflocal.com to see if there’s one near you!
God Will Give You Everything You Need
a beautiful celebration of hope and life
I Feel Trapped in My Job – What Should I Do?
An every day errand turned into a beautiful testament to the power of generosity #BeTheGift #TheBrokenWay
at 11? YES! she’s helping nursing home patients in the most extraordinarily, beautiful ways…
“you can’t just wish things will get better…” tears at how she is serving here #BeTheGift #TheBrokenWay
what an idea: who else is in?!
“Dance is dance, whether you’re walking or rolling…”
“She never gave up. She never took no for an answer. She never stopped believing that she could change the world and I truly believe that she will!”
glory, glory, glory
Tor Even Mathisen / Instagram
Tor Even Mathisen / Instagram
Tor Even Mathisen/ Instagram
anyone else wanna go?! Weary Hikers in Norway Can Take a Break in This Cabin Built Like a 3D Puzzle
Family of Columbia Space Mission Pilot Reflect on Tragic Day
the astronaut’s final wishes: “Tell them about Jesus. He is real to me.”
Family of Eight Fosters Three Veterans Who Are Disabled: ‘We’re One Big Family Now’
The Cave, the Church and Compassion: The Untold Story of the Thai Cave Rescue
just so grateful for the work of Compassion International…
please, please don’t miss his story here… and share with a friend:
“When you’re at rock bottom, there is only one other place to go, and that is up”
“Holiness still matters. Sin is still sin. Jesus is still the answer.
And you can still have victory in His name.”
Post of the week from these parts here:
especially for times like these: how to see through everything to what really is
Invincible in Christ: How Believers Never Die
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
THIS: what the power of love can do
on repeat this week: Jesus I Believe
Preaching gospel to yourself is how you whisper calm to your soul,
Good news that soothes the raw edges of things, the soft ways of grace and tender hope that carries you Forward.
And you can always, always, always be kind, because the devil and his kind have already lost:
The devil’s most destructive day can never destroy your hope, your call, your future.
So no matter how the wind blows today, keep calm and be kind: When things become hard, wise hearts stay soft.
Solving a problem can’t ever trump loving a person.
So today, simply:
Rise to whatever comes to you, go to wherever you’re sent, give however your soul knows how, and give thanks whenever you breathe.
[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 1, 2019
Seriously. What If we began again…?
I have said many times that books by Scott Sauls should be in the hands of every single Christian without exception. I concur with our friend Christine Caine when she says, “I love everything Scott Sauls writes.” Scott’s latest, Irresistible Faith: Becoming the Kind of Christian the World Can’t Resist is no exception. On a personal note, Scott has become a deeply trusted, unwaveringly faithful friend to my husband and I. When we have hard questions that are wrestling us down, when we need prayer or a pastor’s counsel, Scott is the friend we turn to. Scott has faithfully, time and time again shared with us insightful wisdom, glasses-of-cold-water refreshment and encouragement, and an extraordinarily humble and vulnerable heart that beats like Jesus. The following words are a representation of his mind and heart, and is an adapted excerpt from Scott’s latest, direly needed book in a time such as this. We cannot esteem, appreciate or highly recommend Scott Sauls enough. It gives us joy to welcome him to the farm’s front porch today…
I have two daughters. To say that I am proud of them and of their endeavors would be a supreme understatement.
One such endeavor for our oldest daughter, Abby, was to build a thriving babysitting business starting in her mid-teen years.
Irresistible faith can work in virtually any area of life, in all the places where we live, work, and play.
To achieve a competitive edge (as every formidable babysitter aims to do), Abby went all-in with two simple, life-giving practices that would soon make her services irresistible to the parents and children she served.
First, she would stay off her phone and make eye contact and play with the kids until bedtime. For this, Abby became a superhero to all the kids.
Second, after bedtime she would tidy up the home—especially the main living space, sink, and kitchen—so that when the parents returned, everything would be in better shape at the endof the evening than it had been at the beginning.
For this, Abby became a superhero to all the parents.
As you might imagine, she gained a lot of loyal customers as a result. Before she knew it, she was getting more babysitting requests than she could handle.
These two simple examples provide a picture of how Jesus’ mandate to become the salt of the earth, the light of the world, and a city on a hill—or what I am these days calling Irresistible Faith—is made practical.
Irresistible faith can work in virtually any area of life, in all the places where we live, work, and play.
All it takes is some intentionality and faithfulness about a few things.
It means being fully present and engaged, and pursuing available opportunities to leave people, places, and things better than we found them—all for the love of God, who so love the world that He gave—whenever and wherever we have opportunity to do so.
Irresistible Faith doesn’t have to happen on a grand stage. In fact, most of the time it manifests in the daily, ordinary stuff of life.
It would be fair to say that if the early Christians were taken out of the world, their neighbors would have sorely missed them.
And yet, as Christians everywhere look for small and ordinary ways to “leave it better,” the cumulative impact can have staggering effects.
Consider Jesus and the disciples. They gained favor and influence by living among their neighbors and colleagues—including those who were poor, marginalized, and forgotten—not as some power-driven or partisan “moral majority,” but as an intentional, creative, love-driven, life-giving minority who, to the chagrin of the emperors of Rome, found a way to love Rome better than Rome loved Rome.
Even Emperor Julian, who sought to exterminate Christians from the face of the earth and by virtue of this earned the nickname, “Julian the Apostate” in the history books, bemoaned in a letter to a friend that he could not defeat Christianity, because the people of Jesus tended to Rome’s poor better than Rome did.
It would be fair to say that if the early Christians were taken out of the world, their neighbors would have sorely missed them.
By and large, Christians in twenty-first-century America have let this servant-oriented way of life slip away.
Instead of living as disciples of Jesus in the world, we have in many ways become disciples of the world.
Instead of leaving marks of the kingdom on the world, we have let the world leave its mark on us.
What if, collectively, Christians began again to love the world around us as we ourselves have been loved by Jesus?
Instead of denying ourselves, taking up our crosses, and following Jesus, we have instead allowed ourselves to deny our neighbors, take up our comforts, and follow our dreams.
But what if, collectively, Christians began again to love the world around us as we ourselves have been loved by Jesus?
What if, collectively, Christians began again to live in such a way that if we were taken out of the world, the world would weep, and weep, and weep some more because of the loss?
What if, collectively, Christians began again to live as salt, light, and a city on a hill, such that the world would again see our good works and glorify our Father in Heaven?
Seriously. What if…?
WHAT IF . . . ?
