Ann Voskamp's Blog, page 82
April 18, 2020
Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins for Your Weekend [04.18.20]
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 & your people right here:
Cessna Kutz | Instagram
stunning… too beautiful not to share for your weekend
Photograper Captures a Once-In-A-Lifetime Shot Of A ‘Horizontal Rainbow’ That Filled The Whole Sky
Neighborhood Quarantine Flash Mob: These neighbors are good sports!
this hospital? finding creative ways to celebrate patient discharges!
amazed: 50 of The Best Entries from a ‘Water 2020’ Photography Competition
gather ’round: Because He lives
Shooting stars will light up the night sky this week — here’s how to watch!
The annual meteor shower is best viewed in a clear, pre-dawn sky
“I believe it’s our duty. I believe we should be compelled to do something when we can…”
you must come meet this nurse who picked up and went to NYC to help
love this! he’s taking free portraits of families at home and together…
Liga Liepina / Facebook
Liga Liepina / Facebook
Liga Liepina / Facebook
come away here for a bit?! she’s photographed horses in breathtaking Icelandic landscapes
he’s sharing some good words right here
The Prayer of Every Christian Husband
glory, glory, glory
As a farmer — this deeply resonates…The Essential Work of Farmers
YES! Still Rolling Stones
This coming week, Christians around the world will unite for the Q 2020 Virtual Summit (April 22-23)!
It’s a grace to speak at this event alongside globally respected leaders like Tim Keller, Francis Chan, Priscilla Shirer, Lecrae and more—and I hope you’ll join us.
Over two days, you’ll hear 40+ timely talks that will educate you on the most important topics for our new moment, and you will be equipped to lead well, right where God has you. Check out this trailer to learn more about the experience.
Get your digital pass here and use code “voskamp10” for 10% off!
250 filmmakers tell 1 global pandemic story. This is #choosehopestory
Amazing Grace – maybe like you’ve never heard before
so worth the time to listen in here: Trusting God in Difficult Times… thank you, Tim Keller
Interrupting Your Feed with Some Really Good News
In this season, part of “leaning in” means that we’re not giving up our hope
Amen and amen: Love is a Miracle
Honestly? April this year kinda feels like everything happening is a very sick, bad joke. I think we sorta cancelled the whole April 1st thing. But you know what absolutely cannot be cancelled right now? What is needed now more than ever?
That we #ShowUpNow for each other, that we #BeTheGift to each other.
Because actual lives depend on it.
Right now, we all desperately need to be the gift to each other. To stand together in solidarity—FOR each other—knowing that an act of kindness, giving it forward, can be more powerful than the spread of any pandemic, more powerful sword in starting movements that move us all toward Love.
Dare with us? Let’s spread kindness, start a bit of a movement, a giving, generous, caring, broken and given and transforming revolution that turns things around.
Could there be a more beautiful way to live your one life in times like these? Dare with us — to take a daring path to the abundant life!
Easy, doable ideas for the whole family to Give It Forward Today, even in the midst of COVID 19—to be the G.I.F.T.
Love is a verb and that verb is give. For God so loved the world — HE GAVE. You only have one life — to love well. WE CAN #SHOWUPNOW, DO THIS THING AND #BETHEGIFT! ~~Download the Free COVID-FRIENDLY #BeTheGift Calendar under “Free Tools” here: bit.ly/StickyNotesForYourSoul
AND CHECK OUT SHOWUPNOW.com right now — to turn this thing around in all kinds of ways right now
How to Actually Live the Secret of Contentment
Philippians 4:10-13
Books for Soul Healing:
Joy is actually possible, right where you are.
Take the dare to discover: Life is not an emergency…Life is a GIFT.
Life is too short to do anything but truly savor it — to count all the ways you truly loved.
What if Brokenness is the Path into the Abundant Life?
You don’t have to be afraid of broken things — because Christ is redeeming everything.
There’s no other authentic way forward — but a broken way — right into a profoundly abundant life.
Journey into a deeply meaningful life with this devotional and take sixty steps from heart-weary brokenness to Christ-focused abundance. The Way of Abundance — is the way forward every heart needs.
Be the Gift is a tender intivation into the next step of deeper transformation, less stress, more joy and abundantly more peace & purpose. You only get one life to love well…to Be The Gift.
Museums have always been a way to escape the pressures of daily life. Yet, just when we really need them, they’re closed … except, thank goodness, on the internet. Let’s visit some of the arts institutions whose virtual doors are open for exhibitions and artistic exploration
…yeah, it’d be real easy to get a bit frustrated today.
And this might be one of the most life-changing truths I’ve ever known: Only speak words that make souls stronger.
It is real easy to feel the sharp sting of somebody’s words.
And that’s the thing: Only speak words that make souls stronger.
It is real easy to feel some heat & pressure to lash out, to let the tongue rip. And there’s the game-changer: Only speak words that make souls stronger — so that you stay strong.
“Say only what helps, each word a gift.” Eph.4:29MSG
Only speak words that make souls stronger— because the thing is, once words are spoken, they may be forgiven, but may be not forgotten.
[excerpted from our little Facebook family … come join us each day?]
That’s all for this weekend, friends.
Go slow. Be God-struck. Grant grace. Live Truth.
Give Thanks. Love well. Re – joy, re- joy, ‘re- joys’ again
Share Whatever Is Good.
April 17, 2020
Hope for the Lonely: Finding your Family Hidden in Plain Sight
I knew I’d found a kindred spirit as soon as I read her front door mat inscription: “Just so you know, there’s like a lot of kids in here.” Bronwyn Lea has a front porch way of looking at the world, and her love for Jesus and her desire to welcome brothers and sisters into His family fuels her to do all sorts of things, including making gallons of home made ice-cream, and writing books about awkward side hugs. It’s a grace to welcome Bronwyn to the farm’s front porch today…
I got lost the first time I tried to find St. Matthew’s Church.
I’d been abroad for a couple of weeks, and I was sorely missing Christian community.
“It had been a long time since I’d been the new person at a church, and I’d forgotten how awkward it felt.”
The dean of my seminary had recommended St. Matt’s. So late one Sunday afternoon the week before Christmas, I borrowed a car, printed out driving directions, and set off in an unfamiliar country with unfamiliar street signs bearing names I struggled to pronounce. (I’m looking at you, Australia, with your Goondiwindis, Mudgeerabas, and Woollongongs.)
Between a handful of wrong turns and my snail’s-pace driving, it had taken more than twice the estimated time to get there, but I finally arrived, found a parking spot, and took a deep breath before opening the car door and stepping into a worship service with two hundred strangers.
It had been a long time since I’d been the new person at a church, and I’d forgotten how awkward it felt.
