Ann Voskamp's Blog, page 180
February 11, 2016
when you want to take back Lent & a broken world & your breaking heart: A Free 40 Day Lent Devotional Journey
So, I nod to all these people with these crosses right on their foreheads, pass them on the street.
People wearing these sooty crosses right there on their faces, right above their eyes. Right there on their heads, the shaping of their minds.
Like they want to be known and marked and boldly counted, come what may, as one of His.
There are these sooty crosses smudged on countless foreheads and that’s what is murmured like a brave and honest refrain around the world today, words from our Genesis beginning:
Dust you are and to dust you will return.
Dust.
Humanity was formed of dust and our human bodies will return to dust.
It’s like this early echo of what will be said over all our graves: “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”
There’s hardly falling snow in the orchard. The trees are white and perfectly still out in the woods. There’s dust on the windowsills by the stove.
Wiping down the sills and the countertops and the stove, it’s like a refrain in my head: We’re all just dust. Just dust.
And if I’m only dust — just my love alone in the world will not be enough.
If love is all we need in this world — I’ve got a problem.
Because, honest? Our love isn’t enough to absorb the evil that decapitates men’s heads, evil that rapes little girls, evil that steals and sells children as sex slaves.
There’s real active evil that’s not simply people acting — there’s real evil that’s more than a social construct, that’s more than someone’s bad choices, that’s not from any heart in this world, that’s not from any place in this world, that’s not from any mind in this world — there’s a supernatural evil that slithers into the corners of this world and pythons around hearts and minds until it strangles out the light and we scream against the dark.
The only Love that can come take down the kind of evil that’s invaded our world, has to come from beyond the walls of the world.
The only Love that can crush undeniable evil is the undeniable love of the Cross.
When you’re just dust — your love alone will not be enough.
Super evil can only be absorbed by a supernatural kind of Love.
The kind of love that sings Kumbayah can’t shake a swaying candle at this kind of otherworldly evil — only an otherworldly Love that lets the hammer ring and took on the iron of the nails, that bore the weight of the world on that Cross, can torch straight through the hellish dark of this kind of evil.
Sometimes, for the love , your heart can’t love— which is exactly why Jesus offers you His.
He offers.
The whole story isn’t “Everyone’s in.” It’s “Everybody’s invited.”
Everybody’s wanted. Everybody’s loved. For God so loved the world.
Our love will eventually fail and leave somebody out — but Cross love never fails to take all the willing in.
His Love has no boundaries — and then He binds all the beloved to Him, to shape them to be like Him.
And He knows the only way for your love to be transformed to be like His — is for Him to give you a heart transplant. For Him to give you His heart.
When you don’t think you can forget the evil that’s been done —
When you don’t think you can forgive the evil that’s been said —
When it’s His supernatural heart beating in you — it lets you supernaturally love in a heart beat.
Only the undeniable love of the Cross can crush undeniable evil.
If there’s evil — not people acting, but real active evil — out to terrorize the world, attack young girls, take advantage of the vulnerable, blow us up and behead us — then Kumbayah love will never be enough — only Cross Love that willing offers itself for us as a Living Ransom will rescue any of us.
Because don’t ever be fooled: Cross Love that lays itself down is the only power that can lay the sharp edge of an axe right into evil’s head.
Cross Love that looks upside down, weak, surrendered and sacrificed is the only strong power that ultimately upends the evil and conquers the dark.
Only the undeniable love of the Cross can crush undeniable evil.
Either Jesus is the answer to the ultimate problems of the human condition — or there is no ultimate answer.
On the day after Ash Wednesday, there’s a wildfire of love in our bones…
maybe now is the time that there will be countless thousands of us who we will bend our knees at the great shores of history and let ourselves be counted as The People of the Cross.
Maybe that is all there is on the day after Ash Wednesday?
On the day after Ash Wednesday, The People of the Cross repent of wanting to be greatly known for anything other than for loving greatly.
On the day after Ash Wednesday, the People of the Cross repent of a love and life that does anything less than “Love your enemies. Pray for those who persecute you.”
The People of the Cross repent of not daily, relentlessly, extravagantly loving our neighbour next door though we keep saying we want to change the world, and we repent of hating, avoiding, and dreading suffering though we say we want to be found worthy to suffer for the cross of Christ.
The People of the Cross repent of loving our agendas more — instead of interrupting our agendas because we love Jesus most.
Forgive us for our lack of prayer, because the very root of our lack of growth is almost always a lack of prayer.
Forgive us for more interest in the paparazzi, motion pictures & famous personalities and People Magazine than in praying for The Persecuted Church.
Forgive us for our lavish church building plans, instead of our plans to love lavishly as a church, forgive us for not serving the outcast but serving the outcast notice to go further away…
We repent of loving You, Lord, so little because we have loved ourselves too much.
Out by the barn this morning, you can see them from the kitchen sink —
They’ve gotten out the tractor and they’re clearing a path through the snow, finding a way through a strange wilderness of white, so that there’s this way through.
Maybe there’s a whole lot of us longing for a 40-Day journey through into something more — more than we ever have before. Maybe because the world feels more like a strange wilderness that it ever has before.
Syria. Libya. Iraq. Paris. Denmark. Here.
Whatever we look at is what we become.
What if for 40 Days we looked to the Cross — so we might become Cross Love in a world caught in the cross hairs of war and heartache and pain?
