Ann Voskamp's Blog, page 30
June 27, 2023
18 Summers? How To Slow Down Time & Even Now, How To Have More Time Than You Think (Pt 1)
I’m not sure whether it was the moment she walked across the stage in her cap and gown.
Or rather the moment, just the very next week, when she smiled wide and walked the aisle as one of the maids of the bride. Or the handful of days later, when she leaned over the flames and blew out the ring of candles on her 18th birthday cake.
“Weigh down this moment in time with full attention, and the whole of time’s river slows, slows, slows.”
It actually might have been the moment just on the eve of her 18th when she came back into the kitchen as I turned out the lights, as she whispered, “Be the very last of my childhood hugs, Mama?”
I still was bravely blinking back all this liquid love when I sent her a photo, just before midnight, of her as a four-year-old mop of riotous curls and ocean blue eyes, and she’d messaged me back, as the clock ticked down to midnight and she waved goodbye to to being a child:
“Mama? I ache for eternity —- when time won’t hurt us anymore.”
And I’d swallowed hard.
That’s when I knew that there were things I needed her to know before it was too late, things I needed to return to before I blew out another ring of candles on my own cake —- because maybe, whenever we return to what is true, it’s never too late to begin again.
And it’s true:
Time only hurts us when we stop growing toward joy.
“Time only hurts us when we stop growing toward joy. Find a way to keep growing toward joy, and the passage of time can’t keep you sad.“
Find a way to keep growing toward joy, and the passage of time can’t keep you sad.
I will never not be the mama who misses the dash of freckles across her little girl pixie nose and the way, for years, her tendrils fell around her face like the curl of a ribbon wrapping a delicate present that I never stopped delighting in. Yet, she never ceases to surprise: She’s feisty tenacity and the buoyancy of joy and always, whatever her 4 older brothers could do, she could do with grinning chutzpah and her long blonde hair blowing in the wind.
And it may feel like time blows away in the wind, that there are only a mere 18 birthday cakes that we get to blow out the birthday candles together, only 18 summers to write our photo album of memories, only 18 Junes, 18 Julys, 18 Augusts, before their final graduation and relocation.
It’s true:
There will be endings and lasts and packing up and moving on, there will be seasons that close and doors of firsts that open, there will be a bittersweet ache and time will never cease to disorient because we were made to live forever beyond time.
But what if:
The time of childhood is for building a relationship that bridges into more time together through adulthood.
And what if the deepest reality is that, not matter the age or the summer:
As long as you’re aware of time, you still have time.
As long as you are still experiencing time, you still have time.
If you can still see hands on the clock — there is still time to reach your hand out so two hearts can touch.
Sometimes, when you look up at the clock on the wall, it whispers to your own heart:
You have more time than you think – but you may be less present than you imagined.
It’s never so much about a shortage of time – and more about a shortage of intentional attention.
“Don’t let the passage of time make you more anxious… but use time as your passageway to be more attentive.“
I bake the cake and pick the flowers and hang the balloons and lay out the candles and the beat of my heart keeps rhythm with the hands on the clock:
Don’t let the passage of time make you more anxious… but use time as your passageway to be more attentive.
“Time is a relentless river. It rages on, a respecter of no one.” I had written in that little first book of mine, One Thousand Gifts, A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are, back when our farm girl, Shalom, was not even four years old, and I had wanted to bottle up all the moments, but realized:
“This, this is the only way to slow time:
Weigh down this moment in time with full attention, and the whole of time’s river slows, slows, slows.”
When our Farm Girl sits down in front of her 18th birthday cake, she grins,
“Peonies on my cake? Mama! I’m so surprised!” She winks and I laugh.
“You have more time than you think – but you may be less present than you imagined.
It’s never so much about a shortage of time – and more about a shortage of intentional attention. “
For 18 summers, I’ve picked peonies out at the mailbox to top her birthday cake, and I wink, lean over the cake to gently kiss her forehead and memorize the moment, this moment right now.
When you’re fully present in the moment, it feels like getting the gift of more time.
When you pay attention to the moments, it’s almost like you’re buying more time.
It’s our farm girl’s last summer at home here on the farm, her 18th, the last summer before she packs up her bags and heads to the big city and her first year at Redeemer University. When the Farmer voice cracks a bit when he mentions it, now and then, “And then, we lose Shalom in the fall….” – and it’s hard for us to find each other’s eyes in the brimming love.
But the truth is, no matter if you’re at summer #3 or summer #33:
The time you have now can build a relational bridge to more time.
It’s never too late to make a date for ice-cream or to go to the beach or grab a blanket and make a picnic for underneath any old tree. It’s never too late to watch an old movie on an old-blanket screen underneath stars or go for an evening walk to watch fireflies in the woods. It’s never too late to just call and say I love you always and forever, no matter what, without end — the end.
Everything we do together now, in this moment — can draw us toward wanting to spend more moments together.
True: Things will change, but change means growth – and always: Time only hurts us when we stop growing toward joy.
What’s more important than how much time you have, is how present you are — which gives you the gift of more joy in however many moments there are.
And in one blow, she blows out those candles and her dad and I smile and blink it back.
Just because things won’t be the same – doesn’t mean that things can’t be good.
Shalom looks up, her eyes brimming with all this liquid love too.
Time passes, but if you don’t let it pass by without weighing it down with all of your attention, it slows and you feel the weight of all this glory.
What’s more important than how much time you have, is how present you are — which gives you the gift of more joy in however many moments there are.
She gathers the peonies off her 18th birthday cake and I take a deep breath:
Every moment can hold the scent of even more grace.
READ PART 2 of this series on Time:
How to Not Waste Your One Life, But Make the Most of the time You’ve Got Right Now: Do this (Part 2)
How do you find the way, even now, to the life you’ve always dreamed of — and trust that it’s not too late?
How do actually practically find way to to live that is receptive to the love of God even now in your story — so that you can actually persevere & grow toward joy?
What does it personally look like to form your mind, your days, your life, into the deeply meaningful, cruciform love of Jesus and let God love you in the ways He deems good and best?
What does it powerfully look like to have a new way of life, a new way of being that rests fully in the hesed lovingkind ways of God — especially now?
18 Summers? How To Slow Down Time & Even Now, How To Have More Time Than You Think
I’m not sure whether it was the moment she walked across the stage in her cap and gown.
Or rather the moment, just the very next week, when she smiled wide and walked the aisle as one of the maids of the bride. Or the handful of days later, when she leaned over the flames and blew out the ring of candles on her 18th birthday cake.
“Weigh down this moment in time with full attention, and the whole of time’s river slows, slows, slows.”
It actually might have been the moment just on the eve of her 18th when she came back into the kitchen as I turned out the lights, as she whispered, “Be the very last of my childhood hugs, Mama?”
I still was bravely blinking back all this liquid love when I sent her a photo, just before midnight, of her as a four-year-old mop of riotous curls and ocean blue eyes, and she’d messaged me back, as the clock ticked down to midnight and she waved goodbye to to being a child:
“Mama? I ache for eternity —- when time won’t hurt us anymore.”
And I’d swallowed hard.
That’s when I knew that there were things I needed her to know before it was too late, things I needed to return to before I blew out another ring of candles on my own cake —- because maybe, whenever we return to what is true, it’s never too late to begin again.
And it’s true:
Time only hurts us when we stop growing toward joy.