I gave a half smile to the friendly face who greeted me at the door and sank into a spot toward the back.
Minutes later we were invited to stand and sing, and as the opening chords were played, I sighed out a knot of anxiety. I recognized the song, and it was a relief to add my voice to the singing.
Perhaps I wasn’t such an obvious stranger here.
Song by song, the feeling of kinship among these strangers grew, and when the minister stood to welcome us and give the announcements, I understood why.
“His invitation made church feel like a family reunion where I might meet third and fourth cousins I didn’t yet know but was somehow already connected to.”
With characteristic Australian openness, he began, “G’day! One of my wife and I’s great joys at Christmas is welcoming brothers and sisters from the family of God to celebrate Christmas tea [dinner] with us. We’d be stoked [happy] if you all could be there. We know many of you probably already have plans with the rellies [relatives], but if you don’t, we’re going to cook up a beauty of a meal and I reckon it’ll be all the better if you joined us.”
It was a fair dinkum Aussie invite, and even though I already had plans with my “rellies” for Christmas, his invitation made me feel right at home.
Why? Because he’d reminded us all of who we were to him: brothers and sisters in the family of God.
Not strangers, or guests, or even neighbors or friends.
His invitation made church feel like a family reunion where I might meet third and fourth cousins I didn’t yet know but was somehow already connected to.
There’s something ineffably comforting about that.
This was not a room of strangers. This was a gathering of brothers and sisters. I just hadn’t learned their names yet.
From beginning to end, the New Testament speaks of how, by grace and through faith in Jesus, we join the family of God. We are invited to call him Father. All those who believe in Jesus’ name are given the right to become children of God (John 1:12).
“This was not a room of strangers. This was a gathering of brothers and sisters. I just hadn’t learned their names yet.”
Children are usually born into a family, but Jesus explains that those who believe the gospel are “born again” (John 3) into the new family of God and adopted by him—having all the rights and privileges beloved heirs and children do (Romans 8). New Testament ethics are not a set of rules issued to servants; they are appeals to learn the family lifestyle.
“Dear friends, now we are children of God,” explains John. “All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure” (1 John 3:2–3 NIV). You used to be aliens and strangers, explained the apostle Paul, but because of what God has done in Christ, “you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God” (Ephesians 2:19).
This letter is crammed with pointers to the big picture of life in God’s new family. He prays to the Father, “from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named” (Ephesians 3:15), and frames his moral instruction in exactly the same way: “Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children” (Ephesians 5:1 NIV).
I forget, sometimes, that I am one of God’s dearly loved children.
And perhaps even more often, I forget that I am one of His children among an entire family of dearly loved children.
“I forget that I am one of His children among an entire family of dearly loved children.”
What I share with other believers is not just a mutual interest, as if we were all members of a global fan club.
We are members of His global family, with the same Father, the same Spirit, the same hope.
Blood might be thicker than water, but Jesus’s blood is thicker still.
In a moment of loneliness in a room full of strangers, God gave me a fresh glimpse of how He saw me: a beloved daughter among a room of His favorite children.
The minister dismissed us to greet the people around us, and I stood up.
I had some brothers and sisters to meet.
Bronwyn Lea joined Jesus’ family when she was six years old, and has spent more than twenty years in vocational ministry seeking to encourage and equip believers all around the world. A graduate of law school and seminary, she serves on the pastoral team of her local church and also heads up Propel Sophia, the Christian living wisdom resource for Propel Women.
Have you ever squirmed through an awkward side hug? Ever wondered how relationships between men and women in the church got so weird? Have you ever wondered what it means to be a Christian woman if you’re not a wife? Or a Christian man if you’re not a husband? Or in an age where things so often go wrong between the sexes, whether it really is possible to be in community with other men and women?
Beyond Awkward Side Hugs lays out a biblical vision for relationships between men and women in the church. If Jesus’ pattern for church living was one of family, and following His example we can chart a path towards living as brothers and sisters in intimate, healthy community.
[ Our humble thanks to Thomas Nelson for their partnership in today’s devotion ]
April 15, 2020
When Grace is in the Way
Everybody needs grace in their daily lives, and nobody understands this better than today’s guest. Author and speaker Amy Seiffert has been inviting women to discover God’s grace amidst the messiness of life for almost two decades. As a busy wife and mother of three, Amy has learned the hard way that grace is not gained by striving for perfection, but by understanding our need for rescue. It’s a grace to welcome Amy Seiffert to the farm’s front porch today…
Grace had been sitting on my countertop all week, and I didn’t even know it.
In fact, I had found it kind of annoying.
Grace was in the way.
The week was hotter than it should have been for an Ohio October. The sweat bees were everywhere, but the plans had been made: an apple orchard outing with friends.
And it was the last thing I wanted to do.
“Our family seemed twisted, pulled, and dropped like a bad apple, left to rot.”
In any other given October, this outing would have been a highlight. But we had just found out about our oldest son having Crohn’s disease.
Up until this moment, apple orchards represented sweaters, carefree kids, and cozy family memories. But today, frolicking around with buzzy bees, sticky cider, and rows of apple trees felt trite.
My son has an autoimmune disorder for life. Nothing else matters.
Trying to keep some sense of normalcy, we kept to the calendar and arrived at the orchard all in tow.
My younger two innocently ran off to eat apple cider donuts and stick their heads through the cut-out farmer photo displays.
Throughout the afternoon, as they picked their apples, they kept repeating, “Twist and pull. Twist and pull.”
And that was the state of my soul. Twisted and pulled. Nothing was quiet and peaceful.
Our family seemed twisted, pulled, and dropped like a bad apple, left to rot.
And my heart was growing a root of bitterness below the surface.
I have no idea why we decided to fill the biggest bag—an entire bushel. The kind an entire three-year-old can fit into.
But my husband was willing to carry it, so we twisted and pulled and walked and filled.
By God’s grace, we did end up laughing, eating, and ignoring the bees. And as we packed up the kids with their sticky hands and smiles, we shoved our full and overflowing bag of apples in the trunk and went home.
“Grace had been sitting on my countertop all week, and I had been shoving it around.”
Coming in the door that evening, we were all “shoes off, baths, and bedtime routines.” I heaved the bag of apples onto our concrete countertops and got busy settling in our people for the night.
Over the next few days, my son had tests and blood work, and we made a hard lifestyle choice: a new diet to help put the disease into remission.
We had to make so much food from scratch and completely overhaul our pantry and refrigerator. My countertops became very important work stations. And that huge bag of apples became cumbersome as I slid it around to make space to chop and cook.
Each time I shoved the bushel to the side, I found myself bitter at the bag. What am I going to do with all these apples? Why is this ridiculous bag always in my way?