What if we, for 40 Days, what if The People of the Cross looked to the Cross and prayed 1 Samuel 7:3 at 7:03? “If you are returning to the Lord with all your hearts, then rid yourselves of the foreign gods…and commit yourselves to the Lord and serve him only, and he will deliver you out…”
And what if for the next 40 days we prayed repentance and redemption and revival and for The Persecuted Church and for the Church that is us, praying every morning from 7:03 until 7:14 and said our Amen with 2 Chronicles 7:14 : “If My people, who are called by My name, will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”
What if we really committed to that kind of prayer for the next 40 days at 7:03? … till 7:14?
What if the next 40 days is asking The People of the Cross to do more than 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,
Take Back our hypocrisy and our complacency and our apathy and Love Lavishly,
Take Back our excuses for not committing to Give Back every day in some tangible, real way — to the local food bank, to a woman’s shelter, to the refugees and the foreigners and the Muslims and Hindus and Buddhists and to the forgotten neighbour next door with her meowing stray cat.
Maybe now is the time —
Now is the time to Take Back what it means to humbly and genuinely live the love of The People of the Cross.
There was once a spring here on the farm, long after the snow had melted out in the orchard and the cold had gone and the strange white wilderness had resurrected into green, that I had laid out in a field of the west of the barn.
And you could hold akehe dirt, dust, right there in your hand — dust holding dust.
And you could feel that dust and know that if were the kind of good soil to break open for the otherworldly miracle of seeds coming in on the wind —
that revival would rise right up from the dust, spread like love across the land …. like a Cross across the land.
~~
Related:
How to Use the Downloadable
40 Lenten Daily Card Devotional-Ornaments
“A Lent to Repent & Refresh: #PeopleOfTheCross”
Now could be a time of soul revival.
Each of these 40 mini cards are meant to be ‘sticky notes for your soul‘ — mobile faith, portable grace — 40 SIMPLE, small cards of prayer, intention, reflection and repentance, for your pocket, desk, kitchen sink, to carry around as a compass to orient to the irresistible beauty of Jesus, to the Cross, throughout the day.
Read the prayers slowly. Give each line time to do its work. Revisit the prayers throughout the day. Make space, physically and spiritually to sit with the handful of Scripture verses for the day. Linger with the Word. Reflect on them. Return to them throughout the day. Let them shape you. These 40 days will stir a deep soul revival to the extent that you return & revisit & let yourself be shaped by His loving heart, His Sacred, Living Word.
Then at day’s end, to quietly hang that day’s compass/card/ornament on a Lenten/Easter Cross Tree, a powerful visual of how we are the People of the Cross, people literally saved through Christ’s sacrificial love on the Cross — people whose lives are literally shaped by our repentance at the foot of the Cross, shaped by the hope, grace, redemption, supernatural love and resurrection we find through our King’s Cross.This could be a Lent to repent. To refresh. To revive.
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 »
February 9, 2016
How to Make a Life-Giving Home
No one has mentored me quite like this woman. Sally Clarkson has poured me tea, has poured into me, has poured from a depth of rich wisdom and life well-lived and she loves from the deepest places. She’s walked me through hard parenting seasons. She’s prayed me through mama-crisis. She’s been real, she’s been warm, she’s been wise — and I love her wildly. Thirty-one years ago, Sally Clarkson had her first child at the age of 31. Having never changed a diaper or spent one day babysitting, she had no idea of what it meant to be a mother or to build a home. As she raised 4 children, she discovered that motherhood was one of the greatest missions of all, and that establishing a life-giving home was one of the most profound ministries of her life. Sally has shown me the art of educating Wholehearted Children, maybe one of the very best educating/parenting books I’ve ever read, as she taught me that parenting is about discipleship. I trust this woman at a deep level & hold her in the highest esteem, because she walks with rare integrity and Gospel wisdom and because most of her years as a mother were lived with little outside help or support, Sally does not want other sweet mamas to do life alone, but to have inspiration and encouragement and tried-and-true wisdom each step of the way. A grace to welcome Sally to the farm’s front porch today…
“No moment is useless, no day void, when shaped by the creative power of love.”
As I glanced out the kitchen window, the shadows that were overtaking the mountain told me that the sun was just about to set.
Clay, my husband, had proposed a rare and much-needed dinner date for just the two of us.
Lots of issues in our life needed our focused attention—ministry conferences, book deadlines, taxes, a possible move, new staff for our ministry, a health problem with one of our children, a relationship problem at church—plus, we just needed some time together alone to be friends.
It was ten minutes before six, the time Clay had told me to be ready. I was still in the kitchen washing dishes, trying to get the kitchen clean before we left.
Eleven-year-old Nathan, my bubbling, energetic extrovert, kept running into the kitchen demanding that I come immediately to look at something.
“Mama, I have something to show you! It will take just a few minutes, but you have to come now.”
“Not now,” I almost told him. “I promise I’ll spend some time with you when I get home, but I have to finish the dishes now before Daddy takes me out to dinner. This way you kids won’t have to clean anything up!”
I almost said that, but I didn’t. After a brief mental battle, I put the greasy pan back in the sudsy water and dried my hands.
“Nathan, where are you?” I called. “I’m ready to see your surprise.”
“I didn’t think you were ever going to come,” he moaned as he appeared from the den. “I hope we’re not too late.”
