Brenda Seefeldt Amodea's Blog, page 3

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What is Revealed in the Holy Tension of That Brave Decision

I know a beautiful young lady who is in the midst of a brave faith decision. The kind that stirs your soul, you can’t sleep, you can only think about it, and it is one that will change your life forever. But is it a yes or a no?

I’ve been here many many times. It is the marker of my life of making brave faith decisions. I told her so. I told her how honored I was that she would take her life with God so seriously that she would feel this amount of holy tension, seek wisdom from others, and take the time to figure out the yes or the no.

I asked her to write down her processing thoughts that she could barely verbalize to me. I didn’t understand the decision she was wrestling over but I knew the feelings in her soul that were overwhelming and the importance of this decision. I asked her to write down what she wasn’t able to verbalize. She did. It took over three hours. She sent me 34 pages.

And she bolded, God doesn’t waste anything.

Everything brought her to this brave decision point. Everything. Even the most painful things are now a part of this brave decision.

You have much to learn from your long life.

Even if you are 22.

You still have 34 pages to write of the good, the bad, and the regrets. When you do, you see the Larger Story God has continued to write your story. Not even the regrets have deterred that story. There is a throughline that God has made you, spoke words to you before you were born, and continued to guide you to this point…through it all. Through all those decisions you did make and didn’t make, the ones you regret and the ones you are proud of.

Holy, holy.

God’s being and nature are consensual. It must be so because love is consensual. True love cannot be coerced, it emerges in participation. Love is consensual and God is love.

God works in the world with human partners, not in spite of them. God is moved and responds to the free choices we make, which may feel shocking or surprising to you. God is continually guiding us into his direction that we were created to be.  

God is impacted by the decisions and actions we make. The throughline of the Bible shows us repeatedly that God accommodates and consents to us all of the time. God works in participatory and consensual ways because God is most interested in us—in reunion and relationship.

Holy, holy.

Yes, you got real things wrong. You also limp, your heart aches, and you notice things no one else does. You bravely get curious and then God pops an idea into your head or the next step becomes obviously clear (and scary). This thing is so stirred up inside of you that you find yourself daydreaming in this direction, you feel the fear that you can’t make this decision, and you also feel the dread of how empty your life would be if you don’t make this decision. You are overwhelmed. You even decide to fast to help with discernment and “this” only becomes more clearer, which increases your overwhelm. You invite your wise gift of people in to help you discern and they see this in you because they always have, long before you knew.

You have all the feels of holy tension to get you to this point to join God consensually for this next great story.

Then you realize, in the beautiful gush of overwhelmed emotions, God doesn’t waste anything. This is where God has been leading your life the entire time.  

The Healing Time

Finally on my way to yes

I bump into

all the places

where I said no

to my life

all the untended wounds

the red and purple scars

those hieroglyphs of pain

carved into my skin, my bones,

those coded messages

that send me down

the wrong street

again and again

where I find them

the old wounds

the old misdirections

and I lift them

one by one

close to my heart

and I say

holy holy

by Persha Gertler

Through the work of the Holy Spirit today and every day since, God moves the universe to make beautiful things out of the messes we create of our lives. This is the movement of God. To make beautiful things out us.

And God doesn’t waste anything.

Holy, holy.

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Ending That Bad Relationship

You know you are in a bad relationship.

Because everyone is telling you it is.

Because your soul knows it too. Is this the source of your unnamed anxiety?

But…but…but… You have your excuses as to why you are staying in it.

Let’s talk. We don’t know each other so I get to be blunt with you.

There are lies we tell ourselves to stay in a relationship. Read them all. Circle the ones you’ve been telling yourself. Show them to someone you trust. (Don’t be surprised if they hug you and say “it’s about time!” and also say something like they are proud of you.)

Because marriage doesn’t change anyone’s character. This is not going to get better.

Time has revealed that this is not a match after all. Deep down you know it. Instead of facing the ending which needs to be made, you start to contort, to be super-glued, to pray, to cry, to compromise, to lie to yourself, to lie to others, to put “what God told me” as more important than what you are discerning now.

When anyone tells you that they require unconditional love in their romantic relationships, what they’re really saying is that they want someone who has no personal limits. This does not sit right in your soul.

In relationships, the person who cares the least has the most power. You are done feeling helpless and powerless (even as you are so scared to be without this person).

You’re no longer so quick (and desperate) to fall for the “I miss you” text. If you respond to the chain yank of an “I miss you,” you’re communicating that it’s all right to keep treating you like the fallback that you have no problem being. Until now.

Your heart longs for him to acknowledge the pain he caused—to finally see it, name it, and validate it. So you are sticking around hoping. That desire runs deep, because being understood can feel like healing. But beneath that ache is a quieter truth. Your dignity is asking for something different. It’s asking for you to honor your worth, even if he never takes responsibility.

With a bad match, I’m sorry usually means, “I shouldn’t have done what I did because now I’m no longer getting my needs met. Can you please reset our relationship with your forgiveness so I can stop feeling the way I do?” It will never mean “I’m remorseful, I’ve changed.” “I realize how I’ve hurt you, and I feel terrible about it. I want to make things right.”