“And in a moment, that bag of bitterness became an actual saving grace.”
Just after shoving the apples to a different corner, I turned the page in our new diet book to see the next phase.
I read a line that made me laugh: “This week you can introduce homemade cooked, pureed apples. You’ll need a lot of apples as they really cook down.”
Grace had been sitting on my countertop all week, and I had been shoving it around.
I had belittled and bullied a gift.
And in a moment, that bag of bitterness became an actual saving grace.
God had overflowed my cup in the middle of my mess and showed me that grace looks like sustenance through a special diet for my special child.
“He is right here with us, with grace upon grace for us.”
Psalm 23 shows us how, in the very presence of our enemies, God will fill our cup to full and overflowing. He has grace waiting for us in places we would never think to look.
He is right here with us, with grace upon grace for us.
How often have we missed a gift sitting right in front of us?
How often have we called amazing grace, annoying grace?
Let’s find contentment in knowing that grace waits us out. Grace always finds its place.
Amy Seiffert is an author, writer, life coach, and teacher. She serves on the teaching team at Brookside Church, where she also directs community groups. She has been an affiliate Cru staff member for more than eighteen years. Weaving biblical wisdom through her presentations, Amy inspires, teaches, and humbly invites any willing spiritual pilgrim to walk alongside her in the pursuit of truth and the knowledge of God.
What if today is the perfect time to notice God’s grace in one another? Women are so often weighed down by comparison, anxiety, and fear that the idea that grace could look amazing on them feels unbelievable. But all around us are flashes of grace, shining examples of God’s love.
Amy says it’s the everyday moments that Jesus shines through: making time for a friend even when your to-do list is pages long; apologizing to your neighbor when you don’t want to admit you are wrong; opening the Bible when your soul feels hollow and empty. Making the choice to accept God’s limitless love no matter what and reflecting it back to the world around you—friend, that’s when His grace looks amazing on you.
A perfect gift to affirm and encourage any woman, Grace Looks Amazing on You is a timeless Christian message packed with personal story and reflection, Scripture, and deep biblical truth. This 100-day devotional will help you change your perspective so you can confidently radiate the grace of Christ.
[ Our humble thanks to Tyndale for their partnership in today’s devotion ]
April 13, 2020
Why it’s never too late to exercise the creativity that you have
Simply put, I read everything that Paul Tripp writes. I can’t afford to miss one word. He is the author of 20 books, but his latest title is unlike anything he’s ever written. For 30 years, Paul has been writing poetry, and he compiles 121 of his best gospel meditations in his new devotional, My Heart Cries Out. It’s a grace to welcome Paul to the farm’s front porch today…
Perhaps some of you know me by my books, but I am certain that very few of you will know this about me: I am a painter.
If I wasn’t doing the ministry of writing and speaking that God has called me to, I would be painting for a living. I’m very serious about it; I don’t even consider it a hobby.
I paint large, abstract metallic paintings. There are no objects in my paintings, like a tree or a horse.
“We were mourning the fact that the bulk of humanity never realizes their creative potential.”
When I get done with a work, it looks like a beaten-up, weathered metal surface.
I love abstraction and non-objective painting because it yanks me out of visual lethargy. Because I’m not painting the same thing over and over again, it’s impossible for me to become familiar with the subject.
I’ve found that through painting, I notice how amazing texture, color, shape, and chemistry is on the canvas.
When I notice elements of creation, I have no choice but to celebrate the glory and creativity of the Creator.
Painting is a common interest my wife Luella and I share. She is a gallery director and an art dealer; she’s been in the art world for many years.
Just the other day, we were mourning the fact that the bulk of humanity never realizes their creative potential. (It doesn’t have to be painting or anything “artistic” by that definition.)
I think a lot of that is due to fear—fear of it not working, fear of being made fun of, fear of not having any creative potential.
That fear is unbiblical. Everybody has creative ability of some kind within them.
As image-bearers of a creative Creator, there’s an endless range of how you can express that creativity.
Maybe it’s as simple as making a beautiful meal for your family and arranging the food creatively on the plate. Maybe it’s the way you decorate your house or plant a garden. Maybe it’s music.
Ask yourself every day: “How in my life do I image God as creator? How do I steward the creative gifts that He gives me? How can I be a hymn to His presence and His glory?”
I consider myself a painter, but I wouldn’t be quick to call myself a poet.
“As image-bearers of a creative Creator, there’s an endless range of how you can express that creativity.”
Yet I’ve found writing meditations in the form of verse to be a helpful way for me to creatively capture the intersection between God’s ever-present grace and my ever-present battle to live out of the resources of that grace while I walk my way through this sadly broken and dysfunctional world.
Here’s a meditation titled “But Never”:
You humble me,
but never humiliate me.
You confront me,
but never mock me.
You warn me,
but never abandon me.
You call me,
but never leave me alone.
You discipline me,
but never beat me up.
“We must remember that even in our creativity, there is no glory in this created world, no matter how beautiful, that can compete with the beauty of God’s rescuing, forgiving, transforming, empowering, and delivering grace.”
You command me,
but never fail to enable me.
You see into my heart,
but never reject me for what you see.
You teach me your mysteries,
but never make fun of how much I don’t know.
You stay near to me,
but you never tire of me.
You place your love on me,
but never withdraw it when I fail.
So I love you,
but I have come to understand that
my hope and security,
my present and my future,
my acceptance and identity,
my ability and potential,
are not in my love for you,
but in your shocking,
unfailing,
faithful,
wise,
and powerful
love for me.
We must remember that even in our creativity, there is no glory in this created world, no matter how beautiful, that can compete with the beauty of God’s rescuing, forgiving, transforming, empowering, and delivering grace.
“There is nothing that we can be given that can accomplish in us and for us what God’s grace can.”
There is no human achievement, no personal accomplishment, and no community victory that can do for us what God’s grace can do.
There is nothing that we can be given that can accomplish in us and for us what God’s grace can.
There is no other love that has the power to do what the amazing grace of God’s boundless love can do for us.
This grace really is so counterintuitive and mind-blowing that we will spend all of eternity performing exegesis on it, celebrating it, and worshiping the giver for it.
I wish I could commend
my righteousness to you,
but I can’t.
I wish I could brag of
my strength to you,
but I can’t.
I wish I could boast about my wisdom to you,
but I can’t.
I wish I could point you to my track record,
but I can’t.
I wish I could tell you that I have no regrets,
but I can’t.
You know me better than
I know myself.
“There is no other love that has the power to do what the amazing grace of God’s boundless love can do for us.”
I never escape your eye.
You search the deepest
regions of my heart.
