Ann Voskamp's Blog, page 94
September 23, 2019
When David Platt asks: Have We Lost Our Capacity to Weep?
When David Platt reached out to ask if I’d read his latest book, I’ll just tell you: I could not put it down. Because he’s asking big questions, the questions we’re asking, whether we’re looking around our own neighborhoods or at international headlines, many of us wonder, Where is God in the midst of suffering? How can I be a part of healing in such a hurting world? When Pastor Platt traveled to the poorest regions of the Himalayas, he wrestled with those questions too, even asking, “Is Jesus really the hope of the world after all?” David has taken risks in his life, but some say writing his latest book, Something Needs to Change might be one of his riskiest ideas yet, and I couldn’t agree more.
When I read this book? To be honest, I just have to say:
The weight of this book belies the gravity of its catalytic power for life-change.
Grippingly vulnerable, humble, and unforgettable, Platt leads you on an astonishingly transparent interior journey of his heart and mind — that profoundly changes your own.
I could not put this book down. This book is transformative, cruciform discipleship in real time.
Even as the darkness of the poor mountain villages rocked David’s beliefs, he came to a new hope and a deeper sense of calling — so, it’s an absolute privilege to warmly welcome David, who has profoundly impacted our family — even this summer, two of our sons listened to David’s books multiple times –to the farm’s front porch today…
Alone in a guesthouse at the base of the Himalayas, I found myself on my knees, face to the floor, sobbing.
Scattered around me was the evidence of my past week—a backpack, trekking poles, hiking boots.
I was fresh off a weeklong journey through some of the highest mountains in the world and only hours from a flight home to the States.
“It makes me wonder if we’ve lost our capacity to weep.”
But I hadn’t planned on ending my trip with out-of-control tears.
Up to that day, I could count on one hand the number of times I’d cried in my adult life.
Yet there I was, crying uncontrollably because of what the men, women, and children I’d met the past week were missing.
Things like water, food, family members . . . freedom and hope. I so longed for them to have these things that I couldn’t help it. I fell to the floor sobbing, and the flood of tears wouldn’t stop.
Looking back on that day in the guesthouse, I wonder why being so overwhelmed for others in need has been uncommon for me.
It makes me wonder if we’ve lost our capacity to weep.
Esther Havens
Joy Prouty
It makes me wonder if we have subtly, dangerously, and almost un-knowingly guarded our lives, our families, and even our churches from truly being affected by God’s words to us in a world of urgent spiritual and physical needs around us.
Jesus wept over those in need.
“Jesus wept over those in need.”
He was moved with compassion for the crowds. He lived and loved to bring healing and comfort to the broken.
He died for the sins of the world.
So why are those of us who carry His Spirit not moved and compelled in the same way?
Surely something needs to change.
But the change we need won’t happen simply by our seeing more facts or listening to more sermons.
What we need is not an explanation of the Word and the world that puts more information in our heads; we need an experience with the Word in the world that penetrates the recesses of our hearts.
We need to dare to come face to face with desperate need in the world around us and ask God to do a work deep within us that we could never manufacture, manipulate, or make happen on our own.
We need to be open to a whole new world of what God wants to do in and through our lives.
Because something needs to change.
“We need an experience with the Word in the world that penetrates the recesses of our hearts.”
I certainly don’t presume to know the answer to what needs to change in your life. But I believe that together we need to ask the question.
I believe we need to recognize that Jesus is indeed the ultimate hope amid all our needs.
And I hope you realize that God has designed your life to count for the spread of His hope amid the most hopeless situations in the world.
I have thought much about Proverbs 24:11–12 since I first encountered the Himalayas face to face. God says,
Rescue those being taken off to death,
and save those stumbling toward slaughter.
If you say, “But we didn’t know about this,”
won’t he who weighs hearts consider it?
Won’t he who protects your life know?
Won’t he repay a person according to his work?
These verses of Scripture make clear that God holds you and me accountable for what we know.
If you and I know that people are suffering both physically and spiritually like this, then we are accountable before God for what we do (or don’t do) in response.
God’s call is not just for the leader, pastor, or missionary. God’s call is for every one of us.
Whether you’re a teacher or a scientist, a business professional or stay-at-home parent, a student or retiree, God has created your life to count in a world of urgent need.
“God has created your life to count in a world of urgent need.”
So don’t underestimate the part God is calling you to play, starting right where you live.
Realize that God has you where you are for a reason.
You are not in your city or community by accident. You are in your job, your school, your neighborhood, or your apartment complex with the gifts, skills, abilities, and resources you possess by divine design.
God has given you unique opportunities for the spread of gospel hope in the world around you.
I don’t know the most urgent spiritual and physical needs around you, but God does.
So ask Him,“Where are the poor, the oppressed, the orphaned, the enslaved, and ultimately the lost right around me?” Then realize God loves those men, women, and children so much that He has put you in close proximity to them.
He wants the hope of Jesus to be spread, shared, and enjoyed among them through your life.
Then realize that the effect of your life could extend far beyond where you currently live.
Open your eyes to opportunities you have to use your time, your money, and your talents to spread the gospel where it hasn’t gone and to serve people who desperately need to see and feel God’s love face to face.
Think about your life.
What unique ways can your life count for the spread of His love in the world?
What you need to know: David Platt is the author of three New York Times bestsellers, including Radical. He is lead pastor at McLean Bible Church in metro Washington, D.C., the former president of the IMB (International Mission Board), and the founder of Radical Inc., a global ministry that serves churches in accomplishing the mission of Christ.
In his newest book, Something Needs to Change, David tells of his life-changing trek among the poorest of the poor in the Himalayas.
One of things that deeply moved me about this book is how it reflects the tenderness in David’s heart—he speaks in stories, writes of tears, and asks the deepest questions of our souls.
[ Our humble thanks to Waterbrook for their partnership in today’s devotion ]
September 21, 2019
Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins for Your Weekend [09.21.19]
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:
hitchedandhomeward
hitchedandhomeward
hitchedandhomeward
hitchedandhomeward
how they share with us from their tiny home world? breathtakingly beautiful…
she kinda says it all right here
amazed right here: how she tells a story with her scissors?!
what can we learn from the small town of Eskilstuna?
so she only started swimming competitively at 65!
Now at 97 Might Mo is at the peak of her swimming career
after a decade of repairs… here’s a special look inside the newly restored Washington Monument
this one? Only God…
come read or listen in, just don’t miss:
When God shows up with His mighty healing (and raising) power
How one encounter at an intersection changed two strangers’ lives: kindness matters
Laurenda Marie Photography / Instagram
Laurenda Marie Photography / Instagram
Laurenda Marie Photography / Instagram
can you even?!? come see this surprise drop-in guest during this wedding photo shoot
glory, glory, glory
Every Good Gift: Living Generously in a Self-Centered World
It’s a grace to be a part of this NEW six session Bible study which begins on Oct 7!
Will you join us?! Click here for more info
and watch the videos for free by registering here!
