Ann Voskamp's Blog, page 179
February 24, 2016
when you don’t feel good enough to really be loved
After going through significant traumatic life events and a season of feeling abandoned by God, Christa Hesselink discovered that personal transformation is the pathway to the abundant life that Jesus invites us too. Whether in her writing, speaking or work with young leaders, Christa hopes that people will be awakened to the reality that God’s love is better than they ever imagined and that it changes everything. It’s a grace to welcome Christa to the farm’s front porch today…
guest post by Christa Hesselink
I’ve never ever had trouble believing that God is creative or powerful or good.
As a child, my sense of awe for sunsets and stars was big and it hasn’t waned as I’ve gotten older.
Harvest moons and the sound of the ocean always feel like signs of God on display.
Knowing God is big and good? No, that’s not where my trouble lies.
I’ve never struggled to believe God has the power to shake the world or the creativity to captivate my gaze—my trouble has always been to feel His love.
Understanding that God is powerful is not the same as feeling His love.
Believing God is creative is not the same as feeling His love.
Knowing God is good is not the same as feeling His love.
A couple of years ago I realized I had two questions I needed to get answers for.
Just two.
But they were the big ones—the kind of questions that could tumble and crumble it all.
Asking them felt like going somewhere where oxygen might disappear—daring the essence that sustained me to vanish.
But I knew it was time to ask them because the questions were burning black right through me.
Burning me out.
“God, do you really love me just the way I am?”
“Can I have a full life of love and joy now?”
These weren’t casual, fleeting questions.
These were the heart-stopping, curl-up-under-the-covers sorts of thoughts that were threatening to undo me.
I could no longer drown out the slippery and convincing voice urging me to go deep into the pit. I’d been living a long while wondering if I’d have to swallow down a hard “no” to these questions.
“No, you are not loved just the way you are. You are a mess.”
“No, an abundant life here and now is just an illusion—there’s too much pain for joy.”
It became clear that if I truly wanted a whole, rich, life that Jesus talks about, I would need to first discover and feel just how much God loved me.
I knew that feeling God’s love had the power to change everything.
So I asked God to point me in that very direction. And He did. He pointed me in exactly that direction.
“You want a big, bold, abundantly full life, Christa? Perfect. Let Me transform you. Transformation is the pathway to the treasure you are searching for.”
I had always seen the process of personal life change as a difficult activity that only mature, conscientious people strived for— some self-help program that was good for me, like vitamins or flossing, an obligation in personal discipline in order to be in God’s good books.
I thought that maybe God begrudged the business of transformation—that He had to fix me so He could love me more. As if the ultimate goal was for me to be perfect like Jesus so God could love me like He loved His own Son.
Without me being cleaned up, it would be impossible for God to love me—I was just too messed up.
But I started to wonder if I had it all wrong.
What if transformation wasn’t about God making me more perfect so He could love me more, but instead was about changing me so I could experience His love more perfectly?
It’s no wonder I have struggled for so long to feel God’s love: knowing I’m not perfect meant I always felt so aware of my inability to be good enough.
Deep down I knew that the equation (I need to change in order to be loved more) couldn’t be true, but something always seemed to block me from really trusting my instincts.
In our cheaply made, throw-it-away culture, we have a hard time wrapping our minds around the fact that God doesn’t assess our inherent worth based on our perfection (or lack of it).
He finds us completely worthy just because we are —because He made us.
God doesn’t love us any less because we’re broken. In fact, the care and time He takes to restore our lives is just another way He shows how much He loves us.
He wants us to flourish for our sake.
His desire is for us to have more of what is most important—more peace, more joy, more love.
God has gone (and still goes!) to great lengths to repair us because He wants us to experience this abundant life.
He is pursuing His creation with a relentless love and His method is not to retaliate, it’s to rescue.
That’s the reason why transformation happens.
When we stop to think about what God is really up to in this world, we get a sense of how His heart beats for us.
He has committed Himself to one grand plan: to conquer the dark and flood it with His light and radiance and love. His mission is a wild and loving pursuit.
What does this mean for you and me?
It means God won’t rest until we’ve been completely made new.
He is in the business of redeeming every part of our lives so that we will be made truly free, and He wants us to be open and surrender to this transformation.
As we say “yes” and partner with him, He will transform every part of lives; our fears and anxieties, jealous tendencies and the source of our sadness, our pettiness and pain— they will all be uncovered, excavated and healed.
God’s endgame is for you and me to be completely and utterly able to live in the most intimate, unencumbered union with Him.
This Kingdom economy of abundance is something to whole-heartedly embrace:
when I trust that I am loved, I know I am enough.
When I know I am enough, I feel secure.