“Time only hurts us when we stop growing toward joy. Find a way to keep growing toward joy, and the passage of time can’t keep you sad.“
Find a way to keep growing toward joy, and the passage of time can’t keep you sad.
I will never not be the mama who misses the dash of freckles across her little girl pixie nose and the way, for years, her tendrils fell around her face like the curl of a ribbon wrapping a delicate present that I never stopped delighting in. Yet, she never ceases to surprise: She’s feisty tenacity and the buoyancy of joy and always, whatever her 4 older brothers could do, she could do with grinning chutzpah and her long blonde hair blowing in the wind.
And it may feel like time blows away in the wind, that there are only a mere 18 birthday cakes that we get to blow out the birthday candles together, only 18 summers to write our photo album of memories, only 18 Junes, 18 Julys, 18 Augusts, before their final graduation and relocation.
It’s true:
There will be endings and lasts and packing up and moving on, there will be seasons that close and doors of firsts that open, there will be a bittersweet ache and time will never cease to disorient because we were made to live forever beyond time.
But what if:
The time of childhood is for building a relationship that bridges into more time together through adulthood.
And what if the deepest reality is that, not matter the age or the summer:
As long as you’re aware of time, you still have time.
As long as you are still experiencing time, you still have time.
If you can still see hands on the clock — there is still time to reach your hand out so two hearts can touch.
Sometimes, when you look up at the clock on the wall, it whispers to your own heart:
You have more time than you think – but you may be less present than you imagined.
It’s never so much about a shortage of time – and more about a shortage of intentional attention.
“Don’t let the passage of time make you more anxious… but use time as your passageway to be more attentive.“
I bake the cake and pick the flowers and hang the balloons and lay out the candles and the beat of my heart keeps rhythm with the hands on the clock:
Don’t let the passage of time make you more anxious… but use time as your passageway to be more attentive.
“Time is a relentless river. It rages on, a respecter of no one.” I had written in that little first book of mine, One Thousand Gifts, A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are, back when our farm girl, Shalom, was not even four years old, and I had wanted to bottle up all the moments, but realized:
“This, this is the only way to slow time:
Weigh down this moment in time with full attention, and the whole of time’s river slows, slows, slows.”
When our Farm Girl sits down in front of her 18th birthday cake, she grins,
“Peonies on my cake? Mama! I’m so surprised!” She winks and I laugh.
“You have more time than you think – but you may be less present than you imagined.
It’s never so much about a shortage of time – and more about a shortage of intentional attention. “
For 18 summers, I’ve picked peonies out at the mailbox to top her birthday cake, and I wink, lean over the cake to gently kiss her forehead and memorize the moment, this moment right now.
When you’re fully present in the moment, it feels like getting the gift of more time.
When you pay attention to the moments, it’s almost like you’re buying more time.
It’s our farm girl’s last summer at home here on the farm, her 18th, the last summer before she packs up her bags and heads to the big city and her first year at Redeemer University. When the Farmer voice cracks a bit when he mentions it, now and then, “And then, we lose Shalom in the fall….” – and it’s hard for us to find each other’s eyes in the brimming love.
But the truth is, no matter if you’re at summer #3 or summer #33:
The time you have now can build a relational bridge to more time.
It’s never too late to make a date for ice-cream or to go to the beach or grab a blanket and make a picnic for underneath any old tree. It’s never too late to watch an old movie on an old-blanket screen underneath stars or go for an evening walk to watch fireflies in the woods. It’s never too late to just call and say I love you always and forever, no matter what, without end — the end.
Everything we do together now, in this moment — can draw us toward wanting to spend more moments together.
True: Things will change, but change means growth – and always: Time only hurts us when we stop growing toward joy.
What’s more important than how much time you have, is how present you are — which gives you the gift of more joy in however many moments there are.
And in one blow, she blows out those candles and her dad and I smile and blink it back.
Just because things won’t be the same – doesn’t mean that things can’t be good.
Shalom looks up, her eyes brimming with all this liquid love too.
Time passes, but if you don’t let it pass by without weighing it down with all of your attention, it slows and you feel the weight of all this glory.
What’s more important than how much time you have, is how present you are — which gives you the gift of more joy in however many moments there are.
She gathers the peonies off her 18th birthday cake and I take a deep breath:
Every moment can hold the scent of even more grace.
How do you find the way, even now, to the life you’ve always dreamed of — and trust that it’s not too late?
How do actually practically find way to to live that is receptive to the love of God even now in your story — so that you can actually persevere & grow toward joy?
What does it personally look like to form your mind, your days, your life, into the deeply meaningful, cruciform love of Jesus and let God love you in the ways He deems good and best?
What does it powerfully look like to have a new way of life, a new way of being that rests fully in the hesed lovingkind ways of God — especially now?
June 24, 2023
Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins For Your Weekend [6.24.2023]
Happy, happy, happy weekend!
Come along with us here because who doesn’t need a bit of good news?
Let yourself smile, be crazy inspired, laugh, love & really live the gift of this life
just a little bit more this weekend…
Serving up only the Good Stuff for you & your people right here:
Jessica Walker, The Painted Sky
Jessica Walker, The Painted Sky
Jessica Walker, The Painted Sky
Jessica Walker, The Painted Sky
Jessica Walker, The Painted SkyFrom the majestic sky to the smallest wing, just flat out awestruck with the glory of His creation this week!
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Soulseeds (@soulseedsforall)
Rare plant sighting 
And to think it started with a simple question: “How can I help?”
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Baby Reels (@babyreels_)
Warning: only watch if you’re ready for your cheeks to hurt from laughing too!
If you’re missing Pastor Keller like I am…
this, some of his close friends, sharing how he was integral in their own spiritual formation
Do you listen to audiobooks? This may be a great reason to give them a try
(hoping you can read this one without a subscription, but if you can’t and you don’t want to get the free trial, check out this similar article)
If you’ve ever struggled with feeling lonely, misunderstood, or like it’s hard to trust other people…
you need to hear this interview about real friendship
Find rest this weekend
“Come to me now
Lay your burdens here
Walk with me now, in quietness & trust
I am gentle
Cast aside your fear
I’ll befriend you
With my steadfast love”
How To Practice Being Receptive To Love
There was a wedding back in our woods and there were covenant vows of love on a late afternoon in June and there was a homemade meal under the apple trees down on the riverflats…
(And square dancing under a canopy of stars!)
And this is what happened:
This is the practice of a lifetime: The Practice of being Receptive to Love It’s Here! This Quarter’s Grace Case — and you just really don’t Want to miss this one!!Order your quarterly subscription box with Mercy House Global and receive beautiful items that support the work of artisans around the world *and* the work of Mercy House Global.
This month’s subscription box includes items seen in the picture like:
~Beautiful Waymaker tote
~Turkish cotton throw blanket
~Waymaker book by Ann Voskamp
~Insulated Tumbler
~Handcrafted Ornate Aviator Sunglasses
Not only does your Grace Case purchase provide dignified work for artisans around the world,
but one hundred percent of the profits go toward funding the work of Mercy House Global who exists to rescue girls and empower families to redeem future generations in Jesus’ name.
THIS. In 2019, Justin Brierley, in front of a student audience at Oxford University, engaged atheist Stephen Woodford, on the question ‘Is it rational to be a Christian?’
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Lisa Bilyeu (@lisabilyeu)
Sometimes… just gently, so gently
Want real joy? These girls have figured it out!
