Ann Voskamp's Blog, page 83
April 3, 2020
The Way Hearts Die: An Invitation to Stay
This pandemic dangerously sweeping through every nation like a dark shadow has our world in a mandatory standstill. We are forced to stop. We are forced to stay. So many of us have spent so much of our life running. Running from feelings we don’t want to feel, people who are challenging, and obligations that make us feel small and unsafe inside. We avoid certain emails and letters from our bank. We’re tempted to neurotically fix ourselves. But when we stay, it changes everything. Anjuli Paschall wrote a message we need now more than ever, Stay. As believers, we know true life is found when the vine grows out of the branch. It is time we don’t just know this truth but experience it. Grace, freedom and wholeness come when we learn how to stay. It’s a grace to welcome Anjuli to the farm’s front porch today…
Imagine for a moment you are alone . . . no books, no Netflix, no counters sorely decorated with dishes, no phone.
Imagine there is quiet.
“In all of our ache, where is the freedom Jesus promised? Where are the streams of living water?”
The longer you sit, the more you feel. The silence is scary.
The argument with your spouse bubbles up to the surface, the sarcastic comment your friend made days ago still hurts, the loneliness you feel in motherhood slices open a shameful hole.
Your longings begin to rise. The guilt over not being fully present with your kids rubs you, the loss of a loved one aches, the guilt for not being further along in your spiritual life stings.
The longer you sit, the more your memories take you back to years ago.
All of these complicated memories and feelings make you want to jump up, reply to texts, or reach for a wineglass.
But for a moment, stay.
Imagine the very places you want to fix, avoid, get swallowed in, power through, shout Bible verses at, stuff, or run from are actually the very way to wholeness.
Imagine, instead of getting up to investigate what is under the couch or neurotically tidying the mail, you let all those feelings rise. You let them come up to the surface to breathe.
You open your heart, talk to Jesus, find love.
Women’s hearts are dying. Right there in the middle pew of our church sanctuaries, our souls are slowly slipping away.
Joy Prouty
Joy Prouty
It is a vicious pull between doing more and drowning.
Life feels like a string of constant disappointments: unpleasant surprises in marriage, friendships dissolving, miscarriages, postpartum depression, months on end with little appreciation and almost no sleep.
Our hearts are being wrung out to dry—squeezed and yanked in every direction. We live on the surface, somehow just surviving.
In all of our ache, where is the freedom Jesus promised? Where are the streams of living water?
“Why do I know God loves me in my head, but I don’t believe it in my heart?”
If we’ve walked with Jesus long enough, we may feel a void inside of us. It feels like a brick wall or an endless dark night, a wilderness or dryness in the spiritual disciplines.
We accepted Jesus into our hearts to escape the void. But it’s still there. It makes us feel guilty, ashamed, uncertain, and afraid.
This wall is a barricade between our heads and hearts.
The question surfaces: “Why do I know God loves me in my head, but I don’t believe it in my heart?”
When we hit this spiritual wall, we do one of three things: withdraw, work harder, or walk away.
Perhaps not instantly, but slowly. In time, if you don’t answer the heart question, you will inevitably pick one of these paths.
When we withdraw, we abandon our very souls because we can’t make sense of our inner chaotic cell. We keep showing up Sunday mornings, but our hearts are passively engaged.
“When we hit this spiritual wall, we do one of three things: withdraw, work harder, or walk away.”
When we work harder, we fight. We battle on, grit our teeth, bear down, and labor on. We read more books, follow more Christian women leaders online, do another spiritual diet, manage our faith with more worship music, and silence all uncertainty.
When we walk away, we give up on Jesus and the church. Jesus just didn’t work out.
I know this wall. I have wept here.
I’ve smashed my fist into it until my knuckles bled. It’s a lonely place.
I’ve begged people to be with me, but it’s a place I had to be alone with God.
And as I’ve stayed at the wall with my own temptation to withdraw, work harder, or walk away, I’ve discovered there is another way.
Perhaps the spiritual wall is actually a work of the Spirit.
What if it isn’t there because we are doing something wrong, but because God is tending to the soil of our inner world? God is moving closer.
The wall we are pounding upon, tempted to walk away from, or passively disappearing at, is actually a well where Jesus is inviting us to sit with Him, drink life-giving water, and stay.
“Perhaps the spiritual wall is actually a work of the Spirit.”
Yes, stay. Stay where you most resist being.
This staying is a slow and painful sanctification, and it’s the place where God is growing us. He is digging a passageway like a tunnel from our heads to our hearts.
We have to pull up a chair at the table of our souls and invite all of the fractured places within us (the memories, stories, and unpleasant feelings) back together and stay there with Jesus.
Only then do we realize that Jesus is the kind host, inviting us to linger, spill the milk, break a dish, be known, and stay, not as guests, but as daughters.
He wants to hear our laughter, comfort our ache, ask us questions, and heal our hurts. God, in love, always welcomes us to stay and dine at the table with Him. He is cultivating a home within us.
“Stay with the real you and real Jesus. Here, life is found.”
This is the sacred gift of staying.
Perhaps your dying heart on your sofa today is the very place you are supposed to be.
Not fighting to get ahead and not giving up on ever overcoming, not closing the door on your faith entirely but there, right where you are.
Simply opening. Simply accepting. Simply moving inward.
Simply staying.
Stay with the real you and real Jesus. Here, life is found.
Stay, sisters. Even when the world is cracking, courageously stay with your beautifully broken soul and story because God is always staying with you.
Stay is a tender call to enter, to open, and to experience the echoing darkness buried beneath piles of mail and laundry and years of pain. This is a call to follow the fears and frustration to the unknown, frightening places inside. This is an invitation to let Jesus pull out a chair at the table of your soul and hear Him say, “Stay. You and your heart sit down.” Stay is about how I learned to become a little girl again, asking a big God if He could stay with someone small like me.
Anjuli Paschall grew up as a missionary kid secretly wondering, “Why does everyone else understand what a relationship with Jesus is, but me?” It wasn’t until she ran into her fears instead of from them, that Anjuli found her gritty and glittering voice and the love of God meeting her there. She is a pastor’s wife, spiritual director, writer, and mom to five kids. Stay: Discovering Grace, Freedom, and Wholeness Where You Never Imagined Looking is her first book.
[ Our humble thanks to Bethany House for their partnership in today’s devotion ]
March 31, 2020
The Proven Way to Get Through a Pandemic
Troubling roads ahead don’t mean the heart has to be troubled.
“The single most important thing we can do right now — is show up for each other somehow.”
Even though nobody knows.
Even though nobody knows what next week looks like. Or next month. Even though one-third of humanity is under lockdown.
And nobody knows who will get sick — or who will end up in ICU struggling to breathe. And nobody need bandy around feel-good cliches right now that aren’t gut honest.
In the middle of a boggling global pandemic, I’m holed up on Day 12 of self-quarantining in my mama’s empty house, after 14 long days of international ministry over 15,000 kilometres away from home on the exact other side of world.
Which makes it the 26th surreal Day of being away from my people — when something catches the corner of my eye as I’m bent over books near the window, and I glance up to see — a blur of giggling kids.
6 giggling kids who look like they just swallowed the proverbial canary and their grinning mama, long time family friends of ours. Standing out on the street with a ukulele.