Pull together a group and do it together or study on your own with daily emails!
His healing can happen every minute of every day, when we unfold ourselves before Him.
this transplant nurse? stepped up in a huge way
“Saved by Jesus and an Organ Donor”
Abigail Hunt / Elevated Gardens
cheering loudly!: After Watching Brother Give Up on Gardening, Man Designs Tabletop Gardens for People in Wheelchairs
heroes and soul shapers: the plight of teachers…and the students who need them
Edwin Estioko
Edwin Estioko
Lina Alarcon
tears at this: The Lord calls us to speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves: There Is HOPE for Those Impacted by Child Sexual Abuse
Let’s be a voice for the voiceless, preventing child abuse
Beyond grateful for the saving work of Compassion International
wonder comes in all sizes
Uncovering the Wonder of Christ
dedication like maybe you’ve never seen
he’s sharing a lot – and it’s packed with good stuff
could not agree more: “you treat people differently when you get to know them”
How a white cop and black barber are bring peace to their City
Post of the week from these parts here
…turns out, no one ever tells you this about that elusive abundant life. And this kinda turns everything on its head — and destroys the fear of missing out.
How to live large-hearted in a world that can be self-centered?
Philippians 4:1 // Part 1 // Love and Long for One Another – thank you, John Piper
Instagram: theuncommonnormal
What do you do when you wake up and feel like you’re not enough for your life? Or when you look out the kitchen window as dusk falls and wonder how do you live when life keeps breaking your heart?
In sixty vulnerably soulful stories, The Way of Abundance moves from self-weary brokenness to Christ-focused givenness.
Christ Himself broke like bread, giving Himself to us so we might have a lifelong communion with Him. Could it be that our brokenness is also a gift to the world? These tender devotionals dare us to embrace any and all brokenness as a gift that moves us closer to the heart of God.
This gentle book does nothing less than take you on an intimate journey of the soul.
Order Your Way to Abundance Here
on repeat this week: Nobody
…you know, it really is kinda miraculous, if you think about it:
Whatever got botched or bungled yesterday — Today’s a full 24 hours of a completely clean slate.
Fresh mercies, new hours — given to you because you are loved more than you realize, because you are carried further than you know, because He is for you more than you can imagine.
God’s mercies are new every morning — not as an obl igation to you, but as an affirmation of you.
“God’s loyal love couldn’t have run out,
His merciful love couldn’t have dried up.
They’re created new every morning.
How great your faithfulness!
I’m sticking with God (I say it over and over).
He’s all I’ve got left.”
Lamentations 3:22-24MSG
[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.
September 19, 2019
How to live large-hearted in a world that can be self-centered?
Nobody has to tell you that, because you can honestly just feel it:
Abundance is an expansive ocean and you’re an island surrounded by its unendingness.
There is blue as far as you can see — if you can see.
All their eyes around the table were ocean blue at Sunday dinner, all the kids and cousins. I felt like I was standing at the edge of something deep and wide and long that went on forever.
“Abundance is not to something be attained — abundance is something to awaken to.”
And our smallest, her eyes are an island of brown — and here we are all, surrounding her in a thousand ways, engulfing her in love, endlessly, forever, lapping up on her shores and feeling ourselves abundantly, wildly, lucky. Blessed.
You can do that at Sunday dinner. You can look around at your people, look at all the brave ragamuffins and beautiful misfits who you get to call yours, and you can feel it pounding like a tidal wave of truth in your very own chest:
Abundance is not to something be attained — abundance is something to awaken to.
You can end up wanting to memorize all the faces, memorize this waking to the smell of fried chicken and warmed rolls and the faint scent of polished shoes and perfumed wrists and old cologne.
Favourite Kitchen Resources: all the fair-trade beauty of The Grace Crafted Home
Favourite Kitchen Resources: all the fair-trade beauty of The Grace Crafted Home
You can hear a cat can meow from behind a bedroom door and the dog’s thumping his tail in the mat in the mudroom and there can be more than a basket or two of laundry there by the washing machine and the stove can need a deep scrubbing and there can be a splaying of bills across your desk.
“It is not what we get, but what we give thanks for, that gives us the abundant life.”
But there is breath filling your lungs and there is time, even yet, and there is still light and hope, and why did you get this one breath, let alone another two, and there is rising today, the sun, and all the possibilities, and resurrections everywhere, abundance rising out of ashes, and you can’t doubt it.
You can believe this, witness this. You can feel it like a rising tide that carries you forward even now:
It is not what we get, but what we give thanks for, that gives us the abundant life.
Overflow with gratitude and it will quench every inch of your life.
How is there all this light? How is there all this light in all their eyes?How is there all this love and how could we want to live anywhere else but in the love that is the tsunami that floods everywhere because He who is in us is greater and His great love cannot stop rising in us.
You can watch how they pass down the water pitcher.
“Overflow with gratitude and it will quench every inch of your life.”
And you can take that pitcher in hand and you can fill your cup and I am telling you, that elusive abundant life that kinda runs through your fingers like water running on and on?
This can fill you and you can feel it like an ending of emptiness:
Abundance is about riches, not about money. And if your hands are full of the riches of Christ, how can your heart not be full of the abundant life?
And you just might hear the universe murmur that — if tired hands don’t feel full of the riches of Christ, those weary hands might take His, and long hold the tried and true Words of Christ, and linger longer at the nail-scarred feet of Christ, and feel the wounds of Christ trace all the tender scars like He is finding His people and you’re finding yours.
Scars speak a private language that only the wounded know and Christ wears His scars because He is abundantly fluent in broken hearts.
Favourite Kitchen Resources: all the fair-trade beauty of The Grace Crafted Home
Favourite Kitchen Resources: all the fair-trade beauty of The Grace Crafted HomeYou could look around you right now.
Abundance is not about your hands being full, but your heart being full.
And your heart can fill with here and now, and there’s grace in this moment for those willing to wake.
“Abundance is not about having excess. Abundance is about realizing you have enough.”
Tilt your head on a tilted planet and watch how the angle of light hits things really proves we don’t have to angle for things — there is enough if enough of us live given.
Honest to God, there’s enough breath in the lungs to murmur your thanks to God.
Get lost in people’s eyes today and in swaths of sun on any afternoon, and lose track of time and get lost in a good book, and smile abundantly, till your cheek hurts, because you are alive after all.
And you have time to feel wind on your face and you have time to reach out to one person and remember how we all belong to each other and each of us gets a place to belong and the abundance of your life is not measured in the ways you gained — but in what you gave away.
I’d heard it said once that passion is the way to abundance and when I asked if she knew that passion literally means suffering — she nodded and I knew right then that I would give the rest of my life to understand how suffering is the way to abundance.
When I looked around a table full of my people, when I look into the faces of all the people, and I listen to their rabble and their laughter and their dreams and their brokenness, you can see how everyone is a hero every day because life is hard and everyone needs a witness to their courage so none of us are alone.
