Ann Voskamp's Blog, page 117
August 24, 2018
When You Need A Survival Guide for the Soul
So, it kinda turns out?
All the drowning people keep to-do lists. But the Soul Survivors keep rhythms.
Every dawn is Day One.
Today is made of fresh hope.
Once, while I was reading to one of my daughters a story about a young woman who “put on her habit,” our little girl reached up and patted my shoulder.
“What’s a habit?” she asked.
I stopped for a moment, and then spoke slowly, carefully choosing my words. It was a “new dawn” moment for me, a fresh recognition of a familiar idea.
A habit is something that is worn.
A habit is what we wear. And a habit is the way we wear our days.
If you consistently keep the same rhythms every day you will keep your soul from growing threadbare.
Consistently keep the same soul rhythms every day, and you grow deeper into Him, the One who will reweave your soul into glory.
Levi Voskamp
Musicians play one right note after the next right note after the next right note.
It’s not an erratic splattering of sound or a fickle, helter-skelter banging of random notes. Music has order. It is composed. The notes played are intentional, considered, and deliberate.
Lives that have rhythm sing. They don’t survive — they thrive.
My daughter and I once sat at a table, a few blocks from the ocean, and enjoyed a long, lingering lunch with a man named Ken Shigematsu, who wrote a Soul Survivor’s guide who hands over this lifeline of how to do just that, how to form spiritual habits that pull you close to Christ, wear Christ, savour Christ, commune with Christ, and survive, thrive and rise in Christ.
As I’ve read Ken’s survival book for the soul, the refrain of these life-giving pages has kept me returning to my own rhythms:
I light a candle every day at the prayer table.
And I write a bit in my journal, not mere words of mine, but Words of His copied out on the page. It’s as if writing them with my own hand, shaping them with my own hand, can bring shape to my own life.
Because? Only our own lack of love can keep us from His love letter.
Only being captivated by other words can keep us from His Word.
Keeping the rhythm of reading His Living Bread after every meal has been the singular most transformative habit of my life.
And these patterns of our lives reveal the form of our souls:
Do we read more of His words than those on streams and screens?
Do we intentionally practice habitual, unwavering gratitude — or do the circumstances of our days control and form the tone of our souls?
Do the rhythms of our sacred friendships and daily vocations consistently and congruently look cruciform?
*****
And while our habits clothe us— they also unclothe us.
Our habits expose our wounds, our insecurities, our idols, our addictions, our chaos. But they also reveal our hopes, our dreams, our prayers, our steady souls.
Our habits are us.
Habits matter because habits are the spine of our self-control.
Habits are the small gears that leverage your life — and if you change your rhythms, you can change anything into a possibility.
You change your life when you change how you meet Christ every day.
Our rhythms become our everyday liturgy, the sacred cadence of the hours that reorient our tired souls.
Countless times I’ve watched my daughter sit before the white keys, her wrists arched, her fingers stretching into song. Each finger knows where to hit the next note. She hardly thinks about it. It’s nearly automatic, an unconscious action. So go our daily songs and rhythms of the soul, the essence of our habits.
“Forty-five percent of what we do every day is habitual,” say the researchers, “performed almost without thinking in the same location or at the same time each day, usually because of subtle cues.”
We play a note that becomes a subtle cue for another note to follow.
We rise and pray. Or we check the internet. Or we go for a run.
Day after day we practice and play our chosen series of notes, performing actions cued by other actions.
As Aristotle wrote: “We are what we repeatedly do.”
*****
Far too many of my days have felt a bit like — drowning. A flailing cacophony.
It’s hard to hold on to the rhythm when life keeps crashing in on every side.
It’s hard to survive in a world of relentless waves. And what Ken Shigematsu knows, what he shares in this survival guide, is this:
When it’s hard to hold on, no one holds on to what is cool. They hold on to Christ.
When it’s hard to hold on, no one holds on to what is hip. They hold on to Him who is holy and healing.
When it’s hard to hold on, we don’t hold on to what’s trendy. We hold on to the True Vine.
We don’t hold on to the prevailing and the popular, we hold on to the Prince of Peace, the true Perfecter of our Faith.
We only rise because of the Gospel — the astonishing news that grace has grabbed the unworthy, and Christ cleans the unbearable, and God redeems the unlikely, and we live the unexpected.
“I do not admire the term ‘progressive sanctification,’ for it is unwarranted by Scripture. But it is certain that the Christian does grow in grace. And though their conflict may be as severe in the last day of their life as in the first moment of conversion, yet (s)he does advance in grace — and all their imperfections and conflicts within cannot prove that (s)he has not made progress,” writes Charles Spurgeon
Christianity isn’t about growing “good” — it’s about growing grace-filled and Christ-like.
Blessed assurance, Jesus assures us: You don’t have to pull yourself up by your bootstraps — you only have to pull close.
After our long lunch with Ken that day, as his Survival Guide words for the Soul were our feast, my daughter and I wandered down to the ocean.
We walked the water’s edge for hours. We watched the beating tides.
And the ocean that day echoed what all soul survivors know:
The way to survive waves is
to keep the beat of your heart
in rhythm with the One
who walks on water.
Your guide awaits you.
– Ann Voskamp, from the foreword she wrote for Survival Guide for the Soul
READ THIS BOOK!
Ken Shigematsu is the Senior Pastor of Tenth Church in Vancouver, BC, one of the largest and most diverse city-center churches in Canada. Before entering pastoral ministry, he worked for Sony Corporation in Tokyo and draws on both eastern and western perspectives in writing and speaking. Ken’s first book, God in My Everything, was named Christian Living Book of the Year by the Word Guild and received honorable mention for the prestigious Grace Irwin Prize, Canada’s largest literary prize for Christian writers.Many people today feel harried and empty, driven by an unrelenting ambition to accomplish something big and meaningful. Yet in contrast to the constant pressure we feel to achieve, Scripture defines success altogether differently.
In Survival Guide for the Soul, bestselling author and pastor Ken Shigematsu speaks poignantly about overcoming the obstacles that keep us from flourishing in our spiritual lives. He reveals the secret to a robust inner spiritual life: rejecting the temptation to validate ourselves through the pursuit of significant achievement and embracing a life of gratitude, knowing that we are already beloved as a son or daughter of God.
If you want to learn more about the book and download the Introduction and first chapter go to SurvivalGuidefortheSoul.com.
The post When You Need A Survival Guide for the Soul appeared first on Ann Voskamp.
August 22, 2018
When You’re Overwhelmed by Truth, Torn Seats and All
“Life’s too busy. I can’t do it all. I’m not enough. I’m overwhelmed!” These statements feel like the new normal, don’t they? But do they really have to be? As a mom of five as well as author, blogger, entrepreneur, and former White House staffer, Kay Wills Wyma certainly knows the pressures to do it all and be it all that affect us all at some point—and more and more are reaching into our kids’ lives as well. But Kay has learned a secret about the battle against Life’s Overwhelmed: the power of flipping Overwhelmed upside down and being overwhelmed by Truth instead. Kay is as real as it gets when it comes to sharing her story and hard-won wisdom in her new book Not the Boss of Us: Putting Overwhelmed in Its Place in a Do-All, Be-All World, and it’s a joy to welcome her to share with you here today…
“There’s a side to you I never knew, Kay Wyma,” my friend Brooke said as she smiled.
We were last to leave the morning gathering.
“Yes,” she continued, “I learned a few things about you last week—from your car.”