He led me into the narrow laundry room, then stopped, looked me in the eye, and commanded in his high-pitched, most authoritative little boy voice he could manage, “I want you to follow me up to the mountain, but you have to hold my hand and keep your eyes closed. I promise I won’t let you fall.”
I obediently followed him out the back door, which opened to a tiny block of cement patio at the base of a steep hillside bordering the national forest on the slopes of the Rocky Mountains.
This was my own private hill, where I ended my early morning walk on the mountains each day. Its slope was covered with gigantic red boulders, sandy hillside, and pine trees.
Holding my hand tightly in his pudgy little one, Nathan now led me up the steep hillside. Eyes shut, I followed the best I could.
Then he stopped. “Mama, there’s a real big rock here. If you put your hand right here, I can help you climb up on top of it, and we can sit there together. But you have to promise not to look up yet. Just look at your feet.”
I submitted to his commands and finally, tentatively, eased my way on my stomach to the top of a boulder about the size of a small shed.
“Okay. Now turn around and sit without looking up, and I will tell you when to look!” Nathan insisted.
As I settled down beside his sweaty boy body, Nathan’s small arm fell snugly across my shoulders in an affectionate embrace. “Just in time,” he said excitedly. “Now you can look.”
I looked and gasped as I beheld one of the most exquisite sunsets I had ever experienced.
Soft reds, vibrant golds, shimmering orange gleamed in fire-brightness before our eyes, filling the expanse of the sky with splendor. A symphony of colors seemed to sing in the evening sky.
Then, slowly, the colors began to fade. The sun gave a final flourish, and a majestic wave of dark reds and purples seemed to spill out from the mountaintop, reflecting the last rays of burnished light.
It was as though God Himself was providing a sparkling celebration just for us to document the importance of the moment.
Nathan beamed at me, his smile cheek-to-cheek as he looked contentedly into my eyes. “Thanks for coming with me, Mama,” he whispered almost reverently.
“I wanted to show you my secret place. I saw the sunset here yesterday, and I knew you would like it, so I wanted to surprise you and bring you here. I’m glad you and I are such close friends. I’ll remember sharing this sunset with you for the rest of my life.”
And yes, in his little boy, dramatic way, he actually said that!
Making a home is a function of making time to love.
Now, my little boy grown up, lives in New York City, thousands of miles away from my Colorado home.
This past Christmas, eleven years later, Nathan put his arm around my shoulders as we sat close together in our living room, catching up on life.
“Mama, you know, I have never forgotten that you made time for me that time on the mountain at our very own special sunset.
I think we are close friends to this day —
because I always knew you would make time for love, to take time to be my friend.”
Sally Clarkson is co-founder of Whole Heart Ministries (with her husband, Clay) and serves as its women’s ministry director. She’s the author of many popular books, including Own Your Life and her newest book, The Life-giving Home: Creating a Place of Belonging and Becoming, authored with her oldest daughter, Sarah. As a mother of four, she has inspired thousands of mothers since 1998 through her Mom Heart Conferences and small groups.
“Creating Home” and crafting a place where friends, children, strangers could come and feel they belonged has captured the imagination of Sally Clarkson for 35 years. Through 17 moves, 6 times internationally, raising four children to adulthood, she learned that home was more about cultivating a heart for people than having a physical dwelling. If I could, I’d hand every woman I know a copy of The Life-giving Home: Creating a Place of Belonging and Becoming.
[Our humble thanks to Tyndale for their partnership in today’s devotion ]
February 8, 2016
When You’re longing to Thrive instead of barely survive
On Saturday night when the snow falls large, like feathers from heaven’s tick, I kneel in the muck of the barn and milk a sow.
Rub her udder, warm and swollen right heavy round, nudge at the vessel fullness of her, and wait for her drip.
Wait for the sticky whiteness of her dripping sweet, the snow piling without a sound on the roof.
When I’m bent over her udder with a pail of chop for her trough, her last, this mirage of a runt, it slips out of her and feebly scrapes its way out of its blooming fetal bag. I watch it struggle for untried legs, these wet twigs.
She can’t stop her thin, begging tremor. Quakes in a cold and broken world. Presses her wet shiver up against the unwilling back thigh of the sow.
Malakai wore his suede shoes through the snow this afternoon and they puddle this sad, soggy mess of ruin in the mudroom.
Three packages have been sitting in the mud room for two weeks waiting for just one person to finally make the 4 mile pilgrimage to the post office.
There were no clean underwear in the top drawer on Friday morning and tell me, what do you do there, just standing in your flimsy towel?
What saves you everyday from going a little bit insane?
This isn’t a crazy question.
I cup the runt to the sow’s belly up udder.
I nuzzle her bare offering with my hand, nuzzle for the shivering runt, believing the saving white drip will come. If he wants half a chance, he’s got to get some warm cream into him.
Somedays we all are desperate for something, Someone, to save us. The pitiful thing feels like a cold pebble in my hand.
C’mon — Live. Drink. I massage the sow’s udder hard.
Once this woman, she’d bravely told me that she’d sent for it to come in the mail, this story of counting 1000 gifts and taking the dare to joy right right where you are, and she walked hand in hand with her husband to pick up the book up at the post office.
And who could know then, that even that night, her husband would send an email from his midnight shift, pixels that made letters that could detonate one woman’s only world — that he wanted a divorce. That he’d run into an old girlfriend and was up and walking away from his old life and those certain sermons that he’d preached for a month of Sundays from the pulpit.