View this post on InstagramA post shared by THE WAY (@thewayuk)
Keep planting seeds…keep watering…God will do the growing!
Has Paul Simon found the Lord?
Breathe deep today and real rest in the joy of the Lord
How to Find Grace in Each New Dawn
Tomorrow is always a new day.
But tomorrow is never just another day, it’s also a gift — a divine gift.
Want to turn your worries into peace, your fear into courage, your chaos into order? Start here:
READ MORE & discover a practice that doesn’t just change our perspective; it transforms our hearts Do you crave hope, joy, and assurance in the face of grey days, chaos, and uncertainty?
Come cultivate gratitude with us, pausing daily to practice eucharisteo and find joy in the small beauties of Christ’s creation. Come sit with us and share a cup of something warm, breathing deep in the stillness, basking in God’s goodness.
Join us. Rest daily with us, pausing, breathing, and praising God, surrounding yourself with daily reminders of His grace and love. The Keeping Company makes beautiful heirloom pieces for your family to keep for generations.
Come Find Your Next Best Gift Right Here–Take a virtual glory soak through the New York botanical garden – summer in blooming wonder!
Take some time this weekend to slow down and breathe deep and know that you are loved.
“Just breathe
‘Cause it’s a miracle we can breathe
There’s power in the way that we breathe
Release your heavy burdens
And let everything that has breath, praise the Lord
This is why we have breath, so praise the Lord”
[from our Facebook community – join us?]
… so, yeah, we may not know how tomorrow’s going to go,
but we could lean on the One who always goes before us & already knows.
And, yeah, we may not have the foggiest idea how we’re going to make it,
but there’s a Hand that reaches through the fog, takes ours & He makes a way —
because that’s His name. *He is The Way.*
And, honest, though we may be downright weary of the heartbreaks, the headlines, the hard roads,
God cups our faces: He doesn’t demand us to carry the weight of understanding everything — He only asks we stand close to Him & let Him undertake everything.
God never lays the weight on you to be amazing.
He only invites you into the most profound choice in all the universe:
Rest.
Rest in His strength to do it,
rest in His ways above ours,
rest in Him who is with you, in you & is 100% for you.
Leave all the amazing to Him.
And His Amazing Grace finds us where we are right now and is taking us — even right now — where we’ve only dreamed.
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.
June 20, 2023
How to Find Grace in Each New Dawn
Each morning, God gives fresh, new mercies, not as an obligation to you — but as an affirmation of you. This is no small thing — but amazing grace. It’s a ridiculous joy to welcome our oldest son Caleb and his lovely wife Melba, of The Keeping Company, to share about gratitude, grace, and the simple joys of every day things. Please join me in welcoming them to the farm’s wide front porch today.
Guest post by Caleb and Melba Voskamp
Life is a mosaic of days.
Some days burst into vibrancy, resplendent, teeming with color. They shimmer, as though tenderly brushed by the gentle rays of dawn’s first light. The gift of the goodness of life takes shape as strongly as a silhouette against the golden rays of the rising sun. Something as simple as a single hummingbird, flitting from flower to flower, suspended in the quiet coolness of the morning air, can evoke an indescribable joy, an uncontainable gladness simply to be alive.
And yet, some days find us enshrouded in a fog of pressing responsibilities, lost in the murky, swirling, irreducible complexity of life. Colors fade, the notes of our melodies seem to flatten, our steps lack bounce, and our hearts echo with a peculiar kind of emptiness. Our spirit languishes with the weight of responsibility, the press of anxiety or fear, or merely the lack of buoyancy that comes from soul-deep weariness.
On such days, when the world within us feels as gray as the weather outside, sometimes the most we can muster is the whispered prayer… “Well, tomorrow is another day.”
And indeed, tomorrow is always a new day.
“Tomorrow is never just another day, it’s also a gift — a divine gift.”
But tomorrow is never just another day, it’s also a gift — a divine gift.
In classical Christian ecclesiastical architecture, the architecture of cathedrals and churches around the world, a space of Christian worship is traditionally situated so the congregation faces towards the east, towards the daily rising sun, towards the early morning light — which is symbolic of Christ’s resurrection, newness of life, and the rebirth we find in His grace. Each rising sun, each new dawn is an assurance that we are daily renewed, that we are lifted up on eagles’ wings, that God’s promises are new each and every morning.
The melody of grace and hope symbolized by new dawn pervades Scripture from Genesis through the end of the New Testament. In Genesis 8 and 9, God makes a covenant with Noah, promising hope, renewal, and joy even in the darkness of clouds and turmoil. His promise hinges on the assurance of a new day, every day:
“ While the earth remains,
seedtime and harvest,
cold and heat,
summer and winter,
day and night,
shall not cease.”
Genesis 8:22
“The power of Christ’s grace and love for us promises us the strength to greet each new day.“
God goes on to gift His creation to Noah and his descendants, echoing the promises of the Garden of Eden, and symbolized by the creation of a rainbow set in the heavens, a swath of color splashed across a grey and foreboding sky. In every rainbow, in every new morning, in every moment of joy spurred by the simple beauty of God’s creation, we are tangibly gifted the hope that God keeps His promises, and that in His perfect plan we can rest.
Just as God daily fulfills His post-flood promise — the earth still spins and the sun still rises, each new day still dawns — so too can we trust that His promise to be our source of hope, joy, and love is daily renewed.
The power of Christ’s grace and love for us promises us the strength to greet each new day.
In the early morning quiet, when the world is still half asleep, what if there was space to embrace a sacred pause? To let the burgeoning light be a gentle reminder of the profound gift of grace? Be still. Let the silence be a space for prayer and thanks, and let the promise of God’s peace speak to your soul. Whether the morning is clear and bright or dark and threatening, pause and feel the embrace of God’s assurance, breathing thanks for His goodness and love.
In the calm moments at the dawn of each day, there is space for a rhythm of gratitude – giving thanks, beginning again with open hands. In Biblical Greek, the word for actively giving thanks is eucharisteo.
It means thanksgiving, to give thanks, but it is more than that: it is gratitude, born of grace, which gives rise to joy. Eucharisteo is the overflowing of our hearts’ gratitude, bubbling up from the knowledge that God loves us and keeps His promises to us regardless of whether we deserve it, and overflowing in a fountain of joy and hope infused with divine assurance. Eucharisteo is a daily affirmation — no matter what the day might hold — of God’s goodness in our lives.
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
His mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness.
Lamentations 3:22-23
“Practicing eucharisteo means moving our gaze from the overwhelming horizon to focus on the tiny, miracles that grace everyday life.“
Practicing eucharisteo often means moving our gaze from the overwhelming horizon to focus on the tiny, up-close miracles that grace our everyday life.
It means watching the hummingbird instead of the gathering storm clouds. It means a deep breath instead of a frantic panic. It means simple joys instead of complex solutions.
The warmth of the sun on our skin, the serenity of a deep breath, the scent of fresh coffee in the morning. These things are simple, ordinary, almost common, yet they are all gifts, they are all joys, they are all reminders of grace.
Eucharisteo, this deliberate act of giving thanks, is the thread that connects our daily experience to the Divine. It is not just an act, it is a discipline, a practice, a choice. It is a decision to see beauty amidst the ordinary, to find joy amidst the trials, to live a life of gratitude amidst the uncertainty.