When someone is genuinely sorry, they will respect your newly adjusted boundaries with awareness of the pain that their behavior caused. When someone is genuinely sorry, you can start trusting them again when a new source of energy becomes a part of your relationship. Change happens when there is a new amount of force driving it. Such as a coach, supervisor, counselor, peer coach, accountability partner. If there is a new energy to your bad relationship you may have reason to hope. This kind of new energy changes things. Not the repeat of the same behaviors. So says Dr. Henry Cloud in his book, Trust. (I highly recommend it.)

You want to stop playing the “I will only think of the good parts of him” trick. Every time you think about breaking up/making this ending, you begin to miss someone who does not exist. You focus just on the part that you like and fail to look at the whole of the person, which includes the negatives which time has revealed to not be a match for you. You never make the ending because you feel like you are losing something wonderful. But this person you are really in love with does not exist.

All of this turmoil inside your soul has now surfaced. This is holy tension. “Holy tension” is the discomfort of being stuck in between but knowing that if you can make a brave vulnerable decision something holy is going to happen. A change for you is coming. And the people who love you are cheering you on.

Some more Dr. Henry Cloud wisdom on the why we avoid endings from Necessary Endings. (I think I love this book even more than Trust.) There are valid reasons why we avoid making endings. Only some of them are because we want to hang on to a bad relationship.

Why we avoid endings:You hang on too long when you should end something now. We are honestly talking about this one now. Please talk about this with someone in your real life too.You do not know if an ending is actually necessary, or if “it” or “he”or “she” is fixable.  Mentioned above. There is a way to maybe hope you two can be fixed. Here’s another article to read about this: Another List to Help You Know if Your Other is Actually Going to Change This Time. You are afraid of the unknown. Possible? Ask yourself.You fear confrontation. Honestly, no one likes to lead in confrontation. It is one of those brave necessities though.You are afraid of hurting someone. Get over it. You are done being hurt.You are afraid of letting go and the sadness associated with an ending. For real. Remember that pain is your beginning. It is time for a beginning for you.You do not possess the skills to execute the ending. A very likely maybe for you. Bring in your team, your gift of people to help you with this. They certainly want to help you with this. Here are many endings tips to help you. And here. You do not even know the right words to use. No one is good at this. Maybe some people are more experienced at this so they might be adequate at it. Waiting for the right words is not a reason to delay. Trust the Holy Spirit to attempt to give you the right words. Make the brave decision and try.You have had too many and too painful endings in your personal history, so you avoid another one. This ending is coming one way or another. You can’t avoid it. You can start now to avoid further regrets.When an ending is forced upon you, you do not know how to process it and you sink or flounder. This is a real fear. But you have a team of people supporting you and carrying you. (You do, right?)You do not learn from previous endings, so you repeat the same mistakes over and over. Experience will not make you wiser. It makes you older. Experience does not guarantee that next time will be any better or different. Evaluate your experiences and learn.

(Dr. Henry Cloud, Necessary Endings, p. 9)

Have I sufficiently pushed you into the holy tension so you can make that brave decision?

One more truth bomb for you. Your soon-to-be ex needs three things to survive after your break up: 

               Your attention               Your reaction               Your low self-esteem

This is because love imposters need these things to stay comfortable in their toxicity. There is no reason for them to personally grow when they can suffocate your personal growth.

For you to heal from this bad relationship, you need three things:

               Maintain silence               Activate indifference               Remember your vanity. Because you belong to God.

May I even bluntly tell you that I wish better for you. I do.

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Some Truths About God You Need to Know. In Short Paragraphs.

Some beautiful quotes that will lead you to wonder about God.

Your God, every moment of every day, is wooing, drawing, calling out your new heart. He is not compelling you to try harder, strain more, prove your love more or even trust harder. Instead, He is drawing you to become daily more and more convinced of His love, your new identity and His power in you to mature you into who He has called you-Righteous. He will not be deterred by your failure, your laziness, your lack of interest, your scheming. He has already made up his mind about you and he will not fail in wooing you to that life he intended for you from before the world began. I know you think you don’t deserve such favor. He will overcome that also…Good luck stopping him. —John Lynch, one of the authors of The Cure, @John Lynch, Facebook, April 15, 2020

“When the incarnation happened—the word being made flesh—these scars were always going to happen. God is going to continue to pursue and love anyway because he is love.

“This is my hope in my broken-heartedness. These scars are not in a painting nor are they buried in the ground. These scars are seated in the place of honor beside God’s throne. These scars are on the one who is interceding for me. Who then will condemn us? No one—for Christ Jesus died for us and was raised to life for us, and he is sitting in the place of honor at God’s right hand, pleading for us. Romans 8:34. These scars kicked some holy butt in the fight of all the ages and gave us an Easter morning! The scars live so he can show us them so we can see him the best. (Luke 24:39-40.) And this is true. The Risen Christ remembers his suffering. He has the scars. The scars are the only man-made thing that is in heaven.” –Brenda Seefeldt Amodea, http://bravester.com/five-crucifixion-scars-pierced-to-the-heart/

“Praying over the passage of the washing of the feet (John 13:1-17), I was suddenly transported in faith into the Upper Room, where I took Judas’ place among the Twelve. The Servant, who had tied a towel round his waist, poured water from a pitcher into a copper basin and reached out to wash my feet (the dress and duty of a slave). Involuntarily I pulled my foot back. I couldn’t look at him. I had betrayed the vision, been unfaithful to my dream (and thus unfaithful to his plan for my life).