What if Christians rather than buying things we don’t need with money we don’t have to impress people we don’t know, instead began to deploy money—as well as time, energy, and mindshare—that we do have on things God has determined the world does need in order to love people whom God knows and loves — to the end that God receives glory through our obedient, Irresistible Faith, and that in this, we receive our greatest joy?
What if, in the spirit of Jesus providing wine at a wedding feast (John 2:1–11) and of the audacious, forgiving father throwing a grand feast for the entire community (Luke 15:11–32), Christians became known for hosting hospitable, inclusive, and life-giving parties for friends, neighbors, colleagues, strangers, and strugglers (Matt. 22:1–14)?
What if, in the spirit of Jesus, Christians once again became known as those who welcome sinners and eat with them—such that sinners begin to say of Christians, “I like them, and I want to be like them”
What if, in the spirit of Paul intelligently and winsomely engaging Greek academics with the truth of the gospel, Christians became known for engaging in thoughtful, enriching, challenging, and honoring discourse about God, humanity, and life (Acts 17:22–34; Col. 4:6; 1 Peter 3:15)?
What if, in the spirit of the early church’s care and provision for vulnerable children and women, women experiencing the trauma of abuse and fear associated with an unplanned pregnancy began to think first of local churches, not local clinics, as comprehensively life-giving places of comfort, counsel, and care (James 1:27)?
What if, in the spirit of Scripture’s vision for marriage and sexuality, instead of condemning the world for its broken sexuality, Christians exemplified the beauty of biblical marriage by having biblical marriages — the countercultural kind in which mutual love, respect, and submission are tenderly shared between husbands and wives (Eph. 5:22–33)?
What if, as an answer to the loneliness felt by uncoupled men and women both inside and outside the church, Christians became known for nurturing communities in which every person, regardless of sexual orientation or marital status, is given the full experience of family(Matt. 12:49–50; Rom. 8:15)?
What if, in the spirit of Scripture’s vision for doing justly and loving mercy, Christians became widely known as the world’s firstand most thorough responders whenever a friend, neighbor, colleague, or stranger experiences tragedy, such as divorce, unemployment, a crippling diagnosis, a loved one’s death, or a rebellious child (Micah 6:8)?
What if, in the spirit of the Good Samaritan, Christians became widely known as those who rescue from danger, bandage wounds, and provide care and shelter to those who have been beaten, abandoned, and left for dead by the cruelty of human selfishness and greed (Luke 10:25–37)?
What if, in the spirit of Jesus’ life and teaching, Christians became widely known not only as the best kind of friends but as the best kind of enemies—responding to persecution with prayer, to scorn with kindness, to selfishness with generosity, to offense with forgiveness, to hatefulness with grace and love (Matt. 5:1–12)?
What if, in the spirit of Jesus, Christians once again became known as those who welcome sinners and eat with them—such that sinners begin to say of Christians, “I like them, and I want to be like them” (Luke 15:1–2, 11–32)?
What if, in the spirit of the early church, Christians once again began to enjoy the favor of all the people—not because of how like the world they have become through assimilation and accommodation, but because of how unlike the world they have become through their lives of love and good deeds?
What if Christians once again, collectively and comprehensively and universally, lived such compelling lives that the Lord added daily to their number those who were being saved (Acts 2:42–47)?
And what if—and this is ever so important in consideration of these other what-ifs—we realized that the pressure to make such things happen is completely off our shoulders because the ultimate responsibility and power for change has been placed squarely on Jesus’ shoulders.
His light is available to us every single day.
Jesus, and only Jesus, holds the keys for unlocking the flourishing of the people, places, and things that He not only created but sustains and restores and will ultimately perfect in glory. “He comes to make his blessings flow, far as the curse is found.” And “of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end” (Isaiah 9:7, emphasis added).
Indeed, we are the salt of the earth, the city on a hill, and the light of the world—but the light we shine is His light and not our own—just as the moon, having no light of its own, nonetheless was created to reflect the light of the sun in such a way that it illuminates the darkness of night.
His light is available to us every single day.
To begin, all we have to do is walk outside, bask in it, and receive it.
And we do this, watch out. Because when we do this, we just might become the best kind of dangerous.
Scott Sauls
is senior pastor of Christ Presbyterian Church in Nashville, Tennessee. Before CPC, Scott was a lead and preaching pastor alongside Tim Keller with New York City’s Redeemer Presbyterian Church. He lives in Nashville with his lovely wife, Patti, and daughters, Abigail and Ellie. He blogs regularly—seriously bookmark him—and can be found being humble light on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
About Irresistible Faith, Raechel Myers, Founder of She Reads Truth says, “As our family’s pastor, Scott consistently challenges us to be ‘people of the book.’” Donald Miller says, “I miss the kind of church Scott is describing in this book, and I don’t think I am alone.” Gabe and Rebekah Lyons wrote, that Irresistible Faith “is an antidote to much that is wrong with our western, American version of Christianity.”
I deeply concur. Irresistible Faith: Becoming the Kind of Christian the World Can’t Resist is one phenomenal, readable, and surprisingly comprehensive book about what it can look like for us to follow Jesus in truth and beauty. These pages echo the heart of God. This is an absolute must-read that I cannot recommend highly enough.
January 30, 2019
especially for times like these: how to see through everything to what really is
Crazy days with the winds changing from one direction to the other, ice rain in the woods and then the thaw and then the frigid cold and transitions happening everywhere — and they say God moves right into the neighbourhood — especially in times like ours.
The Word, the Lord, moves right into the neighbourhood, moves right on into the house. (John 1:1)
What are the chances that He’d move into me, get right up under my skin, so I can breathe through whatever comes in 2019?
An old girl can hope? Pray? Both. Both would be good.
The Old Best Book, the one I call The Love Letter, says a bunch of them not only know God’s moved into the neighbourhood — but have seen His glory.
But I’m the girl you can count on to be out-of-fashion late, the one who forgets dentist appointments, who shows up at the wrong place, wrong time, hopelessly schedule-challenged, and oh yeah, do I miss Him more than I want.
They’ve seen Him a lot, have they?
My eyes can ache, stress cataracts, filmy faith.
Grace Crafted Home
Grace Crafted Home
Grace Crafted Home
Grace Crafted HomeSomebody else, some glossy saint, may have seen His glory, the Shekinah come down in some blinding blaze — but me?
I’m likely scraping burnt egg crud from the stove top again, like picking at a bad scab every morning, and I missed Him. Again.
The Word became flesh and blood,
and moved into the neighborhood.
We saw the glory with our own eyes,
the one-of-a-kind glory,
like Father, like Son,
Generous inside and out,
true from start to finish. [John 1 MSG]
They say that this is one of the most important verses in all of The Best Book. This is the radical happening — that can happen even now. That earthiness meets holiness under a sheer sheath of skin?