“And the beauty of eucharisteo? It doesn’t just change our perspective; it transforms our hearts.“
And the beauty of eucharisteo? It doesn’t just change our perspective; it transforms our hearts.
It turns our worries into peace, our fear into courage, our chaos into order. It reminds us that there is always something to be thankful for, even in our most difficult days.
Tomorrow is indeed another day. May we live it grateful for the grace of each new dawn, embracing the promised gift of His daily mercies.
Every day is indeed a divine gift — a new opportunity to live out eucharisteo.
Do you crave hope, joy, and assurance in the face of grey days, chaos, and uncertainty?
Come cultivate gratitude with us, pausing daily to practice eucharisteo and find joy in the small beauties of Christ’s creation. Come sit with us and share a cup of something warm, breathing deep in the stillness, basking in God’s goodness.
Join us. Rest daily with us, pausing, breathing, and praising God, surrounding yourself with daily reminders of His grace and love. The Keeping Company makes beautiful heirloom pieces for your family to keep for generations. Our collection is carefully designed to bring beauty into your everyday life, inviting families to keep joyful, grateful company with Jesus throughout their busy lives.
How To Practice Being Receptive To Love
On the morning of the happy couple’s wedding, I’m standing out in the middle of the river, barefoot with pants rolled up to me knees, bucket in hand, trying not to slip on the river rocks and crack open the old noggin.
“It’s always the practice of perspective —- that makes the heart receptive to Love.
Because when the foraged flowers — the goldenrod and picked daisies and blue iris, there in the old tin buckets at the ceremony site — which is this cathedral of towering trees in the woods at the back of our river farm — need to be filled up with water because there’s this slow leak in the bottom of one bucket?
There’s not much else to do but hike through the trees, slide down the river embankment, and wade out to where the water’s deep enough to fill a 5 gallon pain, because the closest faucet’s more than 2 whole farms away, and a river of promise runs through it all right here and now.
It’s less than 3 hours to the wedding ceremony.
Less than 3 hours till the grinning bride and groom stand under the old spruce trees, look into each other’s eyes, and pledge their “I do.”
It’s less than a month since we returned from serving in Romania, and that national radio interview when I was asked to offer, in just one sentence, what was maybe be the very most important thing for people to know — and I had surpised myself with the answer:
“This is the practice of a lifetime: The Practice of being Receptive to Love. You will persevere in life as well as you practice being receptive to Love. “
“At the heart of the universe, is the face of God smiling love over you.”
Which means: Every part of you that you’ve labelled unlovable is exactly where Jesus writes: unconditionally loved.
Which means: God’s so unconditionally loves you as you are, that He won’t leave you as you are, but keeps growing you into all you are meant to be, because life without growth is stagnant and dying — and change and growth is always needed to be flourishing and thriving.
And ultimately: You will persevere in life as well as you practice being receptive to Love.
This is the practice of a lifetime: The Practice of being Receptive to Love.
Here we are on a Saturday in June putting into practice all the plans for a wedding and that’s what all of life really is:
“It’s this practice of being receptive to love that makes you attentive to God. “
Life is commitment to practice. Throw back the worn quilt every morning, put barefeet to the floor and begin to practice: The practice of presence, the practice of non-anxiousness, the practice of patience, the practice of forgiveness, the practice of gentleness, the practice of the fruits of the Spirit, the practice of community, the practice of keeping company with Christ, the practice of being love.
The practice of being receptive to love, and of being love, is messy, gritty, honest work.
There’s simply a willing laughing community of friends and family who are moving the wooden tables that my Dad handmade, Jason and Aaron setting up the curved back chairs that were handmade from trees in our woods, Mariella and Judith slipping foraged flowers into found and thrifted bottles-made-vases all down the center of the tables, Anwen and Josh readying the heaping bowls of food for 100 guests, all made the day before by the smiling mother of the bride, Caleb and Aaron warming all the sweet and tangy flavors of pulled pork homegrown here on our farm, and then all the setting out the handwritten name cards with blue forget-me-nots flowers hand-pressed by Magali — all these humble, hard-working people practicing being a community, committed to the practice of being love and being receptive to love.
There’s no event organizer neatly ticking off a list anywhere here with only few hours left to vows.
This is what carries us all. I’m smiling in the middle of a river.
“Whatever we practice looking on — is what we are actually practicing becoming.
The practices makes a person. “
A handmade wedding that’s a labor of love — can deliver into a wholehearted joy that’s a work of God.
A community making a wedding together actually makes a community bonding closer together.
Who knew that so much of the smiling joyfulness of the wedding is rooted in the serving givenness of the wedding preparations? Simply: The more we serve together, the more we get to smile together.
When you get to live given, you get a life of joy!
It’s the practice of living given that gives us practically the greatest joy.
It’s the practice of being receptive to love — being receptive to the look in someone’s eyes, the offer of someone’s hand, the gift of someone’s time, the light that’s always present in any given moment —- it’s this practice of being receptive to love that makes you attentive to God.
I am see it too, paying attention to it too:
Life is ultimately the practice of focusing the eyes. When eyes are focused on Love Himself — the soul is formed like Love Himself.
You practice your faith as well as you practice being receptive to Love. Because Jesus is the very person of Love Himself — if you don’t practice receiving Love, are you really practicing receiving Christ Himself?
Whatever we practice looking on — is what we are actually practicing becoming.
The practices makes a person.
It’s always the practice of perspective —- that makes the heart receptive to Love.
If I’m struggling to be receptive to love —- how can I change the perspective of my heart?
The water in the river is warm for early June. It’s flowing steady, eddying only a bit as it slides around a flattened stone protruding like an island of granite. One more bucket of water for the big tin bucket of flowers up at the wedding altar in the woods. I can hear one of my lambs up in the fold on the far side of the river bleating for the comfort of her mama.
And this is what is steadying me, anchoring and comforting me, as I keep trying to live it:
You practice your faith as well as you practice being receptive to Love.
The reality of that still seems strange and paradoxical to me. But because Jesus is the very person of Love Himself — if you don’t practice receiving Love, are you really practicing receiving Christ Himself?
Yet what exactly is love, and how to know what to actually practice being receptive to, how to know what to receive? The farmland under my feet opens wide to receive what the river gives and just before a wedding covenant of love, my heart opens wides to it too, what is most important to know and embrace:
Love Himself can only give love.
And: Everything that touches a life must come through the door of the sheepfold.
Love Himself is the Shepherd who lays down to make Himself into the door of the fold. Love Himself only lets into the fold what He can unfold into good, unfold into grace, unfold into love.
“Love Himself is the Shepherd who lays down to make Himself into the door of the fold. Love Himself only lets into the fold what He can unfold into good, unfold into grace, unfold into love.“
I lean down over the river running through our land, bucket in hand, to water flowers for a covenant ceremony, and I can feel heart binding to God:
At the heart of the universe, is the face of God smiling over you — and everything that enters your life comes through the door of Love — and He is Love and He is the door.
As river water fills the pail buckets of picked wedding flowers, it strikes me —
Whatever we understand about God pulling on skin and visiting this planet, whatever supernatural revolution happened in the universe when God nailed down His love for humanity with wide open arms at the Cross, whatever we understand about real good news in a really bruised and broken world, I am standing out in the middle of a river just before vows of forever love and I’m undone by the cosmic reality of it:
Once you fall into Christ’s river of Life, and the current of His love — there is no way out.