New things about me from my car? My mind raced to grab hold of anything tangible that might give me a clue.
Then I remembered. Oh my goodness. My car!
She had been so very nice the week before to run to my car to grab something for me.
I had been on deck to lead our Tuesday Bible study on heaven. Introductions of the morning had been made, the makeshift recording had started, when I realized I didn’t have my book.
I saw Brooke and whispered, “Hey, could you run to my car and grab my book?”
Johnny-on-the-spot, she jumped right up and turned for the door. Then she asked, “What do you drive?”
“The dented white Sequoia parked on the far right.”
Yes, still dented from the time a nice young man had crashed into us a few years earlier.
She slipped me my book upon returning, and I didn’t think any more of it at the time. But as I stood in front of Brooke and my mind raced to put together the “I’ve learned a few things about you” pieces, it didn’t take me long.
She’d seen the inside of my car and duly noted its appearance. Though our car’s outside has issues of its own, the inside—now that’s raw.
I mean, it was summer. Kids, kids, and more kids had been in and out of that thing.
The weathered (some might say torn) seats, the wrappers, the Slurpee cup that may or may not have sat in a cup holder for a week, the swim towels, the extra shoes—one waterproof pair, which came in handy at Costco the other day when a storm blew in and I didn’t want to ruin my new sandals—the list really could go on.
The inside of my car—like the inside of our closets, refrigerators, drawers, etc.—had added a new dimension to her knowledge of me.
I guess she learned that I’m not lying when I say I haven’t got it all together.
Remember who created you.
She got to see up close and personal our very regular life as a family of seven.
We come with lots of love and few expectations of perfection, sprinkled with a dash of procrastination for good measure.
Yes, my car said much to my dear friend Brooke. “The torn seats?” I asked her.
“Yeah,” she sweetly replied. “And a little more.”
Brooke’s nodding smile warmed my soul. And all the wonderful aspects of authentic friendship washed over me.
And I melted into vulnerability and acceptance. She was meeting me in the midst — not running away or gasping or whispering.
She wasn’t judging me.
And so I refused to judge myself.
I held tight to the thoughts that tempted me to freak out. You know the ones. She saw our mess! What must she think of me? Everyone else has their stuff together. What’s wrong with us?
“I love you even more,” she announced.
I think the key for most of us is not only ditching the judgment of others but also slowing down the often misguided, overly harsh labeling and judgment of themselves.
Why don’t we determine to train ourselves and our kids to see ourselves in the light of how God sees us? To focus our attention on striving for excellence as it relates to our best—not the best.
To let God’s light rather than culture inform what we see in the mirror. To consider perspective rather than latch on to a glimpse.
Instead of giving in to image pressures, why not remember that we’re actually created, as human beings, to be image bearers.
Rather than letting threatening thoughts take root, we can speak Truth to ourselves
Rather than give an inch to tempting thoughts that drift toward comparing someone else’s life with our own, let’s gravitate toward gratitude for all we have and were created with unique purpose and gifting to be.
Because almost every image the world throws at us has the good, the bad, the ugly, and lots of regular just below the surface.
And the people in the picture also have spectacular gifts woven deep within, making them who they are rather than who they may think they need to be.
It’s so easy to be overwhelmed by pressures and expectations in our do-all, be-all world.
Even though there’s no easy fix, reminding ourselves of Truth can go a long way.
When we wake up with heaviness or start to feel overwhelmed during the day, we can recognize it for what it is and call it out.
Rather than letting threatening thoughts take root, we can speak Truth to ourselves—or listen to one of those authentic, nonjudgmental friends I hope you have in your life too—and instead be overwhelmed by the life-giving perspective of God’s grace and peace and love.
Ditch the self-judgment.
Remember who created you.
And trust that He sees every bit of your life, and He loves you even more than you can imagine.
Torn seats and all.
Kay Wills Wyma, former White House staffer, international banker, and entrepreneur, is a mom of five who writes about seeing beyond life’s pressures in order to navigate life and thrive together. She is the author of three books and blogs at the popular themoatblog.com. Kay also hosts a video podcast with friends called the SaySomething Show. She has been featured on TODAY, CNN, and Focus on the Family, and has contributed to the NYT Motherlode, DMagazine, Thriving Families, and more.
Kay’s new book Not the Boss of Us: Putting Overwhelmed in Its Place in a Do-All, Be-All World offers a freeing new perspective on how to confront the pressures we face—at home, online, at work, in relationships, on our calendars—and replace all those heavy expectations with the liberating truth that we were made for something better.
Kay gives us permission to step back, put Life’s Overwhelmed in its place, and find fulfillment and freedom anchored in Truth. Yes, yes, yes.
[ Our humble thanks to Baker for their partnership in today’s devotion ]
The post When You’re Overwhelmed by Truth, Torn Seats and All appeared first on Ann Voskamp.
August 20, 2018
How a Pair of Ripped Pants Woke Me Up to the Sanctifying Power of Other People
As the Founder of the fair trade accessories brand Noonday Collection, Jessica Honegger has helped create dignified work for over 4,500 Artisans across the globe, impacting 20,000 family members. When I first met Jessica through IF: Gathering seven years ago, one of the first things that struck both of us was our shared heart for justice. That sense, of finding a kindred spirit in the fight for a fairer and more grace-filled world, is what Jessica offers to all of us in her new book, Imperfect Courage. The book is part memoir, part call-to-action, and describes how Jessica’s winding journey led her to a revolutionary truth: We don’t have to wait until we feel fully ready to soar before we take flight. We simply have to go scared. In this excerpt, Jessica describes how her son Jack, whom she adopted from Rwanda in 2011, helped her discover this powerful truth. It’s a grace to welcome Jessica to the farm’s front porch today…
guest post by Jessica Honegger
Some of the toughest situations in which to manifest vulnerability and empathy involve the people we happen to love most.
I realized this truth afresh on a recent Wednesday morning before school.
At issue was a pair of school pants. Or two pairs, to be precise.
That morning Jack had pulled on a pair of pants that had a rip down one of the legs.
We live in Austin and all, but I can still be a little old-fashioned. For the same reason that you will never spot any of us Honegger girls wearing leggings as pants at the airport, I didn’t want him wearing ripped pants to school.
An atmosphere of judgment instead of compassion shuts down the opportunity for us to stay connected to ourselves, and by extension, to others.
With a ticking clock and a meeting I needed to get to, I asked Jack to change clothes. Except that I didn’t exactly ask. Asking would have been wise: “Hey, buddy, those pants are ripped. Would you please swap them out for the pair that’s not ripped instead?”
No, what I did was more in the realm of demand. “You are not wearing ripped pants to school. Go get your pair that’s not ripped. I’m already running late!”
As Jack stood before me shell shocked and refusing to change, I scurried around the kitchen, grabbing my laptop bag, my purse, my keys, and muttered, “You don’t want to change your clothes? Really? Then I’ll just take away every pair of pants you own.”
Moments later, Jack fled to his room, but not to change his pants. When I found him moments later, he had dived headfirst into his bed, blanket overhead with feet sticking out where his head should have been, and now refused to speak. My anger only grew.
Flight. Disconnection. Silence.
I felt like Mom of the Year.
It’s easy to judge ourselves in these situations.
But an atmosphere of judgment instead of compassion shuts down the opportunity for us to stay connected to ourselves, and by extension, to others.
I decided to change my defensive posture to one of curiosity: What triggers this reaction in me to my kid?