She said she couldn’t remember getting off the floor a few days later.
Or remember packing up the cat or that small overnight bag or grabbing that package with its ridiculous dare of one thousand gifts or making her way to her daughter’s couch.
She said the pain just went on and on and on. She said she knew God was her only way through this; that she’d listened to enough of her husband’s sermons to believe even that.
She said, “I begged to die.”
C’mon — Live!
The sow lets down and grunts slow and steady and there’s this leak of creamed hope. We need you — we. need. you. — please, please, open your mouth up, girl.
The runt’s only ribs, this concaved prayer.
The woman said that the pounds, they just kept slipping off her laying there on her daughter’s couch. The part of her that was left, it hoped that she’d lose the last of herself and fade invisible.
“One thing I did do: I read about counting one thousand gifts.” She said this. And then she punctuated it with all the breath she still had:
“I HAD to count all my gifts — had to.
To keep me ‘here‘.”
Live! Live! C’mon, we need you to LIVE! The runt’s opened her begging mouth and I can feel her in my hand — I can feel her every warming swallow. I can feel her belly warming. Drink.
When you are dying of thirst, passively reading about water quenches little; the only way to be quenched is to actually get a cup and drink. We have to do more than read and think and plan, we’ll have to do something.
You’ve got to open up your mouth and swallow.
You’ve got to taste and see He’s good —
God isn’t asking us to earn His love. He’s simply asking us to turn towards His love.
You’ve got to taste His love.
You’ve got to grab a pen and count gifts. You’ve got to look for the glory and hunt for the grace and seize beauty in ugly and laugh brave and defiant in the dark and you can lose everything but nothing can steal Jesus and He is enough and you have got. to. live.
She said that later: “We don’t see God in so much (if any) of what we do. But He IS there. Using all our pain to help others. And we’ve got this privilege of bringing Him glory. Imagine...!”
I couldn’t. I couldn’t imagine that…. Her being brave in the face of pain, her counting it a privilege to bring God glory in the midst of gutting pain…
I could hardly believe you could say something like that after your vowed, tender heart had been abandoned like that, after your heart had been gorged like that.
But she was the one who had lived it and could give real testimony, who hadn’t right bled to death and she had counted gifts because she had to, had to if she was going to stay here, and she’d brought Him impossible glory in the impossible and she had testified He had saved her, so how can you not want to live a truth like that?
Believing something is one thing. But the best things only come when you decide to Be Living it.
It’s leaking at the edges of the runt’s mouth, the best of her, the milk of her. Why is it hardest, to open yourself up and let yourself be blessed?
It’s literally saving this runt, one glory, milky swallow at a time, each swallow just like one murmured thank you after another.
Spacibo in Russian. Thank you, spacibo, thank you. Spacibo, thank you, in Russian — the literal translation of thank you in Russian is: God saves you.
There is a to-do list I can’t do. And there are demons I can’t slay. And there are these thin, cold days that make me quake dead weary.
And there is a pen that nuzzles at the day, one number at a time, and Spacibo could be an English word: Thank you. God saves you.
God saves you! Live! Live!
And at the very end in the dark in the kitchen, Kai’s shoes lay upside down over the heat register at the back door, the washing machine’s slogging on faithful.
I sit in the still, smelling a bit like a pig and the barn and one runt determined to drink and really live.
And I take the journal from the drawer and open the pages to count.
This swallowing the richness of living, it comes in letting yourself be blessed. Letting yourself be loved.
Let yourself be loved by Him. Count all the ways He loves you and Live!
The ink numbering joy….
just one saving drip at a time.
Related:
The Most Important Skill That Your Year Really Needs
One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are
One Thousand Gifts 60 Day Devotional : Reflections on Finding Everyday Graces
February 6, 2016
Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins for Your Weekend [02.06.16]
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:
Joni Niemelä / Facebook / Instagram / Twitter
Joni Niemelä / Facebook / Instagram / Twitter
Joni Niemelä /Facebook / Instagram / Twitter
you know you want to go breathe deep
and we’re smiling at this one
the kid in you will love this one
Olivet Nazarene University
now this is all kinds of interesting
did they really just fall asleep — right there?
um…what?!? an egg inside of another egg?
ok, our crew couldn’t stop watching this one…who would have thought?
Burn out? Ah, this Lent — A Restore Workshop: Beginning Feb 10
A 7.5 week online course for those struggling with or want to avoid burnout
…telling you — unexpected friends really are everywhere
This week’s Sticky Note for Your Soul:
FREE daily printables to cheer you on!
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yep, he’s really climbing this
“It isn’t the size of our situation that matters. It’s the size of our God, and HE IS HUGE” yes
just plain fun to watch
behind the scenes of the making of something really extraordinary
Amanda Tromp
Amanda Tromp
Amanda Tromp
because, you know what? we all need to be rescued …
pretty darn inspiring: at 108?
she’s fostered nearly 50 children and tells us to just love one another
go ahead and just exhale
anything’s possible: reuniting more than 70 years later
unlikely friends show up in the most unexpected places
National Institutes of Health Clinical Center
oh yes, this happened: one photo captures the power of one nurses’s support and love
I’m telling you, beautiful people everywhere
what he did when he realized they were hungry? has thousands nodding yes
they ‘thank the Lord they’re still together’ after all these years
Post of the Week from these parts here:
…for the women forgotten
and for the women discouraged
and the women lost,
there is water in the wilderness.