Wherever you feel like there’s no way, the reality is: There is no way out of His love!
Once you’re in Christ — you’re carried by a river of grace and there’s no way out of the current of His love.
There is no overwhelm in the world that can pull you out of the stronger undertow of His loving arms underneath you.“
The current of water fills my pail, and my soul fills with the joy of a covenant of Love with God, and somewhere in the woods, the tap, tap, tap of a woodpecker punctuates the point.
The current of His love is always stronger than whatever’s happening currently.
And when we commit to the practice of being receptive to love — in all the ways it comes — the heart expands to hold all kinds of joy.
After their covenant vows of love on a late afternoon in June, there will be a homemade meal under the apple trees down on the riverflats.
Once you fall into Christ’s river of Life, and the current of His love — there is never any way out.
There will be square dancing under a canopy of stars, under lights strung from trees, there will be fireworks exploding over our grinnings faces, over the river singing on. And there will be sparklers waving the happy couple off through a tunnel of promise as they ride out on a motorcycle across the fields, bride’s dress waving joy.
And one community will be changed by the practice of love, changed by a covenant of love.
Once you fall into Christ’s river of Life and the current of His love — there is never any way out.
And a river of love runs through everything, it’s current stronger than whatever’s currently happening- and the practice of being receptive to love is as possible as seeing that you’re already standing in a current of love with a bucket.
Wed yourself to the practice of not resisting but receiving.
Related: Part 1 of this Series on Love: What is the Most Important Thing For Anyone to Know
How do you live loved?
How do actually practically find way to to live that is receptive to the love of God — so that you can actually persevere?
What does it personally look like to form your mind, your days, your life, into the deeply meaningful, cruciform love of Jesus and let God love you in the ways He deems good and best?
What does it powerfully look like to have a new way of life, a new way of being that rests fully in the hesed loving kind ways of God?
June 17, 2023
Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins For Your Weekend [6.17.2023]
Happy, happy, happy weekend!
Come along with us here because who doesn’t need a bit of good news?
Let yourself smile, be crazy inspired, laugh, love & really live the gift of this life
just a little bit more this weekend…
Serving up only the Good Stuff for you & your people right here:
Samuel Markham – Photographer
Samuel Markham – Photographer
Samuel Markham – Photographer
Samuel Markham – Photographer
Samuel Markham – PhotographerIsn’t His splendor magnificent? Truly breathtaking…
It might be hard, it might *feel* hard but THIS.
His goodness chases you down.
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Rebekah Lyons (@rebekahlyons)
a prayer for when you feel like giving up–
View this profile on InstagramNatasja Sadi (@cakeatelieramsterdam) • Instagram photos and videos
just look at all these delightful flowers! ahh. deep breath. take a moment to savor them.
This 100-year-old Grandma using her new skills to be a gift to others. Such a fun and unique way to spread the love of God.
Oooh! Now you just have to hear this new song!
“Sometimes you’ve gotta dance through the darkness
Sing through the fire
Praise when it don’t make sense..
Give Him praise!”
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at the Little Stone Church Tonight
If you’ve ever listened to the music here on the blog over the last decade and a half?
Or any of our videos?
You know that David Nevue has kinda been the soundtrack to our lives… our posts… and our books as I write away.
And can you believe it?! He’s coming! Tonight!
To our little stone church, for a free concert,
and we’d be honored if you joined us for this surreal moment of grace!
—Find all the details HERE—View this post on InstagramA post shared by Praise on TBN (@praiseontbn)
No matter what you face, you’re still in His hands. And sometimes we all just need this tender reminder, don’t we?
The way this artist livens up a whole neighborhood? This is just the best way to bring light to dark places.
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Pubity (@pubity)
This is just truly phenomenal. The God-gift on this man’s life is just unique and extraordinary, and so thankful we get to see glimpses of it.
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Glorify (@glorifyappofficial)
such a great reminder!
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Edible Uprising Farm (@edibleuprisingfarm)
< big ol’, wide grins for this baby >
How to not almost miss your calling & why some make it and why some don’t. It’s never too late for a little inspiration and movement toward what God’s calling us to!
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Upworthy (@upworthy)
This dad! What a hero of a dad!
Oooh! This grandma when she meets her great-granddaughter for the first time.
Post of the Week From Around These Parts
4 WORDS EVERY CHILD NEEDS TO SAY TO DAD…
Dear Dad- On The Occasion Of Celebrating A Father
Honestly? It’s the work of every parent to give the best they know how —
and the work of every child to forgive their parents the best they can now.
Even the best of fathers fails a child in all kinds of ways,
but they both have the backup of an all-loving Father who never does.
So for all there is to say about Father’s Day…
maybe in the end there’s just these FOUR WORDS that every kid wants to say to their Dad:
Looking for that perfect, meaningful gift? We’ve got you covered! These handmade, heirloom-quality goods make the most perfect gifts for graduation, birthday, or just because…
The “New Neighbor” Gift: The Tin Wall Cross
Perfect for hanging above a door-frame, the Tin Wall Cross makes a delightful housewarming gift; handcrafted by artisans in Haiti, it also makes for a great conversation starter!
The Hostess Gift: “I am the Bread of Life” Bread Board
Perfect for bread, charcuterie, or to showcase a special dessert, this handcrafted cherry-wood breadboard makes the perfect hostess gift, housewarming present, or wedding gift.
This is just stunning! Grab a cup & come along with us?
Make sure you don’t pass this one–starting around the 1 minute mark…
“Hope is in the Lord
Keep your eyes on Him”
[from our Facebook community – join us?]
The battles you’re brought to,
God’s already fought through.
You get to be still and rest in God
because He’s still God
and will do the rest.
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.
June 16, 2023
4 WORDS EVERY CHILD NEEDS TO SAY TO DAD… Dear Dad- On The Occasion Of Celebrating A Father
Dear Dad —
You and I both know how Dads can get a bad wrap but I want you to know that I won’t ever forget when I was hurting real bad and you didn’t need to find words because your arms found me and wrapped me in the longest hug and your presence was the gift of healing I needed.
“The imperfect presence of a Father is the perfect gift every child longs for.“
The imperfect presence of a Father is the perfect gift every child longs for. I’d still know the scent of your strength anywhere.
And true, you and I may both remember how you sometimes didn’t know how to say certain things, but you’ve got to know that I saw how you made the work of your worn hands speak, and you made the long hours and the bend of your hardworking back talk, and you made the whole of your life into selfless provision and I will forever hear the real love of your heart loud and clear.
Men of few words can live lives that speak much.
And I’m not sure if Dads really know that it’s true?
A child memorizes the times a father says,”I love you” — the timbre of his voice, the certain tilt of his head and the way he bit the side of his lip to steady the depth of emotion quaking his chin. And they trace that moment in their mind, again and again, like the endless finding and fingering the comfort of a worn wooden cross tucked in a pocket, a father’s moments of honest love so much like a Father’s eternity of holy love.
“Even the best of fathers fails a child in all kinds of ways, but they both have the backup of an all-loving Father who never does. “
Even the best of fathers fails a child in all kinds of ways, but they both have the backup of an all-loving Father who never does.
So for all there is to say, maybe in the end there’s just 4 words that every kid wants to say to their Dad:
Thanks
Sorry
Yes
Always
Maybe it’s just that.