“Sensing my dismay, he placed his hand on my knee and said, ‘Brennan, do you know what these years together have meant to me? You were being held even when you didn’t believe I was holding you. I love you, my friend.’

“Tears rolled down my cheeks. ‘But Lord, my sins, my repeated failures, my weaknesses…’

“’I understand. Brennan, I expected more failure from you than you expected from yourself.’ He smiled. ‘And you always came back. Nothing pleases me as much as when you trust me, when you allow that my compassion is bigger than your sinfulness.’” –Brennan Manning, A Glimpse of Jesus, pp. 30-31

“Shame likes to keep you small and unseen. You know the decisions you’ve made. You know how you justified those decisions. You believe there is no way you are worthy to bring your problem to God or to ask God how to get out of this mess. These are the lies shame loves to tell you.

“This is who God is! He sees you. God’s movement towards us is redeeming the shame. Wherever shame is redeemed, you will see God’s fingerprint. I have met the truest version of God in the redemption of my pain.” –Brenda Seefeldt Amodea https://bravester.com/even-you-can-be-heard-by-the-king/

“I don’t think it’s meaningless, the story that says God sculpted us from clay. Of all the things He made, humankind was the first that He touched. The first breath we tasted was His exhale. I don’t think it’s meaningless that the first time humanity looked up at the eyes of God, His hands were dirty and He was close.

“Maybe we missed it—what God showed us when He first introduced Himself: that He will crawl into the dirt to be near us, and He will fill our lungs with air when we don’t know how to breathe.” –Nightbirde (Jane Kristen Marczewski) https://www.nightbirde.co/blog/2021/9/27/room-for-air

“I think God is awed by the one sheep which is why he pursues with love and grace. Not shame. Awe doesn’t have space for shame.

“God does not use shame to pursue us.

“God is not insecure that he needs to use shame to ‘power over’ us to call us back.

“You may think God does use shame because you struggle with shame. You feel responsible in your ruminating of all of the bad things you’ve done as well as your bad decisions. Shame feels responsible.

“Or you have a view of a judgey God who uses shame to keep you in line.

“Meanwhile, God never uses shame to pursue us. You can’t find it in the Bible.” –Brenda Seefeldt Amodea https://bravester.com/you-inspire-awe...

“God already knows every deep thing within us—even those things too deep for our own conscious minds to retrieve—yet he searches us anyway. His Spirit seeks though he knows what he will find. He is neither bored nor uninterested. His omniscience does not distract from his discovery.” –Beth Moore, Align:  31 Days of Prayer, Day 31

“Our world is full of unspeakable evil. And “everyone” (it sure feels like it) is speaking about it all of the time in every voice. This unspeakable evil keeps being heard and thusly permeates deep into our very being. Our souls are disturbed. We need the Psalms even more.

“It is in the reading of the Psalms (again) I discovered a new name for God. It is one that I’ve not heard of before. Psalms are full of names for God such as my Rock, my Protector, Good Shepherd. This name is not as comfy. I’ve yet to hear this name in a worship song.

“O Lord, the God of vengeance, O God of vengeance, let your glorious justice shine forth! Psalm 94:1

“This does not sound like a loving adoring name for God.

“It is the God my soul needs now. In this world of injustice that disturbs my soul.

“God is the one who avenges the unjust. This is all over the Bible. God does unleash vengeance out of love for me. Out of love for you. This is because of love.” –Brenda Seefeldt Amodea, https://bravester.com/i-am-loved-by-t...

“Hebrews 1:3 says that God the Son is ‘upholding the universe by his word of power.’ The picture we are presented with is not that God set the world going like a clock and left it to its own workings. It is rather that he continuously holds the universe in the palm of his hand, that it exists because of his continuous creative power and will:  if he were to stop exerting that upholding power, stop paying attention to every part of the universe, it would instantly cease to exist. In other words, for a Christian, the primary principle of reality is the personal character and will of God, not the impersonal laws of nature. Christian theology regards the laws of nature, which describe the normal course of events, as the normal way God upholds and orders the universe. Every single thing that happens is dependent on God’s upholding power. But God is not arbitrary; he has principles. And the laws of nature are the principles he applies to ensure a universe in which his creatures, including the sentient ones like humans, can live within a coherent environment that supports what he intends for them.”  –Ian Hutchinson, Can a Scientist Believe in Miracles? Pp. 152-153

Amazing thought:  “Genesis 1:4 tells us that God separated the light and the dark. If dark and light had to be divided into distinct parts then at some point between God’s creation of light and the separation, light and darkness must’ve existed together, occupying the same place at the same time.  No one else can cause light and dark to coexist in time and space.

“But if God can do it, then what could be impossible for Him?” –Brenda Seefeldt Amodea

“Our desire for pleasure and the experience of joy come directly from God’s hand. He made our taste buds, adrenaline, sex drives, and the nerve endings that convey pleasure to our brains. Likewise, our imaginations and our capacity for joy and exhilaration were made by the very God we accuse of being boring.” –Randy Alcorn, Heaven, p. 394

“Sometimes I picture God as a she because Momma God is intervening on my behalf. Don’t mess with Momma when it comes to her beloved. -–Brenda Seefeldt Amodea, http://bravester.com/i-love-this-momma-god-who-is-intervening-on-my-behalf/

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Do You Think People Get in the Way of Your Goals?