When I feel secure, I am able to give and receive more love.
It’s a beautiful cycle. Peace begets more peace, joy begets more joy and love begets more love.
And the fullness of love is the fullness of life.
So let’s say “yes!” —
because “yes” really does change everything.
As an author, speaker, and advocate, Christa Hesselink has written a compelling personal account of God’s transformation in her life. Her new book, Life’s Great Dare: Risking It All for the Abundant Life is one woman’s story of saying yes to the dare in the midst of the most traumatic and devastating circumstances.
Cannot recommend Life’s Great Dare highly enough.
100% of the proceeds of goes to the Love2Love Project helping vulnerable children in some of the most troubled places in the world. Begin a journey of personal transformation.
February 23, 2016
February 22, 2016
when your whole life feels a bit up in the air — you’re living the best life
I’ve got no idea who went ahead and pulled out a Sharpie marker and circled a bunch of dates on the calendar, but there it is, dates with Sharpie ink ringing around them like circling vultures.
Dates for doctor appointments and drop-dead deadlines and dream days that have sort of been lifelines.
My shoulder’s been dislocated like a bad set of scraping tectonic plates all week and I’ve been walking around with soggy ice packs that keep leaking down my back.
“I know why you’re shoulder’s out, Mama,” some clever, grinning kid pipes up at the dinner table as I keep shifting this dripping bag of snow. “It’s cause you keep going around shrugging your shoulders, saying: ‘Who knows?’”
Yeah, kid, let’s go with precisely that.
Who knows what’s coming out of those doctor appointments?
Who knows if things can come together for this dream or that plan or in time to make that date?
Who knows if signatures will happen in time, who knows if people on the other end of phone calls will say yes, who knows if things are just going to up and fall apart and who even knows if… what looks like it’s falling apart —
is actually falling together?
I crawl into bed with a snow bag under my shoulder pressed, this pack that keeps leaving spreading wet circles everywhere like it’s up and relieved itself.
“It’s kinda feels like — our whole life is up in the air.” I whisper it to the Farmer like I’m looking for relief of my own.
“Life’s kinda sorta supposed to be up in the air, isn’t it?” He murmurs it in the dark like he’s turned on a light.
“Yeah—maybe…” I’m chuckling in a melting puddle of icy-shoulder-numbness. “The abundantly good life is supposed to feel kind of up in the air.”
He finds my hand.
Life’s about pulling skin on Jesus on earth — and about pulling out all the stops against the powers of the air.
“For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places.” Ephesians 6:12
The house is a stilled quiet. I can hear the dog breathing out on the mudroom mat.
The real good life is meant to be up in the air — because life’s real battles are being fought up in the air — up in the heavenlies.
There’s a message from our boy: “Can you pray for me? Please?”
There’s a child in a hospital bed who we love with all our heart turning blue because her heart can’t keep going on like this. There’s cancer gnawing away at a mama who bows her head beside us every Sunday morning.
There’s women who I’d bleed for, who look numb and empty and who are going through the brave motions because you’ve just got to do the next thing even when nothing feels like it’s changing anything.
There’s a beautiful world of hurting crazy out there and our brave kids are in the centre of it, and our people are the bloodied wounded because of it, and our dreams and our hopes and our futures and our communities and our countries are hanging in the balance through it, and there is a war in the heavenlies and the man laying beside me is believing that if our lives aren’t up in the air where the battle is, our lives on the ground fail.
The tap’s dripping in the kitchen and I’m listening to the thrum of things.
The more indifferent we are to prayer, the less God’s power makes any difference in our lives.
The snow pack’s bleeding cold into the knots of my shoulder.
Prayers makes us slayers.
No weapon is more formidable to slay the dark and the demons, and prayer’s the weapon we wield to make everything else we do survive fire.
She who commits to pray, she goes the narrow way: her prayers circle demons and slay.
So go ahead, let our life be all up in the air. I can hear the wind out in the trees. The night sky’s stretching far above those spruce trees, like a shadowed battlefield.
Do not work so hard for Christ, that you make no time to pray to Christ. He is the lifeblood of all prayer, all work, all being, all communion. There’s moonlight catching the cross on the wall across from the window.
The calendar squares out there in the kitchen say we’re moving toward the third week of Lent.
What had Andrew Murray said? “Prayer is reaching out after the unseen; fasting is letting go of all that is seen and temporal.
Fasting helps express, deepen, confirm the resolution that we are ready to sacrifice anything, even ourselves, to attain what we seek for the kingdom of God.”
What of earth do I need to let go of, fast from, sacrifice completely, to reach for what is unseen, to reach for the One more life-giving than air?
I lay there in the night quiet for a long time… resolving, letting go.