I wondered, and with my child huddled under a blanket, me now cuddled next to him in an apologetic embrace, a clear pattern emerged: the more Jack would shut down, isolate, and disconnect, the more I would totally rage. This was not connected parenting. This is not how I wanted to live.
*******
During that season of parenting misses (the ripped-pants episode was but one in a sequence of maddening exchanges between my son and me), I went to a leadership retreat where one of the featured speakers was psychiatrist Curt Thompson, the author of The Soul of Shame.
His talk cracked me wide open, and so right after that session, I sought him out and cornered him as only a woman on a mission can. “I am not responding well to one of my kids,” I said, even before I had told him my name.
Curt laughed good-naturedly and without missing a beat said, “Well, at least you’re owning your part of it. Tell me, what’s been going on?”
To relay the entire contents of what wound up being an impromptu therapy session would be to usurp this entire post, but this gem from Curt I must recount.
He said, “Deep calls to deep, and sometimes God brings people into our lives who can help us overcome what we need to overcome—if only we’ll let them. We save each other, you know? We need each other, to heal. What is the whisper in your heart that you hear when your son is shutting you out?”
In fact, that whisper was more like a yell. “You are all alone in the world,” it said, “and no one will come to your aid.”
Seeing Jack disconnect, essentially withdrawing into a dark cave and spray-painting Do Not Disturb on the wall of his heart, triggered feelings in me of powerlessness, aloneness, and the same fear that I had experienced as a child.
One of the bravest things we can do is to be still and alone long enough to feel our feelings, and once I learned to be still, that is what I felt.
Feeling our feelings is vulnerability.
After excavating more of this pattern between Jack and me in the month that followed, I came to terms with part of my girlhood that I had stuffed way down deep for years.
The contents of that will have to wait for another time, but for now here is what I’ll say: it was only by saying yes to the invitation Jack had given me into vulnerability that I could exhibit empathy toward his tendency to isolate.
Creating a space for other people’s pain is impossible when we deny our own pain. It takes courage to step into vulnerability, but only by owning our own hard places can we empathize.
If we want to deepen our relationships with others, then vulnerability is the state that we must pass through.
If you’re longing to leave a life of safety for a life of risk, meaning, and impact, then please read this carefully: you cannot get there on your own.You—even you—were made for community.
To flourish, we must work with, not against, togetherness, and to prize togetherness, we must come out of isolation and be seen.
Regardless of whether you fear being perceived as weak, or you think that you will be a burden to others, or you don’t know if you can return the favor, or you are afraid that people will say no, or you are afraid that your need is excessive and, well, needy, choosing self-reliance and isolation is never the better bet.
While it may indeed be safer to curl up on the couch for The West Wing reruns night after night, that is hardly the life you were made for. It’s not at all what flourishing means.
My friend, you and I cannot serve in a context of isolation.
We cannot give in a context of isolation.
We cannot grow in a context of isolation.
We cannot truly live all by ourselves.
And so, we are here, at vulnerability’s doorstep, knowing that we simply must let it in —
because it’s in the safety of each other’s vulnerability that we finally find the healing we’ve so frantically and desperately sought.
Jessica Honegger is the Founder and Co-CEO of Noonday Collection, a socially responsible business that uses fashion to create meaningful opportunities for people around the world. She is also a wife, a mom to three littles, and the host of the Going Scared Podcast.
In Imperfect Courage, Jessica invites you to draw a circle of compassion around yourself and leads you through soul-searching aimed at setting you free from shame. She also challenges you to come together, risking all for each other and commit to building a culture of collaboration. She calls on you to broaden your circles of compassion to embrace the entire globe — and to bring that cultivation of imperfect courage to a world that deeply needs you.
One of the most impactful sections of Imperfect Courage comes when Jessica challenges us all to embrace a life of empathy and vulnerability. Only by opening ourselves up to our own feelings, and the feelings of others, can we truly find healing—and become the world changers God made us to be. Imperfect Courage is a must-read for anyone who feels called to something more, but feels stuck on the couch, afraid to leave their comfort zone.
[ Our humble thanks to Waterbrook for their partnership in today’s devotion ]
The post How a Pair of Ripped Pants Woke Me Up to the Sanctifying Power of Other People appeared first on Ann Voskamp.
August 18, 2018
Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins for Your Weekend [08.18.18]
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
life is not an emergency, life is a gift.
just so grateful for how she celebrates the gift of life and so kindly shares with us here #1000gifts
don’t like to leave them behind? this couple is here to help! they took a 15,000-mile road trip to find the top dog-friendly US destinations
a remote Welsh Island with just four permanent residents
If you’re a working mom, check out my friend Jessica’s new project:
The Thrive Series: Conversations About Working Motherhood
Full of understanding and practical advice, it’s a beautiful and FREE gift to working moms of all kinds.
a teacher’s love never, ever gets old
Danae Wolfe Macro Photography
Danae Wolfe Macro Photography
Danae Wolfe Macro Photography
this extraordinary photographer? Wakes up at the crack of dawn to photograph insects & spiders waking up with the sunrise
tears…can you even!?! this teacher commutes to work on several bus routes: this family decided it was time to give back to the teacher who gave so much to their family over the years. #BeTheGift #TheBrokenWay
how a community has rallied around a young boy who was robbed at gunpoint at his lemonade stand
consider joining me here next month? The Justice Institute Immigration and Advocacy
The Justice Conference believes that every Christian should pursue justice as a consistent lifestyle. At this event, we will teach you the practical steps to advocating for better national policy regarding immigration and other issues that affect marginalized people groups. Learn more here.
oh, just — deeply moved at his tears here
good stuff: Learning to See Your Single Neighbor
just so good: Steve Hartman reports every week for millions of people. But while in Liberia, he did a special report for three important people, his kids. He shows them how different life can be like for kids just like them, on the other side of the world
thank you for this, Scott Sauls: There is Dignity of EVERY Kind of Work
could not stop watching…
YES! cheering wildly: An ‘angel’ helped one struggling widow buy groceries; it was Ludacris
Crying with gratitude, she asked who he was and he said, “Just a guy.” #BeTheGift #TheBrokenWay
and the research is in: can money buy happiness?
Single mom working uses surprise $1,000 tip to serve kids in the local area #BeTheGift #TheBrokenWay
you’ve got to meet him: Brian Peterson is transforming the lives of the homeless with his portrait art
Your Life Is Not Boring yes, yes to this, Jon Bloom
tears at this perfect life-saving match
Olga Kulakova
Olga Kulakova
Olga Kulakova
the wonder of it: frozen beauty, flowers preserved in ice
if you need to know that God is holding you together, and bringing you through…
“My anxiety does not define who I am…”
After being diagnosed with social anxiety disorder in grade school, this young woman is thriving today.
an extraordinary family miracle: never stop praying
Joy Prouty
Must-Knows Before the Kids Go: 40 Things Every Child Must Know Before They Leave Home
never, ever give up
Post of the week from there parts here
When You’re Struggling With Mid-Life & a 40-Something Birthday & Another Year Older
The Prodigal Grandson of Billy Graham:
Tullian Tchividjian opens up about his turbulent adolescence and struggles with God and what happened to bring him back to the cross p lease don’t miss this
simplyswenkalife/ Instagram
simplyswenkalife/ 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
on repeat this week: Never been a moment…
…so, there’ll be calls today, results that come back, there’ll be headlines that make a head & heart ache, there’ll be the impossible in front of us.