They say that the word dwelt means “to tabernacle.”
The Word, Christ, wrangled Glory into an envelope of thin skin and pitched His tent among us. The pillar of cloud, the pillar of fire, pulled on a skin?
Take that to the bank and live your life on wealth of it:
Your God’s not absent, distant, impotent. Your God’s vigilant, infinite, omnipotent, and intimate.
He pitches His tent and camps right in the middle of us.
Jesus can come camp right in the middle of us, right now. Glory.
Localized glory for our localized pain.
They say that. That He’s the Word, and when you read His Word, you behold His glory.
Behold His glory. Theaomai His glory. Theaomai from the word thaomai — “to wonder.” Not a glancing — but a gazing.
I know — Who has really beheld Him, seen Him grave-bust a few cadavers lately, cast out a few raving mad demons here in the last week?
There are witnesses: I’ve seen Him raise the depressed dead right out from under 180 count cotton sheets, right out from fountains of deadening alcohol and greying, rotting marriages, and I’ve seen faith that’s not fake, that pulses through old girl veins.
I’m fool enough to say I’ve felt it. Especially now.
I’ve got this bracelet engraved with “Jesus” that’s pressing constantly into my skin. There are metaphors. There are things happening that you see and so much more happening that you don’t and we could all stop saying it right now: “It is what it is.”
Because all is not as it seems. It is more. There is always infinitely more happening than what we see.
Grace Crafted Home
Grace Crafted Home
Grace Crafted Home
Grace Crafted Home
Grace Crafted Home
This is the daily incarnating:
We beheld His glory and were held.
We are held — wherever we are.
No one in any dung pile is too far gone from God.
His arms will go anywhere, to redeem anyone, from anything.
That shapes any temptation to hastily judge or reject anyone.
That keeps you over the egg crud on the stove praying for your own blurry scales to fall off.
So that’s the thing:
The Shekinah glory abode in the Tabernacle.
Then the glory of God tabernacled in the skin of Jesus.
And the grace and truth of Jesus now tabernacles in you.
Localized glory moving throughout the world.
I had scratched it down in One Thousand Gifts, what Piper had said:
“If you want to really see Jesus’ divine beauty, His glory … then make sure you tune your senses to see His grace,” urges theologian John Piper. “That’s what His glory is full of.”
“Grace then — that is what the full life is full of, what God’s glory is full of.
To see His glory, name His graces.
Retune the impaired senses to sense the Spirit, to see the grace.
Couldn’t I do that anywhere? Why is it so hard? Practice, practice.” ( One Thousand Gifts)
Practice at that stove, old girl with that scraping razor in your hand. Behold His glory — name His graces.
Practice the retuning of your impaired senses to sense the Spirit, to see His glory, old girl who could throttle kids whose muscles keep giving out and they can’t get coats to hooks and boots to closets and clothes to drawers and you feel like you can’t stay above the drowning waves.
The salty glory of His whispered words hold you closer: “I hold you. Fear not. You will not drown.”
Behold His glory — and your raging heart will be held through anything.
You can feel it coursing through you, what Spurgeon wrote:
“These eyes have never seen the Savior, but this heart has seen Him.
These lips have never kissed His cheek,
but the soul has kissed him and He has kissed me with the kisses of His mouth, for His love is better than wine.
Think me not enthusiastic or fanatical when I say that the children of God have as near access to Christ to day in the spirit, as ever John had after the flesh.
So that there is to this day a rich enjoyment to be obtained by those who seek it, in having actual fellowship with the Father and His Son Jesus Christ.”
And the old girl at the cruddy stove weeps a bit and is not ashamed. She is only a longing.
I once saw a picture of a little girl.
She’d taken chalk and drawn a picture on the concrete of her mother, so she could see her mother right there.
And then she’d taken off her shoes, like she knew it’s all holy ground, and she’d crawled up to where the heart would beat — – and she’d fallen asleep next to a love like that.
Her mother drawn all around her.
Joy ProutyThere is a way of seeing, so that you can behold Him right here, see Him all around you everywhere, no matter is happening now, or what will happen up ahead.
I clean the stove, the kitchen, with no shoes on. Who needs shoes? There is glory in the light, in the crusty frying pan, even in impossibly caked-on egg splatter.
There is a way to live that sees how He is drawn all around you — even now, especially now.
Glory.
And we are all held.
What does the Christ-life really look like when your days are gritty, long –and sometimes even dark? How is God even here? My story of just that: One Thousand Gifts
and the 60 DAY DEVOTIONAL with 1000 numbered lines to count your #1000gifts: One Thousand Gifts Devotional: Reflecting on Finding Everyday Graces
Need freedom not only beyond the fear & pain, but actually within it? The Broken Way
How do you find the way that lets you become what you hope to be? 60 steps from heart-weary brokenness to Christ-focused abundance: The Way of Abundance
Give yourself the gift of grace that He already has — and give yourself the beauty of: Be the Gift
January 28, 2019
What to do when it all comes crashing down
There’s so much pressure to have it all together; pressure from social media, pressure from friends and family, pressure from ourselves. It can be overwhelming, it can be too much. Lisa Leonard has some honest, raw words to share today about her search for perfection and how it all came crashing down. In her new book, Brave Love she tells us about the birth of her boys, one with a disability, the birth of the business she built with her husband and rebirth of their marriage. I’ve known Lisa for years and I’m so glad she’s here today to tell us about some of her journey—the ups and downs. It’s a grace to welcome her to the farm’s front porch today…
Every marriage goes through difficult times, and about fifteen years into marriage we were in a difficult time.
Steve and I walked through difficult things in our marriage. We walked some rocky roads but now we were facing something new.
We were both making mistakes but we did not know what they were.
We were simply not connecting.
We were both trying but we could not seem to see eye to eye.
We were both hurting but did not know how to help each other.
We were both making mistakes but we did not know what they were.
During this time, we had plans to gather with friends for a celebration. I decided to make Steve’s favorite dessert, berry crumble. This was not going to be just any berry crumble—I was going to make the perfect berry crumble.
I wanted to show Steve how much I loved him.
I wanted to show him he was precious to me.
This berry crumble was going to knock his socks off.
I spent time researching the best recipe online. I gathered all the ingredients and spent a good chunk of the day making the amazing dessert. As the celebration approached, I slowly pulled the hot crumble out of the oven, wrapped it in a heavy towel and we all loaded into the car.
We parked in front of our friends’ home and I carefully get out, maneuvering the hot berry crumble to avoid a spill. I took a few steps and suddenly I lost hold of the wrapped glass dish. I watched in slow motion as my perfect crumble splattered all over the sidewalk. I felt the sting of hot tears behind my eyes.