Rain’s falling from above the spruce, the wind hissing through the orchard from the north.
I’d heard it once from an old farmer’s wife, how an eagle never takes a snake on the ground. An eagle always tears into the reptile with its talons and flies it into the sky. An eagle knows:
The way to win is to change the battlefield.
It’s from the heights, the eagle flings the snake into the air. A snake has no strength, no power, no way through air. Dashed upon rocks, the snake’s food for the victorious bird. When the battle’s taken to the air, there’s winning on earth.
I exhale in the darkness and I didn’t even know I was holding my breath.
Take every battle to the air in prayer — and God will take over your battles on earth.
The Farmer’s already asleep but I almost shrug, say it anyways, say what the universe knows:
“A life up in the air — can be a life up to the best things.”
Out in the orchard, the wind shifts toward the east.
There is a changing of everything —
when breath becomes prayer.
February 20, 2016
Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins for Your Weekend [02.20.16]
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:
Christine Anderson
Christine Anderson
Christine Anderson
when I sit with this woman’s photos, the world stops & exhales
The next time someone tells you they’re fine? yeah — it’s more like exactly this:
Pets That Are Stuck But Pretending Everything Is Fine
one snowstorm they’ll never forget?
unknown
the kids couldn’t get enough of this
a rather large challenge, might you agree?
exhale
Joyce Lindsay/Blue Iris Art
sometimes? we all need to be rescued
youtube
my dad sorta loved this: what a dairy farmer plants for his wife when she goes blind
University of Southampton
scientists have discovered a new type of digital storage —
this piece of glass? Stores 360 TB & they think will last 13 billions years?
inspired by snow — and for good reason
Stephanie Jarstad
Stephanie Jarstad
Stephanie Jarstad
609 years of love stories you really must see
Ice stacking this week at Lake Superior — the sounds!
Anita Demianowicz / website / Instagram
Anita Demianowicz / website / Instagram
Anita Demianowicz / website / Instagram
no one was expecting that
What’s on the Stack at the Farm
Happy Church: Pursuing Radical Joy as the People of God, by Tim McConnell
“The church’s influence on the world depends on its joy.” Humorous, self-depracating, powerful.
Jumping Through Fires: The Gripping Story of One Man’s Escape from Revolution to Redemption, by David Nasser,
Riveting story of one young boy, fleeing from the Middle East, and his journey from religion and fear to the life-changing discovery of God’s grace. David Nasser’s honest voice is a refreshing needed wind for this generation.
The Radical Pursuit of Rest: Escaping the Productivity Trap, by John Koessler
What if we don’t rest because we don’t even exactly know what rest is? “Rest is a practice because the ‘work’ of rest is rooted in the finished work of God.” Exhale here.
one little boy. one big old hog. and how a farming community rallies when he unexpectedly loses his mama.
We watched as a family and were a grinning, teary mess. Do not miss.
Today
glory
now this is what it’s all about
lifelong sweethearts married 65 years — who take the final step just 4 days apart
this weekend? just step outside your front door. They’re right about this — adventure & wonderful things this weekend is a matter of perspective. Really beautiful…
joy!
Free Devotionals-Ornaments for Lent
so…. what if the next 40 days is asking us to do more than only Give Up something —
but to Take Back something?
Take Back taking up our Cross,
Take Back our time so we can turn back to our First Love.
Have you downloaded these free 40 Days of Devotionals — to take us back to the Cross & Resurrection Sunday?
Each of these 40 mini cards are meant to be ‘sticky notes for your soul‘ — mobile faith, portable grace.
This could a season to fix our eyes on Jesus as He goes to the Cross —
And become those who go to the four corners of the world with His supernatural love because we are The People of The Cross.
Drop your email in here for The Free 40 Lent Devotionals-Ornaments that focus not on Giving Up for Lent but Taking Back what it means to be The People of The Cross
Quiet Relief Near-Daily Quiet Relief in one Weekend BundleSIGN-IN »
we watched this as a family — and it sorta wrung teary happiness from the bones
if you could have dinner with anyone in the world – who would you choose?
they believed
you are relentlessly, always, ridiculously loved
be still. there is a Healer. His love is deeper than the sea.
you know, I wonder if behind closed doors & behind brave smiles, there’s a whole bunch of us marching on private battles nobody knows about, climbing hard mountains that nobody sees, wrestling tough things that nobody has any idea about.
But us? We do hard & holy things. We stay in play. We stay in the game. We stay in Him.
Because the really mattering part? The mattering part is that: Blessed is the one who perseveres & does the hard things.
Tough times never last but those who hang on tight to God always do.
And the thing is? He’s already hanging on tight to you.