But “God’s now at my side & I’m not afraid” Ps.118:6
When you have to climb the sheer face of a mountain, keep focused on the face of God. Obstacles are what take over your path only when you take your eyes off Him.
What lies in front of you is *never bigger* than the One who lives in you.
What you focus on — is what you bec ome like. Focus on good — and you’ll see more good everywhere to focus on.
Let everything today simply be an exhale of trusting hope.
[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.
The post Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins for Your Weekend [08.18.18] appeared first on Ann Voskamp.
August 17, 2018
the 1 word prayer that is all you’ll ever need
Originally from Belize, Keisha Polonio is the Associate Director and Coaching Director for the Tampa Underground Network. As a certified leadership coach, she invests in the lives of leaders who have kingdom dreams. She provides them with the tools necessary to accomplish their goals within their businesses and their personal lives. But when the doctors said she might have cancer, she forgot about all of her tools and the one thing that was truly necessary, prayer. In this post, she shares how prayer was breath to her soul during one of the most trying times of her life. It’s a grace to welcome Keisha to the farm’s front porch today…
“Breathe, Keisha, breathe!” the nurse yelled. I gasped for air and opened my eyes as wide as I could as if they could inhale a breath for me too.
I was alive.
My surgery was over and every breath I took was now filled with hope, with relief, and with questions.
I began to realize that in the same way I needed oxygen to fill my lungs to live, I needed the breath of God to fill my entire being.
Were the doctors, right? Was the tumor cancerous? Did I make the right choice to remove my entire left kidney?
But before I could think of another question, I started to blackout.
“Breathe, Keisha, breathe!” she yelled. I could hear her voice so clearly but didn’t know where it was coming from.
Startled, I gasped for air and exhaled. I was alive … but somehow forgot how to breathe.
I started having to concentrate on something that was supposed to come naturally. I read somewhere that people take 35,000 or so breaths per day, and now I was struggling to just take one.
I felt the fear rise up and wondered if something was wrong.
I tried to breathe, but before I could take another gasp of air, I was fading to black again.
“Keisha, I need you to breathe.” Her voice was tender yet filled with a perceptible concern. I could tell she was close this time and soon I felt her hand resting on my shoulder. I opened my eyes and her face hovered over mine.
“You have to breathe,” she said. “Breathe, Keisha, breathe.”
I wanted to breathe because I wanted to live.
I wanted to see my boys grow up and to celebrate another anniversary with my husband.
I wanted to continue fighting for vulnerable women in my city and to see my neighborhood restored.
So, I inhaled the air that was around me but this time, I exhaled a prayer.
“Jesus,” slipped from my lips and something stirred within me.
I continued praying, and with each prayer, I could sense the presence of God filling my soul with peace. I prayed even though I felt weary and didn’t have many words to say. I continued to cry out to Jesus for help as I struggled to breathe for the next 6 hours in the recovery room.
I began to realize that in the same way I needed oxygen to fill my lungs to live, I needed the breath of God to fill my entire being.
I had to remember to breathe, but I also had to remember that it’s only through prayer that our souls are filled with the breath of life.
To pray continually is to live fully dependent on the breath of God in your life.
One where you realize your deep need for Jesus in every moment, during every task, for everything. It does not matter if you are praying out loud or just take a moment to stop.
Praying continually is about living with an abiding dependence on the one who created the heavens and the earth.
We need to pray continually like Paul encouraged his friends to do in 1 Thessalonians 5:17. Paul knew the Thessalonians faced great affliction and persecution because of their decision to follow Jesus. They had to destroy all ties to their pasts as they stood against the social and political injustices of the world around them.
The world was against them in every way, but the Thessalonians persevered. As a community, they clung to Jesus with every breath and fought the darkness of their day. But they grew weary and impatient as they wondered if what they were doing was actually making a difference.
The enemy increased his attack on this community of believers. He attacked their hearts with fear, flooded their minds with anxious thoughts, and killed their bodies. Their hope dwindled, and they were losing heart.
But Paul, knowing their heartache, reminded them to pray continually because there was a God who had not forsaken them.
You may be tired as you labor to see the Kingdom come to your city, your neighborhood, workplace, or school.
You wonder if what you’re doing is making a difference.
Praying continually is about living with an abiding dependence on the one who created the heavens and the earth.
You have seen the effects of anxiety, loneliness, and depression around you, and may be wrestling against them too.
Maybe you’re battling an illness seeking to snatch your life away or grieving the loss of someone close.
Life’s hard seasons can make you feel like you’re suffocating.
In that hospital room, I thought I fully understood my need to pray. I remembered thinking that I needed to share this imagery of prayer as breath to our souls with everyone.
But then my doctor told me I was bleeding internally and I needed a second surgery, and forgot it all.
I was immediately flustered.
I had questions and concerns.
I needed to call my loved ones to let them know what was happening.
But within minutes I was rolled into another operating room that was filled with an anxiety matching my own. I laid there, with pain that would not subside, and watched the nurses and anesthesiologist rush around me.
When it was time to be moved onto the operating table, I broke down. I sobbed until I had no more tears.
But a nurse leaned over and started praying in my ear.
I don’t remember all she said, but just heard her say the name of Jesus.
And again, something stirred in my soul. I needed to pray. I needed to cry out to Jesus to help me once again. And He heard my cries.
Don’t let this world keep you from clinging to Jesus. He is present and has not forsaken you.
Deepen your abiding dependence on the God of hope and remember Paul’s words, so when the world seeks to suffocate you under all of its weight and worries —
remember to take a deep breath and pray continually.
Let me remind you to cry out because He hears you.
He hears you when the only words that can slip out of your lips are simply, “Jesus, help.”
Listen to the voice calling you to pray continually and let Him breathe life into your soul.
Keisha Polonio serves as a storyteller and champion for Created Women, a ministry committed to serving vulnerable women caught in the sex industry. Through this ministry, Keisha is able to showcase God’s compassion and love towards women who are often times left in the dark and forgotten about. Her husband Ryan and Keisha disciple young leaders how to emulate Jesus everywhere they go, in their weekly home church, Kindred.
She and Ryan currently reside in Tampa, FL, and are the parents of two wonderful boys: Jarron and Evan. As a cancer survivor, Keisha remembers to always be present and fully celebrate and conquer the trials and joys of life.
The post the 1 word prayer that is all you’ll ever need appeared first on Ann Voskamp.
August 15, 2018
Must-Knows Before the Kids Go: 40 Things Every Child Must Know Before They Leave Home
Dear Kid Headed out into the World —
You have to know how your unfolding from me was a miracle.
That’s the miraculous thing about miracles – they really do happen.
How is it in this crazy, holy world does a girl-woman bear another actual human being with a forever soul?
And this the thing in a family: there’s only so much time to go from point A to point B.
Real leadership is: not climbing higher towards power and status, but bending down in prayer and service.
How did I waste so many days? How do I make you know everything you need to know before you go?
How to love another person and when to say yes and when to wear black socks instead of white and when to ask for directions and when to say no.
All we ever want for you is to be: radical about grace and relentless about truth and resolute about holiness and vows and the real hills worth dying on.
That you know how to make a bed and how to make a child laugh and how to write a letter home.
Did you know, right when they laid you wrinkled in my arms, you had this curl of hair, this swirl of hair on your forehead? You got it from me. That turning, swirling cowlick that I got from my Dad. Who got it from his mother. This is how these things go, this turning around and passing torches on.