Let’s start here with someone else’s brilliant thoughts.

“I saw a tweet recently that was the perfect example of this. This young guy shared his Patrick Bateman-esque morning routine: journaling, red light therapy, breathwork, meditation, gym, ice bath, sauna, reading, all in perfect silence. No interruptions; no spontaneity. And there’s nothing necessarily wrong with it, but it’s just not the kind of lifestyle you can have with other people around. Watching it, my first thought was, wow, if this is the ideal, no wonder young people are delaying marriage and having children. We’ve been told that the meaning of life is self-actualisation, to achieve some perfect state of mental health and productivity. Don’t commit until you have perfect control. But I think that way of thinking will backfire. Because the end point of trying to control everything is you become like a machine: emotionally detached, hyper-productive, super-efficient…and alone.

“And eventually, you end up seeing other human beings as distractions, as annoyances. Other people become obstacles. For women, men become obstacles to our healing and mental health. For men, women seem like obstacles to their ambition and self-development. Or vice versa. It all seems like an avoidance strategy to me, everyone trying very hard not to be vulnerable and get hurt.

“Maybe it’s the hopeless romantic in me but, in my mind, you do all those things for love. For family. We try to heal, we work harder, for our relationships, to build a more stable and reliable foundation for the people we care about. Isn’t that the point? What’s all this for, otherwise? But now it seems like we’re optimising ourselves away from each other, hiding away to heal ourselves, protecting our peace so fiercely we end up alone.” –Freya India, https://www.freyaindia.co.uk/p/a-world-in-upheaval

Here’s the question:  Do people get in the way of your goals? Or do we need people to help us make our goals?

I understand why the economy and social media are encouraging us to “optimize” ourselves away from people. There is money to be made off of you.

I understand why you would want to reconfigure your budget to take better care of yourself with such products and programs. To reconfigure your budget is less vulnerable than to trust people. You can control your money budget and your time budget. What you can’t control is the possibility of someone betraying you.

Even so, doesn’t it sound wonderful to have people to help you make your goals? To have these special chosen friends and family to be your cheerleaders, to be your advisors, to help carry you on those extra hard days, and to be the ones to tell you how proud they are of you. Because those words coming from them who know you through the struggle will mean everything in the world to you.

This…is worth the risk of people.

Paul Tripp wrote these truths about the real of relationships in his book, Relationships:  A Mess Worth Making:

Our relationships will never work according to our plan—because relationships reveal our heart and builds our character.Our relationships will never live up to our expectations—this side of eternity none of us get to be with the person of our dreams and none of us are ready to be the person of someone else’s dreams.Our relationships will always grapple with some kind of difficulty—this could be you, this could be me, this could be a life circumstance. Do we have grace for all of this?Our relationships will always need to improve.

There are the risks.

Who wants that when you can be super-efficient alone? I’m hoping you will choose the gift of people.

As Derek Thompson said in the now-viral The Atlantic article, “All of this time alone, at home, on the phone, is not just affecting us as individuals. It’s making society weaker, meaner, and more delusional.” –Derek Thompson, “The Anti-Social Century,” The Atlantic, January 8, 2025

And all the people said, “Amen.”

We have got to try people again. For the sake of our culture. And for our own souls.

You have got to make the brave faith decisions to attach your life to people. Make the decisions to have the beautiful and the awkward of relationships with real people who have the potential to betray you and even more potential to grow you.

People are a part of spiritual formation.

Joy does not exist outside of relationship. Read the science about that. That at first sounds like a pithy-Christian statement but it is actually science. Of course, science does reveal the heart of God.

Do you feel the vulnerability of all this? Does this make you want to have an AI friend instead? You are being sold that too.

Jeffrey Hall, a professor of communication studies at the University of Kansas, from his research says it takes about 50 hours to form a casual friendship, 90 hours to transition to a real friendship, and 200 hours to become good friends. Source.

That is 200 hours of risk-taking vulnerability. Worth it for when that friend looks at you and says, “I’m so glad to know you.” Or, “Only you know me this way.” Or, “I’m so proud of you.”

We are hurt by people we have relationships with. We will also be healed by being in relationships with people.

Intentionally make your Life Team. Your Life Team is the friendships you purposely put into your life to help you flourish. Check out this downloadable pdf to learn more about what makes a Life Team member and descriptions of who you need on your Life Team: https://largerstory.church/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/How_To_Make_Friends_Final.pdf

I’ve also created for you this small group video study on how to find your Life Team. Hit play and then pause when a question is asked for your group to discuss. Here’s the first lesson.

Please try people again.

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I Don’t Like This Current World

“Five years after the pandemic began, Donald Trump is president again, but he’s presiding over a very different country now. America is a harsher place, more self-interested and nakedly transactional. We barely trust one another and are less sure that we owe our fellow Americans anything — let alone the rest of the world.”  –David Wallace-Wells, NY Times, March 4, 2025

How can we live bravely in this world?

“We have lived through history. We are living through history? At what point do we become a post-pandemic world? At this point, I do not know. I wonder if we ever will be post-pandemic.” I wrote those words in 2022 here, Healing Our Souls on the Other Side of the Pandemic. Here we are at the 5-year anniversary mark and there is still an underlying rage in all of us.

I don’t know if I would call David Wallace-Wells a prophet. I’m not that familiar with him or his writing. But his essay did touch the ache in my soul that I don’t like this current world we are living in. This is my confession.