[excerpted from our little Facebook community … come join us?]
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 19, 2016
When You Need Hope For Change: A Ray of Hope Pierces the Darkness
A mother and grandmother, Susan Gregory lives in a small college town in Central Washington, and is passionate about helping followers of Jesus Christ from all cultures to integrate their faith into every part of their lives. It’s a humble grace to welcome Susan to the farm’s front porch…
The message arrived at the darkest time in my life when hopelessness was knocking hard at the door of my heart.
I was suffering the unbearable pain of divorce, feeling abandoned by the one who had promised to stay with me “until death do us part.”
Plus, my real estate investing business was reeling from the tremors of the sub-prime mortgage debacle that would soon pitch the nation into the Great Recession.
My business reserves were already depleted, and soon my personal savings would disappear. In short order there would be nothing left in the bank.
I cried more tears than seemed possible for someone with my small frame, feeling as if everything and everyone had failed me.
I even felt I had failed myself.
But I kept holding onto God’s hand, and that gave me hope.
In the midst of the darkness, it seemed like laser direction: “Write about the Daniel Fast.”
A spark. A beam of light. Awe! I knew from personal experience about the power of fasting. I knew what it was like to be so hungry for more of God that the only way to be fed was to fast.
Though I had gone on several fasts throughout the years, I had begun practicing the 21-day Daniel Fast (based on Daniel 1:12, 10:2-3) two years earlier.
What if I could share what I had learned about the Daniel Fast with others, helping them draw closer to God through this partial fast?
I was able to do that by starting writing about the Daniel Fast. It was wonderful to touch people in need of hope and be touched by them.
One woman spoke of being estranged from her adult son for 17 years. Her hope that she would ever see him again was fading, but she made a commitment to pray for him every day during her fast. Fifteen days into her 21-day fast, the phone rang. That’s when she heard the voice she had longed to hear for all those years. “Mom, it’s me.”
People began to draw nearer to God as they focused their attention on Him and on His Word as they prayed and fasted. Other people wrote about financial provision or new jobs. Some couples found their marriages restored.
Then I began receiving reports that I never expected. These seemed like wonderful side-effects of the fast. “My husband went to the doctor before the Daniel Fast and his cholesterol was dangerously high. Even the doctor was surprised that it was down to 150 in just 21 days!”
And then more and more messages like this one started arriving, “I have been overweight almost all my life. I have been on more diets than I can count. I finally lost hope that I could ever lose the weight. But during the Daniel Fast I lost 20 pounds and I didn’t even feel like I was dieting.”
God was restoring people’s hope.
I knew what that was like. I had stood next to hopelessness long enough, not knowing what tomorrow would bring.
So many people feel judged and ashamed, defeated and depressed.
They struggle with being overweight or addicted or anxious about how life will unfold. I am convinced that taking time out of our busy lives to seek God through a time of biblically-based fasting will begin to restore the wholeness God wants us to have.
Clinging to God through prayer and fasting helps keep hope alive.
Christ-centered hope isn’t like something we “wish would happen.”
Instead, because of what Jesus accomplished on the cross, our hope is an assurance of what is to come.
His promises are sure. We can count on them.
“Courage is what is elemental to living — composed of two parts fierce hope, and one part wild believing.
It’s hope that can create a quake that cracks all despair.
It’s hope that stands in your dark with a lamp lit with prayers.
And it isn’t the likelihood of your hope that sustains you, but the object of your hope that sustains you.
We lay our hope, full and tender, into the depths of Him.”
~ Ann Voskamp
If you sense hopelessness knocking at the door of your soul, be encouraged.
Turn to your Father.
He is bigger and more powerful than anything that could ever come against you.
Place your hope in Him and He will surely see you through.
Susan Gregory (“The Daniel Fast Blogger”) regularly corresponds with thousands of men and women who are seeking God through the spiritual discipline of prayer and fasting. She is the author of the bestselling book, The Daniel Fast: Feed Your Soul, Strengthen Your Spirit and Renew Your Body and her most recent book, The Daniel Fast for Weight Loss.
The Daniel Fast for Weight Loss: A Biblical Approach to Losing Weigh and Keeping it Off offers a strategic, biblically based plan backed by solid research that will eliminate your cravings and help you to drop those unwanted pounds once and for all.