THANKSThanks, Dad: Thanks for every single time you got out of bed and pulled on your pants and worked a long hard day to put food on our plates and hope in our bellies. Thanks for every single time you showed up and didn’t have to, for the times you laid down your wants for our needs and wants and dreams, for the ways you slayed inherited demons so we could inherit a different legacy, for every interior battle that you fought that no one really knew anything about, so we could win a few more battles than anyone ever really imagined. How do you thank a man for all the ways his life has become a foundation for yours?
When you see there is always, always, always something to be thankful for, you discover that there are always more things.
SORRY“When you see there is always, always, always something to be thankful for, you discover that there are always more things.“
And there are more than a few things for me to say, “Sorry, Dad.” Sorry for all the times I didn’t say thank you because I was blind to what you’d sacrificed and given, sorry for the times I was an ingrate instead of in awe of the gift of the father I have, sorry for the foolish ways I talked back, dismissed your wisdom, belittled your efforts, ignored your reaches, failed to make you feel seen and honored, and I will never stop being sorry for not taking every single chance I had to tell you how much you mean to me and I love you.
I just need to say sorry to be you because it’s true:
A sincere apology makes anyone a master rebuilder. Nothing brings relational restoration like saying I’m sorry.
YES“It’s the work of every parent to give the best they know how — and the work of every child to forgive their parents the best they can now.“
So, yes, Dad: Yes, I forgive you, yes, I completely forgive you for everything you did ask, or never asked forgiveness for, for the ways you fell short that left me wrestling long, for the messes that happened and the magic that didn’t, and I forgive you for what you couldn’t help and for all that you could. Because you and I can testify — Forgiveness is what you give to get what you need most: peace.
It’s the work of every parent to give the best they know how — and the work of every child to forgive their parents the best they can now.
ALWAYSSo know: Always, Dad. Always loved, always thankful, always honored, always remembered, always forgiven, always held with the same grace I’ve been given, always a voice I carry within, always my Dad.
“After all the ways that have come and gone, after all that’s been said and done —- all we have is love always.“
After all the ways that have come and gone, after all that’s been said and done —- all we have is love always.
In the midst of every child’s beautiful, hard, perfect, complicated, tender and divine love story, maybe it just comes down to those Four Words:
Thanks for everything, Dad…
Sorry for everything, Dad…
Yes, forgiven of everything, Dad… and
Always loved, through anything and everything, dear Dad .
How do you live loved? By the Greatest Father of all?
How do actually practically find way to to live that is receptive to the love of God — so that you can actually persevere?
What does it personally look like to form your mind, your days, your life, into the deeply meaningful, cruciform love of Jesus and let God love you in the ways He deems good and best?
What does it powerfully look like to have a new way of life, a new way of being that rests fully in the hesod loving kind ways of God?
June 10, 2023
Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins For Your Weekend [6.10.2023]
Happy, happy, happy weekend!
Come along with us here because who doesn’t need a bit of good news?
Let yourself smile, be crazy inspired, laugh, love & really live the gift of this life
just a little bit more this weekend…
Serving up only the Good Stuff for you & your people right here:
Jeremy Bishop – Photographer
Jeremy Bishop – Photographer
Jeremy Bishop – Photographer
Jeremy Bishop – Photographer
Jeremy Bishop – Photographerthe way the light dances and makes this ocean life come alive — so in awe of the Light Himself
“You shall never displease me” – the great gift we can receive and give to others
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Christie Purifoy
Placemaker (@christiepurifoy)
just a little bit of peace & happy for your weekend
This post is igniting something deep within us… and I just can’t stop thinking about his words…
“It’s time for us as the people of God to recalibrate our priorities and realize our purpose.” From our dear friend, David Platt.
57 oddly specific joys to remind you that delight is in the details
yep, yep, yep. We’ll never, never stop noticing and counting our thanks!
Dad comes to pick up his son from last day of school on horseback, and we just can’t get over how fun this is!
“I don’t want to miss it
I don’t want to miss a thing
That you’ve been singing over me”
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Practicing the Way (@practicingtheway)
– You can’t afford to NOT sit still and get quiet. This really is our lifeline. –
Join Us for a FREE(!!!) Concert with David Nevueat the Little Stone Church
If you’ve ever listened to the music here on the blog over the last decade and a half?
Or any of our videos?
You know that David Nevue has kinda been the soundtrack to our lives… our posts… and our books as I write away.
And can you believe it?! He’s coming!
To our little stone church, for a free concert,
and we’d be honored if you joined us for this surreal moment of grace!
—Find all the details HERE—
“Why We Should Read Poetry” – yes!!
what favorite pieces will you pick up, return to, or find this weekend? we’ve sure got a growing list of our own!
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Emily P. Freeman (@emilypfreeman)
it’s beautiful – make sure you read all the way to the last slide
< heart melt >
This faith-filled valedictorian gives faith-based grad speech…“You are made in the image of God” and isn’t she just an image of the fearless, faith-filled followers we want to be?
Post Of The Week From Around These Parts
What is the Most Important Thing for Anyone to Know? Part 1
The end of a one-hour live radio broadcast and the interviewer asked me this very question. And how would you answer?
I just can’t help but think this is really the thing we actually all need to know the very most:
Read it hereNow this grandma and grandson really giving us some great ideas for the future ;)
How God met this man in a little jail in India in the most surprising way–
and how God meets us and sends us is always just the most beautiful story!
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Mally Roncal (@mallyroncal)
well, this is just the sweetest!
View this post on InstagramA post shared by bible & brush (@bibleandbrush)
You can trust Him with everything.
On the Book Stack at the Farm
Read David Platt‘s recent guest post: Rectifying the Great Imbalance: Gospel Poverty and Our Life Purpose
Read Evie Polsley‘s recent guest post: Yearning for a Feast of Faith
breathtakingly beautiful! take a pause in your weekend & come along with us?
Oh this song! On repeat over here.
“Let it be costly * You are most worthy * He’s still worth everything “
[from our Facebook community – join us?]
deep breath. whisper it to your soul:
I don’t have to perform for Him today. I am sung over today.
*He performs His love for me.*
I am delighted in. I am rejoiced over. I am loved on.
Today, I’m listening everywhere for His love song over me.
“The LORD your God is with you,
the Mighty Warrior who saves.
*He will take great delight in you;
in His love He will no longer rebuke you,
but will rejoice over you with singing*.”
~ Zephaniah 3.17
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.
June 9, 2023
Rectifying the Great Imbalance: Gospel Poverty and Our Life Purpose
David Platt is a pastor in metro Washington, D.C., and founder of Radical Inc., an organization that equips Christians to be on mission from where they live to the ends of the earth. He believes we’ve gotten really good at following a really bad gospel—one that worships American ideas over biblical truth. It’s time for disillusioned, discouraged, and divided Christians to follow Jesus into a different future. It is such a joy to welcome David Platt to the farm’s table today…
Guest Post by David Platt
Excerpt from Don’t Hold Back: Leaving Behind the American Gospel to Follow Jesus Fully by David Platt, pages 102-106.
There’s a reason not a lot of people live in the Amazon. The world’s largest rain forest is also one of its most aggressive physical environments–certainly the most aggressive I’ve ever experienced.
After flying on a puddle jumper into a remote village, a small group of us walked down to the Amazon River, where a couple of long, motorized canoes awaited us. We climbed in, each of us carrying a small backpack with filtered water bottles, miscellaneous snacks, a change of clothes, and a small camping hammock.