You know my thoughts before
they are conscious to me.
You know my words before
I hear myself speak them.
You examine my desires before
they move me to action.
So without pretense or inadequate excuse,
stripped of pride and self-defense,
I bow before you,
devoid of demand or argument,
and I make one plea.
It is for your mercy.
I have come to accept
what you know of me,
and I cry for one thing—
grace.
Dr. Paul David Tripp is a pastor, international conference speaker, and award-winning author. He is best known for his daily devotional, New Morning Mercies. Paul’s driving passion in all he does is to connect the transforming power of Jesus Christ to everyday life. With hundreds of articles, videos, and audio resources on marriage, parenting, pastoral ministry, suffering, sexuality, and more, there isn’t an area of your everyday life that Paul hasn’t covered.
In My Heart Cries Out Paul invites you into his personal reflections on his experience of God’s ever-present grace through the ups and downs of his life. He shares his celebrations, disappointments, cries for help, confessions, and confusions in the form of 120 meditations that were written over many years through various joys and struggles.
[ Our humble thanks to Crossway for their partnership in today’s devotion ]
April 11, 2020
Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins for Your Weekend [04.11.20]
… on the in between day between Friday and Sunday —
we’ve made a place for your heart right here…
Take time to breathe right here:
Mary Anne Morgan
Mary Anne Morgan
Mary Anne Morgan
Searches for how to thank healthcare workers are surging around the world.
As the world faces an unprecedented health crisis, we thank the entire healthcare community for sacrificing so much to save so many.
nurse sings at morning staff meeting… Amen and amen
Julius Kähkönen
Julius Kähkönen
Julius Kähkönen
Julius Kähkönen
Julius Kähkönen
pausing to ponder the gifts in our world
42,000 pieces!?!
had to share for you and your family!
Coronavirus (COVID-19) Time Capsule + Free Download & Tutorial
Create a coronavirus time capsule as a way to document this moment in time with your family
twins interactions – just melting hearts everywhere
Easter in Quarantine: 10 Ideas to Celebrate Meaningfully at Home
Beyond grateful for the saving work of Compassion International
As Jesus Christ lies in the tomb, tomorrow is coming!
in this together
as a Jesus-clinger held by His passion, this lit me…Keep the Faith
Why God Gives Us More Than We Can Handle
for everyone: The Story of Easter
Amen and Amen: in Christ alone…
The World Through a Lens
In Search of Zambia’s Stunning Wildlife: A Virtual Safari
come step away from it all right here? glory, glory, glory
This is the story worth actually living, actually sharing.
Seed Company partners with hundreds of Bible translation organizations around the globe to bring God’s Word to those still waiting to receive it, in a language that speaks to their heart. Here’s a fascinating overview of how they make that happen.
So I broke down & bawled so hard that my eyes hurt — and then this kinda spilled all out:
How Good Friday 2020 Gives Us 20/20 Vision When the World’s kinda on Fire
Coronavirus and Christ, with John Piper
can you even?! how a cleaner changed his life
a blessing over you and your family: The Blessing
…straight up, we’re in the midst of a worldwide pandemic together.
When plagues descend, prayers must rise up.
Right now: The world is in dire need
of prayer warriors who don’t see prayer as the least we can do but the most we can do.
We’ve all never needed to do this more than right now:
This is a War & Where are the Prayer Warriors to Win This Battle? #PandemicPrayers
a remarkable story of survival
pause right here with this one… The God Who Sees
Resource for our heirloom Lenten Wreath: Joywares.ca
This Holy Week? Could be the hardest ever. And who knows what’s coming next week or next month?
Here — this is saving my life right now:
The Secret Key to Easter-At-Home, the Hardest Holy Week, & Getting Through Any Mess, Including a Pandemic
Honestly? April this year kinda feels like everything happening is a very sick, bad joke. I think we sorta cancelled the whole April 1st thing. But you know what absolutely cannot be cancelled right now? What is needed now more than ever?
That we #ShowUpNow for each other, that we #BeTheGift to each other.
Because actual lives depend on it.
Right now, we all desperately need to be the gift to each other. To stand together in solidarity—FOR each other—knowing that an act of kindness, giving it forward, can be more powerful than the spread of any pandemic, more powerful sword in starting movements that move us all toward Love.
Dare with us? Let’s spread kindness, start a bit of a movement, a giving, generous, caring, broken and given and transforming revolution that turns things around.
Could there be a more beautiful way to live your one life in times like these? Dare with us — to take a daring path to the abundant life!
Easy, doable ideas for the whole family to Give It Forward Today, even in the midst of COVID 19—to be the G.I.F.T.
Love is a verb and that verb is give. For God so loved the world — HE GAVE. You only have one life — to love well. WE CAN #SHOWUPNOW, DO THIS THING AND #BETHEGIFT! ~~Download the Free COVID-FRIENDLY #BeTheGift Calendar under “Free Tools” here: bit.ly/StickyNotesForYourSoul
AND CHECK OUT SHOWUPNOW.com right now — to turn this thing around in all kinds of ways right now
so many are stepping up to show their gratitude to health care workers and first responders…
the heroes on the front lines
Books for Soul Healing:
Joy is actually possible, right where you are.
Take the dare to discover: Life is not an emergency…Life is a GIFT.
Life is too short to do anything but truly savor it — to count all the ways you truly loved.
What if Brokenness is the Path into the Abundant Life?
You don’t have to be afraid of broken things — because Christ is redeeming everything.
There’s no other authentic way forward — but a broken way — right into a profoundly abundant life.
Journey into a deeply meaningful life with this devotional and take sixty steps from heart-weary brokenness to Christ-focused abundance. The Way of Abundance — is the way forward every heart needs.
Be the Gift is a tender intivation into the next step of deeper transformation, less stress, more joy and abundantly more peace & purpose. You only get one life to love well…to Be The Gift.
Any Christian Generosity Is Beautiful to God
Philippians 4:14-16
Still & quiet & bow slow & see Him now…
By His love — you are held,
By His mercy — you are washed clean,
By His relentless grace — you are saved.
And by His wounds — you are healed.
[excerpted from our little Facebook family … come join us each day?]
That’s all for this weekend, friends.
Go slow. Be God-struck. Grant grace. Live Truth.
Give Thanks. Love well. Re – joy, re- joy, ‘re- joys’ again
Share Whatever Is Good.
April 10, 2020
How Good Friday 2020 Gives Us 20/20 Vision When the World’s kinda on Fire
There’s a burnt and charred Cross that hangs over my desk, like the whole world’s kinda on fire and has come to the foot of the Cross.
Like a whole blistering world of us has come with all the scorched dreams for our people and the torched hopes of our former lives.