[ Our humble thanks to Tyndale for their partnership in today’s devotion ]
February 17, 2016
When You’re In the Middle of A Life Story — And You Just Want the Spoilers
Last week, I sat in an old house, at a long planked table, with a plate of salad and humus and my friend Karen Swallow Prior, and we lingered and laughed too loud, till Karen had to leave for a doctor’s appointment that involved some anxious test results. Who knew how this was really going to go — was it the beginning of a completely unwanted life detour? How would the day, this story end? Living in the middle of a story can be unspeakably hard. So we circled round Karen and enfolded her in vulnerable prayer… and waited to know the next page…Karen may be an author, a Professor of English at Liberty University, a contributing writer for The Atlantic.com and for Christianity Today, and a Research Fellow with the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, but she’s mostly the realest, most down to earth, transparent, thoughtful woman — and it’s a grace to welcome the wise vulnerability of my friend Karen Swallow Prior — to the farm’s front porch today…
This is how it begins:
A faded cotton gown that barely covers me as I lie on a hospital bed, one breast uncovered while the technician glides a probe across my cold flesh.
She stares ahead at the monitor, hunting for telltale signs of death, chatting blithely about her daughter and shopping at Target, and I gaze upwards at dull white ceiling tiles.
This is how it begins:
A spontaneous feast with friends, just an hour before, crowded around a long wooden table, laughter passed from one to another like a tray of warm buttered bread.
The friends send me off in a circle of prayer, the laying on of hands, unbidden tears, and a chest filled with love.
This is how it begins:
An unexpected phone call, two weeks before, a calm voice on the other end talking of further tests and no need to worry. (Everyone says not to worry.) I have already been crying over the loss of a loved one earlier that day, and new tears join those already flowing.
This is how it begins:
A man and a woman, many years before, fall in love. On their marriage bed, they create life in their own image. A child enters the world. With the child, death, too.
This is how it ends:
A kindly, young doctor enters the room where I lie in the faded cotton gown that reminds me of an old man’s pajamas. He is the son of a longtime friend. He tells me everything is fine.
And it is.
Yet, it’s not.
For there will be another day—perhaps soon, perhaps far away—when I will be lying in another such gown on another such hospital bed and another such kindly, young doctor will tell me everything is not fine.
We are all born dying. “Sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned” (Romans 5:12).
Because of sin, our bodies are born broken—fearfully and wonderfully made, yes—but hurtling toward death from the moment of our conception.
Better than the beginning is the end.
This is how it ends:
A long-planned feast with fellow saints around a table that stretches into eternity.
Faded cotton gowns replaced by dazzling white robes whose wearers radiate “like fresh stars” that “have lit up the celestial firmament with an added splendor” (Charles Spurgeon).
But first:
Hours and days and weeks and years of thistles and thorns and sweat.
Of friends and food and prayers.
Of tears and laughter and love.
Of endings and beginnings and facing fears through it all.
For in the end —
it will be fine.
Karen Swallow Prior’s book Fierce Convictions: The Extraordinary Life of Hannah More was named by Christianity Today & Desiring God as one of the best books of 2014. A most powerful, compelling read…one to frame and inspire.
From the heart of Hannah More: “Bible Christianity is what I love … a Christianity practical and pure, which teaches holiness, humility, repentance and faith in Christ; and which after summing up all the Evangelical graces, declares that the greatest of these is charity [love].”
Karen Swallow Prior is one of the sharpest writers I have ever read. I cannot recommend her to you highly enough.
February 15, 2016
When You’re Struggling: Who Can You Really Trust These Days?
Honest, there just ain’t anybody quite like her, an uncommon glimpse of glory, but you know, insecure probably isn’t the first word you’d use to describe bestselling author and Bible teacher, Beth Moore, yet she struggles with self-confidence from time to time. And who wouldn’t? After all, we’re living in the age of Pinterest, where everyone (except, yeah, sorta all of us) seems to have mastered the art of perfect parenting, decorating, cooking, and living. But, c’mon — who are we kidding? Nobody’s perfect, and guess what – we’re not supposed to be. In So Long, Insecurity, Beth shares her own personal battles with insecurity and teaches readers how to overcome their deepest insecurities through Christ. It’s the humblest grace to welcome the the kindness of Beth to the farm’s front porch today…
What frightens you?
Whenever you get hit by a wave of insecurity, the wind driving it is always fear.
This is true whether the flare-up is monumental or comparatively mild.
The moment you’re cognizant of an outbreak of insecurity, learn to check your heart for what you’re afraid of.
If you’re honest with yourself, you’ll rarely come away from that diagnostic test empty-handed.
No need to make this complicated.
Imagine two simple scenarios.
You’re standing at a coworker’s desk. A simple conversation ensues. “Did you hear about–?” No, you hadn’t heard. Suddenly, a wave of insecurity wells up inside of you. A fear of some kind is driving it. Learn to instantly identify it. Trade it in for trust.