“Hold it together.” I told myself.
But I couldn’t. The tears overflowed and once they started they wouldn’t stop. I could barely catch my breath between sobs.
This was no ordinary berry crumble; this was the perfect berry crumble. This crumble was going to show Steve how much I cared for him.
This dessert was going to save our marriage. It was going to make Steve fall in love with me again. I looked down at the berry crumble splattered all over the sidewalk and sobbed.
I tried so hard to be good enough. I tried to be the perfect wife. I tried to become less so he could be more.
But it wasn’t working. Instead I was becoming less than whole–and a relationship can’t thrive without two whole people.
I thought being perfect would bring me joy.
But I was so focused on being perfect, I was missing all the joy.
I’d clung to the belief that perfection held joy.
I’d spent most of my life believing if I could be perfect, or at least almost perfect, I would be lovable. So, I worked hard to create the ‘perfect’ life for us.
I tried to create a beautiful, tidy home. I tried to be the perfect mother—patient and fun and consistent. I tried to be happy even when I felt sad. I tried to be needless and wantless and take care of everybody else.
With four people in our family and so many differing opinions, things got complicated. I thought one way to make things less complicated was for me to be what I considered flexible or easy going. Ignoring my needs made me feel agitated and frustrated.
So, I tried to ignore those feelings—and sometimes I seemed to succeed. Other times I would explode with anger. All the things I needed and wanted, all the things I felt but ignored had to find a way out.
My good intentions to ‘take care’ of everybody were a desire to control. If I could control everything I would be good enough. I was terrified I was not lovable, so I tried to control.
The more I tried to control Steve, our marriage and our family, the more out of control I felt. I had worked tirelessly to try to hold it all together, but we were a mess.
It was falling apart—not just the berry crumble, but our marriage too.
I was finding out, there is no berry crumble so perfect it can hold a marriage together.
Perfection is a lie. It demands more and more, never offering a moment’s rest. Perfect is never satisfied. I kept reaching further and further, thinking I was almost there, but perfection was always just out of reach. No matter how hard I tried, I could not be perfect.
I had a lightbulb moment.
There are four people in our family, and I am one of them.
There are two people in our marriage and I am one of them.
I needed to be a whole person. I needed to show up, let down my walls and be honest.
Honesty looked like me showing up and being my truest self. It looked Steve showing up and being his truest self.
It was going to take a lot more than the perfect berry crumble to fix this marriage. Marriage is two people showing up and being honest.
Honesty is imperfect and messy—but it is real. Sometimes it is more than messy; it is super ugly and dark and scary. I don’t like messy. I had been trying to make my marriage work without actually showing up and being a whole person in my marriage. I thought if I could make Steve happy he would love me, but he already loved me. He loved ME. He wanted me to be ME.
I am learning I cannot control my husband or my kids. I cannot keep my house perfectly clean.
I can’t always be happy. I am not perfect; I am just me.
I’m learning I have to let go of perfection to have joy.
I am learning I have to show up and speak up and be honest—no matter how messy.
I am learning it is the only way for us to have a marriage where we connect and truly know each other.
And I am learning the only way to be give and receive love is to be completely me—nothing more, nothing less.
Lisa Leonard is the founder and creative force behind Lisa Leonard Designs, which makes personalized jewelry and gifts. Working together, Lisa and her husband, Steve have built a multiple, thriving businesses. When Lisa Leonard said her marriage vows, she was determined to be the best wife she could be. When her first son was born with a severe disability, Lisa promised herself she would always be the mother he needed. When she began her jewelry business, Lisa committed to giving it her all.
Over the years, the exhaustion of trying to be the perfect wife, mother, and businesswoman took its toll. Lisa knew it wasn’t working. She wanted to change things, but how? Everyone depended on her. So she kept going, kept pushing, kept trying to prove she could do it all.
In Brave Love: Making Space for You to Be You, Lisa shares her story of finding truth and wholeness in the midst of life’s competing demands. Brave Love is about what it means to be human, how it feels to be broken and afraid, and what happens when we dare to love deeply. Join Lisa on a journey where you will discover you are worthy and lovable just as you are. You don’t have to try harder or be better.
You don’t have to prove yourself and you don’t have to make others okay. In this freedom you will find more peace and more joy. Most importantly, you will learn that as you stop trying to be everything to everyone, you will love others better.
“Today is the last day to receive a free keychain here if you preorder Brave Love.”
[ Our humble thanks to Zondervan for their partnership in today’s devotion ]
January 26, 2019
Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins for Your Weekend [01.26.19]
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:
Christiaan van Heijst
Christiaan van Heijst
Christiaan van Heijst
he brilliantly documents and shares our world from the skies
smiling: Dating at 101
YES!: How to Replace a Bad Habit with a Better One
how can we go do the same today?
anyone else kinda want one of these too?
LOVE: Refugee-Run Restaurant Voted ‘Nicest Place in America’ is Now Feeding Furloughed Workers Too
… if anything… this can help
Mentoring Matters: These High School Teens Make The Most Out Of School’s Program
… hang in there, Moms! “I am MOM!”
beautiful words of encouragement: To the Mom Who Sits Alone
…. there are heroes everywhere who are just like brave parents
Gregg Eichhorn
come on! Ohio Dad Builds Wheelchair-Accessible Igloo for His Kids with Special Needs
…so after you watch this — double dare you to go be this kinda of cheerleader for just one other person today #BeTheGift
never, ever, ever give up
kindness really does matter: come see
no — really, totally seriously. Look. We really can be the hands and feet of Jesus to each other…
Mary Anne Morgan
Mary Anne Morgan
Mary Anne Morgan
…grateful for friends who captured the extraordinary lunar eclipse
…. As a Mama whose baby girl will need a heart transplant one day, Lord willing — this is breathtakingly brave….
to every person who takes refuge in Jesus, God offers us protection and life
cheering wildly at this: this young man called himself a weakling, but he’s anything but
You Read the News & Know How We Desperately Need It Now:
How a Tattooed Roma Gypsy Woman & the Voice of an Angel Showed Me How Hope Can Show Up Now
shares the journey of his amazing, inspiring life, as he travels through comas and foster homes, prisons and a rebirth in gratitude
on repeat this week: We all bleed the same…Father, open our eyes to see…
… there isn’t one of us who doesn’t need people who believe that the broken are the most beloved, that the busted are the brave, that the limping can still lead. It’s always the vulnerable heart that breaks broken hearts free.
The world has more than enough people who live a masked insecurity.