“Only the Cross says that there is a Way through, but it won’t look the way we’d thought, but in every one of His ways, He’s working in a thousand other ways.”
Come with our soot-smeared relationships and the cinders of the story that now won’t ever be. The people lost to us, the prospects gone up in flame, the longings for things that now seem long gone.
Come straight through the haze of smoke burning the eyes and searing our vision of the way we’d imagined our lives would look: Our tables without any achingly empty places, our landscapes without any freshly dug graves, all the grace of our days without any unbearably deep cuts of the sharp edge of grief.
Come with more than our own stories, but come with each other and the injustice of all the starved and parched, come with the collective heartbreak of the fragile and fractured, come with the weight of a whole world of bruised and ruined.
Come with the heavy ashes of plans that are now all powder in the wind.
Come with the incinerated bits of your one smoldering heart.
Come to the Cross because there is nowhere else in the world to go with this lament of all our cremated hopes.
Because in all the world:
Only the Cross is stretched wide open enough to hold and embrace an ache like ours.
“Only the Cross can breathe life across the dying embers of our dreams because He is working in more ways than it seems.”
Only the Cross can breathe life across the dying embers of our dreams because He is working in more ways than it seems.
Only the Cross says that what feels like darkness-at-noon moments can be part of destroying all of the dark.
Only the Cross says what looks wrecked can resurrect.
Only the Cross says that there is a Way through, but it won’t look the way we’d thought, but in every one of His ways, He’s working in a thousand other ways. Trust all of His ways.
And Good Friday says believe in the better mysteries:
Believe death killed death.
And the born can be reborn.
Sin can be consumed by Love,
Debt can be erased by Grace,
And The Nailed One can nail it, kill it and resurrect all of it better than our wildest dreams because His new Kingdom right now is defeating any evil’s venom.
Because only this King on this Cross can become the lever that turns the cosmic axis of this world and our lost souls right around and begin a revolution.
Good Friday doesn’t just change our own story — Good Friday changes the whole world.
“In a world that desperately needs good news — there is Good Friday and a revolutionary Sunday morning coming with a new world order and that is the realest news.”
In a world that desperately needs good news — there is Good Friday and a revolutionary Sunday morning coming with a new world order and that is the realest news.
The world outside our doors is on fire this year and through the veil of smoke, this is the year of clearest 2020 vision:
The Cross is our only Hope.
On Good Friday morning, through the searing haze of these days, I see — really see — and I reach out to touch that charred Cross over my desk and feel it:
Come to the Cross and the passion of the Christ, and let the heart ignite with a love that cannot be razed, our love song rising far higher in a glory blaze of its own.
April 9, 2020
Maundy Thursday: Instead of Throwing in the Towel: How to be People of the Towel In (in the midst of hard days)
After the town florist, Ray, opens our back door, slides a vase of Easter lilies across the floor, after we wave at him through the farm kitchen window, we wildly spray disinfectant on the doorknob, drench the vase.
“Jesus doesn’t ever shirk back from your grime — and you never have to shirk back from His grace.”
How did this Easter end up smelling a whole lot more like a hydrogen peroxide cleanse than the soul cleanse I’m desperate for?
On Maundy Thursday, I kneel to wipe down the back door, the vase, the beat-up cork floor, with a dry clean towel.
On Maundy Thursday, Jesus kneels before the dirty with His basin of water, cups the heel that’s crushed sacred things, and even in places where we can’t stand the stench of us and all that’s gone wrong, we are still held.
Tonight, the socks will come off. Tonight, the chipped enamel bowls will fill with lukewarm water. But God, let us not be that, not lukewarm, especially not now.
Too much is at stake these days to risk being tepid. Lives are at stake.
Souls are at stake.
All things sane are at stake.
On the night that Jesus was betrayed, He gave thanks — and passed on the grace. Because if Jesus can give thanks in that kind of heartbreak — how can we not give thanks in ours? Because when we give thanks for grace in our hard places — we see we have grace to pass on to others in their hard places.
There’s absolutely no way it can be too much right now to peel the socks off.
Risk how it feels to sit with being exposed and in need.
There is no shame. No shame now.
The grime that’s stained, that can’t be scrubbed away, the embarrassment of how things have gone madly different than the way you wildly imagined—- none of it makes Him pull back or take even one of His promises back.
Jesus doesn’t ever shirk back from your grime — and you never have to shirk back from His grace.
On the night that Jesus was betrayed, He gave thanks — and passed on the grace.
On the morning of Maundy Thursday, after disinfecting the doors, the floor, the vase, the Farmer and I are on the phone for hours with our second refugee family, sorting through trauma and loss and heartbreak and trying to wash all kinds of painful wounds. We cry. We still believe it: Shared tears are multiplied healing.
On the we’ve-lost-count-week of being betrayed by a pandemic, by a broken world, by our own broken hearts, we can keep giving thanks for grace — and keep passing on the grace.
Because if Jesus can give thanks in that kind of heartbreak — how can we not give thanks in ours?
Because when we give thanks for grace in our hard places — we see we have grace to pass on to others in their hard places.
I dig around in the freezer and pull a roast of lamb out to thaw. The Farmer fills a row of disinfectant bottles at the back sink. I throw a load of towels into the wash. Both of our hands are chapped from this relentless liturgy of hand washing.
“What if Christians in the midst of this pandemic gambled everything on living Jesus’ way — finding creative ways to still wash feet, still reach out hands, still meet needs because Jesus met ours?”
What if on my death bed, my hands were chapped from a life of all kinds of foot washing? I dare to believe that this is how you die happy.
I had read it once, how, about 250 years after Christ went to the Cross, during the height of The Plagues, there were a bunch of Christians who named themselves, “The Gamblers.”
When the dead were heaped in the streets, The Gamblers risked their very lives to bring food to the sick, nurse the weak, bury the dead.
In the midst of a pandemic — there were Christians who called themselves The Gamblers who gambled all of their lives away on the Way Jesus lived, who risked their literal lives so that Christ’s love could literally win.
What if Christians in the midst of this pandemic gambled everything on living Jesus’ way — finding creative ways to still wash feet, still reach out hands, still meet needs because Jesus met ours?
The Gospel is at stake.
Jesus went to the stake and gave His literal life for ours.
On the night that Jesus was betrayed, He not only gave thanks, broke the bread and gave it — He bent down with a basin and embodied it for us, incarnated by example, what it means to live broken and given.
At the Last Supper, He became the Passover Lamb — and showed us how to pass on His grace by kneeling down and serving others, so no one is passed over.
Jesus laid aside both His heavenly glory, and His outer garment — to robe Himself in humanity and wrap Himself with a towel.