And that’s what filled me at the table:
“The abundant life is only found in loving abundantly.”
I hold my cup and abundantly feel that for all of them, right now, just as they simply and wholly are.
Is that when it happens, not in my cerebrum, but in my gut, in the pounding chambers of my heart?
Yes, I can feel that’s when there’s a knowing in the core of being, what a preacher said once on a Sunday morning. Held up a cup up and poured it full of water– and then dumped it out. And said that this was genuine koinonia. Not sipping hipster coffee out of styrofoam cups out in the foyer. But actually pouring out of cups, being filled and emptied and filled with the abundant life.
This was what that Greek word for community, koinonia, literally looks like, what it literally means: a pouring out and a pouring into.
Isn’t that what happened in the beginning, all of the expanse of space rang with the words, “Let us make man in our image.” Let us.
Wasn’t that all our genesis and isn’t that the beginning of all abundance: We were made out of community, to be in community.
You were made out of an abundantly loving relationship to be in abundantly loving relationships.
The abundant life is only found in loving abundantly.
Favourite Kitchen Resources: all the fair-trade beauty of The Grace Crafted Home
Favourite Kitchen Resources: all the fair-trade beauty of The Grace Crafted Home
The water pitcher is being passed all down the table. It’s being poured out. Cups are being filled.
I am breathing, waking, witnessing, seeing, filling, feeling.
Can the abundant life be as simple and as profound as giving abundantly and letting yourself be abundantly filled to give and pour out? It is loud around the table and there is love being poured out and passed around and empty places are being filled.
“The abundant life is about giving your thanks, giving your life, giving your heart. Only the given life is the abundant life.”
And this is the moment I understand it, how suffering is the way to abundance — because to passionately love is to suffer. Because to love is to live given. And this doesn’t make me afraid — it makes everything feel deeply right.
Abundantly right.
The little girl with the brown eyes in this ocean of blue, she taps my shoulder and says it loud over the din, “Mama? What about me?”
She’s holding out her empty cup to me.
And I pour some of my water into her cup. And the grace of it washes over me:
The abundant life is about giving your thanks, giving your life, giving your heart. Only the given life is the abundant life.
And I nod to her — but I am nodding to me.
If you want abundant life, give your life away. Anyone can do this, so anyone can have the abundant life.
She who gives abundantly, gathers abundance.
And then, all around the table, we take each other’s hands, hold each other’s hand, bow our heads.
And I know my farming man is praying at the end of the table, giving thanks for the food, for us gathered, but all I can hear, all you can hear, is this ocean of abundance kissing the shores of everything:
Abundance is about pouring out, because only what is poured out can fill with abundantly more.
How to live large-hearted in a world that can be self-centered?
We’re excited to announce a new Bible study in partnership with IF and RightNow Media: Every Good Gift: Living Generously in a Self-Centered World, starting October 7th. This 6-session study contains teaching videos from Ann Voskamp and features real life stories!
Each week we’re going to talk about what it looks like to be generous with our hospitality, spiritual gifts, money, and time.
How this study works:
1. Pull together a group and do it together! Buy a copy of the study book and access all of the teaching videos FREE by registering with RightNow Media, available next week! There’s even a leader guide in the book for you.
2. Study on your own and on the go with your daily emails. You will receive the first email on October 7th and we’ll study together for the next 6 weeks!
You find yourself at a crossroads every day — and what you need to know is the way to abundance.
How do you find the way that lets you become what you hope to be?
How do you know the way forward that lets you heal, that lets you flourish, the way that takes your brokenness — and makes wholeness?
How can you afford to take any other way?
The Way of Abundance — is the way forward that every heart longs for.
September 18, 2019
When You’re Needing Some Hope in the Middle of Your Story
Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth’s love for Christ and His Word is infectious. Though Nancy and I haven’t met in person, we share a passion to see women experience the life-giving reality and grace of Christ and to be deeply satisfied with His steadfast love. I am struck by her frequent reminders that we can rest in His Providence, confident that . . .He is good. He is faithful. And He can be trusted to write our story. It’s a grace to welcome Nancy to the farm’s front porch today…
guest post by Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth
Sometimes it seems that the shards of broken marriages are washing up all around us.
But then we encounter someone like Lorna Wilkinson,whose story reminds us that the grace and power of God really can restore broken lives and homes.
I met Lorna at a Houston, Texas, church where I was speaking.
“There are parts of our stories we desperately wish were different.”
At the close of a gathering she stood and asked if she could share a brief testimony. For the next several minutes, we all sat spellbound, listening to her amazing story of grace and redemption.
Lorna and her husband, Pascal, were married for twenty-one years, and for many of those years, Pascal had been a good husband and father.
But eventually, Pascal’s alcohol abuse ravaged their home.
For nine years Lorna lived with broken promises, lying, and the financial chaos caused by Pascal’s obsessive drinking and chronic irresponsibility.
“I couldn’t trust my husband anymore,” Lorna recalled.
“He would drop me off at work and then forget to pick me up. Sometimes I would be left there for hours, finally having to rent a hotel room close by. It was a very difficult situation. I endured to the point that I finally said, ‘I can’t take this anymore. I have to get out.’”
Joy Prouty
Lorna filed for divorce and asked her husband to leave. It was all she knew to do. Needing her own transportation, she purchased a used vehicle from a friend.
The night she picked up the vehicle, the radio was tuned to a Christian station. She never listened to Christian radio, so she reached over to change the station.
But as she did, “a conviction” came over her, and she could not touch the dial. So she listened . . . all the way home.
The radio was still on the next morning as Lorna drove to work, and this time Revive Our Hearts was playing. In God’s Providence, my message that day was on forgiveness. I spoke of the fact that true love doesn’t keep score (see 1 Cor. 13:5).
As Lorna listened, she remembers, she “was completely broken.”
After the program ended, the words she had heard continued to go around and around in her mind. She couldn’t stop thinking about them.
A couple of days later, while driving home from work, Lorna gave her life to Jesus.
Having received Christ’s forgiveness, she knew she needed to forgive her husband. But it wasn’t easy to release all the pain he had caused her and her children.
“I despised Pascal. I didn’t want him to touch me. I wanted no part of that relationship.
So I prayed, ‘God, you know my heart. And you know my feelings toward my husband. I do not like him. I do not love him. But I know that You are love. And I’m asking you to let Your love flow through me.’”
A few days later, she received a call from Pascal telling her he was very sick. Still frustrated and angry, she said, “Why are you calling me? Why don’t you call 911?”
He must have done so, because the next thing she heard he was in the hospital.
He had had a heart attack.
The family gathered in the waiting room, unsure whether he would survive.
At that point God began to soften Lorna’s heart. She felt Him prompting her, Go and whisper in your husband’s ear that he doesn’t need to worry about a place to live, that he can come back home.
Hard as it was, she obeyed.
Carefully navigating all the machines and the tubes that were attached to him, she made her way to his side and whispered in his ear, “I want you to come home, honey. I love you. We will work it out.”