It needs more who live a brave vulnerability.
We in this vulnerable communion of brokenness and givenness, will simply keep surrendering again to love because God is love and this is all that wins. No matter what the outcome looks like, if your love has poured out, your life will be success-full.
Because in the end: What matters most is not if our love makes other people change, but that in loving, we change.
What matters is that in the sacrificing to love someone, we become more like Someone. Regardless of anything or anyone else changing, the success of loving is in how we change because we kept on loving.
Am I brave enough . . . to live not afraid of broken things?
First steps always seem like not enough, but they are the bravest and they start the journey to where you’re meant to go. It takes great trust to believe in the smallness of beginnings.
So today? Let’s Be brave. Your bravery wins a thousand battles you can’t see because your bravery strengthens a thousand others to win their battles too.
[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.
January 24, 2019
You Read the News & Know How We Desperately Need It Now: How a Tattooed Roma Gypsy Woman & the Voice of an Angel Showed Me How Hope Can Show Up Now
(
Part 1 of this story:
How an Abolitionist, Joan of Arc & a Full Moon Taught Me How to Show Up For a Meaningful Life)
Part 2:
When I meet a woman in Bulgaria named Stoyanka, she reaches out to shake my hand, and I catch a glimpse of the tattoo etched up her arm in defiant ink:
Hope.
If we lose hope for any of us — we lose our own way.
These are polarized days and we’ve all been feeling it and I want to tell Stoyanka that I get it:
When you’re desperate to not lose hope, you might permanently ink Hope right into skin.
You can see it blazing brave in Stoyanka’s eyes:
Without hope — there’s no change within.
I refrain from reaching out and tracing the word on Stoyanka’s arm, but there’s no stopping thinking about how those productivity gurus can say all they want that Hope is not a strategy, but Hope is an essential strategy to winning anything.
If we lose hope for any of us — we lose our own way.
A21
A21
Ann Voskamp
Ann Voskamp
A21
A21
Ann VoskampStoyanka tells me in this thick accent that she is Roma.
What’s derogatively known as Gypsy.
Why profile any human being instead of being pro-human? Period.
Why believe stereotypes instead of being the type who always love?
What if instead of reinforcing prejudices, we reinforced a broken world with Presence?
With solidarity and loving charity and hopeful possibility.
I squeeze Stoyanka’s hand tighter, shake that arm tattooed with Hope a little longer — like the power of hope can somehow transfer between the two of us.
Standing there with Stoyanka on a back street of Sofia, Bulgaria, this little Roma girl’s pressing into Stoyanka’s leg, quietly looking up at me — and I kneel down to gently cup the little girl’s cheek.
And there it is:
We are all reflections of each other —- because we all reflect the image of God.
What if this little girl ever learns that there was a time Romas could legally be killed in areas of Europe without any consequence, like open hunting season that didn’t even require a license?
Why make assumptions about people — instead of making room for people?
I memorize the little girl’s eyes and thank God she has no idea that the European Commission concluded that “children from poor Roma communities, are particularly vulnerable to trafficking,” and traffickers in the UK and France exploit uneducated and vulnerable poor Roma children for “sex, begging and petty crimes.”
Why do we disrespect, dismiss, and devalue each other instead of declare each other’s dignity?
Our work in the world is to see the worth in each other. To see the imago dei, — God — in each other.
Our calling is always to answer everything in the world with love.
Trafficked women in the Roma community don’t talk of it, about being once sold and bought by men who line up to use them like a soulless container that exists to fulfill men’s biological urges. A bed for unending stream of men, how many of these women have no bed to come home to?
But Stoyanka, she showed up on a Christian’s doorstep who, in turn, said they would pray for her. Stoyanka didn’t turn, didn’t miss a beat:
“People can say all they want that they will pray for you — but I can’t sleep on your prayers.”
And I try to breathe through the piercing conviction of her words, try to will her words to overwrite a thousand excuses I’ve dished out.
Instead of telling others that they are in our prayers — what if we let ourselves be inserted into those prayers — as the answer to that prayer.
Stoyanka — her name, in Bulgarian, means: “to stand, to stay.” And she’s standing there in front of me, little Roma girl clinging to her leg, standing in the midst of the rubble homes of Roma families that were bulldozed down right in front of Stoyanka, as if bulldozing Roma homes into heaps of trash might underscore how society sees them: like garbage.
What if the meaning of being a human being— is to affirm lives of meaning for other human beings?
Those Christians Stoyanka reached out to — they did more than pray for hope — they pursued hope and they partnered with A21’s founder Christine Caine, and Stoyanka found healing, literal new hope, a transformed future, and I’m witnessing it first hand, Stoyanka, now a leader in the community, walking through the devastated Roma homes with Caine and a few of her team, and I hear Stoyanka talk about how literal hope has to show up here before before snow blows in too deep, before more trafficker sweep in here, hard on the scent of desperation.
It’s like microcosm of some of the world’s worst brokenness — to look around at the Roma families living now in the rubble remains of their lives and realize:
A storm did not cause this destruction.
Poverty did not cause this destruction.
Deep-seated racial discrimination and dehumanization — and one group of human beings — did this to their fellow human beings.
What if the meaning of being a human being— is to affirm lives of meaning for other human beings?
A21
Ann Voskamp
Ann Voskamp
Ann Voskamp
Ann VoskampI look over at Caine.
She’s searching Stoyanka’s face and it’s who she is — a woman of promise, a woman of the Word and her word: “So we figure it out…Hope. Before the snow and all kinds of deep freeze sets in here.”
Hope in the form of six bright, modern, furnished, insulated wood homes with complete plumbing and electricity. Caine and Stoyanka are both nodding — a head shake of their commitment to hope and somewhere behind me —— there’s — singing?
I can hear Selena singing.
Selena’s singing to a circle of hushed, grinning Roma girls who’ve asked for songs they knew by heart and it’s like the heart of the Father’s descending for His dismissed and forgotten daughters — and who knew angels can sound like the warm, intricate voice of one girl’s whispering vulnerability?
Or maybe it’s the other way around, and this one charming girl of tender humility, with a Roma baby in her arms and a heart after her own Father, sounds like a whole host of carrying angels?
Quiet acts of reaching out — is how we all reach a better place.
Your heart can burn when it witnesses the tenderness of light meeting dark — igniting love.
And I lean a bit to hear it: The voice, the song, enfolding the rejected like a whispering of a different refrain, and this is a witnessing.
All I want to do is take my shoes off:
A ministry of Presence sits down with someone so they feel the presence of God come down. A ministry of Presence makes the unseen feels like God’s seeking out their presence. Wants them.