We started down the river with a couple of indigenous men who would be our guides and become our friends on the journey, and we soon found ourselves walled in by dense undergrowth and towering trees.
Occasionally, a clearing opened to reveal homes nestled together on the riverbanks. The dwellings were made of plaster with metal roofs.
But as we traveled deeper into the interior, any signs of village life became few and far between.
Once deep in the heart of the rain forest, we arrived at the starting point for our trek. Our guides beached and secured the boats; then we hoisted our packs and started walking.
Within seconds, we were swarmed by more species of biting and stinging insects than I knew existed. And those bugs were hungry!
I wore long pants and a long-sleeved shirt, but somehow they still made their way through my clothes to feast on my flesh. I’d been told to spray a lot of DEET on my clothes, which I’d done with utmost care, but evidently, these bugs eat DEET for breakfast.
The bugs were a nuisance, for sure, but I was far more concerned about the jaguars and venomous snakes I’d read about in preparation for this trip. Were they hiding in the thick brush, just waiting to strike?
The indigenous guides (who, by the way, were trekking in sandals and shorts, often without shirts) tried to encourage us. “Don’t worry,” they said through a translator. “The most dangerous animals sleep during the day.”
That was comforting—during the day.
But it didn’t exactly alleviate my anxiety about the night, when the jaguars and snakes would be most awake and I would be least conscious, dangling in a hammock like dinner on a platter.
After hiking for hours through the forest, we arrived at our campsite and hung our hammocks between trees. (With tarantulas and other critters crawling around, the ground wasn’t an ideal place to sleep.)
Then my fellow trekkers and I took turns sharing the larger story of the Bible—the good news of how Jesus lived a sin- less life, died a sacrificial death for sinners, and rose from the grave in victory over death.
When it was time to retire for the night, we climbed into the cocoons of our hammocks, pulled mosquito nets over our bodies, and cinched them behind our heads. While I was thankful for the protection from the bugs, I knew that net wasn’t posing any threat to a jaguar.
As I closed my eyes and prayed against jaguar hunger, I discovered the sanctifying experience of simply falling asleep in the Amazon. Lying there in the pitch-black dark, you can’t see your hand in front of your face, but you can hear everything—and the Amazon comes alive at night. You hear rustling above and below, the whines, buzzes, and clicks of insects nearby, and the lunatic roaring of howler monkeys in the distance. I prayed one prayer over and over again until I fell asleep: “Oh God, please get me through this night.”
The following morning, I woke with boundless gratitude for daylight breaking through the trees. I’d made it, and so had all my fellow travelers. An hour or so later, we were on our way.
Each day, we hiked, and each evening, we sat around a campfire with our guides—truly amazing men who call the rain forest home. Together we ate noodles cooked over an open fire. To the soundtrack of crackling wood and the jungle life all around us, these men shared fascinating stories about their families, their ancestry, and their way of life in one of the most remote places on earth.
One night, after we’d listened raptly to their tales, Bieto, one of our guides, asked me whether I had any good stories to share. I was glad to oblige, and I told them four short stories from Mark 4–5 about how the Creator of this rain forest had come to the world as a man named Jesus and how he had power over nature, evil spirits, disease, and death.
The following night around the fire, another of the guides, Luan, recalled the stories I’d shared. “When you were telling those stories,” he said, “I had an unusual feeling inside, like my heart was beating out of my chest.”
“These stories have that kind of effect on people,” I said.
Then my fellow trekkers and I took turns sharing the larger story of the Bible—the good news of how Jesus lived a sin- less life, died a sacrificial death for sinners, and rose from the grave in victory over death.
I’d like to ask you to consider Luan’s question: Why do you think approximately 3.2 billion men, women, and children like these men and their families have never heard the good news of Jesus?
On the last night of the trek, Bieto spoke up again. “When you share these stories about Jesus, I feel like I have a dirty heart. Is there a way my heart can be made clean?”
“That’s the good news about Jesus,” I said. “The reason he came was to give us a totally new heart.”
That’s when Luan said words that I will never forget.
“These stories about Jesus are so good,” he said with wonderment. “And they seem so important. I just don’t understand why we and our tribes and all our ancestors before us have never heard them until now.”
I’d like to ask you to consider Luan’s question: Why do you think approximately 3.2 billion men, women, and children like these men and their families have never heard the good news of Jesus?1
My contention is simple.
While many factors contribute to “gospel poverty” in jungles, villages, and megacities around the world, one of the primary reasons—if not the primary reason—that billions of people remain un reached by the gospel is that the global purpose of God has always faced resistance from the nationalistic people of God.
It is infinitely more important, satisfying, and unifying to give our lives to passing on the good news of Jesus to the Bietos, and three billion others whose eternity hinges on hearing and believing the gospel.
From the nation of Israel in the Old Testament, to the early church in the New Testament, to the current church in the United States, people of God have continually desired the preservation of their nation more than the proclamation of the gospel in all nations.
And just as generations of God’s people before us needed to do, God is calling us to place less priority on our beloved home country—a country that will one day fall—and more priority on a global kingdom that will last forever.
Not only is doing so urgent for billions of people in need of the gospel; it is also necessary in order to overcome sickness in the church.
It’s time for us as the people of God to recalibrate our priorities and realize our purpose.
Whether you’re a student, a senior adult, or anywhere in between, it is right to praise God for the gifts he has given you and me in a country that has freedom, resources, and opportunity like no other in the world. It is good to pass on these gifts to the next generation of Americans.
Yet it is infinitely more important, satisfying, and unifying to give our lives to passing on the good news of Jesus to the Bietos, and three billion others whose eternity hinges on hearing and believing the gospel.
Adapted from Don’t Hold Back: Leaving Behind the American Gospel to Follow Jesus Fully by David Platt, pages 102-106. Used with permission.
David Platt is the author of the new book Don’t Hold Back: Leaving Behind the American Gospel to Follow Jesus Fully and three New York Times bestsellers. He is a pastor in metro Washington, D.C., and founder of Radical Inc., an organization that equips Christians to be on mission from where they live to the ends of the earth. Platt received his master of divinity (MDiv), master of theology (ThM), and doctor of philosophy (PhD) from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.
In his newest book, Don’t Hold Back, Platt encourages followers of Jesus to take necessary risks and find unimaginable reward. He knows we can experience the full wonder of Jesus and transcendent beauty of his church here and now, but some things need to be different. Starting not in “those people,” but in each one of us.
[ Our humble thanks to Multnomah for their partnership in today’s devotional. ]
June 6, 2023
What is the Most Important Thing for Anyone to Know? Part 1
“In one sentence, what does it come down to — what is the one most important thing for people to know?”
The Romanian journalist leaned forward, asking me the question at the end of an hour long interview on live radio broadcasting across a country that was under rigid and oppressive Communist regime still in our recent life times.
What I don’t feel was rushed or hurried, only this palpable, certain, steadying peace. What matters can take its own time.
I looked down at the floor, as if I could find the weighty answer laying there somewhere at my feet — how in the world to know the answer such a question? Where was the string of words that was but one sentence, that was ultimately the one thing in all the universe that matters most?
As I scanned the mental shelves of my mind, groped along almost half a century of messy experience, looking for that one sentence to emerge, I not only felt inept — but I felt the growing silence filling the heavy moments of live radio. Yet what I didn’t feel was rushed or hurried, only this palpable, certain, steadying peace. What matters can take its own time.