Pascal recovered and did return home. A few days later, as he was sitting on the couch in the living room, Lorna went and knelt in front of him.
“You know, honey,” she said, “there have been so many hurtful things that have happened in our lives over the past years that I have lost trust in you. But I want you to know that I forgive you.”
Soon after that day, in response to the grace he had received from Lorna, Pascal surrendered his life to Christ.
“The Holy Spirit is able to infuse hope, help, and grace into the life of any person who is willing to let Him write (or rewrite) the story of his or her marriage.”
The transformation that followed was dramatic — nothing short of miraculous.
Pascal immediately, remarkably, lost his urge to drink, and “total restoration, total recovery” came to their home. Lorna recalls that “we started having family meetings, prayer meetings. There were flowers, postcards, and quiet candlelight suppers . . . a host of things that many people never experience in a marriage.”
Four months later, at about four o’clock on a Tuesday morning, Pascal woke Lorna up. “Lorna,” he said tenderly, “a man should love his wife with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his mind, as God has loved us. I want to tell you at this moment that I love you that way.”
Those were the last words Lorna ever heard from her husband.
A few hours later, while she was at work, he had another massive heart attack and went to be with the Lord. And though she still misses him, she thanks the Lord every day for His grace in her life and in her marriage.
She says, “I don’t know where I would be today without it. My husband probably would have died some place, and there would have been no forgiveness. The children would not have known what it was to have the love and leadership of a husband and father in the home. They experienced this in such a profound manner that today we can rejoice as a family and remember the wonderful times the Lord gave us for those four months.”
“God is always at work in and around us, redeeming and making all things new.”
God created marriage to tell the Story of His amazing grace and covenant love.
Not surprisingly, the enemy works hard to keep that from happening.
But the Holy Spirit is able to infuse hope, help, and grace into the life of any person who is willing to let Him write (or rewrite) the story of his or her marriage.
Of course, no amount of effort, prayer, or faith can guarantee that a marriage will be miraculously restored.
One spouse cannot control the choices of another.
But God’s love and mercy hold firm and steady regardless of the outcome.
Your story may not include an alcoholic husband (or a husband at all). Yet, for all of us, there are parts of our stories we desperately wish were different.
Lorna’s story reminds us that God is always at work in and around us, redeeming and making all things new.
“God’s love and mercy hold firm and steady regardless of the outcome.”
You can’t see the end of the story — yet. At the moment, you’re in the middle of a paragraph, in the middle of a page, in the middle of a chapter, in the middle of a whole book.
You can trust God not just for the paragraph you’re in, but for every paragraph and chapter to come.
And what’s more, not only can you trust God to write your story; you can be sure that, in the end, He will right your story!
Every sin or injustice committed against you, every sinful or foolish choice you made, everything you feared would permanently mark your life, all that was confusing and convoluted and corrupt . . . one day it will all be made right.
In the light of that promise, we can pray, in the words of Scotty Smith:
Grant us fresh grace to wait upon you
For the future and hope to which you have called us . . .
Turn our whines into worship
Our daily carping into carpe diem,
And our frets into faith.
Amen.
Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth has touched the lives of millions of women through Revive Our Hearts and the True Woman movement, calling them to heart revival and biblical womanhood. Her love for Christ and His Word permeates her online outreaches, conference messages, books, and two daily nationally syndicated radio programs—Revive Our Hearts and Seeking Him.
In their first book together, Nancy and her husband Robert share biblical and modern-day stories of God’s Providence at work, including their own story of finding love and marrying—the first time for Nancy at age fifty-seven and the second time for Robert, a widower. You Can Trust God To Write Your Story will inspire you to face the unexpected, even painful, twists and turns of life with confidence in His faithfulness, goodness, and love.
[ Our humble thanks to Moody for their partnership in today’s devotion ]
September 16, 2019
Feeling kinda inadequate and insignificant? What if…
Whenever I hear Chuck Swindoll’s voice, it reverberates deep . . . within. Unwavering. Sound. Wise. Chuck speaks truth, and it feels like a cool breeze. It is clear to me that Chuck knows intimately the hair-raising twists and turns that is so common in our lives because in his recent book he takes up the topic: What If . . . God Has Other Plans: Finding Hope When Life Throws You the Unexpected. The story Chuck tells about little-known Amy simply stole my heart. It is about a girl who saw herself as ‘little, ugly, shy.’ Not someone who is the center of attention. A wallflower. Yet, look what God can do . . . It’s a grace to welcome Chuck to the farm’s front porch today…
Amy never would have dreamed God would choose her to do something great.
The shy lassie, born the oldest in a family of seven, grew up in beautiful Northern Ireland,
but not without pain.
She and her siblings lost their daddy when they were young, leaving the family virtually destitute. Eventually she was adopted by another family who had the means to clothe and feed her.
She saw herself as “a little, ugly, shy girl.”
In fact, she felt so unattractive while growing up that she shunned having her picture taken.
As a teenager, she was diagnosed with a degenerative nerve disease that stayed with her the rest of her years. Ultimately that disease led to a serious struggle with arthritis, a battle she would fight the rest of her life.
Then something happened that changed her entire life.
At the age of twenty, Amy was attending a Keswick Convention in England, listening to a man named Hudson Taylor share the story of his mission work in China. The year was 1888. The great missionary statesman told of what God had been doing in China and what he anticipated God would do in the future.
He mentioned several times how good God was to choose him, of all people, from among the outcasts of England. By God’s grace, he had learned another language and blended into a culture far different from his own.
Amy sat there thinking, “What if God could use me to do something such as this?”
And from that moment, God began to do something great through the shy, retiring Irish girl.
After a chain of events sovereignly orchestrated by her gracious God, Amy wound up at the southern tip of India, only a few miles from the ocean. She spent the next fifty-six years as a missionary in that faraway place.
Her calling was to invest in the lives of young boys and girls caught in the grip of human trafficking.
They were part of a horrifying slave trade that ravaged the lives of innocent, unsuspecting children. In those days, the trafficking was done under the guise of religion.
Young girls were required to “service” the Hindu priests and those who worshiped with them. Their bodies were used, and in the process, their spirits were broken. Boys and girls alike became helpless victims.
Amy’s heart went out to these broken little lives, and she invested the remainder of her years reaching out to them with the love of Christ as she freed them from prostitution.
“Somewhere along the way, perhaps you have systematically talked yourself out of anything great God may wish to do through you.”
Before her death, Amy rescued and ministered to more than a thousand victims.
The Irish woman was Amy Carmichael, who ended up publishing thirty-five books. At her request, not one originally bore her name. In fact, before she died, she made certain that her name would never be etched in granite.
Instead, the children she had rescued, now adults, placed a birdbath over her grave, which remains unmarked to this day.
It seems appropriate: an unmarked grave over a woman who was virtually unknown in her day.
That is, until you read her words and discover that they are filled with profoundly impactful statements.