“Showing up is about bearing witness to people the midst of these troubling days — so people witness Jesus in us, and witness Jesus standing with them.”
When I open the front door of little Casa de Quarantine, there’s strumming worship and rising praise and no dry eye this side of the door. And I want to hug every single one of them because that’s the paradox of times like these:
The more distant we feel from each other — the more we long to connect.
The kids keep belting it out, beaming, and I can read a whole world of encouragement in their mama’s eyes as her glinting ones don’t leave mine, nodding and smiling and singing, and there, at my feet, are words scrawled on the step:
WE LOVE YOU.
With arrow pointing — to a pot of delicate daffodils blooming beside a hand-coloured card with the message: “I am with you” (Isa. 41:10)
And I brim, nod.
The single most important thing we can do right now — is show up for each other somehow.
Because when we show up right now for each other — it’s God who shows up.
Showing up is about bearing witness to people the midst of these troubling days — so people witness Jesus in us, and witness Jesus standing with them.
The entire planet is facing what is arguably the test of the century.
Who will go ahead and stand up all the agendas that divide communities and instead decide to just show up for community?
Who has the heart to step up for our grandmas and protect our grandfathers, who will make the time to reach out to the single mom who’s a nurse trying to juggle shifts and her kiddos, who will make the time to connect and pray for the single student quarantining alone, who will give five bucks toward the sick family struggling to make rent?
“If this virus has shown us anything, it shown us how we all need each other.”
Now isn’t the time to wait, the time to sit on the sidelines, or the time to be a spectator.
All hands on deck means we all have to figure out a way to reach out our hands.
Everyone is facing this pandemic — and it will require every single one of us to show up to get us to the other side of this pandemic.
All of humanity is in a war against a virus — so if you’re human, you have to show up to your station to help your fellow human beings battle through this.
There may not be enough resources to sufficiently test for the virus — but never doubt — we are all being tested.
The ultimate test is: Who will show up now?
If this virus has shown us anything, it shown us how we all need each other.
This virus has been the great equalizer — we all equally need each other and God. We aren’t in control — but we are in Christ, and we are in each other’s corners.
And none of us are independent — we are all interdependent on each other.
“These times need people who will be the uncommon heroes who show up now in whatever they can, so we can all come out of this stronger.”
Whether you live in LA or NYC or Vancouver or Toronto or Sydney or London or Milan or Beijing or anywhere in between — every human on the planet is seeing the world through the lens of the pandemic, and everywhere around the planet, there are people showing up with solidarity, risking their lives for the common good of humanity: emergency room nurses and doctors, truck drivers and grocery staff, postal delivery workers and power personnel and countless others who aren’t taking a seat.
Normal times call for empathy — but times like these call for more. They call for solidarity.
Solidarity with the dad who lost his job last week, the mom who doesn’t know how they are going to make rent, the waitress who doesn’t know where groceries are coming from now, and essential service workers and healthcare providers risking their very lives.
Showing up turns the world — into your world. And solidarity turns people into your people. Because?
It turns out we all belong to each other.
No matter how long the road is between us — we all belong to each other.
Free printable at showupnow.com
Esther Havens
“ Showing up now believes that we always show up for family — and, no matter who we are or where we live, we are all one family.”
In troubling times, our hearts don’t have to be troubled, because we know the One who has overcome and He calls us to come be the people these times and this crisis and these times need:
These times need people who believe there is no them, but only us.
These times need people who believe life not all about some freedom to turn inward, but people who bravely turn outward and toward each other — so we can all forge forward.
These times need people who will be the uncommon heroes who show up now in whatever they can, so we can all come out of this stronger.
And showing up now is about stepping up, not stepping back, when hard things go down.
Showing up now does mean giving up something — to gain what we’re all really reaching for: connection and meaning.
Showing up now believes that we always show up for family — and, no matter who we are or where we live, we are all one family.
Even though nobody knows how the next few months might go down — we all know someone we could show up for now.
And when we show up for each other — Jesus gets to show off.
Maybe when things shut down — is when the brave still find ways to show up — and our collective hearts open to a more hopeful, meaningful, powerful way of living.
Troubling roads lie ahead of us.
And now is when we all have to determine exactly what lies within us.
A whole team of us have been working round the clock on this for you:
ShowUpNow!
What is ShowUpNow
No matter what is shutting down, nothing can shut Hope Down
In a crisis like this, we get to:
Vulnerably show up to share needs
Sacrificially show up to meet needs because
because we all need crazy Love to Show Up in the world right Now
If you’d love some help or prayers?
If you’d love to SHOWUPNOW to help & pray?
Here’s a safe, needed place for all of us through this pandemic:
March 30, 2020
The Choice to Love: A True Story
My friendship with Lisa Whittle has grown strong and tender through the years, anchored by our passion for Jesus and seeking first the Kingdom of God. Jesus Over Everything aren’t just words to her. They are the pursuit of her life. Today she shares her poignant experience watching the truth about real love change her perspective, through the service of her mother, even in the hours after her father’s death. It’s an unspeakable grace to welcome Lisa to the farm’s front porch today…
Love…is as easy as a choice and as disciplined as an ongoing matter of prayer.
“It was never easy, but Mom loved Dad, so she did it with joy.”
I got a front row seat to this truth being played out in my parents’ relationship, my whole life, really, but especially in my father’s latter years.
Mom always took care of Dad.
Though he was physically stronger with a bolder personality, on the inside he was intensely more fragile.
Mom’s calming spirit became necessary for life’s many twists and turns, dark valleys, missteps, and a large IRS court case and subsequent judgment against Dad that threatened to derail our family as its news was splashed all across town.
Some of my most vivid childhood memories are of Mom picking up after Dad, plating his dinner, finding his lost wallet as he raced out the door.
Never did she complain. Always did she take care of him.
My mother, a tiny woman, never lacked in determination. As much as she took care of my Dad, she took care of everything else too—which no one knew would prove to be a necessary skill in the years to come, with Dad’s failing health, when she would take on all the household responsibilities.
Dad ran the show, but Mom managed it. Mom did it all, for the most part.
“She was strong because she made a choice—to love God and to love and serve my father as a result.”
I never doubted that she was smart or capable. But because I was a different kind of female—strong-willed, determined, non-traditional in many ways, and too modern to wait hand and foot on any man—I wondered at times if she was truly strong.
So we talked about it one day, in a rather heated discussion.
I asked her why she not only served my Dad like she did but also stayed married to him when he had put her through so much all those years, not understanding in my youth how her decisions could be anything but weak and subservient.
“I made a choice,” she said.
It was then, if for the first time, it dawned on me the why and how behind everything throughout my life, between my parents and who Mom really was at the core.
She wasn’t weak because she did those things I didn’t always understand.
She was strong because she made a choice—to love God and to love and serve my father as a result. The decision I saw lived out in front of me flowed from a bigger decision that was made first.
I knew something else about my Mom as well, watching her all those years. Her loving my Dad didn’t end with a choice.
“Choice is where it started, but prayer was the continual next step to be able to pull it off, especially when things were the hardest.”
Choice is where it started, but prayer was the continual next step to be able to pull it off, especially when things were the hardest.
It wasn’t about having brute, willed strength. It was about having deep, inner strength that makes a choice to love and then supports it with an ongoing prayer life.
There is no other way to live out that kind of love.