I turn around and you’re growing all up.
And you’re headed away from home here right about now…
Joy Prouty
Joy Prouty
Joy Prouty
Joy Prouty
Joy Prouty
Joy ProutyYour father says that now this farm won’t be big enough to keep you anymore.
When he says it, he says it a bit like something hurts inside.
Your dad’s made his life about showing you that:
Real leadership is: not climbing higher towards power and status, but bending down in prayer and service.
He’s been dead to all ladders and that’s what made him so alive — reaching down, to the lonely, the lost, and the least.
I roll all your shirts and stack them, one upon the other, like all the years, and know that this is just the beginning of the leavings. I bite my lip hard and try to be brave, like the day you were born. How could my mothering take so many u-turns and still get here so fast?
I remember when you were small enough to hold in my arms, warm against me, this sun bathed stone, us engraved into rock here. I hadn’t known how fast the wings would come and that you would fly into the dark, into the sun, and so soon. That when you became a man, I’d feel so empty – and so very fulfilled.
I wish we had read even more books. And I had said yes to every game of Scrabble.
The Bible’s true, Child of ours.
One person with God can change a culture.
Every infallible, sword-sharp, breathing word of it. Don’t let anyone ever rationalize one beautiful iota of it away. Love His Word because it’s your Life.
And the only life living is the Scandalous Life: scandalous love, offensive mercy, foolish faith.
Kiss babies. Always have one friend that feels on the fringe, that you have to pray to love, that makes the neighbors scratch their heads.
Stubbornly pray for your enemies till you see enemies are illusions and everyone is a friend and somehow grace. Believe in every soul’s God-sized dreams. And rub someone’s feet at the end of the day.
Be the kind of person who apologizes first because that’s the only way happiness can last.
And never forget that happiness is when His Word and your walk are in harmony. Never stop keeping company with Christ– and all the sinners, tax-collectors and cast-offs. Be an evangelist and use your words with your hands because your part of a Body and never stop loving God with all your heart, mind and soul, and loving others as yourself. Make that your creed.
It’s true, Child: Be different and know everything you do matters. It’s what the Christ followers know: One person with God can change a culture.
God didn’t put people in your path mostly for your plans and purposes — He put you there for theirs.
Loving the poor will make you rich, I promise.
The only life worth living is the one lost.
No matter how loud and crazy and broken the world is, child? Let your actual joy in your salvation live loud in your soul.
And believe that you are His beloved – it’s only when you trust He loves you that you really begin to live. Really, count a thousand blessings more, never stop. Why wouldn’t you want joy? Sing to no one and everyone on the front porch in the rain and laugh so much they question your sanity. Pet the dog long.
Because really, none of us knows how long we have. Remember that a pail with a pinhole loses as much as the pail pushed right over. A whole life can be lost in minutes wasted… in the small moments missed. None of this is forever grace. That’s why it’s amazing grace.
Do it often: grab a lifeline by stepping offline.
You’ll see your true self when you look for your reflection in the eyes of souls not the glare of screens.
This is what you always need to know: Be okay with not being liked: life’s about altars not applause.
And be okay with not being seen or heard. It’ll let you hear and see better.
Joy Prouty
Joy Prouty
Joy Prouty
Joy Prouty
Joy Prouty
Joy Prouty
Joy ProutyIt’s late when you lay your Bible on the last of the packed clothes and check off the last thing, thinking you’ve remembered everything.
I know I’ve forgotten something – many things.
Be okay with not being liked: life’s about altars not applause.
This parenting gig’s an experiment in radical grace and the work of every parent is to fully give to the child.
And it’s the work of every child to fully forgive the parents. This is how it turns, the torch passing from one to the next.
Remember that we made meals and beds and mistakes and memories – look hard for the good ones.
You zip up the suitcase. I try to keep it in, what’s blurring and spilling. And I rummage about in the closet for that necklace I’ve been saving for someday and I think today’s the day. That necklace that maybe can call you to what your mother’s been stammering to say.
I will never stop loving and letting you go. A mother and child live the first great love story and there is no love story without loss, and this is always gain.
And I go to hand it to you. No – put it around your neck.
Like a benediction.
A mantle.
No matter the road or what paths you cross: Wear the call to His sacrificial, radical way.
You finger the steel in your hands.
You’ve taken hold and I’m letting go.
Maybe that’s what I am trying to say?
I will never stop loving and letting you go. A mother and child live the first great love story and there is no love story without loss, and this is always gain.
Remember this no matter where you fly?
Love,
your mama..
who believes in the thousand-fold miracle that all is grace.:::::
::
The post Must-Knows Before the Kids Go: 40 Things Every Child Must Know Before They Leave Home appeared first on Ann Voskamp.
August 13, 2018
What to do when we have problems with prayer
Elisa Morgan is one of the most passionate, authentic communicators I have ever known. She speaks out of the deepest, most honest places of the soul – and my soul is always the richer – and moved closer to Jesus – for the listening. In our time of prayer, it’s easy sometimes struggle with words. With feelings. With our heart of hearts and how to let God in. Even though we know He already knows everything we’ve ever thought or felt. Elisa has found a way into a weary prayer world and has oh-so-gently tucked many against her being to hold them there just long enough to help to find the courage to try again. Read on friend. And find hope for your prayer problems. It’s a grace to welcome Elisa to the farm’s front porch today…
We are a praying people. We can hardly help ourselves.
In a pinch when we need help. Under our breath in a moment of frustration. For loved ones so in need of hope and help. Over our troubled world. After a stunningly happy surprise.
We pray.
And yet, we can find prayer baffling.
I find myself conflicted in prayer. Pulled in the two directions of what I want and what I think God wants. My will versus His will.
Our tongues grow heavy. Sometimes prayer is just plain scary—after all, what do we say to the God of the universe?
At other times, prayer can be unsatisfying. We wonder: Is God listening? Will He answer? Why is He taking so long? Why do we feel so cut off from Him? What if we’re praying in the wrong way
In Luke 18:1, Jesus “told his disciples a parable to show them they should always pray and never give up.” We ratchet up our efforts with consistency and sincerity. Sometimes we see results. Sometimes we don’t.
What’s going on here?
I send commands to my being to express my desires to God and my yieldedness to his will but my then mouth won’t move. James writes of the trouble such a condition can bring, “You do not have because you do not ask” (James 4:2).
Maybe I’m a doubter, “like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind” (James 1:6). James goes on to say that such a person “should not expect to receive anything from the Lord” (verse 7).
Or maybe I’m too selfish to experience God’s response to my prayers as James, again, warns, “When you ask, you do not receive because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures” (James 4:3).
Oh my . . . what to do? Pray more?
I wonder if there isn’t a deeper, more core issue at work here. Nestling down to consider my prayer problems more intentionally,
I find myself conflicted in prayer. Pulled in the two directions of what I want and what I think God wants. My will versus His will.
On the one hand, I long to be honest—gut-wrenchingly raw—in blurting out my needs and desires before God and begging Him to meet them.
Every single one of them.
But do I dare? Will He hear? Does He care? Will He act? What if He doesn’t? Hear. Care. Act. Unsure, I hedge honest and dress it up as respectful requests. One inch deep.
On the other hand, I yearn for the courage to abandon my desires in surrender to God’s best in all things.
But, oh my, what all might “God’s best” include? What might He allow? In my life or in the lives of those I love? Uncertain, I wince a compromised yielding.