From prayer that asks that I may be
Sheltered from winds that beat on Thee,
From fearing when I should aspire
From faltering when I should climb higher,
From silken self, O Captain, free
Thy soldier who would follow Thee.
From the subtle love of softening things
From easy choices, weakenings,
Not thus are spirits fortified,
Not this way went the Crucified,
From all that dims Thy Calvary,
O, Lamb of God, deliver me.
Give me the love that leads the way,
The faith that nothing can dismay,
The hope no disappointments tire,
The passion that will burn like fire,
Let me not sink to be a clod:
Make me Thy fuel, Flame of God.
What makes Amy Carmichael’s words so magnificent is that many who read them likewise view themselves as little more than worthless “clods.”
“What if He wants to choose you to do something great? Are you willing?”
Somewhere along the way, perhaps you have systematically talked yourself out of anything great God may wish to do through you.
Maybe it’s because you feel woefully inadequate or you lack training. Perhaps you’re shy and entertain thoughts of being completely insignificant.
You look at yourself in the mirror and ask, How could God ever choose somebody like me?
I mean, it would be unlikely for God to notice me, to say nothing of using me greatly. I’m simply not qualified.
Be honest, now . . . does that sound like you? Every time you look in the mirror, do you talk yourself out of something great God wants to do?
But what if God has other plans?
What if He wants to choose you to do something great?
Are you willing?
Would you run in the other direction?
Or would you respond in faith?
It’s a grace to hear the wise words of Chuck Swindoll. He has spent more than half a century faithfully teaching God’s Word and opening the eyes of countless people to the riches found in Scripture.
So I get it . . . life can be humming along just as usual, and then in a matter of seconds, everything falls apart. Maybe you have experienced sudden loss. Perhaps there is a heart-breaking betrayal. Maybe you are taking care of a family member with a disability and you never imagined in a million years that you would be doing such a thing. Life rarely follows our rules. There are U-turns and S-curves none of us are quite prepared to endure.
In What If . . . God Has Other Plans: Finding Hope When Life Throws You the Unexpected, Chuck Swindoll is at his absolute best, opening Scripture and finding hope for those of us who are struggling with the unforeseen, the unexpected, the unplanned. What if . . . God has other plans for your life? What if . . . you are designed for something more?
[ Our humble thanks to Tyndale for their partnership in today’s devotion ]
September 14, 2019
Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins for Your Weekend [09.14.19]
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:
Lesley Brügger Photography / Instagram
Lesley Brügger Photography / Instagram
Lesley Brügger Photography / Instagram
breathe in this virtual tour of Iceland? enjoy the wonder in every moment this weekend
because sometimes we all need a hand
Kristen Welch
good words here: Parents: We Can Be A Ceiling or Floor to Our Kids’ Potential
so who knew? What Conductors Are Really Doing
a sleepover at the library? must come see!
amazed: he’s giving trash a second chance
at 20? She’s at the Forefront of Ethiopia’s Emerging Tech Scene
it would be a grace to meet you here early next year
An event designed for pastors and ministry leaders to explore what it means to shepherd and lead in the way of Jesus: the singular emphasis of this conference is to commune with Christ
please visit here for additional info
we were wide eyed: Power of the Storms
Chris Willemsen / Instagram
Chris Willemsen / Instagram
Chris Willemsen / Instagram
couldn’t help but smile at this…
never, ever give up
we’re talking 4 Ways to Face Your Red Sea: obstacles that can lead to greater opportunities
a very special wedding surprise
thank you for this, Scott Sauls: Why Small Things Are Often The Greatest Things
Isaac Ogila
Isaac Ogila
Isaac Ogila
Why This 8-Year-Old Is Not Engaged to Be Married
a extraordinary story of hope
Beyond grateful for the saving work of Compassion International
why not you?
cheering her on: “I do believe that if you see something that you want to be different, you actually have to be a part of providing that solution”
addicted to helping others #BeTheGift #TheBrokenWay
Post of the week from these parts here
As this week we had World Suicide Prevention Day…. And I had planned my own for a Friday… and my heart’s really busted tonight & there’s a few things I’ve got to say…
The Christian Church, Suicide & Mental Health: When It’s Down to the Wire & Things Are on Fire
standing ovation for what he’s doing here #BeTheGift #TheBrokenWay
drphaynes Instagram
What do you do when you wake up and feel like you’re not enough for your life? Or when you look out the kitchen window as dusk falls and wonder how do you live when life keeps breaking your heart?
In sixty vulnerably soulful stories, The Way of Abundance moves from self-weary brokenness to Christ-focused givenness.
Christ Himself broke like bread, giving Himself to us so we might have a lifelong communion with Him. Could it be that our brokenness is also a gift to the world? These tender devotionals dare us to embrace any and all brokenness as a gift that moves us closer to the heart of God.
This gentle book does nothing less than take you on an intimate journey of the soul.
Order Your Way to Abundance Here
this brave mom shares her journey through alcoholism and recovery hoping to help others
on repeat this week: My Dwelling Place
…you know, it really is kinda miraculous, if you think about it:
Whatever got botched or bungled yesterday — Today’s a full 24 hours of a completely clean slate.
Fresh mercies, new hours — given to you because you are loved more than you realize, because you are carried further than you know, because He is for you more than you can imagine.
God’s mercies are new every morning — not as an obl igation to you, but as an affirmation of you.
“God’s loyal love couldn’t have run out,
*His merciful love couldn’t have dried up*.
*They’re created new every morning.*
How great your faithfulness!
I’m sticking with God (I say it over and over).
He’s all I’ve got left.”
Lamentations 3:22-24MSG
[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.
September 13, 2019
What Love Is – and isn’t
She would probably prefer it if you did not know her name, and yet her courageous decision to go public with her allegations of abuse against former USA Gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar emboldened more than 250 other young women and girls to speak out, sending Nassar to prison for life and shining a long-overdue spotlight on decades of abuse and corruption within USA Gymnastics. A fierce victim’s advocate, Rachael Denhollander has become a defining voice, helping people recognize and understand the dynamics of abuse and empowering others to protect the most vulnerable in our families, churches, and communities. It’s a grace to welcome Rachael to the farm’s front porch today…
guest post by Rachael Denhollander
Much of what I know about love and forgiveness, I learned from my parents.
They taught us that love was the foundation for everything.
Love, they said, didn’t thrive on authority; it thrived on sacrifice.
Love sought to communicate and understand.
Love was humble, admitting wrongs and seeking to repair the damage.
Love protected.
And of course, behind everything was love for Jesus Christ.
My parents had an uncanny ability to weave truths from the Bible into almost every situation. In fact, I came to understand my own sin and need for forgiveness through a most unusual vehicle—toilet paper.
I was the ripe old age of three and fascinated with the cardboard roll that the toilet paper was wound around.
There were so many imaginative possibilities when one possessed a few of those tubes. Then one fateful day, there was no empty toilet paper roll to be found, and I had to have one for the current adventure I’d concocted.