Let me just tell you what kind of love it turned out to be.
The last year of Dad’s life, after multiple misdiagnosis and finally being correctly diagnosed with PSP (progressive supranuclear palsy)—a rare brain disorder—when he could no longer walk, Mom would summon her stubborn will and God-given strength and implement unorthodox ways to maneuver my much bigger dad into a wheelchair and take him wherever he wanted and needed to go.
It was never easy, but Mom loved Dad, so she did it with joy.
She was his nurse, in every sense that last year of life, doing all the nursing things—things a couple never really intend to do when in their youth they become lifelong partners. Never was her strength more evident.
And then, finally, it was Dad’s last day here.
My husband, Scotty, and I had gone to my parents’ home that beautiful Sunday morning of his passing.
We gathered with Mom for prayer, and we all said good-bye, watched him leave earth, and then waited for the funeral home to take him away.
The hospice nurse (my beautiful sister-in-law, Lynda) was standing nearby when I heard my mother ask, “May I change his socks?”
An audible hush fell in what was otherwise a room buzzing with activity. The moment, undoubtedly holy.
Mom added, before Lynda could say a word, “I’ve been changing his socks for almost a year now, and I’d like to do it one more time.”
Reminiscent of so many times before…never did she complain. Always did she take care of him.
We watched while my mother changed my father’s socks for the very last time, witnessing her last choice to love someone she’d chosen to love over and over again.
“Jesus modeled the choice to love without the loved party being deserving, a concept most disagreeable with our flesh.“
I’ve seen love be strong.
I’ve seen it be stronger than anything else, even death.
We don’t always make it easy for people to love us, yet we aren’t exempt from it when someone makes it hard on us.
Jesus modeled the choice to love without the loved party being deserving, a concept most disagreeable with our flesh.
How do we possibly do this, you ask?
First, I will tell you that real love is stronger than you think.
My mom showed me that.
Then I will tell you that it is a choice carried out by prayer, over and over again, for God to help us.
Love is stronger than fear, betrayal, anger, resentment, doubt, disappointment, and judgment because we chose God and God is love—the ultimate love.
It’s ours if we want it, choose it, and pray to live it, every day.
When someone is unlovable and we love that person anyway, we are shadowing God.
This is what being a Jesus follower means.
We may think loving someone is about them. But, ultimately, it’s about Him.
Jesus is everything: it is the heart, passion, and leadership approach of author and speaker Lisa Whittle. Lisa is the author of seven books, and her wit and bold bottom-line approach has made her a sought-after Bible teacher. She is also the creator of a companion video Bible study for Jesus Over Everything. A pastor’s daughter and longtime ministry leader in issues relevant to the church, Lisa is the founder of Ministry Strong, co-founder of Called Creatives Community, and the popular Jesus Over Everything podcast. Her love runs deep to see people pursue Jesus for life, grow deep roots of faith, and walk strong in the midst of a world that so often seems to have gone crazy. Lisa will also be hosting a Jesus Over Everything Online Bible study beginning April 6.
Life doesn’t have to be so complicated. We all want to live simpler lives and to put Jesus first – and we struggle with both. While we are busy strategizing new ways to streamline our calendars and clean out our closets of the clutter, what really needs attention is what will give us long-term clarity and peace — the priority order of Jesus over everything in our lives. In a culture that carries the confusion of overindulgence, endless options and influencer voices, the Jesus-first life clears our minds and hearts of noise so our souls can find true meaning and rest.
In Jesus Over Everything, Lisa shares eight statements of choice to help us grow in our understanding of what it looks like to put Jesus first, whether our days hold power lunches, church meetings, Sippy cups, or all of the above. Discover the joy of choosing commitment over mood, real over pretty, steady over hype, holiness over freedom, service over spotlight, and more.
[ Our humble thanks to Thomas Nelson for their partnership in today’s devotion ]
March 28, 2020
Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins for Your Weekend [03.28.20]
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:
Jessica Walker
Jessica Walker
Jessica Walker
Jessica Walker
Jessica Walker
let’s look up and choose joy: “…He who promised is faithful”
Calling all parents, grandparents, teachers and more!
The resources include cooking recipes, scavenger hunts, crafts, problem-solving puzzles, prayer and seasonal activities, topical lessons, etc., as well as a breakdown of how long parents can expect each activity to occupy their children (everything from 15 minutes to a month).
Cannot thank them enough for passing these along to us!
had to share: Quarantine Cooking with Joanna Gaines
…days like these, it’s no secret that our circumstances are always changing, the economy is fluctuating, the future is uncertain. But even in days like these–maybe especially in days like these —
we can cultivate an environment where deep, healthy faith can grow:
Moving from Proximity to Intimacy with Christ
to help you smile: Puppies Explore Georgia Aquarium While it’s Closed
Nothing I Suffer Surprises God
here’s your free dose of fun and fresh air
high school teacher is sharing skills with kids at home
“Some of the best ideas get started at home”
a blessing over you and your family: The Blessing
Kindness 101: a different kind of hero
How Are Pastors Handling Ungathered Worship?
Six church leaders share about their adaptations, innovations, and frustrations as they respond to COVID-19
coast to coast: the whole earth is full of His glory!
#PlayOn: In Isolation, But in Unison, The Colorado Symphony Performs ‘Ode To Joy’
Here’s How to Get Through Uncertain Times
Just released , from one of Hillsong’s anointed musicians, absolute perfection to calming and bringing true soul peace.
Perfect soundtrack for days of isolation.
Think of it as David’s harp silencing quieting all worries & ushering into worship. Have it here on repeat — can’t recommend to your listening highly enough.
come listen in to this devotional with Tim Keller | Psalm 11: Disciplines of Distress
beautiful… together, even though separated. It is well…
(Take a screenshot of this slide & and fill in every day on IG Stories with the hashtag #1000Gifts & #GodsLoveInTheTimeOfCorona — let the thanks rise up no matter what is shutting down! Nothing can shut down our worship & thanksgiving to God!)
Post of the week from these parts here
I see you. See you trying to get through this, & I am with you, saying what we are all saying:
Just one day at a time to go.When the world shuts down — is exactly when we get to unpack this unlikely secret to crush fear, seize joy, & rise up:
The Secret Muscle You Need to Crush Fear, Seize Joy & Be Strong in a Crisis
on repeat this week: King of Kings
Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. —Philippians 4:6-7 (NIV)
“Put a stake in the ground and claim the peace He promises you in His Word!”
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.
pause right here: Oh My Soul
April is almost here!
Maybe in this new month, easy, doable ideas for the whole family to Give It Forward Today — 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.
And just for you, when you grab the “Be the Gift” book? Your farm girl here will immediately email you your own gift of THE WHOLE 12 MONTH *Intentional* Acts of Givenness #BeTheGIFT Calendar link to download and print from home!
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.
Pick up #BeTheGIFT — Then receive your own #BeTheGIFT printable calendar by letting us know you picked up a copy of “Be the Gift” here
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.
Pick up Be The Gift & live the life you’ve longed to this year
The Secret to Joy in Any Circumstance
Philippians 4:10-13
Come download the entire set printables with all 40 “Lent of More God” Sticky Notes for your Soul : here
(once you sign up or sign in, you will find this printable along with a whole collection of resources in our “Free Tools” section)
and join in each day as well as we will be posting these daily with our Facebook and Instagram community
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.