Believe it: ours is the God who sees…
why you really do matter: An Anthem for Women
um… wow…yeah we’re all moved by tears at this one: a true story…
you’ve got to believe it – anything is possible
oh yeah, we can do this for one another:
when all is said and done – Let it Be Jesus
…you’ve got big, hard things coming at you from every side. You may not even be saying it out loud — but really? It’s hard to keep showing up when it’d be easier to give up.
But can you hear Him?
“Just Call to Me. I guarantee I will answer you.
I will make you strong & brave.” (Ps.138:3MSG)
Ask Him — He will come & make you strong & brave for the Hard Things.
So that’s the plan: Be Brave.
And do not pray for the hard thing to go away.
But pray for a Bravery to come that’s bigger than the Hard Thing.
[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 5, 2016
when you’re hungering for more than knowledge
When our girl, Hope, headed to Africa for a month last summer — she packed her Bible & only two books. One of them? The life-changing book: not a fan. It may have started as a message, but that one little turn-pager of a book, not a fan has sparked a movement all over the world, changing the story of young kids and parents and grandparents & revolutionizing countless lives. It’s an absolute joy and grace to welcome my friend and pastor, Kyle Idleman, to the farm’s front porch today…
I want to know Christ. —Philippians 3:10
Are you a follower of Jesus?
It’s the most important question you will ever answer, and it seems like a good place to begin this journey: Are you a follower of Jesus?
I know. You’ve been asked this question before.
Because it’s so familiar there is a tendency to dismiss it.
Not because it makes you uncomfortable. Not because it’s especially convicting.
The question is dismissed mostly because it feels redundant and unnecessary. You recognize that this is an important question for many to consider, but for you? Well, it’s like walking into a Boston pub and asking, “Who cheers for the Red Sox?”
It’s an important question, but you’re so sure of your answer, your mind quickly dismisses it.
But before you move on too quickly, let me clarify what I am not asking.
I am not asking if you go to church or if your parents and grandparents are Christians.
I am not asking if you raised your hand at the end of a sermon or repeated a prayer after a preacher.
I am not asking if you spent your summers at VBS and/or church camp, have ever worn “wit- ness wear,” or understand phrases like “traveling mercies” and “sword drill.”
Many of us are quick to say, “Yes, I’m a follower of Jesus,” but I’m not sure we really understand what we are saying.
One of the most sobering passages in the Bible tells of a day when many who consider themselves to be followers of Jesus will be stunned to find out that He doesn’t even recognize them.
Jesus describes a day when everyone who has ever lived will stand before God. On that day many who call themselves Christians and identify themselves as followers will stand confidently in front of Jesus only to hear Him say, “I never knew you. Away from me.” To be clear, that’s not my opinion or my interpretation; that is what Jesus has said will happen. Read Matthew 7:21–23.
Whether you’ve just assumed you are a follower of Jesus or are faithfully walking with Him, I pray this devotional journey will encourage you along the way as you reaffirm your commitment to follow Him not perfectly but whole- heartedly.
And remember we are invited to follow by the grace of God, and it is His grace that will give us the power we need along the way.
In the Bible, we read about a group of religious leaders known as the Pharisees. The Pharisees knew a lot about God.
When someone wanted to play Bible Trivial Pursuit, Godopoly, or Bible Baseball, they were the team to beat.
They knew about God, but what we discover is they really didn’t know Him.
It’s the difference between knowledge and intimacy.
In Matthew 15:8 Jesus describes the Pharisees this way: “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.”
That description seems to fit a lot of fans I know. Churches are full of people who go to Bible studies about Jesus, complete with workbooks and homework. Many preachers refer to their sermons as lessons or lectures, accompanied by outlines where church members can take notes and fill in the blanks.
I spent a number of years growing up confusing my knowledge about Jesus for intimacy with Jesus.
For example, for as long as I can remember I’ve had the books of the Bible memorized in order—all sixty-six of them. Not only that, but I can actually say the books of the Bible in one breath.
Having knowledge is not the problem. But when you have knowledge without intimacy, you’re not really following Jesus.
Like the Pharisees, many people could describe everything they know about Jesus. The truth, though, is that Jesus is not impressed by your knowledge or by my talent. What He really desires is our hearts.
Tell Jesus that you want to know Him, not just know about Him.
Do some honest self-evaluation: Have you spent more time learning about God than learning to fall in love with Him?
Consider reading through the Gospel of John in the next twenty-one days (just one chapter each day),
simply focusing on getting to know Jesus.
Kyle Idleman is the Teaching Pastor at Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Kentucky, the fourth largest church in America. He is the author of the award-winning and bestselling book not a fan: becoming a completely committed follow of Christ.
Guess who scooped this book up right away in our house? You got it –Hope was all over this one. Featuring all new content building on the book not a fan, in not a fan daily devotional, Kyle dives deep into each of his principles from the original book and helps you see how you can live out what it means to be a truly committed and sold-out follower of Jesus.
Seventy-five days of insights, stories, encouragement, and biblical truth and inspiration will bring this life-changing book to an even deeper level for all those who desire to take the next steps in following Jesus. A powerful read for the new year, for the whole family, for real soul-change — for those who are looking to know God more in the midst of where they are right now.