Everything is harsher. We don’t trust our institutions (even though we need them). Everything is so transactional.

How can we live bravely in this world to not make America great again (a false belief system) but to live bravely like Jesus in this culture of heartbreak?

We’ve all been changed because of this pandemic. As much as we are trying to get back to normal (whatever that is), the truth is something has been jarred deep in our souls and we are creating a new normal. There is a rage just beneath our surfaces that we have not fully dealt with yet.

We can make some brave decisions to make it better.

Some of David Wallace-Wells good points are political opinions, and sensible. I don’t want to comment on those because I also am tired of the confusion of politics these days. I too am looking for a political leader who is not using fear to control the masses. Living through the Covid pandemic introduced us to real fear which has been manipulated for selfish gains. This is part of why I don’t like this current world we are living in.

Here are some of David Wallace-Wells insights that I chose for us to ponder and to find our way through, bravely.

It turned us into hyperindividualists. [image error]

(Photo credit: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toront...)

What does this picture do to your soul? Does it trigger an ache you’ve been trying to not remember?

I’ve written plenty about the documented loneliness epidemic. I’ve written about how people are a part of our spiritual formation. We need this gift of people.

But to trust people…

It is easier to live in our covid circles, even five years later. An economy has been created to keep us in our covid circles too. Think DoorDash, Instacart, and livestream church.

The brave decisions then becomes choosing to invite people back into your life. Choosing to join a group, any group. Choosing to leave your home and meet with people.

(Read this about the increase of friends canceling plans with friends at the last moments. You feel this, don’t you?)

I feel the risk in this decision. That is why it is a brave one. May the ache in your soul propel you to take the risk.

It inaugurated a new age of social Darwinism.

The pandemic helped us “other” people by strength and weakness. Not just by race or income levels, but by surviving and how you survived and the “other” did not.

To quote David Wallace-Wells: “Survival became a measure of merit. Pandemic history is written by the survivors, after all, but what does it tell us about the dead?” We now other those who followed the mandates. We other those who died as being less healthy, too old, too obese. …This was all a coping mechanism, but it turned Covid into a kind of morality tale in which your fate was ultimately your responsibility. Or, perhaps, your fault.”

This is so beneath the surface in your soul, now exposed.

We humans have a long history of othering the other, mostly due to scarcity and fear. As Christians, because Jesus called this out time and time again, we have to be better.

Read also: I Choose to See You Not as a Monster

It may have halted the years long decline of Christianity in America.

Some good news? People are more spiritually curious. Encountering death does do that. People are looking for the enchanted. Science wasn’t the end all to protect us.

As a 40+ year pastor I was so hoping churches would take the opportunity to change, because the pandemic gave them space to slow down and consider change. To my great sadness, churches didn’t change. The doors opened again and we went back to normal because we had mortgages to pay. Too many churches didn’t even bother to paint the interiors when the building was empty and there was time to do it. (I began my church in 2020 trying to do something differently. I made that brave decision and I like what we are building.)

Because of this pandemic disruption, I won’t be surprised if we see some sort of spiritual revival (hallelujah!) from souls seeking but it will not be happening in churches.

It turned parts of our economy into a casino.

I’ll just leave this thought whole from David Wallace-Wells. I had never thought of it before but now I can’t unthink it.

“Federal estimates suggest that more than $200 billion in Covid relief loans and grants went to fraudulent actors — almost one out of every five dollars spent by the program. It wasn’t hard to believe that your neighbors were cheating or that your job, on that front, was to keep up with the Joneses.

“The easiest way to spend stimulus checks, from home, was to dump the money into our computers. To many, Covid seemed to reveal that an intrepid country had been taken over by overcautious worry-warts — and that rebellion meant embracing risk. So we spent our money on meme stocks and SPACs, NFTs and crypto and smartphone gambling. From behind a laptop or through an iPhone, the economy came to look even more like a slot machine.”

Are you also disturbed at the increase of gambling in our lives today? Are you also disturbed that watching sports on TV has grown from watching to fantasy sports to gambling on sports. So to see hard-earned money (right?!) be spent like a casino whose business plan is to rob you of your money feels wrong. Our souls declare this as wrong.

It scarred children.

Youth pastor me knows this. Teachers know this. Parents know this. We just don’t know the full aspects of this yet. And this worries us.

We must be eyes-open, depending on the Holy Spirit to help us lead and heal the damage we aren’t even sure we know how to name yet. We will be learning as we go. Depending on the Holy Spirit to help heal children and teens is a lot of brave decisions. It is easier to trust what we’ve done in the past. But the past has been abruptly changed.

Perhaps the biggest shock was realizing we still live in history — and at the mercy of biology.

I’m adding we are also at the mercy of a Savior who isn’t us.

We thought with our smartphones and self-love decisions that we were in control of our own worlds. Until something like biology stopped our worlds. We are still susceptible to contagion, mass death and pandemic hysteria of various kinds—something our unlimited selves never considered before. We now are learning AI to further control our lives. But AI also can’t protect us from something like this happening again.

Hence the longing for enchantment–for those who bravely search their souls–wondering if there is more to believe in. There is. His name is Jesus and he saves you from what you can control and what you can’t control so you have placement and an identity that is secure in this insecure world. You begin as enough and then mature into who you already are. No contagion can take that away. You get to figure out this uncertain life that has limitations with a Savior who knows your name and counts your tears.