March 25, 2020
Moving from Proximity to Intimacy with Christ
I’ve seen many people ebb and flow in their faith. It is easy to feel that God is ever-present in our lives one week while seemingly vanishing the next. What we seem to continuously forget is that God is the constant in our lives. Our circumstances are always fluctuating, but when we pursue God, regardless of our outside conditions, we are cultivating an environment where deep, healthy faith can grow. It’s a grace to welcome Heath Adamson to the blog as he reminds us to relentlessly pursue Christ and to nurture our soul’s most desired relationship…
One of the most significant Bible verses in my life is related to the Spirit’s work, and it is found in John 3:34: “He gives the Spirit without measure.”
Who is He? Jesus.
This is the reason I say we are all as close to God as we want to be.
“There are no limits to how much we can know the unknowable love of God.”
There are no limits to how much we can know the unknowable love of God. Our discoveries never have to end. We are solely responsible for cultivating the spiritual environment we live in.
I am from Iowa and, for this reason, often think in agricultural terms. If the promises of God are like seeds falling on soil, and the Spirit of God is like well-given rain in season, our hearts are the environment.
Iowa is known for its agriculture. But if I take rich black soil from Iowa and plant orange seeds from Valencia, Spain, in it, and the rain falls just right, I still won’t produce a harvest of oranges.
Why?
The environment is wrong.
The right seeds, planted in the right dirt, don’t always produce the right harvest.
We are responsible to cultivate the environment of our heart so that, by the Spirit of God, we can inherit what God makes accessible to us as sons and daughters by the way we think and the way we live.
Joy Prouty
Bamboo farmers in southeast Asia understand this.
A strain of rare and valuable bamboo is grown in Malaysia. When the seed is planted in the first year, it is important to water and fertilize as necessary. At the end of the first year, nothing visibly happens.
The same process occurs in years two, three, and four. After days of hard work, there are no results observable to the human eye.
Four years is a long time to water, fertilize, and stare at the ground hoping something of value will one day grow.
The farmer has no guarantees other than that he or she believes that the process will work because, in that particular environment, it has before.
It is in the fifth year that the bamboo grows ninety feet in thirty days.
Just imagine harvesting bamboo in Malaysia and then moving to Alaska, hoping to do the same thing. Four years of work and, in the fifth year, rather than reaping what you’ve sown, all that grows is disappointment.
You can have the right seed and the right soil, and even implement the right process, but without the right environment it won’t grow.
“You can have the right seed and the right soil, and even implement the right process, but without the right environment it won’t grow.”
This is what happened to Judas Iscariot. He sat around with the other disciples and heard the same teachings, witnessed the same miracles, participated in the same Passover meals, and observed the Sabbath.
He produced a different harvest than the others, and it wasn’t because Jesus gave him a different type of seed. It is because of the environment of Judas’s heart.
This is why David prayed in Psalm 51, after the traveler was fed, for God to “renew a right Spirit” within him.
David acknowledged how important the internal reality is to each one of us. What we think, how we feel, our motives, and both the large and microscopic choices that make up our days are the environment the Spirit’s work is planted in. When the environment is right, the fruit of the Spirit grows (Gal. 6:9).
We are asked, even commanded, to cultivate a place where the Spirit of God remains.
When an individual resists God’s Spirit, he or she fights against God (Isa. 63:10). We are commanded not to grieve the Spirit. In Ephesians 4:30–31 we are then told how this grieving occurs: through our bitterness, anger, slander, and malice.
Note that bitterness and malice are in the same verse. We can resist the Spirit of God (Acts 7:51), lie to him (5:3), and insult his grace (Heb. 10:29).
“When the human soul is planted anywhere other than the presence of God, there is an ever-present sense of disappointment.”
We can even quench the Spirit like a flame (1 Thess. 5:19). Hebrews 3:15 is a verse repeated numerous times in the Bible: “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.”
When we move from proximity to intimacy, from being almost yielded to being completely authentic and vulnerable with God, paying attention to the subtle whisper of God’s Spirit creates the right internal environment for us to spiritually thrive.
When we fix our eyes on Jesus, who is the author and finisher of our sacred chase, the same Spirit who landed upon Him and empowered Him to cultivate a never-ending connection with God lives in us.
Romans 8:11 tells us, “The Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you.”
Jesus did not have a different Holy Spirit than you do.
The same dove who remained in Jesus lives in children, stay-at-home parents, attorneys, PhD physicists, and adolescents. What does it look like in someone’s life when the reality of Jesus becomes his or her new normal?
When the human soul is planted anywhere other than the presence of God, there is an ever-present sense of disappointment.
“Living a life of generosity and selflessness, regardless of the state of the economy, allows the kingdom of God to define our response to the unknown.”
We were fashioned by and for God to receive a spiritual inheritance in Christ.
This is why people who know the gospel and yet do not commit wholeheartedly to pursue Him wake up each and every day thinking that something is missing from their life.
To stop moving forward in the kingdom of God is to move backward.
Choosing humility, when our pride emerges, keeps our attention on the God-adventure just ahead.
Responding in prayer and laying down our burden, before anxiety convinces us otherwise, provides forward motion.
Living a life of generosity and selflessness, regardless of the state of the economy, allows the kingdom of God to define our response to the unknown.
The kingdom is not stagnant and it does not stay still. The Kingdom only advances.
Heath Adamson (PhD, University of London) is the author of Grace in the Valley and The Sacred Chase. His life was changed dramatically when, at the age of seventeen, he was rescued out of a life steeped in drug abuse and the occult. Now a sought-after speaker at conferences, seminars, universities, and churches, Adamson seeks to bring audiences from simply knowing information about God to actually experiencing God in life-changing ways.
There is nothing more important in this life or the one to come than an intimate connection with Jesus. Unfortunately, we have thousands of voices distracting us, and all too often we listen to them. We confuse proximity to God with intimacy with God and are content with a Christian-branded life yet miss out on what we were created for: knowing God intimately.
Sharing the touching story of a demon-possessed man who had every reason to run the other way when he encountered Jesus, In The Sacred Chase, Heath shows us how spiritual hunger can overcome our hopelessness, our shame, and our excuses. He encourages us to pursue God regardless of where we’ve been or where we are, seeing our salvation as a doorway. Once we walk through it, we can discover the love of God in a tangible way.
[ Our humble thanks to Baker for their partnership in today’s devotion ]
March 23, 2020
The Secret Muscle You Need to Crush Fear, Seize Joy & Be Strong in a Crisis
There’s no shame in saying it out loud: I am fighting off fear these days like kicking back an attacker in the heavy thick of night.
Because the only way the soul doesn’t get sick right now is to self-distance from fear — while having absolutely no distance between God’s thoughts and ours.
“Because no news stories can steal the story of the joy found in the Good News — and if you let anything steal your joy, you let it steal your strength, and if there were ever days to fight for joy, these are the days.”
Because no news stories can steal the story of the joy found in the Good News — and if you let anything steal your joy, you let it steal your strength, and if there were ever days to fight for joy, these are the days.
I’ve already been 14 long days far away from home on the other side of the planet, Down Under in Aussie land, sharing about Jesus and His Upside Down Kingdom — and am now back on this side of the world and at day 8 of 14 days of self-quarantining away from family. 30 days away from home?