[ Our humble thanks to Zondervan for their partnership in today’s devotion ]
February 4, 2016
why you really do matter: An Anthem for Women
The gorgeous woman that had stood up there on stage with the microphone?
Yeah, she hikes up the side of her shirt to show the whole crowd of us how her white thigh spills thick over the elasticized waist of her pants.
And I’m sitting there wanting to know what Jesus thinks of women.
“I’ve been rejected all of my life because of my size.”
That’s what she says at this gathering of women I was once at.
The singer holds her milk white thigh right there and she’s vulnerable thin to the front row and to those at the back and I look down at my feet.
She’s standing on a stage and she’s holding out her bare roll of skin, a bearing of soul, holding out her cellulite.
She’s begging us to look in her eyes and why are we looking away?
There are thousands of women there were sitting under this roof holding out their hearts like empty cups.
They were right next to me — all these women rejected for the size of their pants, the size of their house, the size of their family, the size of their callings, the size of their work.
Women brushed off because they live too large or they live too small, because there is more of them than people know what to do with.
Because they can’t or don’t or they won’t fit into someone else’s box.
Women who can’t make their faith just fit thin into their heads and these skinny lines of dry bullet points, but let their God-life roll over into their outed closets and messy stories.
Women who don’t only fit into these categories — mommy blogger, size small, housewife, single career woman, mother, retiree — because they are women made in the image of God and they are more. than. only. this.
for more… join me over here at (in)courage today
February 2, 2016
To this world: I think I’ve been looking at you all wrong
Some of the most powerful experiences of my life has been seeing first hand the work of Compassion International, like the time the Farmer and I went up the Amazon in Equador and met Jonathan, a boy left in the jungle all by himself. This week a group of Compassion Bloggers are back in Ecuador writing the stories they see each day with Compassion International. Brianne McKoy works with Compassion as the director of the Compassion Blog Network and this week she’s leading Ruth from Gracelaced.com, Shannan from Flower Patch Farmgirl, and Ashley from Under the Sycamore through Ecuador. Will you join them this week for the 14th Compassion Blogger Trip and their unforgettable stories? It’s a grace to welcome Brianne to the farm’s front porch…
To this world:
I’ve been looking at you all wrong.
You stepped up to me when I was young and flung open your coat so I could see what you carried.
You cooed, “I’ve got it all. Anything you want.”
You seemed nice enough. So I took a hit.
First it was popularity, which has taken approximately my whole life to come down from.
Then you let me sample pride, possessions, power. It was all so strong. It was all so intoxicating. You spun me around until I was too dizzy to look straight and you sent me on my way, “I’m all yours, baby. Live it up.”
I guess it could have worked but in my reeling stupor the Savior of this world grabbed me by the shoulders, He called my name. And I was, with great resolve, wholly His. The aroma of His love exposed the aroma of you, which smells mostly like rot.
He set me straight and showed me how truly upside down you are.
You put the best looking first and the least of these last. You pour accolades on the rich and devastate the poor. You invite the popular first. You hide the unwanted in the shadows.
But can I blame it all on you? You convinced me that it’s my life I need to save – and for a time I agreed.
But His call was so inside out. It was so fantastically right. It went something like this, “Let’s lose your life and go save so many others.”
Which is grace because today He has me in Ecuador.
Marcela walked right up to me and slipped her hand inside mine. It was relentless. The tenderness and kindness of her grip could not contend with the grip of this world.
I grabbed onto her like she was an anchor. She beamed bright even though poverty rang terrifyingly loud right outside the church.
I directed my attention to the pastor but Marcela’s wild-eyed gaze never moved from me.
She introduced her big brown eyes into my being & I couldn’t think of anything more beautiful this world has ever presented me with.
Every few minutes I stole glances down at her. And she was steady, eyes never flinching.
She just craned her neck up, almost impossibly, and took me in.
I wondered at how, in a room crammed with over 100 people, a booming pastor, and children shuffling around, she could be so content with just me.
Again God saved me from this world and from myself through the grip of a child. All through your precious touch, Marcela. And so this is for you.
Marcela, you look a lot like Jesus to me.
You look like one bright divine appointment.
You look like a girl who entered this upside down world in a busted up land but someone, someones, your pastor, your sponsor, your mother drowned out the ugly of this world and so you have this smile.
You are not hidden. Your surroundings are not worthy of your beauty.
The upside down way of Jesus is this. I thought I was coming to save you but you saved me.
With one look from you the grip of this world shriveled and died. Again.
One look from you and it was almost like Jesus Himself was taking me in and asking, “Tell me, what is it you want to do with your one wild and precious life?” (Sometimes Jesus sounds like Mary Oliver. Or I suppose, the other way around.)
One squeeze from your hand and I couldn’t help but wonder why I’ve held onto anything else at all.
The praise of man.
The possessions.
The next rung on the ladder of some self-proclaimed dream.
Marcela, today you reminded me that my life is worth losing so that Jesus can save so many others.
One look into your eyes and I remembered that I did not get to choose where I was born and neither did you.
That while most of my life has been comfortable you bang up loud every day against poverty. That if it was me who was born into poverty I could only hope for God to use His people to save me.
This is how God works. That He is using me as a sponsor, to save lives, and He is using those precious lives, those children, you, Marcela, to save me right back.
To remind me that when I leave this earth I will take nothing with me but what I gave away. Love. Hope. Service.