There are roads ahead of us that are dauntingly steep and seem unnavigable —- and yet we relentlessly try to keep up and not fall behind everyone else seemingly sailing by with a blithe wave and not a piddling care in the world.
There is grief and there is loss and there is diagnosis and gravestones and mounting bills and exhaustion and depression and crisis and what is the most important thing for a soul to ultimately know?
And there it was….
I’m not sure at all how fully I’d known it the moment before, or would have recognized it as the apex of importance. And I know for sure that the truth of it hasn’t fully migrated down from my cerebellum to heart chamber and vein, but once I started to say the words, the utter gravity of them grounded me, I could feel it, grounded all matter because this is what most matters, this is what is at the crux of the cosmos, this is what is at the center of all our stories, this is the most important reality to know, and I said the words slow and close to the microphone and national airwaves:
“At the heart of the universe, is the face of God smiling love over you. What is most important in the universe isn’t eschatological or philosophical — it’s about a Love that’s unconditional. “
The thing that you most need to know is this:
At the heart of the universe, is the face of God smiling love over you.
The Romanian journalist across the table from me, her eyes glistened and she nodded slow and certain.
What is most important in the universe isn’t eschatological or philosophical — it’s about a Love that’s unconditional.
I blinked it back there in the radio studio and I have fell to the earth and sobbed at accident scenes lined with emergency responders, and I have struggled to stand when the hearst drove away with a body of someone larger than life to me, and I have wiped away grief as our baby screamed for me as a white gowned team carried her into open heart surgery and I’ve wept behind closed doors over all kinds of unspoken broken that never seems to heal — and yet, nothing could be more true:
The most important story of the world is this: the unconditional love of God.
The most important headline of the universe is that the heart of God is for you.
The most important reality is that nothing can ever happen to change the reality of God’s love for you.
At the heart of whole universe and the holy Word, you do not find…
“For God was actually so disappointed with you … that He shook His head in gutted despair and begrudgingly went to the Cross for the failure of you. “
Or that “God was so disgusted with you … that He shamed you by passively aggressively dragging Himself to the Cross because of the mess of you …“
Or for “God was so full of wrath toward you… that He thundered to the Cross in volcanic rage that He could hardly contain because of the vileness of you.“
The most important headline of the universe is that the heart of God is for you. The most important reality is that nothing can ever happen to change the reality of God’s love for you.
Rather… at the heart of the whole universe and the holy Word are the words that are the very heartbeat of holy God:
For God so loved the world — you — that He gave Himself … and for you who believe in a purifying, perfect, protective love like His, you get to live forever with Divine Love Himself.
Father God loving you, Jesus Christ saving you, Holy Spirit wooing you — the Triune God never stops working all things into the good of being closer to you because of unassailable delight in you, and the good of getting to be with you.
When we were still deep in our sin, “God clearly shows and proves His own love for us, [as] Christ died for us” (Ro. 5:8).
When He rises in holy, righteous wrath over brokenness and sinfulness — it’s because His heart so delights in yours, He will not stand for injustice to defile your heart or any heart.
Love and longing to be with you drove Him to the Cross, to cover all the brokenness and sin that was getting in the way between your heart and His. At the center of history and the universe is the reality that: The atonement at the Cross, the linchpin of all of history, was so He could at at-one-ment with you.
When He weeps with you and deeply grieves with you — it’s because His heart so delights in yours that His heart breaks with yours.
When He mysteriously and painfully allows what cuts deep — it’s because His heart is so committed to the wholeness of yours, that He leans in as the tender surgeon who allows a severe and sanctifying mercy to do the soul-saving work of shalom.
“Your real work in the world is this: Practice opening up, being receptive, to God’s love. Perseverance is the practice of being receptive to Love.” My therapist had said words that I’d scrawled across the top of a blank page in my journal. That I keep returning to like a compass that keeps turning me toward the most meaningful, whole life — turning me toward the gentle, delighting smile of God in everything.
How do you practice being receptive to God’s love?
To change the neuroplasticity of our brains requires the intentionality of practice… and to change the progress of our lives, requires the practice of being receptive to love.
So I say it to myself, in the midst of lists and appointments and disappointments and loss and all the obstacles that are life: “Let God love you today any way He wants to love you. Let God love you through these moments and circumstances. Through whatever’s happening— feel the ways God is always happening to love you.”
You will persevere in life as well as you practice being receptive to Love.
You will persevere in life as well as you practice being receptive to Love.
I am a slow learner to the warmth of His delight, “Warm me, your servant, with a smile, save me because you love me… Blessed God! His love is the wonder of the world.” (Ps 31: 14).
When you deeply trust that God’s smile rests on you — no matter what happens, your soul is deeply at rest.
When you don’t resist all the unexpected ways God is loving you — you can expect to be the one who persists.
She who persists is the one who never resists but accepts that God is going to love in unexpected ways, because that is the most important thing to be expected:
Expect the lovingkind smile of God, “expect God to knock at your door, expect God to rise on your horizon, expect hope and mercy and miracles and a glass of cold water, but just don’t expect God to come looking any way you expect. Expect nothing but hesed, the steadfast lovingkindness of God—- just not in the kinds of ways you dreamed” (excerpt from WayMaker).
What if every part of you that you’ve labelled unlovable is exactly where Jesus writes: unconditionally loved
What if not expecting to be loved by God through everything is the most heartbreaking sin under everything?
What if not expecting to be be loved by God through everything is what turns us toward all kinds of lesser loves that betray us?
What if the unexpected and unparalleled goal of a life well lived is to feel unconditionally loved by God?
What if every part of you that you’ve labelled unlovable is exactly where Jesus writes: unconditionally loved.
And as with God, who is Love Himself, so it is with people: Unconditional love doesn’t mean unconditional agreement with someone but unconditional sacrifice for someone. God’s so unconditionally loves you as you are, that He won’t leave you as you are, but grows you into all you are meant to be, because growth is always what it means to be thriving and flourishing. Unconditional love never leaves us unchanged, because anything stagnant and unchangeable isn’t growing but slowly dying.
The smiling delight of God will always bring us out of dark and into greater and greater light.
When you know God smiles over you, and you’re won over by His smile, you are no longer under the pressure to strive for His smile, but you joyfully thrive because of His smile.
After the Romanian journalist closed out the radio program and signed off the air, she found my eyes and she held them, smiling, nodding yes, yes, yes.
Yes! Because the God of the universe smiles on us — everything changes in the universe.
When you know God smiles over you, and you’re won over by His smile, you are no longer under the pressure to strive for His smile, but you joyfully thrive because of His smile.
Her and I both brim liquid love, radiant smiles filling the space.
None of us may be living the life we imagined, but we are living the realest love story beyond imagining: In Christ, very Love Himself smiles and “celebrates and sings because of you, and He will refresh your life with His love” (Zephaniah 3:17 CEB).
And all across the realest airwaves in the universe, in our hearts, there’s this refreshing joy that reverberates that cannot be contained.
How do you actually practically find way to to live that is receptive to the love of God — so that you can actually persevere?
What does it personally look like to form your mind, your days, your life, into the deeply meaningful, cruciform love of Jesus and let God love you in the ways He deems good and best?
What does it powerfully look like to have a new way of life, a new way of being that rests fully in the hesod loving kind ways of God?
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