I keep telling myself what we are all telling ourselves: Just one day at a time to go.
Till I finally get to gather up my Baby Girl again, fall into the arms of my one fine man, till I get to touch my people, eat around a table with them — till we will keep self-isolating indefinitely, but definitely at least all of us together.
Because our baby girl has half a heart, and our 6 ft 5 son has Type 1 Diabetes, and those with underlying health issues like cardiac conditions or diabetes are most at risk to fall to COVID-19. And staying home and staying flat on our faces in prayer is what can flatten this curve.
All social-distancing right now is actually social-togetherness: keeping our distance from each other is the gift we give each other to get through this together.
We all get to change how we live,
So others get a chance to live.
Acting like you have the virus
is how to act like Jesus toward others right now.
“We all get to change how we live, so others get a chance to live.”
And there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think:
Isolation is isolated to the privileged.
In many places in the world, the financially vulnerable aren’t rich with sufficient space to isolate, don’t have water at hand to wash hands, can’t shelter in place because they don’t have a place.
As we get to self-isolate — we can’t isolate ourself from the needs of those who don’t get this privilege.
When I step outside every day for my run alone, I pray for those in healthcare, in delivery, in groceries, in essential services, who step outside of safe zones so none of us weather this crisis alone.
“Though these days are unparalleled in recent history — the One we follow stands at the Crossroads of all of history so we are unshakeable.”
Though we are in uncharted waters — the One we follow walks on water.
Though these days are unparalleled in recent history — the One we follow stands at the Crossroads of all of history so we are unshakeable.
Though we are sheltering in place — the One we follow is is our safe shelter and always dwelling place. All is well.
Though we may be here at home, we are praying about the world, to the One who holds the whole word, and this is our act of loving the whole world.
In the midst of self-isolating, when I get outside every day, for my daily run, for my daily glory soak out in His creation — because the whole earth is still full of His glory and my soul needs more of it — my feet pound down the street, my heart pounding out my thanksgiving, and I begin to see the secret way to kick all this fear to the curb.
******
I had no idea what crisis we were all on the brink of when, a few weeks ago, I met a woman who fought for joy through a crisis by counting one thousand gifts, grace upon grace — and then found herself unexpectedly expecting, and nearly named her newborn baby Eucharisteo or Charis, before she named her: Grace.
“To stay strong in crisis, you have to exercise your gratitude muscle.”
She held 27 day old baby Grace through a seizure that left the swaddled newborn with cerebral palsy.
“You are living through this crisis because?” Her trauma therapist sat across from this brave mama after she explained her practice of counting gifts and giving thanks.
“You are literally finding the strength to live through this crisis — because you have — just like a memory muscle — you have a gratitude muscle.”
In the middle of her crisis — this woman was already in the middle of strengthening her gratitude muscle — which was giving her strength.
To stay strong in crisis, you have to exercise your gratitude muscle.
A memory muscle means you’ve worked and practiced a motion, so your body “remembers” what to do.
When you practice your gratitude muscle, your soul remembers what to do in crisis.
When you work out your gratitude muscle, even in crisis, your soul remembers how to move toward joy.
Exercise your gratitude muscle — to grow strong in joy.
“When the world shuts down — is exactly when our thanksgiving needs to rise up.”
I can see brave church steeples when I look out my window in the middle of this quarantining and nothing could be more true:
Our churches may be closed, but now is when the church needs hearts wide open in praise and worship and thanksgiving.
Our churches may be empty of worship and thanksgiving, but certainly not our days.
When the world shuts down — is exactly when our thanksgiving needs to rise up.
When the world shuts down, our worlds can grow quickly small — but gratitude for the seemingly small is the seed that plants the giant miracle in the midst of it all.
“Do not disdain the small. The whole of the life—even the hard—is made up of the minute parts, and if we miss the infinitesimals, we miss the whole…
There is a way to live the big of giving thanks in all things.
It is this: to give thanks in this one small thing. The moments will add up.”
“If Jesus chooses gratitude as elemental in destroying evil — doesn’t that prove that gratitude is the best weapon to wield against the dark?”
When one of high school friend tells me her freezer is stocked up and her husband is working from home and because their young son has cystic fibrosis, their medical team advised their family of 6 to self-isolate indefinitely, I am not surprised, but what she says next:
“So we are taking pictures every day — of all kinds of small things, small joys, smalls graces! Because I am determined to focus well enough to see God and His crazy grace — right here in the midst of all the crazy.”
How does your heart about explode with YES, YES, YES! Because Jesus, Himself, when He was staring right into the face of the most horrifying dark — what does He do?
Out of a universe of supernatural options at the tip of His fingers — what does Jesus do?
‘And on the night He was BETRAYED…
Jesus He broke bread & lifted it up & GAVE THANKS.’
If Jesus can give thanks in that — we can give thanks in everything.
If Jesus chooses gratitude as elemental in destroying evil — doesn’t that prove that gratitude is the best weapon to wield against the dark?
And I can’t tell her fast enough about my daily New Year habit that I’m still doing daily in March of a year I could never have imagined when I committed to this habit back in January:
Every day I’m brazenly flexing my gratitude muscle by just grabbing a few pics with my phone, capturing the poetry of the ordinary — swaths of sunlight on the floor, steam rising off coffee, blue jay perched on a branch outside the window — so that in the evening, I can add them to my Day One Journal app.
And then I jot down right there for each day’s entry, 10 things I am grateful to the Lord for this day.
And the days stack up, the graces and gifts and gratitude stack up — and no matter what is shutting down, my thanks will rise up.
“And then? At the end of every month — or at the end of this season — you can export all your counted gifts to be printed as a bound book. Your own bound book that bears witness to God’s Love in the Time of Corona,” I tell my high school friend, scrolling through all my entries, all my pics of the poetry of the ordinary, all the gifts upon gifts.
Even now, there is an abundance of gifts.
There can still be an abundance of joy.
And no matter what is shutting down, nothing dare shut down our thanksgiving to God, our joy in God, and our worship of God.
(Take a screenshot of this slide & and fill in every day on IG Stories with the hashtag #1000Gifts & #GodsLoveInTheTimeOfCorona — let the thanks rise up no matter what is shutting down! Nothing can shut down our worship & thanksgiving to God!)
“Flex your gratitude muscle to fight off fear.”
When, in the midst of these unusual days, I jot down gifts I am thankful for — I can feel this gratitude muscle growing stronger, surer, more certain in moving the soul forward toward joy.
I pull on shoes for a run through late spring snow, to keep moving to move the stress through — and I can feel it as I run, air filling expanding lungs:
Work out your gratitude muscle and you see how everything’s working out — because you see how God is at work.
And I can feel it, no matter what is attacking or overwhelming in days like these:
Flex your gratitude muscle to fight off fear.
I can feel everything lifting —— like praises rising.
What does the Christ-life really look like when your days are gritty, long –and sometimes even dark? How is God even here?
My story kinda unpacks how I figured out just that:
One Thousand Gifts & the 60 DAY DEVOTIONAL with 1000 numbered lines to count your #1000gifts: One Thousand Gifts Devotional: Reflecting on Finding Everyday Graces
Need freedom not only beyond the fear & pain, but actually within it? The Broken Way
How do you find the way that lets you become what you hope to be? 60 steps from heart-weary brokenness to Christ-focused abundance: The Way of Abundance
Give yourself the gift of grace that He already has — and give yourself the beauty of: Be the Gift
March 21, 2020
Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins for Your Weekend [03.21.20]
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:
George Maschalidis
No disaster, no storm, no cancellation, no termination, no catastrophe will stop us from giving thanks.