He poured water into a bowl, like He will pour out of His life blood on the Cross, and He washes the filth from the feet of the disciples, like He has washed the filth from my soul.
Tonight, in the basin’s dirty water, He will see my face, all of me.
And I will see His.
A mingling exchange will happen.
And I will be clean. Hydrogen peroxide be confounded.
It is no small thing to let Jesus wash your feet even now, to receive the touch of His towel, to receive impossible grace, to simply receive.
God in human flesh took on the likeness of a servant to love the unlovely — so how could we live anything less than that of a servant, because this is how we love and thank Him?
How you can you not become one of the People of the Towel — when you’ve been touched by the towel?
How can we not take time to thank those essential workers, the truckers and delivery people, the grocery personal and the medical caregivers, who are the ones risking their very lives to serve us all now?
How you can you not become one of the People of the Towel — when you’ve been touched by the towel?
There can still be Gamblers who do not throw in the towel because love seems hard — but risk ease to become People of the Towel so love can be seen.
When the dryer alarm goes off, I scoop out an armful of still warm towels, carry them to the table, and I can feel how the time’s up for being lukewarm.
At the table of the Last Supper, in remembering to give thanks in all things, in remembering to live broken and given through all things — it is our own broken places that are re-membered — and in the midst of all things, the ones who feel forgotten and in need are remembered.
“It is no small thing to let Jesus wash your feet even now, to receive the touch of His towel, to receive impossible grace, to simply receive.”
This is communion.
This is how we are all one.
This is the Maundy Thursday mandate to love one another as He has loved us.
I look past the vase of Easter lilies on the farm kitchen windowsill, look down the road to the neighbours.
Tonight, the socks will come off. Tonight, the bowls will be filled. Tonight, there will be remembering Jesus who re-membered us.
And hearts will fill with His voice:
“After I wash your feet — look around you — and feel how I hand you a towel.”
Resource for the Hardest Holy Week:
1. How to have a Christian Passover Meal :
Free Printable to download for everything you need for Easter-At-Home…
Family program for a deeply meaningful Family Easter
Free Menu Card
Table Card
2. How to ShowUp & Be People of the Towel in a Pandemic: How to prayerfully & practically live cruciform love, bend low & serve through this pandemic, check out our organization: ShowUpNow
3. The Broken Way: This hard Holy Week — and in the midst of any mess — take the cruciform way Jesus takes — right into the abundant life we all yearn for.
April 7, 2020
The Secret Key to Easter-At-Home, the Hardest Holy Week, & Getting Through Any Mess, Including a Pandemic
It’s only a few days since we waved our pine branches found in the woods — yeah, no exotic palm fronds here on the farm — and we sang our Hosanna! Hosanna! — literally Save Us! Save us! Because here we are in a global pandemic believing God can literally save us all in the realest ways, even now.
If our soul is safe, all is safe.
“However hard this week is, this was Jesus’ hard week & He overcame & if we come to Him, we can too.”
I try to keep the news a bit at bay, but most of our grown kids children sit down at our dinner table eager to slice and dice the headlines like they are ready cut up their pork chops, savor what is good, and then spit out any bones.
While they talk about how the news is saying this week could be the worst of the pandemic thus far, the death toll and body bags in North America overwhelming health care workers, crushing family’s hearts and bringing us all collectively to our knees, I light the candles on our Lent wreath.
It’s the beginning of the Holiest Week of the year.
Whatever peaks this week, we can stay communing with Him on an interior mountain peak.
I move the figurine of Jesus carrying the cross forward on the Lenten wreath. His back’s bent, His shoulders bearing, His heart breaking. Jesus never stops crying with us. I linger, memorize Jesus’ cross-carrying silhouette.
Whatever cross we’re carrying grows light when we let Jesus carry us.
However hard this week is, this was Jesus’ hard week & He overcame & if we come to Him, we can too.
Resource for our heirloom Lenten Wreath: Joywares.ca
Resource for our heirloom Lenten Wreath: Joywares.ca
Resource for our heirloom Lenten Wreath: Joywares.ca
It’s true that much of the world is shuttered behind doors right now, countless praying for the angel of death to pass over us. Yet no waters will pass over us, because with Jesus, there is only passing through.
“No one knew that this Lent would ask us to embrace the depths of loss — to embrace more of God.“
No one knew that this Lent would ask us to embrace the depths of loss — to embrace more of God.
And no one knows what this week will ask of us, or next week, or the week after.
But I can’t stop thinking of what my friend, Sam, said to me a few days ago when I asked him: “What does cruciform love looks like in this season?”
What does it look to live formed and shaped like a cross at this particular moment?
I thought he would talk about living surrendered. I thought he would talk about living given. I thought he would say something practical, but at least something I expected.
“Love that’s truly cruciform, is truly vulnerable enough — that the heart gets hurt.”
My breath kinda caught.
Cruciform love forms itself open & vulnerable enough that hurt can walk right in.
Cruciform love bares its vulnerable heart — and willingly bears the cost.
Cruciform love isn’t afraid of pain — because it trusts there’s more to gain.
“Cruciform love isn’t afraid of pain — because it trusts there’s more to gain.”
I pick up the cross-carrying wooden carving of Jesus headed to Calvary and there it is, there is Love Himself:
God is love — thus only He gets to define love.
And He defines love as cross-shaped, cross-formed, stretched out, formed into a reaching givenness that leaves the heart breathtakingly vulnerable.
The journey of this historic, painful Holy Week carries us all into a kind of holy of holies:
Unless love is formed vulnerable enough to know suffering and loss — it’s not cruciform: it is malformed.
It’s hard to believe this surreal Holy Week where we are we wearing masks, sheltering in place and staying in God our dwelling place, because this is how we actually love our neighbor.
“Unless love is formed vulnerable enough to know suffering and loss — it’s not cruciform: it is malformed.”
And yet, we can still keep practicing being being vulnerable with people, still keep practicing being vulnerable with what we’ve been given, because isn’t this how we keep practicing our faith? Isn’t that what love ultimately always means: you leave yourself vulnerable.
Leave yourself open to losing, open to pain, open to suffering, open to real cost.
It’s always been the Christ-followers through the ages who have practiced their faith to serve and love others even when it’s vulnerable. The Christ-followers who have practiced their faith to vulnerably give up convenience and comfort, even when it means real loss. And it’s the Christ-followers who have followed the Love-Man Himself who opened wide His arms to leave His heart vulnerable enough to hurt — so others could be healed.
When patience wears thin this week or hope seems to fade or expectations kinda crack, when the family down the street runs out of grocery money or hospitals start to run out of beds, when medical needs overwhelm or our personal and collective grief overwhelms, it’s Christ’s true followers who show up and find ways to love vulnerably enough to bear the cost.