Selena laughs softly, reaches out to draw a young Roma girl in, and I’m blinking it back:
Quiet acts of reaching out — is how we all reach a better place.
For both the reacher and the reached.
Ann Voskamp
A21
Ann Voskamp
A21
Ann VoskampI’d only later hear the story how Stoyanka had once refused to self-identify as Roma — because of years of relentless abuse and discrimination she’d suffered at the hands of a disdaining and desecrating world.
But then one night, in this dream that seemed larger and more vivid than life itself, Stoyanka found herself standing in front of a tear-stained, neglected little girl.
Much like the little girl whose face I’d just cupped.
And when Stoyanka had turned in the dream to ask, “Who is this child?” —— Stoyanka had heard another warming Voice whisper something so distinctly, the reverberation of it unmooring her:
“This is you.
You were this little Roma Gypsy child.
And I love you — as I love her.
And she needs you.
And you need her.”
And my heart aches — cracks open wide with the immensity of hope just in this…
Ann Voskamp
A21
A21
Ann VoskampWe need to show up for each other — because, if we honestly look — it’s glimpses of our own selves that show up in the other’s face.
We need to show up for each other — because there is no other — there is only us.
We need to show up for each other — if we ever hope for God to show us Himself strong.
We need to show up for each other — because we all need to be shown the hope of another way.
The Way — that leads to life.
And when the Abolitionist grins fiercely at the whole bunch of us, the freed woman, Stoyanka, she nods and reaches out with an arm of Hope to shake her hand, and the brave activist with the voice of an angel, smiles and kisses a Roma Gypsy baby in the middle of her forehead.
And there are holy moments that sing over a hurting world like a benediction —
that makes you believe that Hope can show up here and now.
Join us in bringing hope to the Roma people
They are currently living in makeshift structures on top of the rubble heaps of their bulldozed homes with no water or electricity. And now there’s a threat to destroy even these makeshift structures they call home.
A21 has committed to help them purchase land, rebuild their homes, and provide education, training and life skills to enable them to thrive and flourish because this is what the Church does. They show up and restore hope.
“We make the community livable again.” (Isaiah 58:11-12)
Your donations will allow them to:
• Purchase a plot of land which can accomodate seven container homes
• Furnish the plot of land with homes for seven families
• Provide electricity and water for the homes on the land
• Provide the families with furniture and other supplies for their new homes
• Purchase one additional plot of land for further development
• Continue our efforts to provide tutoring, job training, and life skills to the Roma Community in Sofia
January 23, 2019
What to do When Your Heart Hungers for More Than How Things Are Right Now
Her laugh is unforgettable, and her wisdom is deeply thoughtful, and Margaret Feinberg’s gift of helping us see familiar Scriptures through a whole new lens—breathing life and hope and aha! moments are always insightful, genuine, and winsome. Years ago, I found Margaret through Scouting the Divine: My Search for God Among Wine, Wool, and Wild Honey. Well, she’s just embarked on a new culinary, spiritual adventure and I had the delight of sharing a pinch of the journey with her in Israel this past summer. It’s an unspeakable joy to welcome Margaret to gather and feast at the farm today….
guest post by Margaret Feinberg
I’ve always been hungry—ever since I was a little girl.
Maybe you, too, know what it’s like always feel hungry.
God never intended the table or the food we eat to be a source of shame.
Hungry for food, hungry for seconds, hungry for an extra scoop of frozen dessert.
All too often I’ve found myself at a table and discovered it as a shameful place, rather than a sacred space.
Yet God never intended the table or the food we eat to be a source of shame. Rather a place that with each bite we would discover God as our sustainer, our provider, our way maker.
If we’re honest, each of us hunger for so many things that extend beyond physical appetite.
We hunger to know and to be known.
We hunger for others to accept, understand, and adore us.
We hunger to have someone to love and cherish with our affection.
Knowing we were created this way, I knew I needed to take a step back from what I thought and knew about the table and food and take a fresh look.
I soon discovered that food was created not just to satiate our bellies as we gather around the table, but to create a place where God could meet us and fill our hearts.
I started investigating the meaning and purpose of appetite in the Scripture.
As it turns out, food plays a major role in the pages of the Bible. Long before Rachael Ray learned to eat on forty dollars a day and Michael Pollan outlined the dilemma we omnivores face, God was the original foodie.
I soon discovered that food was created not just to satiate our bellies as we gather around the table, but to create a place where God could meet us and fill our hearts.
I soon embarked on a culinary, Biblical adventure.
I descended 410 feet down a salt mine,
traveled to Israel to fish on the Galilee,
spent time with a famous fig farmer,
brought in an olive harvest in Croatia,
and even graduated with a Steakology 101 certificate from a Texas butcher.
With each person, I asked how do you read these Scriptures—related to what you do to plant, procure, or process these foods—in light of what you do every day.
Their answers changed the way I read the Bible forever—and the way I approach the table.
Time and time again, I found myself asking, How have I grown up in the church, listened to so many sermons, downloaded so many podcasts, and no one has told me these things?
All this became a mouthwatering book and Bible study, Taste and See: Discovering God Among Butchers Bakers and Fresh Food Makers.
Along the way I rediscovered the table as a place of freedom, a portal of healing, connection, remembrance.
With each of the places I traveled, I shared countless meals, but there’s one I’ll never forget.
I flew half-way around the world to cast nets in the Galilee. I spent long days studying the life of life of fisherman and the fish.
I’d planned on staying for a few days, departing just before the Passover. But my host, Ido, insisted I stay and celebrate with his extended family.
Who wants to miss the opportunity of celebrating the Passover with a Jewish family in Israel?
So I spent the evening listening to the reading of the Haggadah, the children singing songs, and tasting bitter herbs and lettuce dipped in salt water—symbolic of the salty tears of the Israelites under the Egyptian rule.
After the meal, I tried to help clear the dishes but Ido’s grandmother, Vered, waved her index finger at me, “Sit Mar-gar-eet.”
Vered leaned over me and asked, “Do you know why we do this?”
The answer seemed obvious, but I felt unsure, “B-b-because it’s the Passover?”
Along the way I rediscovered the table as a place of freedom, a portal of healing, connection, remembrance.
“Because they must know where they came from,” she announced, gesturing toward the children. “This is our story from slavery to freedom.”
My eyes followed the pattern of plates and half-eaten dishes lining the table.
Together we had tasted the bitterness of oppression, remembered the hardship of slavery, tasted the salty tears of suffering, sunk our teeth into the bread of affliction, drank cups of redemption, and listened to a one of the greatest stories of liberation that had been handed down for thousands of years.