Because we know: No matter where we are, every thanksgiving always brings us home — because giving thanks always brings you home to the heart of God.
There is a Courage that carries us, there is a Strength that steadies us, and there is One Hand that has hold of our hand, Who is our personal hand, Who has handpicked our hand to give us a hand up — right into the always safety of Him. #1000Gifts
some really wise words right here
Mary Anne Morgan
Mary Anne Morgan
Mary Anne Morgan
deep breath — at all the wonder she captures for us
Let the mercies that come new every morning — just come right in and stay with you.
in these times? please don’t miss this podcast? Fear is the Virus We CAN Treat
Psalm 23: shared from worship leaders all over our world
The CHURCH is still alive — and His banner over us is LOVE
Go to the Opera nightly with free live streams from the MET in NYC come see!
#LoveInTheTimeOfCorona
so this town at the top of the world? is thriving and open to everyone
Rebecca Tien
could not love this more: Kids Playing a Private Cello Concert for Their Self-Quarantining Neighbor
police officer sings inspiring gospel music: ‘I sing in or out of uniform’
20 Prayers to Pray During This Pandemic
As COVID-19 sends the globe into crisis, it also sends us to our knees
thank you, Tony Evans…Calm in a Crisis Creates Opportunities to Care. Do not worry (Matthew 6:25-33)
Bethany Hope
Bethany Hope
Bethany Hope
so this photographer captures the best of newborns… this should bring a smile
thank you, Joni Eareckson Tada: A Calming Word During the Coronavirus
had to share this one! Stalk Lions, Pandas, and Penguins During Your Social Distancing with these 10 Awesome Animal Livestreams
Come download the entire set printables with all 40 “Lent of More God” Sticky Notes for your Soul : here
(once you sign up or sign in, you will find this printable along with a whole collection of resources in our “Free Tools” section)
and join in each day as well as we will be posting these daily with our Facebook and Instagram community
pause right here: Christ our Hope in Life and Death
Down syndrome stories: 21 things parents wish they knew
Veteran parents describe what it’s actually like to raise a child with three copies of chromosome 21
What Can We Learn From Latin Americans About Happiness?
The Surprising Data About Happiness
more wise words we all need to hear
glory, glory, glory
“In a season of such fear, unknowns, loss, disappointments. I’m so thankful we can sing scripture and feel a shift in the atmosphere of our hearts and over our lives.
This is THE BLESSING from God over us. I pray for massive breakthrough and peace over you and your family and your children and their children. He is for you.” ~Cody Caries
when milestones are not forgotten – despite the pandemic
Resource for our heirloom Lenten Wreath: Joywares.ca
Post of the week from these parts here
…so yeah, the world’s more than a little uncertain these days & in times like these, when we’re trying to move ahead, even though we don’t know what’s up ahead, there isn’t one of us who doesn’t need tools like this:
How to Get Through Times Like These
messages that are tried and true… thank you, Natalie Grant
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.
on repeat this week: Way Maker
March is here!
Maybe in this new month, easy, doable ideas for the whole family to Give It Forward Today — 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.
And just for you, when you grab the “Be the Gift” book? Your farm girl here will immediately email you your own gift of THE WHOLE 12 MONTH *Intentional* Acts of Givenness #BeTheGIFT Calendar link to download and print from home!
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.
Pick up #BeTheGIFT — Then receive your own #BeTheGIFT printable calendar by letting us know you picked up a copy of “Be the Gift” here
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.
Pick up Be The Gift & live the life you’ve longed to this year
How to Experience the Presence of God
Philippians 4:8-9
… and we know it, days like these can be filled with anxiety. And anxiety can cause you to forget God. Forget God, and you lose your mind and your peace. Forget God, and all you remember is anxiety. Forget the face of God, and you forget your own name is Beloved.
Beloved, you are the remembering people. Find your feet. Find His face—His broken-wide-open heart of communion.
Always remember: there can be unwavering peace today
when an uncertain tomorrow
is trusted to an unchanging God.
If we have Him today — nothing can steal our peace today.
“When you call on Me, when you come & pray to Me, I’ll listen… I’ll give you strength. I’ll help you. I’ll hold you steady” Jeremiah 29:12, Isaiah 41:10 MSG
[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.
March 20, 2020
Hurt? How Do You Forgive Or Ever Trust Again?
Ever been deeply hurt? Ever find it kinda it hard to trust? Ever felt — well… kinda betrayed? I get it. And I wrote these words for you… I wrote these words as the foreword to a brand new book, Beyond Betrayal:Overcome Past Hurts and Begin to Trust Again by Phil Waldrep . These words from the very depths of my heart, from this book, are for you, for all of us who have ever been hurt:
written by Ann Voskamp
You have to know how I mean it:
I am sorry.
I am sorry for the pain that’s been burning a searing hole out the side of your heart, that’s scorched your days and profaned your moments with the lingering stench of betrayal.
“Everyone has been betrayed. But betrayal doesn’t get to destroy your trust in everyone. Just because every betrayal begins with trust, doesn’t mean every betrayal has to end with cynicism.”
Please know: I am sorry your trust wasn’t prized — and a hard won bit of you was painfully lost.
I am sorry for what now is…. that should never have been.
You didn’t sign up for this.
You didn’t sign up to have your trust torched, your kindness kindled into flame, your security to go up in smoke.
You didn’t sign up to be duped and deluded, used and abused, and you didn’t for one moment expect anyone to play Judas and play false with the story of your life.
They got what they wanted, and you got shafted in ways you never planned. They got the upper hand and you got taken advantage of. They got what wasn’t theirs, and you got what you never wanted.
Sometimes? The gravest wrong isn’t how they betrayed you — but how you ever trusted them.
Sometimes? Betrayal feels like holding hands with what twisted into a trap that chewed up and spit out part of your heart.
Sometimes? An enemy’s frontal assault hurts less than the backstabbing of a friend.
And now, you’re desperate for a sign that points the way out of this mess.
“Forgiveness only happens where a death has happened.”
This moment is a sign from God for you, a roadmap, out of where you never expected to be.
You get to choose to trust others again, you get to choose to forgive, you get to choose the bravest story.
You get to rise courageously because:
Forgiveness only happens where a death has happened.
Forgiveness only happens where hope has died, expectations have died, plans have died, reputation has died, fairness has died, dreams have died.
You get to be brave in the face of betrayal and choose: If you don’t die to something, so you can forgive someone — it’s your own quality of life and very soul that begins to die.
“When you hold your forgiveness ransom until someone pays you back and earns your love — you’re the one whose quality of life gets poorer and poorer.”
There is never any forgiveness without someone getting to pay for it.
That is always the choice you make every day when you look in the mirror: Either I can happen to pay for the wrong or I can try to make the betrayer pay for it.
There is always the choice: I can pay the price — and die to my anger.
I can pay the price — and die to my revenge.
I can pay the price — and die to my desire to get even and give even the betrayer the grace even I have been given.
Because the thing is:
Every time you try to make someone pay, they are the ones who get to be in charge of your life.