You’re at a crowded restaurant with your man. While waiting for an available table, he and a woman you’ve never met greet each other enthusiastically. She turns out to be a coworker you’ve heard him mention here and there. You had no idea she looked like that. Suddenly, a wave of insecurity wells up inside of you. A fear of some kind is driving it. Learn to instantly identify it. Trade it in for trust.
If you and I were at a sidewalk café having this conversation over cappuccinos, you might be in a position to respond to the second scenario like this:
“But Beth, I don’t know if I can trust my man or not. What if I’ve seen red flags and something really is up?”
I’m not talking about trusting your man in the middle of that wave of insecurity, although I deeply hope you can and do.
I’m talking about something much less reliant on frail flesh and blood: trusting God.
Trusting God with yourself. With your husband. With your job. With your health. With your family. With your friends. With your threat.
I’m talking about entering into a transforming, two-sentence dialogue with a very real, very active God who sees all things and is intimately acquainted with everything concerning you:
You: Lord, I don’t know if I can trust ____________________ or not.
God: But can you trust Me?
Any time insecurity hits, you can be sure that you are afraid of something.
The question is, what? The answer could be one of many possibilities depending on our present vulnerabilities, but it can get subtly ignored behind the upheaval of insecurity.
You have to look beyond the obvious to see the wind driving the wave. Maybe you could use a jump start so you’ll know the kinds of things you’re looking for. Beneath that sudden outbreak of insecurity:
You may fear proving stupid. You may fear rejection. You may fear anonymity.
You may fear being alone. You may fear being unimportant. You may fear betrayal.
You may fear being replaced. You may fear disrespect. You may fear being hurt.
You may fear pain of any sort.
Nothing has come more naturally to me than fear.
I understand the insanity of some of it and the sheer normalcy of most of it. I’m often afraid because the world proves over and over to be a scary place.
Like yours, the majority of my fears have been unfounded, but some of them have been almost prophetic—as if my rehearsals did anything at all to make the reality easier.
Listen carefully: either way, whether founded or fictional, our fears will never do us a single favor. If fright would somehow insulate us from specific outcomes, I’d say let’s jump out from behind a door and scare ourselves half to death every morning for good measure.
If imagining it would keep us from living it, let’s all quit our jobs and spend our days transfixed on the couch in a mental horror flick of our own making.
The fact is, fearing something doesn’t jinx it—even though we wish it would. Neither does it prepare us for it.
Fear consumes massive amounts of energy and focus and can chew a hole through our intestines, our relationships, and countless great opportunities. At the risk of oversimplifying, the kind of fear we’re talking about is a colossal waste of time.
I used to think that the essence of trusting God was trusting that He wouldn’t allow my fears to become realities.
Without realizing it, I mostly trusted God to do what I told Him.
If He didn’t, I was thrown for a total loop.
Over more time than should have been necessary, a couple of realizations finally dawned on me about this thing I was calling trust: (1) It wasn’t the real thing. (2) It constantly failed to treat the core issue.
Trusting God to never let our fears come to fruition doesn’t get to the bottom of where insecurity lurks. It’s too conditional.
It suggests that if any of our terrors come to pass, God is not trustworthy after all.
If, like me, you tend to think that the essence of trust is counting on God to obey you, go ahead and wave bye-bye from a country mile to any semblance of lasting stability. If we can’t count on God, for crying out loud, who can we count on?
In the words of Isaiah 33:6, “He is your constant source of stability” (NET).
I’m not saying it’s easy. I’m stating that if we want to be secure people, this mind-set is a necessity.
Sometimes trusting God means taking no further action. That’s when a verse like Psalm 46:10 speaks loudest: “Be still, and know that I am God.”
Other times trusting God means regrouping with Him until the fog clears so we know how to take the next step.
Nothing can mislead us or make us jump the gun faster than fear.
For times like these when action is necessary but not obvious, Proverbs 3:5-6 hits the nail on the head: “Trust in the LORD with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take” (NLT).
I love the succinct way Psalm 37:3 says something similar:
“Trust in the LORD and do good” (NLT).
You have to read this one, because it’s not a book. It’s transformational hope.
Beth Moore has written many best–selling books and Bible studies, including So Long, Insecurity, and Breaking Free. She is a dynamic teacher whose public speaking engagements take her across the United States to challenge tens of thousands. A dedicated wife and mother of two adult daughters, Beth lives in Houston, Texas, where she leads Living Proof Ministries and teaches an adult Sunday school class.
I’ve read and reread So Long Insecurity: You’ve Been a Bad Friend To Us. I’m telling you, folks of all ages and backgrounds will resonate powerfully, gratefully, with this message of security and discover truths that will free them emotionally and spiritually — and kick fear to the curb, pick up this book that’s an absolute gift to the world, and start living the abundant life you were meant to live.