You relate, don’t you?
Help has come to me from an unexpected source. In the deepest hours of Jesus’ life on this planet, a two-sided coin of prayer was forged. In the crucible of the garden of Gethsemane, pressed between what he wanted and what the Father wanted, Jesus prayed “Take this cup,” and then, “Not my will.”
Two sides of Jesus. Two sides of us. Two sides of prayer.
What might I discover about Jesus, God the Father, and myself if I pendulum-swing my prayers between the two sides of the coin?
What if I teeter-totter my utterances between what I want and what God wants? What if you do?
Pause with me, and let the concept sink in.
What, really, is the state of Take This Cup? Perhaps a state of “honest”?
An unapologetic verbalization of what is truly within? And what, really, is the condition of Not My Will?
I mull over my personal language. Surrender. Yieldedness. Relinquishment.
Another word has the stickiness needed to stay. A startling word at first (is it even the proper part of speech?), yet here is a word that sums up the surprise necessary to grab my heart: abandon.
Not as in being abandoned by another. No, abandon as in giving oneself completely over to something. To Someone.
Take This Cup: honest.
Not My Will: abandon.
Two sides of prayer.
The Prayer Coin.
What if this two-sided prayer coin—daring to pray with honest abandon—could solve my problems with prayer?
Take me into the kind of oneness Jesus experienced with His Father? The very intimacy God designed me to enjoy?
So I began a new prayer effort—this prayer coin practice. A “prayer dare” of sorts. An intentional focus on praying the two sides of prayer, as Jesus did in the garden.
Honest and abandon.
For the issues of prayer that flow from my heart. Some for me. Many for others.
My prayer today is that you, too, will open your heart to the prayer coin concept.
That as you express your honest Take This Cup moments to God, you’ll find him pivoting your desires in abandon to Not My Will—and that in the process, you will discover an intimacy that crashes you through to a more satisfying relationship with Him.
The place Jesus came to lead us into.
Okay . . . here we go. Up it flies—the prayer coin—into the air of discovery.
Down it comes.
Time for you to make the call.
What’s it going to be? Honest or abandon? Or . . . both?
Elisa Morgan was named by Christianity Today as one of the top fifty women influencing today’s church and culture and is one of today’s most sought-after authors, speakers, and leaders. For twenty years, Elisa Morgan served as CEO of MOPS International. Elisa received a BS from the University of Texas and an MDiv from Denver Seminary where she now serves on the board. As co-host of the syndicated radio program Discover the Word, Elisa offers a daily fifteen-minute real-time conversation around the written and living Word of God. She also writes regularly for the Our Daily Bread Devotional. She has authored over twenty-five books including The Beauty of Broken, Hello, Beauty Full, and She Did What She Could.
In her newest release, The Prayer Coin: Daring to Pray with Honest Abandon, Elisa birthed the “prayer coin” idea as she was struggling in her own prayer life. Should she be blatantly honest about her desires or just leave everything to God and let him lead? An epiphany came when Elisa noticed how Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane: “Take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done” (Luke 22:42). Jesus Christ begged for relief from the trial he faced, while utterly complying with what he knew the Father’s will to be. Honesty and abandon—in the same breath.
Elisa discovered that Jesus invites us to do both. And the emotional back-and-forth, between full-out honesty and “giving it up” in abandon, actually drew her closer to God. If Jesus—our Savior, Mentor, and Friend—could pray both sides of the prayer coin, could we as well?
[ Our humble thanks to Discovery House for their partnership with today’s devotion ]
The post What to do when we have problems with prayer appeared first on Ann Voskamp.
August 10, 2018
When You’re Struggling With Mid-Life & a 40-Something Birthday & Another Year Older
Dear Mid-life, 40-Something Birthday —
When you feel people stretching you thin, you feel your heart enlarging.
Blow out your dripping candles from the Dollar Store this week, circling there on your gluten-free birthday cake like a miniature candlelight vigil because there you are:
40-something. You’re about half way there, old BraveHeart. Half way.
Barring an extravagant act of God and a lifetime of green smoothies, there is, at best, only half the track still stretching out ahead of you like your last invitation.
So live backward from your 90th birthday cake.
Always: Live backward from the end goal.
Look at who’s in the room singing off tune on your 90th birthday — and who are you making room for right now?
I’m hankering to be the weathered woman of 9 decades, hunched over her cake, looking around a room of babies slung on hips and gangly, grinning teenagers and the gathering of the generations who know the words to the Old Rugged Cross and Psalm 23 by heart and the language of thanks is their mother tongue. I envision a rising of accents and the richness of skin colours and a poverty of spirit that knows the luckiness of Jesus-grace, and I hear the raucous of a room of the gloriously rowdy and live your life backwards from that last birthday cake.
Only the people you make priorities now will make you one of their priorities in the end.
And all those unconventional priorities of yours? Trust that you’d do them all over again:
Have a baby in your 40s. Adopt her, hold her, rock her, loose sleep over her, fall in love with her. Change diapers, change sheets, change course — change everything in mid-life, to be laughing nose to nose at the local pizza joint with your tousel-headed four-year-old wearing her scuffed up Peppa Pig crocks, four days before you turn 45.
Making a small person one of your greatest priorities makes your life great.
Read through university applications with one brave kid before supper and read Beatrix Potter with a little kid on your lap after supper and grow soporific with surprising grace.
When you feel people stretching you thin, you feel your heart enlarging.
Move someone with white hair and a slow gait right into the centre of the crazy current of your life. Upend your agenda: Drive them to doctor appointments, get them a cup of coffee in the middle of the afternoon, fill that their sleep machine with water before you turn out the last light, pat the back of their wrinkled hand, and embrace it all, right at the outset:
Love is always inconvenient and inefficient and indestructible.
Stay in love.
I’m holding on to this with all my life.
Stay in touch, stay in truth and grace, and stay in the Story and, above all else: stay in love.
Life is too short to move on to anything else.
And mid-life is flat-out begging you:
Risk it all. Risk large, risk now, risk your heart, risk for what ultimately matters.
Go back to school. Go reconcile. Go make it right.
Invest in a dream that terrifies you. Do the hard thing that terrifies you.
Start a business, a class, a soup kitchen, a friendship, a dinner club, a memoir, a church, a marathon, a family. Just start. Start over.
You life is art and there’s no art without risk.
Risk is your friend who walks with you where you want to go. Risk is the friend who knows the way to where you want to go. Enjoy risk’s company.
Live into something bigger than you, that will require more than you, that will require faith and hope and miracles and God. Why waste your one life on any one’s small box?
Believe it:
Life doesn’t have to get easier to be good. All you have to do is just get closer to a good God.
Commit to more than a prayer life.
Make your life a prayer.
Make your work your worship, make your days your doxology, make your life your liturgy, and make Christ your only King.
Your work may burn up or cause you to burn out, but the prayers enfolded into the stacks of laundry, the soup stirred soup, the stairs swept — they will survive fire.
I am still learning, still staying hungry, still staying needy:
The cure to an overwhelmed life
begins with a daily overdose of Scripture.
Leave a Bible open to the Psalms by the sink, on the desk, at the table, eat His book every time you eat because the truth is: Stay in His Story to stay walking on waves.
What you focus on — is what you become like.
Focus on good — and you’ll see more good everywhere to focus on.
And yet, truth is, after all this? Bottom line? You will look in the mirror and you’ll see it in your eyes: You will have done a whole mess of things kinda shatteringly wrong, and I mean a whole lot more than throwing in a few lights with a load of darks.