When you try to make someone pay, they dominate your thoughts, they take control of your energy, they seize your heart and mind and time.
When you hold your forgiveness ransom until someone pays you back and earns your love — you’re the one whose quality of life gets poorer and poorer.
Time is non-refundable and every betrayal has already stolen so much from you — you can’t betray your own soul by spending another moment on animosity.
“Whatever that betrayal took from you — it doesn’t get to take every relationship from you.”
The betrayal wounded you once. Bitterness doesn’t get to now multiply the wounds.
You know it: Wishing another ill will — only makes you ill.
You believe it: Everyone has been betrayed.
But betrayal doesn’t get to destroy your trust in everyone. Just because every betrayal begins with trust, doesn’t mean every betrayal has to end with cynicism.
You choose it: Wisdom is different than cynicism.
Whatever that betrayal took from you — it doesn’t get to take every relationship from you.
You get to turn the rare gift of these vulnerable pages that hold life-giving healing and radical freedom, and you get to turn to the face in the mirror and ask:
“Forgiveness is only hard when we only remember what has been done against us and when we forget what Jesus has done for us.”
“How can I not pass on the cup of grace that I have drunk so deeply from?
How can I refuse anyone the mercy that I have needed to stay alive?
How can I weigh what anyone has done against me as heavier and what Jesus has done for me as far lighter?”
To live forgiven — live forgiving.
Remember what Jesus has done for you and you will remember how to forgive.
Forgiveness is only hard when we only remember what has been done against us and when we forget what Jesus has done for us.
You can’t know how sorry I am for the pain you’ve experienced. And you have to know how the lifeline of these pages will meet you in that pain and show you how to experience the freedom you were always meant for.
Even now: Trust… that you can trust again.
Phil Waldrep is the founder and CEO of Phil Waldrep Ministries, host of Women of Joy, Gridiron Men’s, and Celebrators conferences—building up leaders and equipping nearly 60,000 annual attendees in the knowledge and love of Christ.
We all know what it’s like to be lied to, cheated, tricked, or swindled.
Phil had no idea of the steep journey that lay ahead of him when two men walked into his office and revealed an unfolding story of a friend turned colleague who was living what amounted to a second life. For years following, Phil sought to heal the wounds of this broken relationship and confront the pain he felt in the aftermath of this betrayal. Along the way, he discovered God’s solutions to overcoming resentment.
In Beyond Betrayal:Overcome Past Hurts and Begin to Trust Again, you’ll learn about the biblical principles and practical tools that can help you identify betrayers in your life and name the pain you feel, rediscover God as the healer of your wounds, avoid bitterness and express your anger in healthy ways, learn to remain open to trusting others again as you build new relationships, and choose forgiveness and develop strategies to prevent future betrayal
Whether you’ve been hurt by a family member, friend, colleague, or trusted leader, you are not alone. Even Jesus was betrayed. You don’t have to let past hurts limit your future relationships—you can move beyond betrayal.
March 19, 2020
How to Get Through Times Like These
In times like these?
When you stand in the dark and keep lighting the candles, keep moving the candle ahead through Lent, keep trying to move ahead even though you don’t know what’s up ahead?
In times like these you keep thinking:
“Because our God moves, these mountains can move.“
To scale that mountain ahead of you, you have to silence the lies in your head.
You know the lies.
The lies that tell you that mountain you’re facing is greater than the God who is facing you — God who has never turned His back on you for one moment ever, so you’re never facing anything insurmountable, so you’re always facing the One who is unstoppable.
The lies that tell you that don’t have what it takes to keep going — when the Mover of Mountains takes you, and He has you, and He keeps you so nothing can keep you from moving this mountain.
The lies that tell you should just lay down and give up now — when God’s giving you His hand right now to help you up.
Because our God moves, these mountains can move.
Resource for our heirloom Lenten Wreath: Joywares.ca
Whatever mountain you’re climbing can stretch out into a road — because Jesus didn’t climb down from the cross, but stretched out His arms and made Himself into your road right through mountains.
“Prayer does more than change the mountain in front of us — it changes us.“
God flattens mountains to build our faith.
God doesn’t move mountains to make things easy, but to make everything about Him because it’s our hearts that get to move.
In times like these?
We can light all the candles and get to be like the people of ancient of Cairo and that unforgettable story of faith:
In the late days of the 9th century, the Caliph of Cairo threw down a literal ultimatum to Christian Abraam literally enact the words of Matthew 17:20:
“If your faith is the size of a mustard seed you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’, and it will move; nothing will be impossible for you.”
And if no mountain moved?
The Caliph of Cairo threatened to expel, enslave or execute every single Christian in the city.
“Our cries never fall on deaf ears, but are caught by His soft, open heart. God hears our cry, because He is right here. ”
Abraam gathered Cairo’s entire Christian community at the foot of Mokattam Mountain, and for three long days, the faithful prayed and fasted and raised one unified, repeating cry, “Lord, have mercy.”
In the middle of this Lent, in the middle of times like these?
We can be the people who gather to pray because prayer does more than change the mountain in front of us — it changes us.
We can be the people who fast — because when we fast, we find ourselves holding so fast, so close, to God, that we see how the God we face is infinitely larger than any mountain we face.
We can be the people who raise one unified cry to God — because our cries never fall on deaf ears, but are caught by His soft, open heart.
God hears our cry, because He is right here.
Resource for our heirloom Lenten Wreath: Joywares.ca
Resource for our heirloom Lenten Wreath: Joywares.ca
Honestly? Your cry can be a whisper because your God is carrying you close.
“The way you ask God to move your mountain is to not focus on the height of your mountain but the depths of God’s mercy.”
And even before we cry for the Lord to have mercy — His mercies come new every morning.
Let the mercies that come new every morning — come right in and stay with you.
Because: The way you ask God to move your mountain is to not focus on the height of your mountain but the depths of God’s mercy.
After three days of all the people of faith gathering to pray, to fast, to cry out to the Lord, with the Caliph of Cairo present, Abraam prayed again: Lord, have mercy.
And the dirt beneath the thousands of bowed knees shook.
The earth quaked.
With thousands of feet standing witness at the foot of Mokattam Mountain:
THE. MOUNTAIN. MOVED.
“It’s never the size of our faith that moves our mountains, but the strength of our God.”
The believers rose to their feet — and the mountain rose right off the ground.
When your faith is fully grounded in Christ — mountains in your way move fully off the ground.
When you have even mustard-seed faith, it can grow a tree whose roots crack apart the largest rock.
It’s never the size of our faith that moves our mountains, but the strength of our God.
And: When your world feels rocked, it’s because God’s moving your mountain.
Not once, not twice, but three times, the ancient story goes, the Caliph and all the gathered Christians of Cairo witnessed Mokattam Mountain lift directly from the earth, sun beams wedging right between the space between mountain and earth, like the mountain was suspended in light above the terra firma.
“Mountains can lift, burdens can lift, you can keep lifting your feet, forging forward, because Christ is lifted higher than the heights of any mountain.”
There is light even now at the end of your tunnel, even now, lifting your mountain.
As sun rays swept under the moved mountain, the Caliph looked down to see those rays of light sweep across his feet, and could only murmur: “I see.”
See light at your feet.
See light: Mountains move! The Light of Christ pries out your mountain!