To quote David Wallace-Wells one last time:

“Today, when we retell the story of those years, we often diminish the actual disease, and in its place, everything else looms much larger: school closures, mask mandates, vaccine guidance. But at first the horizon was dominated by fear.”

This fear has changed our very souls. Now how shall we live? What brave decisions can we make? Because the world has got to be better than this. I want to make that difference. I believe in the way of Jesus too much.

The post I Don’t Like This Current World appeared first on Bravester.

The Only Identity That Hasn’t Changed

In the beginning God made us in his image. It’s the only image we’re supposed to fit.

“I don’t think it’s meaningless, the story that says God sculpted us from clay. Of all the things He made, humankind was the first that He touched. The first breath we tasted was His exhale. I don’t think it’s meaningless that the first time humanity looked up at the eyes of God, His hands were dirty and He was close.

“Maybe we missed it—what God showed us when He first introduced Himself: that He will crawl into the dirt to be near us, and He will fill our lungs with air when we don’t know how to breathe.” –Nightbirde (Jane Kristen Marczewski) https://www.nightbirde.co/blog/2021/9/27/room-for-air

(Those are the most beautiful words.)

We also begin with a flash of light. When the sperm meets the egg, an explosion of tiny sparks erupts from the egg at the exact moment of conception. This is zinc radiating out at conception. Your life began in a bright flash of light. (I learned that amazing fact from Love Thy Body, Nancy Pearcey, p. 61)

In the beginning there was light…and then you. Did you know that?

We begin with God’s touch, God’s breath, a flash of light, and maybe an angel’s final gesture. All of this beginning—before we are able to do anything—gives us the foundation of our importance.

There is a Jewish legend that says just before God puts a soul into the body that soul is asked to forget its life before birth. Hence, just as the soul enters the body, one of God’s angels presses the baby’s mouth shut, as a gesture that, during its earthly life, it is to be silent about its divine origins. The little crevice below each person’ nose is the imprint of the angel’s forefinger, sealing your lips—and that is why, when you are trying to remember something, during your ponderings, your own forefinger spontaneously rises and rests in that crevice. –Ronald Rolheiser, The Holy Longing, p. 16

I believe with God’s hands in the dirt for the creation of us that God is the one who imprints on us first. I believe God speaks to us first in the womb. The Bible confirms this. That ache in your soul also confirms this. We are all born into this world looking to be found.

This enchanting ache in your soul has you on a continual search to connect with those first words spoken to you. You’ve been seeking to hear those words again with every life decision you have made.

Maybe you trusted God once. Maybe not anymore.

Maybe you can’t possibly believe that God is good.

Maybe you would rather depend on you than depend on a Savior who isn’t you.

You’ve made lots of decisions and still haven’t quieted that ache.

Human approval is fleeting. You need an approval that is secure, like larger-story-everlasting-that-has-no-end secure.

I’m hoping you can’t unsee the beauty of your creation. This is where your identity begins and ends. Everything in the middle is the brave decisions you get to make.

We are made in the image of God which in Hebrew is b’tzelem Elohim (Genesis 1:27). The word for image in Hebrew is tzelem and is derived from the Hebrew word tzel which means shadow. Elohim is god. A shadow does not act independently but is a reflected image. Here’s is that connection we as the created have to our Creator.

We start with a spark of light and then we get the choice to allow God’s light to shine through us to be a shadow. We are forever connected, whether you realize it or not.

Your soul realizes it already.

We do and try so many things to comfort our soul. Work success. Overachieving. Finding “the one.” Busily involving yourself in the life of others, even good social justice causes. Making yourself small. Dropping out. Seeking that human approval that is fleeting.

Considerable emphasis is placed on finding your own identity and respecting the identities of others. You defend diversity and equality and you want to correct injustices based on identity. Something as concrete as gender is now blurred. You are told you aren’t supposed to see color. Finding your identity has always been a part of adolescent development (and delayed adolescent development) but now there are no boundaries to find your identity. While this is supposed to be freedom, it is overwhelming. (The effects of this are just starting to be seen.)

Your soul realizes it already.

What words did God speak to you before you were born in that secret place? You know…those same words you so desire and are striving for to be spoken about your life now.

Perhaps it is something like this, “I don’t love you for what you do. I love you because you are mine.”

Worthiness is your birthright.

In the beginning God made us in his image. It’s the only image we’re supposed to fit.

p.s. Those Bible verses that say God spoke to us first:  Job 10:10-12, Psalm 51:6, Psalm 71:6, Psalm 139:13-16, Isaiah 49:1-5, Jeremiah 1:5.

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Women, It’s Hard to Have Some Vanity When the Church Taught You to Hate Your Body

Having some vanity is a part of brave dating.

I grew up in the church, have been a youth pastor since the early 1980s (and every decade since) and have never learned nor taught any of this.

Some of you haven’t been as fortunate. You are who I’m writing to.

Purity culture taught you that your body was evil because of the temptation it posed to men, while fundamentalism taught you that your body was evil because you were born totally depraved.

So you have learned to not listen to your body. You have learned to turn your body off. You have never celebrated your body as good.

Your body is good and designed to worship. When you do feel connected to God, you feel it in your body, right? You feel it. These moments are memorable.