I mean the kind of life stuff that makes your heart hurt all the way up the edges of your rib cage and you will desperately wish you could turn around and do so much so very differently. Like:
Throw more lifelines than stones.
Give more grace than advice.
Hunger for integrity more than popularity, celebrity, or prosperity, — because your integrity is your only legacy.
You’ll wildly wish you had known sooner, before, that:
The easy way to what you want — isn’t the same as the narrow way to what you’ll want for all eternity.
Choosing the path of least resistance — can turn out to be the greatest mistake of your life.
And do what feels good now — and you could feel bad for longer than you ever imagined.
This all will keep you up at night — but trust that this brokenness is a gift:
Being broken keeps you soft —- and it’s exactly where there is broken and soft soil that there is growth.
Let the rains come, let whatever needs to rain simply come, and grow whatever He needs to grow, however He needs to grow it, because He reigns and knows what is best, and in our tender surrender, the glory of our God wins.
There may be another 40-something years left, there may only be another 16,425 days left.
And honestly? As many days, as moments, between here and 90, or as many remain?
These three are really all you can control everyday: Your grittiness, your gratefulness, and your givenness.
These three are really all you can control everyday:
Your grittiness, your gratefulness, and your givenness.
Every day you can choose how much grit you bring to the table.
Every day you can choose how much gratefulness you’ll offer up at the table.
Every day you can choose how much you’ll live given so more people know they belong at the table.
Grit, gratefulness, givenness. And the carrying grace of a good God. That’s ultimately what you’ve got every day.
So… when you’re mid-life and you go to blow out those forty-something candles?
Let it simply be an exhale
of trusting hope
that extinguishes flickering fears
and lengthens the years
into a long meaningfulness
because all of you was imagined by God,
meant to be blaze right now in His story for His epic glory,
so every day is your party and you can be fully and freely released, if you want to be, to let all of your moments eat the cake of amazing grace.
The post When You’re Struggling With Mid-Life & a 40-Something Birthday & Another Year Older appeared first on Ann Voskamp.
August 8, 2018
The Biggest Lie about Surrender — and Why You Can’t Afford to Believe It
Before there were books, we were simply two heart-sisters who had a lot in common. We loved words and Jesus. And we were both farm wives married to men who raised crops and pigs. I once grabbed Jennifer Dukes Lee’s hand and told her I believed in God’s gifts in her, and I prayed for His words through her to keep coming. She’s a pure-hearted, soul-encouraging woman after God’s own heart, and reading her always makes me read more of Christ everywhere. Her newest book, It’s All Under Control is maybe what we all need in a world that feels like it’s tilting crazily out of control. It’s a humbling grace to have Jennifer step off her farm porch and straight onto ours…
guest post by Jennifer Dukes Lee
If you asked me five years ago, I naively would have told you that I didn’t struggle with control.
I mean, seriously— as long as everything went exactly the way I hoped, I was totally flexible.
I said I trusted God but had reached the point where I realized I actually didn’t.
It’s not that I wanted to control other people.
Mostly, I wanted to control myself.
If I ever had high expectations of anyone, it was of me. I wanted to present the self-assured, together version of my whole being. Which means I craved control over my face, my emotions, my body, my food, my words, my house, my schedule, my yard, my future.
My preference was a tidy, predictable, safe life where no one got hurt, where my kids remained in one piece, where there was no pain for anyone ever again, amen.
I said I trusted God but had reached the point where I realized I actually didn’t. As a Jesus girl, this shocked me.
Clearly, my old systems of coping weren’t working: My desire to obsessively orchestrate my whole life was burning me out.
As a mom, I heard myself snapping at my kids. As a ministry leader, I knew that I was functioning within my call, but I didn’t feel fulfilled.
I was tired, even after a regular night’s sleep. And I found myself zoning out during conversations with my husband, because I was mentally making lists of everything I needed to get done.
In short, I ran out of gas.
Maybe the empty tank was God’s way of bringing me to a dead stop, so I would finally pay attention. It worked. God got my attention, and maybe he’s trying to get yours too.
Imagine that it’s you who’s run out of gas. Maybe that doesn’t take much imagining after all, because like me, you’re tired of trying to hold it together. You want to keep it all under control, but things aren’t working out the way you planned.
When you and I began to follow Jesus, we relinquished control over our lives. But because we suffer from the chronic condition known as being human we constantly try to steal that control back.
My wake-up call happened when I realized that the battle for my heart was regularly being fought inside the tiny squares of my to-do list.
I began to ask myself this question: “What are the things that, if they were taken away, would shatter the identity I have created?”
Was it my work? My calendar? My efforts to shield my children from pain and suffering? This urge to always say yes?
For me, the answer was: “All of the above.” I was trying to be the CEO of everything.
Jesus delivered a sobering reminder: You will never know if you can trust Me if you don’t give Me the chance to prove it.
I recommitted myself to a life surrendered to Jesus’ plans for my life. But something felt … off … when I considered what surrender truly meant.
I accidentally bought into a weird idea that surrendered living meant mostly that I needed to “do less.” Yet that was unrealistic because so much of life clearly couldn’t be opted out of. People depended on me. I had kids to feed. A house to manage. Books to write.
Most people can’t simply fire their lives and move on when it gets too chaotic.
We can’t stop managing a household, cancel all our appointments, and spend the rest of our days on a floatie in the middle of a lake.
Here’s what I began to learn: Surrendered living is much more than “doing less.” It’s being more of who God created us to be.
Yes, I totally need more chill in my life, and maybe you do too.
But here’s the full truth about surrender:
Surrender doesn’t come with some unrealistic demand that you are suddenly going to stop being the incredibly brave and brilliant woman that you are. Real surrender appreciates God’s remarkable design in you.
Do you know what a wonder you are?
You don’t settle. You are the sort of woman we can count on to meet a work deadline, organize a food drive, take in the neighbors’ kids during an emergency, drive your coworker to chemo, counsel a friend at 3 a.m. by text message, keep track of everyone’s appointments, and make sure we’re all wearing seat belts before you drive us on the three-day adventure that you single-handedly arranged.
We need you. We need take-charge, charitable women like you as doctors and nurses in operating rooms where details like “proper disinfectant” matter.
Let me tell it to you straight: If you have an inner control freak, I’m hoping you’ll let her bust loose like nobody’s business if someone I love is on your operating table. We need responsible women like you to control all the bleeding.
We also need you in charge of schools, nonprofits, and Fortune 500 companies. We need rock-star women like you to show us that surrender isn’t “lie down in a pile.” It’s “march forward like a warrior.”
Sometimes surrendering to God will require you to do the hardest work you’ve ever done in your life: take in another foster child, fight for your marriage, kick cancer where the sun don’t shine, or refuse to capitulate to the persistent drubbing from Satan.
Girl, listen up. We count on you. You are a woman fervently devoted to God’s calling on your life, not only in your work but also in your relationships.
Of course, as Carrie Underwood will sing to you, Jesus is definitely taking the wheel. But make no mistake: There are times when He’s going to ask you to do some driving.
Don’t think of Jesus as your chauffeur; He is more like your driver’s ed coach.
He’s there to teach you His rules of the road.
Friend, do not fear the wheel. You have been equipped to drive—and Jesus is beside you when you steer the wrong way.
Hopefully He will pull the emergency brake if necessary, and I’ve personally put in a request for roads lined with padded walls.