See hope! Feel rays of hope warm your darkest places of despair.
Mountains can lift, burdens can lift, you can keep lifting your feet, forging forward, because Christ is lifted higher than the heights of any mountain.
What is your mountain to your Messiah?
“You can scale any heights because Jesus carries the weight of everything — He is carrying you.”
You can take on any steep incline — because Jesus’s heart is inclined to yours.
You can scale any heights because Jesus carries the weight of everything — He is carrying you.
You are made to move mountains — because your heart is made to be determined to move whatever it needs to get closer to Him.
Egyptian Christian tradition says that after watching Mokattam Mountain move, the Caliph of Cairo turned and converted to Christianity.
In the dark, I keep lighting the candles.
Keep turning to see light in these wild, dark days in the middle of Lent.
Turn and believe with your entire heart that even these mountains can entirely move.
Because God moves with you — moves so close.
This post is adapted & excerpted from my foreword to this powerful book that is perfect for these times: Made to Move Mountains
Made to Move Mountains unpacks my soul sister, Kristen Welch’s journey, that has led her through a thousand instances of knowing what it feels like to soar, struggle, stumble, and stand at the edge of cliffs, afraid to step into the unknown and unsure of where we will land. But she has also learned that instead of running away, we are called by God to stand firm, muster up what faith we can, and take a step—not because we are good enough or adequate or able but because God makes a way where there is no way. In Made to Move Mountains she offers heartbreaking and hopeful personal stories, Scripture, and questions for contemplation that will draw you out of fear and into a holy confidence that God uses both our dreams and our disasters to accomplish the impossible.
I’m telling you, turn these soul-quaking pages and be converted. Turn and believe with your whole heart that you were made to move mountains. Perfect for these times, I cannot recommend this book highly enough.
March 16, 2020
What I Learned About Knuckling Down to Measure Up
It’s unusual to hear a Bible study teacher admit she is her biggest hindrance to growing closer to Jesus. Author and podcaster, Shellie Rushing Tomlinson owns it. Shellie has found the joy of living dying to her stubborn bent for self-rule and her habit of knuckling down to measure up, while simultaneously confessing that Jesus alone saves her from defaulting! She is passionate about helping others discover how the indwelling Christ can empower us to live dying to the tyrant of us and more alive than we could ever imagine to the deep and wide life in Him. It’s a grace to welcome Shellie to the farm’s front porch today…
guest post by Shellie Rushing Tomlinson
There’s a white, furry, heart-shaped rug in our master bedroom, on my side of the bed.
No one sees it from the door, so for the most part, only God and I know it’s there. (Oh, and now y’all do, but you’ll sleep and forget, right?)
The rug was a gift from my bestie. She saw it and knew it would be a perfect gift.
Red’s traveled many a ministry mile with me, and bless her own dear soul, she’s heard me speak more than anyone on the planet should have to other than Jesus. The girl needs a crown for that alone.
“That rug now marks the spot of my daily dying, and I love it.”
Red knows my strengths, my weaknesses, and my routines, and she’s well acquainted with my crazy. It’s a close match to her own. (You can experience our matching crazy all over social media, but don’t say you weren’t warned.)
She also knows about my fondness for hearts.
I’ve been collecting them in every size and shape imaginable for years, ever since I started asking Jesus to take the broken want-to of this heart that didn’t know how to love Him and turn it into His happy place.
Red knows about my habit of sliding out of bed to my knees and why I formed it. She knows I’ll be there for a few seconds, at the most.
She knows it isn’t my prayer time, just a bare moment of intentional yielding. It’s me saying, “Boss me, today, Jesus. I surrender me, again.”
Of course, Red can’t always travel with me. She has plenty of obligations that keep her at home.
But once, I was coming off a long ministry weekend where I had been traveling many miles with just me, myself, and Jesus, when Red surprised me with her gift.
My spirit was full, but the flesh was weary and needing a nap when Red went with the “close your eyes I’ve got something for you” thing.
I complied, and when I opened my eyes, there stood my longtime buddy grinning like a crazy person and holding that furry, white, heart-shaped rug.
“Whatever our day holds, nothing in it can compare to a millisecond of His Presence, and we must die to ourselves to live in Him.”
That rug now marks the spot of my daily dying, and I love it.
I don’t write about my rug to convince you to take up the habit of going to your knees before you take to your feet.
I realize some of you have physical limitations that hinder you from slipping to the floor in the morning.
But I do write to double-dog dare you to adopt the heart habit of ignoring yourself, surrendering everything you are to everything He is, yield to Him all day, and then yield again tomorrow and the day after that.
Oh, and start early, like as soon as your eyes open.
Why? Because Jesus will be our everything or our nothing today, but He refuses to be our side hustle.
Because whatever our day holds, nothing in it can compare to a millisecond of His Presence, and we must die to ourselves to live in Him.
Having enough Jesus to think you’re making it to Heaven will never be enough Jesus for us once we begin to realize our constant need of a Savior and learn to nourish ourselves in His Presence, walking nearer still.
Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it.” (Luke 9:23-24 NASB, emphasis mine)
Daily. Underline that word. Star it. Jot it on a sticky note.
The biggest hindrance we have to finding the deep and wide life with Jesus we’re looking for stares back at us in the bathroom mirror every morning. It’s us.
Daily fellowship requires daily surrender, and we need to have that settled before the world starts crowding in with countless opportunities to choose our will or yield to God’s.
In yielding our will, we must learn to include both the present moment and our right to the one down the road.
Our temptation is to leave ourselves secret “wiggle” room in our thinking to act, say, and do what we please over X, Y, or Z, if we decide we’ve gotten a belly full.
It may not be a conscious decision, but reserving some measure of us for ourselves is a pending will, not a yielded will.
“My flesh is going to want to rule the day, but my desire is to live dying to self and yielding to Jesus.”
Absolute surrender refuses to reserve an out by trusting Jesus to empower our obedience in the future, just as He saved us in the past, and just as HE is strengthening us in the present.
It’s a deeper consecration, it brings a fuller joy, and it’s our second heart habit. Living as the bossed with Jesus as the boss.
Side story: I got an email once from a well-meaning lady who had heard me speak and wanted me to know she didn’t approve of my using language about Jesus bossing me.
She thought it was sacrilegious. I meant no disrespect then, and I mean none now.
When I ask Jesus to boss me, I’m basically confessing what God and I both know.
My flesh is going to want to rule the day, but my desire is to live dying to self and yielding to Jesus.
I’m saying I aim to ignore my me monster, and I’m acknowledging I’ll need His indwelling help!
Yes, I have a me monster. Brace yourself. You do, too.
Shellie Rushing Tomlinson is an award-winning author and humorist, a popular blogger and speaker, and host of the All Things Southern podcast. Her titles include Suck Your Stomach In and Put Some Color On and Heart Wide Open.
Finding Deep & Wide helps us step away from the exhaustion we feel when living under a spiritual to-do list. By sharing honest, heartfelt, and often hilarious stories of family life in Louisiana, and retelling familiar Bible stories, Shellie helps us see the life Jesus offers us so freely. A life away from the formulaic, duty-bound Christianity and a life spent joyfully surrendered.
This book invites you to be beautifully transformed by Jesus.
[ Our humble thanks to Salem Books for their partnership in today’s devotion ]
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