Jesus rose from the grave with his body intact. Luke 24:39 – Look at my hands. Look at my feet. You can see that it’s really me. Touch me and make sure that I am not a ghost, because ghosts don’t have bodies, as you see that I do.”

Jesus was born as a baby with a body. This is the incarnation.

In the incarnation, God entered not just the beauty and wonder of embodiment but also its shame. Jesus had bad breath. He may have wet the bed. His nose may have been lumpy or his teeth crooked. He stank. He covered his nakedness.

But because of the embodied life, death, and resurrection of Christ, we who are in Christ are ‘clothed in Christ.’ The shame of embodiment—and ultimately the shame of sin—that Adam and Eve could not cover with fig leaves is resolved permanently in Christ himself. –Tish Harrison Warren, Liturgy of the Ordinary, p. 40

Our embodied Savior is a part of our redemption.

Is the body the meeting of heaven and earth? Think deeper about that one.

God created us with bodies and called them good. Your bodily presence is good simply by the very act of your creation.

Too often, women, we’ve felt like we’ve had to apologize for the space we take up with our bodies.

Too often, women, we believe to find love we have to shut off our bodies. We believe the lie that we need to divide physical intimacy from emotional intimacy. You have been taught to devalue the human that you are with, to other the body. And to devalue you. You are to disassociate your body from who you are as a whole person.

Can you say that your body is good? Can you have a little vanity about your body? Yes. “But.” I hear the but in your head. Women struggle to say we are proud of our accomplishments, which also includes our bodies.

You are not wooed to God by shame. That is not how God pursues you. So any narrative around the body that promotes shame about your body is not for you. You are invited to wholly love God with your mind, soul, spirit, and body.

Anything else is disembodiment. Historically and currently there have been lots of false belief systems that encourage disembodiment and all have been called out to be anti-Christian. Such as Gnosticism, Hermeticism, Christian mysticism, shamanism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism.

What is one more thing that makes the Christian faith different? It celebrates the body.

Too bad too many church teachings have not taught this.

Yet the message is clearly Biblical. 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 – Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body.

Your body matters. It is good. It is to be celebrated. The Holy Spirit joins you there. You united with your Creator through the Holy Spirit in your body have only a brave faith of a life waiting for you.

Make your dating decisions from this vantage point. (It is an advantage.) The Holy Spirit will join you there too.

Order your own set of these Body Blessings cards from Revelation Wellness.

If this sounds like a Dove commercial to you this is exactly why those Dove commercials are so good for our souls. It is so good to hear the body celebrated.

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The Brave Decision of a Moral Code

Is your soul generally always disturbed? Does this rant of a quote identify the disturbance that is in your soul?

“Nowadays we’ve forgotten the word morals and replaced it with boundaries. Boundaries, a popular term in therapy, basically mean the lines we draw in relationships to define what is acceptable and unacceptable behaviour. In a new romantic relationship, for example, you first need to set boundaries. Boundaries can “be anything, include anything, and change depending on the person/situation/time.” “All that matters is that they feel good to you”! In other words there’s no common moral ground anymore so we are each left to make up our own arbitrary standards, present them to our partners, and hope they find some reason to respect them. We can’t base it on our morality, that’s judgemental, we can’t base it on God, we’ll get laughed at, so instead we base it on our mental health or happiness or some childhood trauma, which makes it feel like an us problem. And we’ve created this messed-up situation where the person in a relationship with a stronger moral instinct often ends up feeling guilty, or seeming the most insecure.

“The other problem with everyone setting their own personal boundaries is that we are all getting very confused. Heartbreakingly confused. Look at the relationship forums. Look at all the contradictions. Date someone new now and not only do you need to learn their likes and dislikes but their version of right and wrong. Everyone’s boundaries are entitled to respect and all are equally deserving of respect. Set too many and you’re controlling. Cross theirs and you’re toxic. Everything is up for debate! Which is why I think we’ve ended up with all these young women online complaining about having to explain ‘basic decency’ to their boyfriends. Well yep! That’s what happens when everyone makes up their own morality, when we suspend moral judgement. We end up in separate worlds. Turns out if everyone lives their truth we lose grip on the truth, the ultimate truth, moral truth. Turns out if everyone respects everyone’s boundaries we end up fenced off from each other.

“Because of course in our individualistic culture we call it boundaries, another thing that closes us off from other people. We don’t teach young people a framework of moral values to live by, only how to cut themselves off from behaviour they don’t like.” —Freya India (Worth the click to read the entire rant.)

Did you feel this rant? Have you felt this confusion, like deep in your soul? Is this the source of some of your anxiety?When you read about the lack of moral values, did that signal something to your disturbed soul?

The author of this rant is a 20-something young woman from England. She has a way of putting to words the confusion we are living in. I love everything she writes because it resonates inside of me as a 40+ year youth pastor concerned about what this confusion is doing to our souls. What kind of world did us older people leave our younger people?

Did you ever consider that what your soul wants is to live by a moral code?

A moral code says some things are right and some things are wrong. This can be decided by you individually but then we get “what is true for you is not true for me” and that has led to this current culture of anxiety and the mess inside your soul.

A moral code indicates that something is wrong. This triggers guilt inside of us. Instead of listening to our souls, we have declared that this is right for me and proceed to shut our soul’s voice down. That feels like misplaced anxiety. That feels like a disturbance we must shut out. (This is why I’m pro-guilt.)