The Passover, which uses food as prompts, tracks the story of God’s liberation of Israelites. The meal commemorates a physical going free, but the heart of Passover is the invitation to become spiritually free, to lay behind that which hinders, ensnares, and enslaves us.
To discover that God wants to satisfy the deepest hungers of our hearts.
When Christ came, He signified another story which must be passed among generations.
This is an account of a special lamb, a man who offered up His body to free people from the slavery of sin. Just as God asks the Jewish people to commemorate the Passover with a meal, Jesus asks those who hunger for Him to commemorate His life with a meal; the same elements that are part of the Passover, the Pesach—the flatbread and wine—are also part of Eucharist.
Jesus could have chosen many activities as an act of remembrance like foot washing or a special prayer or listening to a rooster crow, yet Jesus chooses a meal.
Even more radical, Jesus is the meal, the Eucharist—The Bread of Life and True Vine.
I left Israel after that meal and flew back to the United States to engage in many other spiritual, culinary expeditions.
From fishing to farming and baking to barbecuing, I met God at table after table.
On the shores of Galilee, I learned to live wide-eyed for displays of God’s power through fish.
In a fertile valley in California, I discovered the connection between spiritual attentiveness and satisfaction thanks to figs.
In a seminary kitchen in Connecticut, I found holy community in unleavened bread.
Amid the darkness of a Utah mine, I uncovered transcendent purpose in glimmering salt crystals.
In a Croatian grove, I encountered divine healing in olive oil.
Around a Texas fire pit, I tasted the desire for God’s salvation in lamb.
Scouring the globe to taste and see God in fresh ways, I learned that, well, I didn’t need to scour the globe after all.
Every table is a doorway, an entrance into sacred communion with God and those around us.
God is waiting around every table in every place, and you don’t need a passport or plane ticket to find Him.
You just need a table and chairs, some deliciousness, and a friend or two. Asking the question, “Where is God moving you from slavery to freedom right now?” Well, it can open up deeper conversations, deeper connections.
The opportunity to know and to be known, to accept and be accepted, to understand and be understood.
Whenever we gather to eat—whether in a tricked-out kitchen or seated in a borrowed chair with food atop our laps—God is there.
Yes, God waits in Galilee. But every table is a doorway, an entrance into sacred communion with God and those around us.
May we learn to taste and see God’s goodness together.
Bon Appetit and amen.
Margaret Feinberg is one of America’s most beloved Bible teachers whose books have sold more than one million copies. Her podcast, The Joycast, is described as the “Hap, hap, happiest half-hour of your week”.
My friend, Lisa Harper describes Taste and See as, “The most delicious book you’ll read this year!” And founder of If: Gathering, Jennie Allen, describes Taste and See as, “An unforgettable culinary journey through the Bible.”
To read Margaret’s adventures and discoveries is pure joy—it’s like Eat, Pray, Love for Jesus lovers. You’ll find Taste and See: Discovering God Among Butchers, Bakers, and Fresh Food Makers is a one phenomenal, funny, scrumptious book and Bible study, that you won’t be able to put down once you start reading.
This is an absolute must-read book and Bible study! And h ere’s a delicious introduction for you:
[ Our humble thanks to Zondervan for their partnership in today’s devotion ]
January 21, 2019
When a Cussing, Drug-Addicted Mom Shows Up at Your Church
I have said many times that books by Scott Sauls should be in the hands of every single Christian without exception. I concur with our friend Christine Caine when she says, “I love everything Scott Sauls writes.” Scott’s latest, Irresistible Faith: Becoming the Kind of Christian the World Can’t Resist is no exception. On a personal note, Scott has become a deeply trusted, unwaveringly faithful friend to my husband and I. When we have hard questions that are wrestling us down, when we need prayer or a pastor’s counsel, Scott is the friend we turn to. Scott has faithfully, time and time again shared with us insightful wisdom, glasses-of-cold-water refreshment and encouragement, and an extraordinarily humble and vulnerable heart that beats like Jesus. The following words are a representation of his mind and heart, and is an adapted excerpt from Scott’s latest, direly needed book in a time such as this. We cannot esteem, appreciate or highly recommend Scott Sauls enough. It gives us joy to welcome him to the farm’s front porch today…
One Sunday at church, a woman named Ann B. showed up.
From the start, it was clear that her life had been shredded up by hard living.
Ann B. explained to our greeters that she was in recovery from an opioid addiction (specifically, heroin), to which the needle streaks and scars on her arms gave witness. She was barely thirty-days sober.
The people at the rehab center had encouraged her to “add religion” to her life, because religious involvement tends to decrease the chances of relapse.
On her way to the worship service, Ann B. dropped her two boys off at the nursery. When she returned after the service, a woman named Jane broke some bad news to her.
During the service, Ann’s two boys had picked fights with several of the other children and broke several of the toys and possibly a nose or two.
Humbly, Jane said to Ann B., “I’m so sorry to tell you all this, but I thought that as the boys’ mother, you would want to know.”
Impulsively, Ann B. responded by screaming, “S***!” in front of several children and parents.
What happened next caused my heart to sink.
First, silence.
Next, an embarrassed, burning blush rising to Ann B’s face. Then, Ann B. walking the walk of shame from the nursery and out the door, forlorn and beaten down—no doubt for the umpteenth time in her life—by the shame and regret and the familiar feeling of failure.
“These are my people, and I want their God to be my God, too.”
It would be easy for our church to recover from this nursery incident with Ann B. and her boys. But would Ann B. recover? Could Ann B. recover from the shame that she carried out the door—the shame of a drug-addicted mom who took a risk, went to church, and bellowed an obscenity in front of all the children? Sadly, probably not.
But Jane had an idea.
What if she could reassure Ann B. in the same way that the angel of the risen Jesus reassured the once-demon-possessed Mary Magdalene and the coward-betrayer Peter (Romans 16:1-8)?
What if, roughly two thousand years after the fact, the resurrection story could be re-enacted with life-giving, shame-reversing, community-forming words delivered not by an angel, but this time by Jane, the nursery worker?
Jane sent a letter to Ann B. that read something like this:
Dear Ann B.,
It’s me, Jane, from the nursery at church on Sunday.
I’m writing first to let you know that all is well at church. No harm done! And the broken toys? No problem! We needed to replace so many of them anyway.
But what I really want to do, Ann B., is thank you.
Thank you for the way that you wore your heart on your sleeve on Sunday. That meant a lot to me, because I am often tempted to hide the messy things that agitate my heart. Thank you for being willing to be honest. Your courage to be honest got me thinking—what better place to be honest than church?!
I hope to see you again. More than this, I hope we can become friends.