So I slipped into the bathroom—quietly, for I knew what I was about to do was strictly forbidden—and tiptoed up to the full toilet paper roll. With the door closed, I furtively began unwinding the toilet paper so I could get at that magic tube underneath.
Significantly into my endeavor, I realized I was leaving a rather obvious trail of my illegal activities strewn all over the floor. Undaunted, I began stuffing all the emptied toilet paper straight into the toilet—and that is where my mother found me—hurriedly shoving paper into the toilet.
“Even at my young age, I realized how desperately I needed a Savior.”
My mother calmly asked me what I’d done. I knew the word for it—sin. I’d chosen to rebel against what I’d been told.
Then my mom connected the dots for me. I wasn’t the only one who had disobeyed; Adam and Eve had too. Just as they had tried to hide their sin unsuccessfully, my efforts to hide my sin had been futile, and no amount of good things I might otherwise do would undo the sin already committed.
Even at my young age, I realized how desperately I needed a Savior.
Right then and there, I repented of my sin, turned to Christ for forgiveness and salvation, and in doing so, became a pastor’s worst nightmare—a stubborn three-year-old insistent upon being baptized.
I’d been forgiven of my sins, and I knew I was supposed to publicly declare it. So that Sunday, I rushed up to our pastor and explained what had happened and what I was ready to do. Somehow, however, the issue seemed less clear-cut to him. He hemmed and hawed, and told my parents he didn’t baptize children until they were at least eight. I was devastated. And I was frustrated.
“He is keeping me from obeying Jesus!” I protested.
I appealed to him again the following Sunday. And the next. And the next. He remained resolute.
Finally, my dad realized I wouldn’t be able to rest until I had done what I knew I was supposed to do.
So on a hot summer’s day, he pulled our little blue wading pool into the middle of the backyard, tucked the green garden hose into it, and filled it. I remember climbing into the cold water and kneeling down.
I gave my testimony and recited my favorite Bible verse, then I covered my mouth and nose with my hands, and my dad baptized me. I still remember the relief and joy that washed over my soul as tangibly as the cold water swept over my skin. I had been obedient.
When I eventually reached the magic age that my pastor had designated for “real” baptism, I joyfully participated, knowing full well it was only a continuation of what I’d already expressed and begun many years before.
“The day everything came to a head was my first experience holding a weeping abuse victim. She was in her thirties; I was nine.”
My parents were also quick to ask forgiveness when they had been wrong. Taking responsibility for the choices we each made, being humble enough to admit those choices, and asking forgiveness was nonnegotiablein our family.
I appreciated this, because I’d seen what it looked like when that didn’t happen.
When I was little, I watched a family we were close to fall apart as the result of abuse.
The dad had massive anger issues, and when something didn’t go his way, he exploded on his gentle wife and young children.
He always had reasons—they had done something to cause it, he’d say. And he’d often acknowledge that he should have responded differently, but his apologies were always followed with a “but you . . .”
The day everything came to a head was my first experience holding a weeping abuse victim. She was in her thirties; I was nine.
I will never forget standing on my tiptoes, reaching up to hold her while she wept, and wanting to throw up because my grief at the damage that had been done to her made me physically ill. Later, my parents talked with us kids about what we had seen.
“This is what abusers do,” they explained. “Everything centers on them. Even when they apologize, they keep the focus on themselves—how they’ve been wronged or what they think they’ve done well—to try to shift the focus away from the pain they’ve caused. They don’t truly take responsibility for anything.”
Abusers pass the blame to others, they told me.
“Unlike abuse, love does not excuse or minimize wrongdoing.”
But that’s not what love does.
Love cares first about the harm done to the other person.
Unlike abuse, love does not excuse or minimize wrongdoing.
“When you’ve hurt someone,” my parents said, “and need to apologize, you say, ‘I’m sorry for blank,’ and then you stop. You don’t say anything else to justify, minimize, or excuse what you’ve done. You are always responsible for your choices, no matter what someone else did.”
The pattern of sacrificial love that was displayed by Christ on the cross was the one my parents followed and modeled for me daily, and it is what my husband and I strive to model for our own children.
My parents taught me that the greatest struggles, and most important choices, would come in the little things.
Where it felt easy to excuse an unloving response, and difficult to choose faithful love.
And yet it is these battles, these daily small choices, that shape who we really are and set the trajectory for our life.
“It is these battles, these daily small choices, that shape who we really are and set the trajectory for our life.”
I find I often learn best through stories, so the book Hinds’ Feet on High Places became for me a beautiful expression of this truth.
One of my favorite scenes remains when the Shepherd brings Much-Afraid up the mountain, to a field full of flowers, and Much-Afraid wonders aloud why such beauty would be put where no one can see it.
With gentleness, the Shepherd looks down and reminds her,
“Nothing my Father and I have made is ever wasted. . . . I must tell you a great truth, Much-Afraid, which only the few understand. All the fairest beauties in the human soul, its greatest victories, and its most splendid achievements are always those which no one else knows anything about, or can only dimly guess at. Every inner response of the human heart to Love and every conquest over self-love is a new flower on the tree of Love.”
Let us cultivate these flowers every day, in the greatest, and smallest, of ways.
Rachael Denhollander is an attorney, advocate, and educator who was the first woman to speak out publicly against USA Gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar, one of the most prolific sexual abusers in recorded history. As a result of her activism, more than 250 women came forward as survivors of Nassar’s abuse, leading to his life imprisonment. Rachael and her husband, Jacob, live in Kentucky with their four children.
Her memoir, What Is a Girl Worth? is the inspiring true story of Rachael’s journey from an idealistic young gymnast to a strong and determined woman who found the courage to raise her voice against evil, even when she thought the world might not listen.
And her newly released children’s book, How Much Is a Little Girl Worth? is Rachael’s tender-hearted anthem to little girls everywhere, teaching them that they have immeasurable worth because they are made in the image of God.
[ Our humble thanks to Tyndale for their partnership in today’s devotion ]
September 10, 2019
The Christian Church, Suicide & Mental Health: When It’s Down to the Wire & Things Are on Fire
So, turns out, depression is like a room engulfed in flames and you can’t breathe for the sooty smoke smothering you limp.
Ask me how I know.
And suicide is deciding there is no way but to jump straight out of the burning building.
Because the unseen scorch on the inside of you finally sears intolerably hot — so you think a desperate lunge from the flames and the land of the living seems the lesser of two unbearables.
That’s what you’re thinking — that if you’d do yourself in, you’d be doing everyone a favor.
I had planned mine for a Friday.
You don’t try to kill yourself because death’s appealing — but because life’s agonizing. We don’t want to die. But we can’t stand to be devoured.
So I made this plan. And I wrote this note.
And I remember the wild agony of no way out and how the stars looked, endless and forever, and your mind can feel like it’s burning up at all the edges and there’s never going to be any way to stop the flame.
Don’t bother telling us not to jump unless you’ve felt the heat, unless you bear the scars of the singe.