The windows are rolled down, the music is cranked, the tank is full, and there’s something that looks like freedom on the horizon.
Out on the open road, may you feel the reassuring love of Jesus.
On this journey toward surrender, you’ll discover that, at last, it really is all under control: God’s.
Jennifer Dukes Lee is the wife of an Iowa farmer, mom to two girls, and an author. She loves queso and singing too loudly to songs with great harmony. Once upon a time, she didn’t believe in Jesus. Now, He’s her CEO. Jennifer’s newest book, It’s All Under Control, and a companion Bible study, are releasing soon and are available for preorder. This is a book for every woman who is hanging on tight and trying to get each day right―yet finding that life often feels out of control and chaotic. Jennifer also invites you and your friends to take The Busy to Best Challenge this fall.
This woman is incomparable. Jennifer’s words here are like being wrapped up in the kindest embrace of tender grace and handed a steaming cup of tea for your parched places. These pages will deeply comfort you, make you laugh — and let you just exhale and feel the relief of not HAVING to carry it all. We are loved and cupped and carried in the most perfect hands of all — His — and He’s got the whole world in His hands and under His trust-worthy control.
The post The Biggest Lie about Surrender — and Why You Can’t Afford to Believe It appeared first on Ann Voskamp.
August 6, 2018
How Being Less Than Perfect Means You fit Right In
Ann Spangler’s first “real job,” was working in the editorial department of a Christian publisher. She was thrilled because it was a book—actually a series of books called The Narnia Chronicles by C.S. Lewis–that first attracted her to Christ when she was a skeptical undergraduate. Reading Lewis’ books, made her aware of how important the right book at the right time can be in a person’s life. As a writer, she considers it a stunning privilege to help people engage with the greatest of all books—the Bible—in order to know God better. It’s a grace to welcome Ann to the farm’s front porch today…
Like many people, I’ve always been curious about my ethnic identity.
Whenever I asked where our family originated, my dad would chuckle and say, “You’re English, Irish, Scottish, French, German and a little Fox Terrier.”
That was his way of assuring me I was a garden variety, American mutt.
When the results of my recent DNA test arrived, there were a few surprises. Though I was disappointed to find no trace of Fox Terrier, it seemed I had some Scandinavian, Jewish, and even North African roots.
I began to wonder what it would be like to travel back in time in order to meet the people who populated my family tree.
Though the technology for that doesn’t exist, there’s another aspect of my heritage—and yours too—that can be explored in some detail.
It’s our spiritual ancestry.
Reading some of the Bible’s great stories offers us the opportunity not only to learn about God but to explore our Spiritual DNA.
Jewish children tend to think about characters like Sarah and Abraham and Jacob, Rachel, and Leah, not as strangers from the distant past, but as elderly aunts and uncles, the first shoots on their family tree.
Because of what Christ has done, we’ve been grafted into that tree, which means that these people are related to us as well.
Though it’s great to expose children to these stories, the Bible is essentially a book for adults. When you move beyond one-dimensional, Sunday-School portraits of these characters, you begin to see surprising insights, particularly as you explore the historical and cultural context in which they lived.
The result is new life and energy in your Bible reading.
Consider the colorful character Gomer, the wife of a long-suffering prophet by the name of Hosea.
Here’s a recap of her story.
She stands outside in the cool, refreshing rain, allowing it to run in rivulets across her cheeks and down her lips.
She is like the lily of the valley that spreads its fragrance across the fields or like the lush, abundant grapes that make men glad. Fertility and fruitfulness, celebration and wild abandon—these are the forces that rise and surge within her.
Young, beautiful, and bold, she is always smiling, flashing her big, dark eyes, attracting inevitable attention. Though she is determined to squeeze every ounce of sweetness from life, that’s not all she wants. More than anything, she is looking for someone she can adore.
Suddenly she notices a man hurrying toward her. It is not desire that propels him but pain and hurt. She knows this because she is good at reading people and because it is her husband who draws near. “Gomer,” he says, “come home!”
And so she does, but reluctantly. Hosea is a good man, but goodness can be tiresome.
He talks only of God and of faithfulness to the covenant, dampening her high spirits and making her feel ashamed of her sins. But how can it be wrong to dream of having just a little pleasure in this life?
Hosea is distressed by all he sees. The people offer sacrifices at pagan shrines, praising Baal for every harvest. They have forgotten the faith their fathers professed.
But she thinks it matters little how people name their gods—whether Baal or Yahweh or Asherah—as long as they acknowledge god by paying homage for the rain and the harvest, the bread and the wine.
If Yahweh is so upset, why has the rain been so abundant, the crops so lush, and the peace so prolonged? If everyone is worshiping the wrong god, why have so many people been blessed with so much?
But Hosea insists on pointing out the twistedness in everything—the gap between rich and poor, all the deception and lies, the sleeping around, the killings, and the worship of countless idols.
He says God’s people have become no different than the surrounding peoples.
Instead of whispering his disapproval, he shouts it, as though he is God’s chosen mouthpiece, telling everyone—especially the priests—that they are harlots and whores and that God will surely punish them.
She finds it infuriating and embarrassing to be known as the wife of the prophet Hosea, and her eyes begin to cast about for someone she can truly love.
If Gomer would stop for just one moment and try to read her husband’s heart, she would discover that she has broken it more than once.
Perhaps she already knows this. But she doesn’t know—not yet—how hard it was for Hosea to marry her when he did.
She has no inkling that Yahweh, the God of his ancestors and hers, had instructed him, saying, “Go, marry a promiscuous wife and have children with her, like an adulterous wife this land is guilty of unfaithfulness to the Lord.”
Nor does she realize that her marriage has become a public parable—a story God is telling to His people.
I confess I would rather compare myself to people like Ruth or David in his best years or Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, than to Gomer.
Because of what Christ has done, we’ve been grafted into that tree, which means that these people are related to us as well.
But she, too, is part of my spiritual family tree, a woman whose story speaks to me about the foolishness of living life apart from God as well as about the deep, long-suffering, passionate love of a God who is always trying to bring His people back to Himself.
According to the laws of the day, Hosea would have been within his rights to have had Gomer executed because of her unfaithfulness.
Instead of punishing her or turning his back on her, he looks for her, rescues her from slavery, and welcomes her back into his arms when she is finally ready to come home.
This amazing story of a prophet who married a promiscuous wife displays the deep, self-sacrificing love of a God who calls us back from all the places we have wandered so that we can finally come home to Him.
Ann Spangler is an award-winning writer and the author of many bestselling books, including Praying the Names of God and Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus (with Lois Tverberg).
In Less Than Perfect: Broken Men and Women of the Bible and What We Can Learn from Them, Ann explores the stories of 38 colorful characters, showing that God is always extending His grace and advancing His plan, through and even despite less than perfect people—the only kind of people there are.
Designed for individual reading as well as small group study, Less Than Perfect may be the perfect companion for those who want to reinvigorate their reading of the Bible by deepening their understanding of God’s Word.
Entertaining, informative, and inspirational, Less Than Perfect gives you a big picture view of the Bible even as it takes you into the hearts and minds of people with struggles just like yours. As you learn more about the individuals who are part of your spiritual family tree, you’ll discover why God loves to use imperfect people to tell His perfect story of redemption.
[ Our humble thanks to Zondervan for their partnership in today’s devotion ]
The post How Being Less Than Perfect Means You fit Right In appeared first on Ann Voskamp.
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