Sincerely,
Jane
The next Sunday, Ann B. returned to church.
Having limped out the door the previous Sunday, she returned with a spring in her step that said, “These are my people, and I want their God to be my God, too.”
And her people we became. And our God, the resurrected and Living One, Jesus Christ, became her God, too.
As her newfound faith grew over time, Ann B. would attest with a smile that she was a beautiful mess, a work in process toward her ultimate completion in Christ. Her presence in our community was so good for all of us.
Then, two years after her cussing incident in the nursery, Ann B. became the nursery director for the church.
There you go! A happily-ever-after story, right?
It has to be more than intellectual for our faith to mean anything. It has to be visceral, from the gut, heart-level, and even more than all of these things…true.
Yes and no.
Several years later, we received a message that was short and heavy. Ann B., having been many years sober, had relapsed and died from a heroin overdose.
Ann B. reminds us that trusting in the Risen Savior is more than a mere intellectual endeavor.
It has to be more than intellectual for our faith to mean anything. It has to be visceral, from the gut, heart-level, and even more than all of these things…true.
It has to be true.
Because without resurrection, there is no hope for Ann B. and there is no hope for us. If Christ is not risen, we are of all people the most to be pitied (1 Corinthians 15:19). If Christ is not risen, we are still in our sins and are without hope. And yet, Christ is risen indeed! What’s more, He is going to return to make all things new.
Ann B. fell safe when she fell hard into the everlasting embrace of her Resurrected Maker. From the first moment she placed her trust in Jesus, Ann B’s judgment day had been permanently moved from the future to the past.
Even at her lowest and most shameful, self-loathing moment, Ann B. was fully secure and loved.
As Ravi Zacharias has said, “Jesus did not come to make bad people good or to make good people better, but to make dead people alive.”
For Mary Magdalene, Peter, Ann, and all who trust in the Risen Jesus what remains is a future with no more death, mourning, crying, or pain (Revelation 21:1-7). It is a world where we will be like Jesus, because we will see him as he is (1 John 3:2).
the highlight reel of even the very best earthbound stories will pale in comparison to our resurrected future.
After C.S. Lewis recognized Jesus in the Great Story behind every good story, he wrote a series of children’s books called The Chronicles of Narnia. The final book in the series paints a beautiful and compelling picture of what is to come.
In the following excerpt, Lewis imagines what it will be like for Christ’s family of sinner-saints on the first day of the life that is to come, which we call the resurrected life.
Referring to the Christ-figure and lion, Aslan, Lewis reminds us that the highlight reel of even the very best earthbound stories will pale in comparison to our resurrected future.
Take a deep breath, let your imagination be awakened by the words, and know that Jesus didn’t come up from the dead only for Mary Magdalene and Peter. He also came up from the dead for you.
As [the resurrected Aslan] spoke, He no longer looked at them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily-ever-after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures…had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.
Christ is risen, Christ is with us, and Christ is for us.
Let’s remember this for ourselves and also for those God places in front of us.
For neither a foul mouth in front of the children, nor any amount of self-loathing, nor an addition to heroin (or to eating or alcohol or shopping or television or partisan politics or gossip, as the case may be), nor self-destructive decision making, is any match for the kindness and mercy of Christ.
Christ is risen, Christ is with us, and Christ is for us.
Nothing—not even ourselves—can ever change that fact.
Scott Sauls
About Irresistible Faith, Raechel Myers, Founder of She Reads Truth says, “As our family’s pastor, Scott consistently challenges us to be ‘people of the book.’” Donald Miller says, “I miss the kind of church Scott is describing in this book, and I don’t think I am alone.” Gabe and Rebekah Lyons wrote, that Irresistible Faith “is an antidote to much that is wrong with our western, American version of Christianity.”
I deeply concur. Irresistible Faith: Becoming the Kind of Christian the World Can’t Resist is one phenomenal, readable, and surprisingly comprehensive book about what it can look like for us to follow Jesus in truth and beauty. These pages echo the heart of God. This is an absolute must-read that I cannot recommend highly enough.
January 19, 2019
Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins for Your Weekend [01.19.19]
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 @dearestdaughters
Jessica @dearestdaughters
Jessica @dearestdaughters
sit with these photos from the central coast of California… stop & exhale
… dare you to watch this & NOT laugh out loud…
we all need this — sure, we need more than this, but no doubt, we definitely all need this
isn’t this something? Grandmother spends 2018 cleaning trash off of 52 beaches
…. Yep — meanwhile In Canada
Gravely ill mama pig miraculously recovers when farmer puts 13 newborns by her side
so who knew?!? 7 super easy ways to help make your food last longer
... I mean, God shows off everywhere … #1000Gifts
because sometimes? we lose our way
never underestimate the power of a woman with big ideas… what we can we go?!?
never give up: he was bullied for his ‘looks’ as a child and today he’s children’s doctor
a comeback routine that’s inspired the world
So. Right about now we may need some help with the new year’s resolutions?
And everybody needs a CARE GUIDE when overwhelmed.
You need this too? : [25 Point Sanity Manifesto printables…what I need to whisper on the days when I don’t know how to keep going because everything’s going wrong!]
we circled ’round this one: he’s sculpting a future for electronic waste
glory, glory, glory
Practice Defeating Your Distractions thank you for this one, Jon Bloom
She need a heart transplant to survive. Six years later, her daughter did, too.
need some encouragement? come see her story…
this family will sponsor 500+ kids in their #GenderRevealChallenge, and focus on giving back for expectant parents. #BeTheGift #TheBrokenWay
…honestly, anxiety can get pretty wearying. Maybe no question is more pressing these days than: how do you live brave and unafraid? It can be unexpectedly simple:
How to Crush Much Anxiety this Year
just the BEST. #BeTheGift #TheBrokenWay
Post of the week from these parts here
Crazy, Stressed Days Need This Life Plan: A Manifesto to Stay Sane
There is still only one way. And it’s #Jesus.
weelittlehouse
melissag99
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
her beautiful song provided just what these mothers needed as they cope with the loss of a child to stillbirth…
on repeat this week: All I Can Do… Thank You…
Looking ahead at this week? Worry is a place of pain — let’s come away from there. Worry is practicing the absence of God’s presence; Joy is the practice of breathing in God’s Presence…God’s very name YHVH (יהוה) means “Presence” — I AM.
“You make known to me the path of life: in Your PRESENCE there is fullness of JOY.” Ps. 16:11
The present moment is the only place joy can be received — because it is the very place where God’s presence is: I AM.
So just for today? Keep breathing deep & Practice the Present Moment: Joy is always the practice of breathing in God’s Presence…
[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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