Don’t only turn up the praise songs but turn to Lamentations and Job and be a place of lament and tenderly unveil the God who does just that — who wears the scars of the singe. A God who bares His scars and reaches through the fire to grab us, “Come — Escape into Me.”
Nobody had told me that — that one of the ways to get strong again is to tell your story.
My Dad, he had told me that if we told our mental health secrets, it’d slit us all.
So much weight for a wide-eyed nine-year-old. So much for believing the Truth will set you free.
So I locked my lips tight so no one knew about the locked wards and the psychiatric doctors and why my mama was gone and it’s crazy how the stigma around mental health can drive you right insane.
There are some who take communion and anti-depressants and there are those who think both are a crutch.
I’d rather walk tall with a crutch than crawl around insisting like a proud and bloody fool that I didn’t need one.
I once heard a pastor tell the whole congregation that he had lived next to the loonie bin and I looked at the floor when everyone laughed and they didn’t know how I loved my mama. I’d looked to the floor when they laughed, when I wanted them to stand up and reach through the pain of the flames and say:
Our Bible says Jesus said, “It is not those who are healthy who need a doctor, but those who are sick.” Jesus came for the sick, not for the smug.
Jesus came as doctor and He makes miracles happen through medicine and when the church isn’t for the suffering, then the Church isn’t for Christ.
I wanted them to say what I knew: The Jesus I know never preached some Health Prosperity Gospel, some pseudo-good news that if you just pray well, sing well, worship well, live well and deposit all that into some Divine ATM — you get to take home a mind and body that are well. That’s not how the complex beauty of life unfolds.
The real Jesus turns to our questions of why, why this sickness, who is to blame — and he says it like a caress to the aching,“You’re asking the wrong question. You’re looking for someone to blame. There is no such cause-effect here.” (John 9:3 MSG)… “This happened so the power of God could be seen in him” (John 9:5 NLT).
That’s the grace touch of Jesus:
The dark is not your fault, the dark is not about blame.
The dark is about bravely being a canvas for light — about courageously letting your dark be a canvas for sparks of God glory, a backdrop for ambers of mercy in the midst of your fire.
Ask Mother Teresa. Who painfully peeled back a lifetime of letting her dark become the canvas:
“There is such terrible darkness within me, as if everything was dead… I do not know how deeper will this trial go—how much pain and suffering it will bring to me.
This does not worry me any more. I leave this to Him as I leave everything else.
Depression may not be your fault, but a sign that this world is fallen — not a sign of personal sin, but that we all have sinned.
That’s what I’d wanted as a kid sitting there in a church full of folks chuckling at mental illness, what I wanted the whole church to say all together, like one Body, for us to say it all together to each other because there is not even one of us who hasn’t lost something, who doesn’t fear something, who doesn’t ache with something. I wanted us to turn to the hurting, to each other, and promise it till we’re hoarse:
“We won’t give you some cliche — but something to cling to — and that will mean our hands.
We won’t give you some platitudes — but some place for your pain — and that will mean our time.
We won’t give you some excuses — but we’ll be some example — and that will mean bending down and washing your wounds. Wounds that we don’t understand, wounds that keep festering, that don’t heal, that down right stink — wounds that can never make us turn away.
Because we are the Body of the Wounded Healer and we are the people who believe the impossible — that wounds can be openings to the beauty in us.”
We’re the people who say: “There’s no shame saying that your heart and head are broken because there’s a Doctor in the house. It’s the wisest and the bravest who cry for help when lost.
There’s no stigma in saying you’re sick because there’s a wounded Healer who uses nails to buy freedom and crosses to resurrect hope and medicine to make miracles.
There’s no guilt in mental illness because depression is a kind of cancer that attacks the mind. You don’t shame cancer, you treat cancer. You don’t treat those with hurting insides as less than. You get them the most treatment.”
I wanted the brave to speak up, to speak the Truth and Love:
Shame is a bully and Grace is a shield. You are safe here.
To write it on walls and on arms and right across wounds:
“No Shame.
No Fear.
No Hiding.
Always safe for the suffering here.
You can be different and you can struggle and you can wrestle and you can hurt and we will be here. Because a fallen world keeps falling apart and even though we the Body can’t make things turn out — we can turn up. Just keep turning up, showing up, looking up.”
If we only knew what fire every person is facing — there isn’t one person we wouldn’t help fight their fire with the heat of a greater love.
Mama came Home from the psych ward and I found grace, a thousand, endless graces, and a broken way through, and it is by grace not works we are saved, grace adopting us into a family that no brokenness can ever remove us from.
Grace, that miracle which even the darkest night can’t consume — grace that miracle that can only consume you.
So even now, we believe: Light can pry through the dark.
A shaft of light can come through a window like a lifeline.
And birds strung out on a wire can sing, still sing.
We know, because we’ve heard their lament and a million other broken-hearted hallelujahs in the sun-singed sky burning up like flames.
~ Excerpted from The Broken Way
Related:
The American Suicide Prevention Line: 1-800-273-TALK (8255)
Crisis Text line: Text HOME to 686868 in Canada
Rick and Kay Warren today, on World Suicide Prevention Day
Share here the one thing you wish people knew about mental health?
Carrying all kinds of unspoken broken?
Need someone to throw you a lifeline of grace?
You’re not alone. This one’s for you.
Need some courage to begin again?
Here — this one’s for you.
Need the paradoxical, transforming secret of what to do with your broken heart? I’m telling you: This one’s for you.
Grab a copy of The Broken Way — and feel a bit of a lifeline grab hold of you.
{bird photo credit #1, #2 #3, #4}
September 9, 2019
How to refocus – right in the midst of everything
Ruth Chou Simons is an encourager and a friend who inspires me to live with intention every day. She began sharing her artwork on social media while searching for God’s grace laced throughout her days. As an artist, she knows no detail is too small to be overlooked. She applies the same care and attention to her everyday life knowing that God is present in even the most mundane moments. Her new book Beholding and Becoming offers wisdom and beauty to help refocus our hearts and minds on Christ right in the middle of our daily lives. As our attention is pulled this way and that, Ruth’s work continually causes me to pause and set my gaze on what is truly important. It’s a grace to welcome Ruth to the farm’s front porch today…
guest post by Ruth Chou Simons
A relatively short time ago, we didn’t have an “online life.”
Tweeting was for birds, posts were for fences, and text required ink.
The advent of mobile devices brought a fundamental shift in the way we engage with the world. From the coffee shop to the subway, it isn’t hard to find someone head-down with a cell phone.
We’ve been given so much to look at, but we are missing the art of beholding.
We are so captivated by our technology and all that it puts before our eyes that we overlook the ways that God displays His glory through creation, relationships, and our ordinary circumstances in the day to day.
Ruth Chou Simons | GraceLaced®
Ruth Chou Simons | GraceLaced®
Ruth Chou Simons | GraceLaced® 
Ruth Chou Simons | GraceLaced® 
Ruth Chou Simons | GraceLaced®
Ruth Chou Simons | GraceLaced®We look for dramatic ways to experience God, but His presence and transforming work in our lives happen minute by minute.