That nothing in my life is as precious as trusting God with everything I have for His Kingdom’s cause.
Could you possibly know that your one brave, small step toward me was the irrefutable voice of God reminding me that if I have, if any of us in this world, have any amount of status, any money, any power it is for the sole purpose, the soul-purpose, to allow Him to use us to save many lives.
The grace is that God is saving lives every day through so many means.
Sometimes it looks like $38 a month to sponsor a child. When we’re talking about saving a child, can we agree that $38 a month is so worth it? So a child can hear the gospel. Can eat and grow and receive an education. The fierce love of Jesus is this, that while the world is trying to hide the poor and the weak, God has not forgotten His creation.
And He desires to use His people to save many lives.
If we would but trust Him in this call, to lose our lives for His cause, our world would be filled brimming with Marcelas.
For reading about Marcela, thank you. God has something so unimaginable for her, doesn’t He?
And maybe He wants to bring a Marcela into your life? If you were like me, and wondering if sponsorship is the right time or step for you, can I say that I waited too long to sponsor my first child?
And a child’s life is not worthy of my “lofty” time-delayed contemplation.
We must act.
We must allow Him to use our life for something greater than this world has to offer.
View children from Ecuador who are in great need of hope and love. Sponsor a child today!
This week Brianne McKoy is in Ecuador with Compassion for the 14th Compassion Blogger Trip. Enter this with them? Read more stories about their time in Ecuador from Ruth at GraceLaced.com, Shannan from Flower Patch Farmgirl, and Ashley from Under the Sycamore.
And a gift? Ruth graciously created a print exclusive to Compassion.
To anyone who sponsors a child during their trip, you will receive this print FREE to commemorate your decision to save a life.
February 1, 2016
when you always feel a strange homesickness: How To Find Your Way Home
It’s that line we pray together with the kids at night, that we pray Sunday mornings in our little country church, just as Jesus taught us we pray, “thy kingdom come … on earth as it is in heaven.” But just how much heaven can we ever experience on this troubled earth? This is the question Christie Purifoy found waiting for her in a rambling, crumbling, but beautiful old farmhouse called Maplehurst. It’s a grace to welcome the beautiful writing and wisdom of Christie to the farm’s front porch today…
guest post and photos by Christie Purifoy
All of my life I have heard sincere believers say this world is not our home.
As long as I wandered – from suburb to city to yet another suburb – I accepted this. Isn’t it written that we are “foreigners and exiles”?
But I was so tired of wandering.
On the day I first drove down the long tree-lined driveway that links a country road with the front porch of an old red-brick house, I wanted only to come home.
I did not know if this was possible.
Is homesickness simply our lot in life? Whether we have been given a roof over our heads or not?
It was early autumn when we began the work of making a 135-year-old house into our home.
The towering maple trees along the driveway still cast their flickering, silvery green shade, but the cherry trees near the fence were tossing yellow leaves across the grass, like overeager flower girls at a wedding.
God once promised Israel He would plant them “in their own land, never again to be uprooted” (Amos 9:15). We hoped that we, too, had been planted the way a gardener buries daffodil bulbs in fall.
Six weeks after we unloaded the moving van, I gave birth to a daughter. She was our fourth child and our second girl, and with hope in our hearts we named her Elsa Spring.
Every one of us knows that winter must come before spring.
We know that hunger precedes every good feast. Our faith is built on the sure knowledge that resurrection comes only after death, but also that it always does come.
I was buried that first winter. Buried by depression, anxiety, loneliness, and a list of home repairs so long I worried we’d never know rest in this place.
I felt as homesick as ever, but I had nowhere else to go. Our prayer to be planted was also our commitment to stay. I knew that the road home, if it could be found, could not be found in any place other than this.
Resurrection is a miracle, and resurrection is a gift. But resurrection is also the work of our days.
It is the seeds we order from the catalog while snow blows against the window pane.
It is the baby apple tree, more like an apple stick, we dig into the ground in early spring.
It is the invitation to a neighborhood Easter egg hunt that we drop nervously on the doorstep of one more neighbor whom we have never met.
It is every moment when we grasp hope and let go of despair.
Resurrection waits for us on the other side of death. On the other side of fear. On the other side of the great, flying leap into the unknown. Resurrection is our return to life.
Resurrection is our homecoming.
The writer of Hebrews reminds us, “… here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come” (Hebrews 13:14). For years I read those words and felt burdened by what I did not have, but that first spring at Maplehurst I realized how sweet it could be to watch for the heavenly city to come.
When a hundred daffodils suddenly bloomed along the driveway or when a hundred neighbors joined us for an Easter egg hunt on our lawn, I caught sight of it. These were glimpses of my forever home. Here was heaven in our midst.
This world is our home. Our bodies, formed of dust, were always intended for a life on earth. The great promise has always been, not that we would go to live with God, but that God would come to make His home with us.
If we are homesick it is because our home is not yet as it will one day be.
We catch sight of it here and there. We hear the word shalom whispering in the treetops.
We take up our spades, we reach out to our neighbors, and we make room for it. We cast seeds, and we plant heaven on earth.
Then we watch and wait for the day when we will reap the harvest God has grown.
One day, as we read in 2 Peter, God will cleanse this world with fire, as He once cleansed it with floodwaters. And the earth will be like a mountain meadow after a raging forest fire.