[ Our humble thanks to Tyndale for their partnership in today’s devotion ]
February 13, 2016
Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins for Your Weekend [02.13.16]
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:
Tiina Törmänen
Tiina Törmänen
Tiina Törmänen
you could: step into a bit of glory
life’s confusing: when your dad is a twin
okay, so our crew thought this was pretty neat
Grahm S. Jones, Columbus Zoo and Aquarium
Grahm S. Jones, Columbus Zoo and Aquarium
just can’t get enough of her!?! introducing: Nora…
so yeah, we all have bad hair days
ruemenzo
did someone say symmetry? yup — probably like you’ve never seen before
sharing the love — in 5 different hugs
an intriguing introduction to the book of Numbers
Viktor Egyed
Viktor Egyed
Viktor Egyed
fishing village captured in perfect reflection
not sure who would have thought Legos could do this?
this is just plain fun
Jeff Friesen
Jeff Friesen
Jeff Friesen
a vintage train across Canada #perspective
enjoy from right where you are
twin sisters deliver babies … just minutes apart?
hope
after being impacted by a sermon at church — he’s now doing this
people!?! I’m telling you – love is everywhere
Lisa-Jo Baker
Because in real life people rarely run through airports to declare last minute love.
Here’s one way not to be disappointed by Valentine’s Day this year
go ahead and just exhale at all of this
Free Devotionals-Ornaments for the Next 40
so…. what if the next 40 days is asking us to do more than only Give Up something — but to Take Back something?
Take Back taking up our Cross,
Take Back our time so we can turn back to our First Love.
Have you downloaded these free 40 Days of Devotionals — to take us back to the Cross & Resurrection Sunday?
Each of these 40 mini cards are meant to be ‘sticky notes for your soul‘ — mobile faith, portable grace.
Drop your email in here for The Free 40 Lent Devotionals-Ornaments that focus not on Giving Up for Lent but Taking Back what it means to be The People of The Cross
Quiet Relief Near-Daily Quiet Relief in one Weekend BundleSIGN-IN »
going after the one
Reddit/mack3r
this 8 yr old? spreading love in her classroom with braille valentines
stuff like this is possible anywhere
Post of the Week from these parts here
How A Few Seconds Can Make Your Valentine’s So Hot It Lights Your Marriage On Fire
this is what happened when they were asking to draw ‘what love looks like’
what room does fear have anyway?
let’s not let our differences define us… let’s let love define us
don’t leave the internet without watching this…
THIS IS MEGA, OFF THE CHARTS LOVE…
yeah, the day ahead may loom ridiculously large but it’s okay to let go of worry & smile & exhale (feel the relief of that?):
No fears of the future, no regrets of the past, are worth giving permission to steal the gift of the present!
“”Don’t fret or worry…It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.” Phil4:6MSG
…so just for today: Stay present..and enjoy His gifts in all the present moments.
Because the thing is:
No amount of regret changes the past.
No amount of anxiety changes the future.
Any amount of gratitude changes the present.
[excerpted from our little Facebook community … come join us?]
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 12, 2016
How A Few Seconds Can Make Your Valentine’s So Hot It Lights Your Marriage On Fire [The Conscious Coupling Series]
So, Man of Mine, when you come to me and tell me that one of the kid locked the keys in your truck — again — I see how your shoulders sag.
How life wears at a man, how life weighs at a man.
We do that, you and I.
We let the bulk of the details of a life press us down, drag us down.
The vet came last week Thursday.
You had a production report to finish. Unopened bills stack on the desk by the phone with it’s blinking messages demanding answers. One of the kids is emotionally imploding. It’s taped to the one chalkboard: “Jesus answered them, Do not grumble among yourselves.”
This is hard.
There are 3 kids with piano lessons on Mondays, 2 with pick up basketball on Wednesdays, and one kid who has get to back to the doctor this week to have his stitches taken out, and when do I just get to take you out?
When does a woman get to sit across the table from the man she gave her I do to — and not think about her to-do list?
When do we get to re-member why we fell in love and re-member us in a world that tries to dis-member us with the sharp edge of a thousand little things? When do we make it stop: Death by daily things can be painfully slow.
When is there time for us to do what will undo our coupled stress?
Because who needs conscious uncoupling when life seems to be trying to unconsciously uncouple us all the time?
What we really need is conscious coupling. What we really need is intentional coupling.
What we really need to do is to make time.
Yeah, I know: Time is a supreme gift — and the one thing nobody really wants to give to anybody.
But I’m slowing down for you. The way the waves slow down to kiss the shore. The way time used to slow down when you looked into me and I looked into you and our hearts about stopped, ridiculously alive.