A moral code is greater than one you decide on. It is from the collective so someone outside of you (because you know how you lie to yourself) says this is wrong and this is right. A moral code backed up by the way of Jesus has been vehemently bashed by our culture as being old-fashioned, restrictive, for dumb people. Yet your soul is telling you something else. Because there is a good and there is a wrong. There are things that destroy your soul and there are things that are righteous.

(Notice how you are being talked down to and your soul minimized when talking about the way of Jesus.)

When you experience virtuous decisions that someone makes toward you is your soul awakened because your soul is drawn to the good?

Think about the last time you were the recipient of someone’s virtuous decision. Your soul sang a little bit, right? Maybe it sang a lot.

Have you ever considered that the Holy Spirit is whispering to your soul to pursue the good?

You can perfect yourself, overthink your decisions, manifest, take salt baths, define your own truth, and still have a disturbed soul. Is there something deeper going on?

The Holy Spirit is calling everyone to God. This is what the Holy Spirit does. We are wooed. Whether you acknowledge your need for a Savior or not, the Holy Spirit is still doing what the Holy Spirit does.

Is the Holy Spirit wooing your disturbed soul? Even if you have trust issues with God? Even if you want nothing to do with a higher power?

Will you consider the possibility that you are in need of a savior who isn’t you? Will you consider the savior who is Jesus who because of his sacrifice on that cross gives you the chance to begin as enough so you can now mature into who you already are?

This is not love yourself so have another salt bath. And then continue trying to find peace for your soul tomorrow. This is conduct yourself better. Make those 1,000 small honorable decisions and on the 1,001 decision you will have formed a virtue. Mature into who you already are. This is making that brave decision that your soul is asking you to make.

Virtues are living your life out of worthiness because you are enough so you make honorable decisions.

A virtuous life carries less shame and less regret and less fear of the future. Anxiety is approaching the future with fear. So how about a life with less anxiety also?

Does this possibility feel good to your soul? Pay attention to that. Ask your questions. Ask me those questions. There is something true here.

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Your Body Matters

I know you are reading a Christian article about dating advice.

I also know that you have very likely been sexually active. I know this and I write anyway. There is no shame forthcoming.

Have you ever disconnected yourself from your body during sex?

This hurts my heart for you.

This culture has taught you to divide physical intimacy from emotional intimacy. You have been taught to devalue the human that you are with, to other the body. And to devalue you. You are to disassociate your body from who you are as a whole person.

Sexual intercourse, the most intimate of bodily relations, has been disconnected from personal relations. All that matters is consent. You consent and have learned to separate your body from your mind and soul.

Your body doesn’t matter. So turn it off. No names, no emotions, just sex. Which also means you don’t matter. You feel this haunt.

You wish to matter.

This is oh so common and so many broken people. You feel broken too.

You are having sex with a whole person. You are partnering in sex as a whole person. Turn your body off all you want, but you are a whole person having sex.

Your whole body, soul, and mind was created for something more. Sex was created to bring all of those together to be an expression of all of them. Think about the act of sex. True, right? Sex is designed to be whole body, soul, and mind. Sex is more than a physical act. It is access to the rich inner life of a whole person.

This is when sex is beautiful, life-fulfilling, and memorable.

There is not a condom big enough to protect your heart.

There is no Prozac for the mind to fix this.

Your body is good. Your body matters.

The Bible is pro-body. Beginning with Genesis 1:27 – So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

Your sexual identity is fixed and secure because it was gifted to you at your creation. Consider receiving your body as a good gift from God. (I know, I just triggered some identity issues for you.)

Today’s popular ethic is anti-body. You are defined by your feelings and desires. There is disdain, even hatred, for the body.

How can your personhood be separated from your body? Doesn’t your personhood include your body? Is your body valuable?

In Paul’s writing he elevates the body. 1 Corinthians 6:15 – Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never!

Paul’s rationale for sexual morality is that your body has dignity of being a member of the body of Christ. Your body inherently has dignity.

Paul goes further and says your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. 1 Corinthians 6:19 – Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own;

The temple was sacred space, where people went to meet with God. Your body is where people will meet with God. Where you will see God. Your body matters. Your body is valuable. Your sexual experience can be a place where you meet with God. It is supposed to be.

Because of this Judeo-Christian ethic, true consent was a rarity in the world in which Christianity got its start. Christianity invented consensual sex when the early church developed a sexual ethic that assumed that God empowers individuals with freedom, including women. The Christian sexual ethic invited all of us to include our bodies, to be whole persons, in the act. Hence the boundaries around sex.

From the beginning, Christianity was not traditional; it was radically countercultural. What is going on now with this belief that it is just sex so disconnect your body is historically traditional.

You may think you are having a no-strings attached hookup, but your body is still creating a chemical bond—whether you mean to or not. Oxytocin (women) and vasopressin (men) is being released in your brain (part of the pleasure) and that is the bonding hormone. Your body is still having part in this action, even if you think you have turned your body off. Sex involves our bodies down to our biochemistry.

People say Christians are anti-science. This popular ethic is anti-science.

So why do you separate your mind and soul from your body? Why do you turn off your mind and soul when sex is happening to your body? Why do you turn off the lights when you have sex?

I wish more for you. I address this haunt on purpose.

Further reading: Love Thy Body by Nancy Pearcey.

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