Everything old and decayed will have gone, and our resurrected eyes will be dazzled by the new, beautiful green of spring.
How much of heaven can we experience here on earth?
The answer I have found at Maplehurst is: More every day.
The seasons return to greet us, but we are not the same and the world is not quite the same because God has given more of heaven and more of Himself.
God abides with us beneath a canopy of autumn glory and right there in the stickiness of summer’s heat.
In the dark and quiet grief of winter and in the unexpected mercies of spring, Father, Son, and Spirit make their home with us (John 14:23).
God has come even to this crumbling house, this spacious place, called Maplehurst.
The wooden gate is unlocked.
The front door is propped open.
And you, too, are welcome here.
Christie Purifoy earned a PhD in English Literature at the University of Chicago before trading the classroom for a farmhouse, a garden, and a blog.
In lyrical, contemplative prose, Christie’s just-released book, Roots and Sky: A Journey Home in Four Seasons, unveils the trials and triumphs of her family’s first year at Maplehurst. Christie invites you into the heartache and joy of small beginnings and the wonder of a God who would make His home with us. Anyone who has felt the longing for home, who yearns to reconnect with Him and is awed by the beauty of nature, and who values the special blessing of deep relationships with family and friends will love finding themselves in this story of earthly beauty and soaring hope. A truly exquisite read to revisit again and again.
Connect with Christie and discover more about life in a Victorian farmhouse called Maplehurst on Instagram and Facebook
[ Our humble thanks to Revell for their partnership in today’s devotion ]
January 30, 2016
Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins for Your Weekend [01.30.16]
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:
Esther Havens
Esther Havens
Esther Havens
when I sit with this woman’s photos, the world stops & exhales
yeah, for real
Highlights
maybe grab somebody close? Can you find the 6 hidden words?
the kids were pretty riveted by what this robot was created to do!
Vera Kratochvil
scientists found a way to turn our walking — into energy?
gentleness overload! could not stop watching this…
Ali N Garrett
the bride wanted it to look like an amethyst. can you believe this is a…cake?!
so in each clip something has been drawn by an artist – can you find it? Can you identify the real object?
© daisygilardini.com/Facebook
© daisygilardini.com/ Facebook
© daisygilardini.com/ Facebook
took the photographer 2 weeks to snap these #WeAllNeedEachOther
Rescue pit bulls act as ‘surrogate moms’ to — 3 blind kittens
…telling you — unexpected friends really are everywhere
Mary Anne Morgan
“Finding joy in the very small today and focusing my thoughts on God’s goodness.” wise thoughts here…
a surprise last minute guest joins in on a half marathon… and wins a medal to boot
Mr. T and Bee
yup, you gotta see this one – they’re the best of friends #UnexpectedFriendsEverywhere
pure JOY!
Clara O’Brien / Facebook
what the bus driver was caught doing here? undid the internet
snowboarding…in the streets of NYC! Love it!
Andy Lee
Andy Lee
Andy Lee
how a photographer captured the breathtaking beauty of the edge of the world
one town. no cell phones or wifi. conclusion?
Emma Grace Wright
Gorgeous! coffee shop creates opportunities for those with disabilities.
Does it get any better than this?!
a day these kids will never forget –
a noise complaint. that required “backup.” Backup nobody ever dreamed of.
Doris Haynes
at 76? she walked 500 miles and found healing and hope:
“I wasn’t grateful before, I wasn’t.
It is [a transformation] to live in gratitude.” This woman.
As our culture changes, Christians have an incredible opportunity.
Together in the heart of Denver, we will explore what renewal and faithfulness might look like in society today—for both you and those you love. From the ideas and current issues shaping society to the truth that transforms the world, you will be informed and gain confidence that God is at work in His mission to renew all things.
Arlyn Kris Satanek
why is this historic roadside restaurant run by a young many with down syndrome plans to stop taking orders?
beautiful
… this one’s like swallowing down like liquid brave.
Straight up courage: drink deep. Astonishing:
what to do when you want light to overcome all of the dark
what it looks a bit like to give women a second chance
You’re More Successful Than You Realize (A Social Experiment)
You can take broken things and make them beautiful
… it’s a real thing & those 3 lines are changing everything over here:
Wish for the past & you drink poison.
Worry about the future & you eat fire.
Stay in this moment & you eat the mana needed for now.
That’s all for this weekend, friends.
Go slow. Be God-struck. Grant grace. Live Truth.
Give Thanks. Love well. Re – joy, re- joy, ‘re- joys’ again
Share Whatever Is Good.
January 29, 2016
the 1 secret that’s the same about all our biggest regrets — & the 1 hope we all get
Fill the cup with steaming warmth,
watch the sun overhead, and it turns out —
it’s all sorta, exactly like this —
exactly what happened on one street, on one day, with a whole bunch of The Busted being unforgettably and powerfully real:
Yeah, you can sit with all that.
And drink down that mug, moved and undone and put back together — and it turns out:
You don’t have to believe in regret,
you don’t have to live in regret —
that would be like living in a boat that only went backwards —
trying to find something that’s been washed away now out to sea.
Turns out that you get to take today and go live at the bow of the boat, and all the waters ahead of you and right now are just like that —
like an ocean as open with beautiful possibility as a clean slate.
Count yourself lucky, how happy you must be — you get a fresh start, your slate’s wiped clean. Ps. 32:1 MSG
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