We may prepare for deep losses this week, exactly because we have practiced a love that’s vulnerable enough to lose.
Resource for our heirloom Lenten Wreath: Joywares.ca
The trials may be under our roofs, in our relationships or expectations, or our communities, our cities, our global family, but the bottom line is:
“How can our hearts not be called to make real sacrifices — when that’s exactly what His heart did for us?”
How can our hearts not be called to make real sacrifices — when that’s exactly what His heart did for us?
This week, the Love-Man not only shows us how to live cruciform love — He will be a current of cruciform love through us especially when we don’t know how.
Because:
When you leave yourself vulnerable, real love never leaves you.
The kids have moved on from discussing the news. The serving bowls of greens, of beans, have moved around the table. The figure of Christ is moving through Holy Week, moving toward Calvary. And it’s my own broken heart that’s deeply moved.
Cruciform love lets hurt walk into its heart.
Cruciform love is formed vulnerably enough to lose comfort — because this is the only way true Love wins.
The wooden silhouette of Jesus bows low before the candles all lit. Did not the heart within burns with the realization:
Christ will rise victorious this week — but it will look like the vulnerability of suffering loss.
And even this week, we can all rise victorious — if we practice the art of a vulnerable love that’s open to suffering and losing.
There at the center of the table, the Lenten wreath’s candles flicker and wave, like they know what could save us all even now.
Three Resources for the Hardest Holy Week:
1. How to have a Christian Passover Meal :
Free Printable to download for everything you need for Easter-At-Home…
Family program for a deeply meaningful Family Easter
Free Menu Card
Table Card
2. How to ShowUp in a Pandemic: How to prayerfully & practically live cruciform love through this pandemic, check out our organization, ShowUpNow
3. The Broken Way: This hard Holy Week — and in the midst of any mess — take the cruciform way Jesus takes — right into the abundant life we all yearn for.
April 6, 2020
How to Talk to God When the World Tilts
As the world tilts, so many of us are trying to find our voice in conversation with God – to clear our throats and talk to Him. We wonder: how do I dialogue with Him, right here, in the fear and anxiety, the doubt and dread? Sara Hagerty tells us about talking to God in those middle minutes. In her book ADORE: A Simple Practice for Experiencing God in the Middle Minutes of Your Day, she writes about experiencing God in the unlikely minutes, right in the middle of the myriad of our thoughts, through adoration. It’s a grace to welcome Sara to the farm’s front porch today…
We returned from a post-Christmas celebration with family, across flat highways that stretched for hours, with new packages and memories of cousin fun. And influenza.
The first victim sat hunched in the back, moaning as she drifted in and out of sleep for our nine-hour road trip.
Within days, our home transitioned into an infirmary—mattresses strewn across the upstairs hallway in a haphazard attempt to quarantine patients in their rooms.
Then we all became patients.
There are two times of the year that I love most: September and January. Fresh starts, built into the calendar, send me buying new pens and journals for writing. I skip through my days with new intentionality despite the many years of Octobers and Februaries, the months when best intentions are laid to rest.
Six, then ten, then fourteen days into January—the flu worked its way through my family, rhythms, and new-year intentions. It rubbed me raw.
Except, my history of unexpected stretches of time afforded me this sense: there had to be more to the flu than a heightened water bill from all the laundered sheets and the cracked skin on my knuckles from washing my hands one hundred times a day.
January exposed my insides.
Temperatures sank, but God granted my heart the opportunity to stay afloat.
The long-trodden habit of adoration became instinctive for my heart. Out of habit, I recited His Word and thanked Him for being the one who renews (from Psalm 51:10) while I moved loads from washer to dryer.
Without much thought, my trips from one sick room to the next included less griping and more adoring.
Phrases from His Word popped into my mind, even ones (especially ones) that revealed a different side of Him than what I’d experienced in all these sickened weeks.
“I am prone to cynicism, bitterness, and comparison that makes enemies out of the best of friends when times get hard.”
They alighted in my head as breathlike adorations, informing my experience more than what I saw in front of me.
I am prone to cynicism, bitterness, and comparison that makes enemies out of the best of friends when times get hard. But this time I didn’t take slow drags of bitterness. I didn’t sing and dance, but I more than barely survived.
God made me buoyant too.
The part of the story that made all the difference—and the part that continues to take the ordinary and pain-filled minutes and turn them into potential—is that I brought my emotions and my wrestling to the Word of God.
Read that again. It’s counterintuitive to us Christians.
I brought my emotions and my wrestling to God.
Jesus did too. He used David’s words in Psalm 22:1: “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Mark 15:34).
Circumstances are the gifts that unearth buried anger, fear, and insecurity.
And what we do with those emotions—in a single moment—determines our way, perhaps forever.
“I brought my emotions and my wrestling to God.”
I felt the angst of having the flu turn January black and empty. I felt out of control, subject to the whims of this vaporous virus or the haunts of the enemy. (I didn’t know which.)
I felt angry with friends who started their year with the inertia that December 31 releases. I saw myself as invisible, running the infirmary for twelve, then fourteen, and finally twenty days out.
I had a history with those emotions. And in my history, I learned that the way to contain them was not to stifle them but to bring them to the only place—the only person—with an answer.
My adoration often, if not always, started with those emotions.
Like this: I feel alone and forgotten—by You and by my people. I mean, who has the flu, still, after this many days? I feel trapped in this house and overlooked.
(Sigh.)
But You see me. You saw me when I felt this way, tending to my dad in the last months of his life and sleeping in my parents’ basement as I stayed to relieve the load.
“My adoration often, if not always, started with those emotions.”
You saw me when I had a broken ankle and spent months inside behind glass, watching the unfurling of beauty outside.
You saw me in the months of incubation after our adoption, when no one knew what was happening under our roof.
Your eyes watched every minute. You held me with those eyes.
Not one of my minutes goes unwitnessed by You, God.
Your Word says, “Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend into heaven, You are there; if I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there Your hand shall lead me, and Your right hand shall hold me” (Ps. 139:7–10).
So I adore You from this place. I feel unknown, alone, and tired, but You see me and respond.
Your hand leads me. Your right hand holds me. Yes, even though I might not feel it in this minute.
Adoration invites our entire history into the conversation with God.
“Adoration allows me to bring all of me—sighing, tears, frustrations, and anger—to Him and His Word and hope that I won’t walk away the same.”
Just as I bring all of myself—my fears, insecurities, profound testimonies of God’s movement, little-girl moments, and childhood dreams—into a new Bible study of which I’m a part or into a new friendship, I bring all of that into my conversation with God.