“We are being transformed into His likeness by looking intently on who He is.”
William Blake may have been the first to say, “We become what we behold,” but the apostle Paul certainly defined true beholding and becoming for us who long to become like Christ:
“We all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.” (2 Corinthians 3:18)
We are being transformed into His likeness by looking intently on who He is.
When I was an art student in college, I spent one semester studying the work of Georgia O’Keefe. I was living in New Mexico at the time, where the artist was well known for having painted from a remote ranch in its desert from 1930 to the end of her life.
As a budding artist myself, I was enchanted by her body of work, her consistent style, her sense of identity, her fearless expression. She elevated a flower’s most overlooked secrets and made grand experiences of its petals and sumptuous lines.
“Worship is not something we do; it defines who we are.”
Studying her work wasn’t simply acknowledging facts—what brushes she used, what kinds of paints. It wasn’t a mere intellectual acknowledgment of her prolific work.
No, to behold her art was to gaze upon it with awe, wonder, and willingness to let its beauty change me somehow .
Her work impacted the way I perceived nature and even included techniques I use in my own creative work.
If admiration and study—even emulation—can cause us to see and respond in an impactful way, how much more so worship—a reverence and adoration for God.
Before you discount yourself as a worshipper, thinking the label too religious, lofty, or spiritual, Paul David Tripp reminds us in his book Instruments in the Redeemer’s Hands:
Human beings by their very nature are worshippers.
Worship is not something we do; it defines who we are.
You cannot divide human beings into those who worship and those who don’t.
“How we direct our eyes, minds, hearts, and hands in the everyday will determine who we ultimately worship and what we ultimately become.”
Everybody worships; it’s just a matter of what, or whom, we serve.
Our jobs, relationships, reputations, and treasures—these are just a few things that compete for our worship. We were made for one worship and one satisfaction, but our taste buds are skewed until our appetites are formed in and for Him.
The question isn’t whether we will use our everyday moments to worship because we will—in the midst of ordinary places, people, sights, sounds, joys, and pains.
How we direct our eyes, minds, hearts, and hands in the everyday will determine who we ultimately worship and what we ultimately become.
We were made to behold Him and be transformed in Him.
The art of everyday worship is the journey from canvas to masterpiece.
This is your invitation to be transformed, one everyday moment at a time.
Ruth Chou Simons is an artist, writer, entrepreneur, and speaker. As author of the bestselling book GraceLaced and creator of the GraceLaced online shoppe, blog, and Instagram community, she shares scriptural truths daily through her hand-painted artwork and words. Ruth and her husband, Troy, live on the western slope of Colorado and are grateful parents to six sons—their greatest adventure.
Bestselling author and artist Ruth Chou Simons invites you on a new journeyin her book Beholding and Becoming. Because every day is an opportunity to be shaped and formed by what moves your heart, drives your thoughts, and captures your gaze, Beholding and Becoming beckons you to be transformed, one everyday moment at a time. If you love GraceLaced, you’re not going to want to miss the next step in the GraceLaced journey.
Offering wisdom and beauty in Ruth’s stunning and beloved style, Beholding and Becoming explores 16 insightful themes with more than 850 pieces of Ruth’s original artwork.
[ Our humble thanks to Harvest House for their partnership in today’s devotion ]
September 7, 2019
Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins for Your Weekend [09.07.19]
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:
Ty Schmitt
Ty Schmitt
Ty Schmitt
…as the world spins in His hands, we look up & know He’s always in control… our Beautiful Light
because we all need someone to love
cheering loudly here: she’s turning school buses into tiny homes for working homeless families
can you even?!?
you’ve got to meet her – she has some good words to share: she found her calling in giving to others
“…keep moving forward and God will take care of the rest…”
#BeTheGift #TheBrokenWay
at 84?! she’s turned her camera where few have ever focused
‘You’ve got a friend in me’
Tenn. elementary school’s buddy bench encourages kindness and inclusion
never, ever give up
THIS: A dinner to remember, made by culinary students who are aging out of foster care
had to share: 50 Finalists of The Agora Awards 2019 showcase some of the most incredible photos taken this year
How to Restore Your Spiritual Sanity
A Prayer for Those Feeling Fragile
The Running Pastor: because we all need someone to just listen
Photo: Galia Oropeza
please don’t miss this story?
What Happens to a Girl When Her Relatives Are All Prostitutes?
Beyond grateful for the saving work of Compassion International
tears at this, such words of Life and Truth: the story of a life that reached around the world…
“…it’s not that you don’t feel the pain, but God gives you those moments where you feel that pain — and then He lifts that from you and puts purpose and direction and resolve…”
a life-changing interview right here – share with a friend?
David Platt will be bringing some soul food here:
Mark your calendar? for the Something Needs to Change simulcast experience, coming
when of the best interviews in sports we may ever see? kindness matters
sharing an unforgettable story of determination and work ethic of a football walk-on
#BeTheGift #TheBrokenWay
to better understand history – he’s interacting with the people who were there
don’t miss this one…
Joy Prouty
Post of the week from these parts here:
Growing older is a gift that only the young take for granted.
It’s a gift to get old enough to realize how little you know.
It’s a gift to hold space for all the ages you have ever been.
It’s a gift to focus less on how old you are becoming and more on who you are becoming.
And maybe getting over the hill gets you seeing what you never would otherwise.
The Secret to Feeling Lucky About Your Age
He loves you, because He loves you…
September is here!
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
thrilled: they’re getting a new lease on life with a new purpose
Instagram: drphaynes
What do you do when you wake up and feel like you’re not enough for your life? Or when you look out the kitchen window as dusk falls and wonder how do you live when life keeps breaking your heart?
In sixty vulnerably soulful stories, The Way of Abundance moves from self-weary brokenness to Christ-focused givenness.
Christ Himself broke like bread, giving Himself to us so we might have a lifelong communion with Him. Could it be that our brokenness is also a gift to the world? These tender devotionals dare us to embrace any and all brokenness as a gift that moves us closer to the heart of God.
This gentle book does nothing less than take you on an intimate journey of the soul.
Order Your Way to Abundance Here
on repeat this week: Fighting For Me
It’s a gift to get old enough to realize how little you know.
It’s a gift to hold space for all the ages you have ever been.
It’s a gift to focus less on how old you are becoming and more on who you are becoming.
And maybe getting over the hill gets you seeing what you never would otherwise.
Maybe blowing out candles is actually about fanning the flames of genuine thanks.
And I’m a bit ignited. We may be growing older but our hearts are growing larger, and we may be limping along but we can help welcome a family into our family that longs to belong, we may be hurting in all kinds of ways, but we can be kind and help others hurting in their own way.
And my heart hurts with this splitting thanks:
Winning the lottery doesn’t make you lucky. Getting to love makes you the luckiest of all, because love always wins.
[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.
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