Because marriage is about making all the minutes tell the truth of the glorious gospel.
There is always time for us to find one another again.
There are hands on the clock but they are always hands bound by our free hands and we always get to decide the day’s only decision — what will we do with the time we’ve been given?
I decide you. I decide us.
I meet a guy last week who only refers to his wife as his bride.
It struck me — a man with 4 kids calling his wife of decades his Bride. Like he remembered a moment when he wanted her and he had never gotten over it, never stopped wanting her.
I think about this as I fold your underwear, swish our toilet, pick up our kids’ shoes and all this chaos that our love has made.
And I whisper it to you in the dark, why that man calling his wife his Bride struck me:
When you call the woman that you’re married to your wife it can sometimes sound like you’re naming something that you own.
When you call the woman that you’re married to your Bride, it can sound like you’re naming her your Beloved.
Call the woman that you’re married to your bride and you remember the moment you kissed her slow.
Call the woman that you’re married to your wife and sometimes, it can happen, you can forget to kiss her at all.
And you whispered it back in the dark: Bride.
And then the kiss came long and slow.
And you’ve done it every day since.
You grin and call me Bride. And I roll my eyes and blush but don’t think for a moment that it doesn’t do something or I don’t remember and you don’t look wildly young all over again.
And what do you do but kiss a bride?
And ain’t nobody here talking about a quick peck on the cheek either.
Pecks on the cheek can leave you feeling more hen pecked than anything else.
So we’re the married fools committed to it now everyday, like our dance step through life’s minefield: Bride. Kiss. A long and slow 10 seconds.
[The Real 5 Second Rule Times Two]
Bills. Laundry. Kids.
Groceries. Kids. Dishes. Kids. Garbage.
No Grumbling amongst ourselves.
Errands. To-Do lists. Kids.
Bride. Kiss. A long and Slow 10 Seconds.
[The Real 5 Second Rule Times Two]
It could be the vow of the married: The 10 Second Kiss for Wedded Bliss.
And yeah, a kiss may not mean bliss — but it may mean a beginning? So there’s that: Every day we’ll kiss each other 10 seconds or longer — like we did at the altar. Like we have the time to be living sacrifices for each other.
Like there isn’t time to go to sleep at night until there is time for The Real 5 Second Rule Times Two:
The 10 Second Kiss for Wedded Bliss.
Why we didn’t frame it and title the moment before? Because every married mother, every married father, ever married wage earner, mortgage maker, bill payer, needs to remember how they are still a married lover.
I have no idea why we haven’t done this before. No idea why they don’t tell you on your wedding day that there is a ‘disproportionate amount of brain space taken up with processing information from the lips compared to the rest of our bodies,’ how even a light brush of the lips lights up a large part of our brain…
How didn’t we know that cortisol levels, which determines our stress levels, decreases after kissing.
Who knew that the 10 Second kiss of Wedded Bliss nixes hours of stress?
Who knew that locking of lips unlocks oxytocin, the hormone that makes us bond and keeps us bonded, keeps us attached, keeps us connected.
It’s our Conscious Commitment that keeps us from unconsciously uncoupling.
It Only Takes a Few Conscious Seconds To Ignite Something Better in Your Marriage:
Conscious Conversation —- you take the one second longer to make sure our eyes linger when we’re talking.
Conscious Serving — you take the two seconds longer to make the bed. I take the 5 seconds longer to rub the back of your neck at the end of the day.
Conscious Gratitude — you take just a moment to thank me for dinner, I take just a moment after the kids are in bed to thank you for helping us get through. We take a moment, many, to bite our tongues and not grumble, a moment to bravely focus on gifts.
Conscious Affection — and we take the 10 seconds longer to let go of everything else and to just give each other the ministry of presence, the longing of the slowing kiss.
The Conscious Coupling of the The 10 Second Kiss for Wedded Bliss. [ #10SecKissVow]
We could be the winning fools living this:
Love is more than simply a warm feeling; Love is ultimately a daily forging. Marriage could live the heat of a love like this.
We could the be the ones telling the kids, the ones living it because we believe it:
Your body should only be shared with someone who is covenanted to always love your soul.
Your body needs to shared with someone who is covenanted to always love your soul.
So that day you share that sigh with me?
Share that one of the kids locked your keys in the pick-up truck again? The business of life doesn’t get in the way of the business of our marriage, but rather the business of a life becomes the way in which the tender work of our marriage unlocks us into free.
Yeah, our life is hard. And our love is stronger.
And we slip of arms around waists and we’re conscious of our coupling and there is always time to share this unlocking and a locking of us.
This brushing against the warmth of glory.
Related: 3 Habits Every Marriage Needs to Fall in Love Again
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