We dismiss starting where we are—in the muss of life and the swirling of our emotions—because our understanding of His willingness to engage with us where we are, and our history of having Him engage with us where we were (all the questions, insecurities, rampant fears that can course through a small person) is limited.
Adoration allows me to bring all of me—sighing, tears, frustrations, and anger—to Him and His Word and hope that I won’t walk away the same.
Adoration went before me, instinctually, during all those flu-filled days.
“The vulnerability of nakedness is the antithesis of shame,” Curt Thompson says in his book The Soul of Shame.
Bareness before God shows up in unexpected places, in the everyday chaos of life.
The flu, the squabble with our spouse, the child who melted down at the worst moment, the delayed but promised payment.
In the middle minutes.
Sara Hagerty and her husband Nate have more kids than you can count on one hand and have traveled across the ocean twice to grow their family. Most of her life is comprised of middle minutes; she has had to find God, there.
In her book ADORE: A Simple Practice for Experiencing God in the Middle Minutes of Your Day she walks readers through bringing the grit of your life to God, in His Word, and finding Him, right there. She asks readers, what if God wants to meet you, right here, in the middle of these thoughts? She gives us all permission to admit “I barely know You, God,” and with this honest admission, to scoot a little nearer to this familiar stranger. Adoration is the simple practice Sara discovered for starting where you are, and letting the grit of your day greet the beauty of God’s presence.
Join Sara in this soul-stirring journey through thirty attributes of God which you can walk through at your own pace. Learn how the simple habit of adoration–in the middle minutes of your day — can help you see God with fresh eyes, and talk to Him right there.
[ Our humble thanks to Zondervan for their partnership in today’s devotion ]
April 4, 2020
This is a War & Where are the Prayer Warriors to Win This Battle? #PandemicPrayers
The sun rose defiant over the farm fields this morning, the way it keeps rising still.
And the Farmer and I sit in the early quiet in those those grain sack chairs by window, The Letter from our Maker in our laps, warm mugs in our hands, last night’s headlines gnawing at the back of our minds.
But we know it: When plagues descend, prayers must rise up.
So only this is on our lips, only murmured prayers like this, burning like white hot courage within, because what the world needs now is for prayer warriors to show up.
Right now?
The world needs Prayer Warriors who don’t see prayer as the least we can do but the most we can do.
Resource for our heirloom Lenten Wreath: Joywares.ca
Resource for our heirloom Lenten Wreath: Joywares.ca
Who bravely pray together:
Lord GOD,
When plagues descend — our prayers will rise up.
Because when Your people who are called by Your name, humble themselves and pray and turn —
Make us a world who turns to You as our head — and not merely to the headlines.
Make us a world who turn to our closets of prayer — not to merely filling our pantries with food.
Make us a world who turns from our self-reliance, self-arrogance, self-focus — and turn to surrender all of our selves to You.
Make us a world who not only keep washing our hands — but stays on our knees.
In the midst of a coronavirus pandemic, we repent of our pandemic of self-gratification, of indifference and sin, of apathy and idolatry, of being gods onto ourselves.
In the midst of trying to flatten the curve — we are flat on our faces — repenting of a world that’s more interested in celebrities and fame than being Your servant and the glory of Your name,
more committed to comfort than being to committed to the cost of following Christ,
more drawn to screens than being in the Secret Place with our Savior.
We repent. Forgive us, Lord.
Into our anxious places in this coronavirus,
You lean close & breathe warm courage:
“Just Call to Me. I guarantee I will answer you…
I will make you strong & brave and courageous.”
Jeremiah 33:3 MSG, Joshua 1
And we believe:
Our World has changed, but You haven’t.
Whatever is coming, You have already come.
However our lives intersect this pandemic, Your Cross holds us with authentic Hope.
Whenever we are given hard things, we are always given the grace to turn it into a glorious thing.
And whenever we are looking for the way through, we need only look to You, Jesus, who is the Way.
And You calm our hearts and move in our hearts with the truth:
The way to be brave is to endure.
The way through suffering is to keep opening our hands.
The way through daily anxiety is divine intimacy.
And our hearts ask Yours:
Make us strong & Brave
because our faith in You
is greater than any fears in us or around us.
Make us strong & Brave
with faith that doesn’t ignore anxiety, worry, suffering or fear,
but literally, daily, overcomes them because we keep coming to You.
Make us strong & Brave
because today there will be eyes on us,
and they will need to see Christ in us &
that we have answered Your calling for us,
because we have hung up on all lies from the pit of hell.
Make us Brave
to show up when it’d be easier to give up,
to go do hard & holy things when it’d be easier to go do happy things,
to not quit when we don’t know how to keep going on.
Make us strong & Brave enough to get down on our knees every morning at 7:14 and repent of our fears and idols,
all our sins & our messes, all our self-reliance & self-focus,
because there will be no regeneration in this generation,
until there is a repentance of our ways that have turned from Your Way,
because there is no winning any battles with rebel hearts,
so may a movement of repentance move us,
so You hear from heaven and heal our land,
so the land is taken for You.
Make us strong & Brave
because we are daily saved by You,
and that makes us always safe,
and the safest place ever is in Your hand,
so we can live supernaturally brave lives.
Make us Brave:
Our bravery wins a thousand battles we can’t see because our bravery strengthens a thousand others to win their battles too.
We may pray for the hard to go away, but we must pray for a Brave bigger than any hard to come.
Make us Brave to do what only seems impossible —
because through You we are: the Imposs-ABLES.
May we be Brave because there are angels closer than we know.
And all the Brave who cling to the Bravest One,
to the Only One who ever loved us to death,
& saved us back to the realest & forever life,
We all believe angels are close especially now
and He Himself will carry us through
& heal the land —
And all the Brave Prayer Warriors said Amen.
Resource for our heirloom Lenten Wreath: Joywares.ca
It’s the prayers and grace we weave into our homes, that survives fire: You can hold light in your hand poured by refugees and know you are bringing His light to the world! Come be part of a grace story!
These swaths of light are lifting the dark all across our old pine-planked floors, all across the worn cutting boards on the counter, across our barn-beam farm table with the Lent wreath waiting, believing.
And when His people who are called by His name, humble themselves and pray and turn — turns out that there is always a way.
When you bow down in prayer, you can see how there is always light rising.
Download the printable Prayer Of the Brave For Our Land bookmark & then tuck the Be Brave bookmark in your Bible.
And then Show Up Now at our global forum where we are sharing prayers & praying for each other — and pray every morning, with our bookmark and in our Show UP NOW community.
We need all hands on deck, all knees bent in prayer & all Prayer Warriors in position!
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