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July 12 - August 11, 2024
spiritual maturity doesn’t shield me from rejection.
Honesty isn’t trying to hurt me. It’s trying to heal me.
Negative self-talk was a rejection from my past that I had allowed to settle into the core of who I am.
there’s some part of me that feels rejected. I don’t want to take it personally, but I find myself slightly off for the rest of the day and can’t quite shake the disappointment.
Rejection isn’t just an emotion we feel. It’s a message that’s sent to the core of who we are, causing us to believe lies about ourselves, others, and God.
Broken boards can’t provide stability.
For years, I’d been expecting stability from a broken identity.
Things only changed if I changed them.
We’re all desperate to anchor our souls to something we can trust won’t change.
Feelings are broken boards. Only truth is solid, unchanging, and stable through and through.
My identity must be anchored to the truth of who God is and who He is to me. Only then can I find a stability beyond what my feelings will ever allow.
The closer I align my truth with His truth, the more closely I identify with God—and the more my identity really is in Him.
I feel treasured when complimented but tormented when criticized. I’m desperate to keep a relationship that makes me feel valuable. Then I’m constantly terrified of that person slipping away. Because I don’t just feel like I’m losing them … I feel like I’m losing a big part of myself as well.
The more intimacy like this that I have with God, the more secure my true identity is.
C. S. Lewis said it best: “We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be.”
What doesn’t feel good in my flesh won’t make sense in my flesh. But if I have the Holy Spirit in me, my spirit is different because God is there—His indwelling presence with me. He speaks reassurances in the spirit. He speaks comfort in the spirit. He reminds me He is right there with me in the spirit. Others might disappoint me and leave me … but God never will.
The mind feasts on what it focuses on. What consumes my thinking will be the making or the breaking of my identity.
I make the decision to let God sort it all out.
“God, I want Your truth to be the loudest voice in my life. Correct me. Comfort me. Come closer still. And I will trust. God, You are good at being God.”
What the mind focuses on, it feasts on.
I want nothing to hold me but You.
Which has really gotten me thinking about all the many times I assign thoughts to others that they never actually think.
Live from the abundant place that you are loved, and you won’t find yourself begging others for scraps of love.
It’s easy to live loved when I feel loved. But some days I’m just not feeling it.
I love the thought that God is in our midst and that He will quiet me by His love.
Giving with strings of secret expectations attached is the greatest invitation to heartbreak.
the world entices your flesh but never embraces your soul.
All the while, the only love caring enough to embrace us and complete enough to fill us, waits.
When we abide, delight, and dwell in Him, He then places within us desires that line up with His best desire for us.
He can fully satisfy our hearts, because they are consistent with His heart.
He wants our hearts to be in alignment with Him before our hands set about doing today’s assignment for Him.
It’s not deciding in my mind, I deserve to be loved. Or manipulating my heart to feel loved. It’s settling in my soul, I was created by God, who formed me because He so much loved the very thought of me. When I was nothing, He saw something and declared it good. Very good. And very loved.
God’s love isn’t based on me. It’s simply placed on me. And it’s the place from which I should live … loved.
Isn’t it strange how you can literally rub shoulders with lots of people but feel utterly alone?
Proximity and activity don’t always equal connectivity.
I’m with people. But I’m so very alone.
The problem
It was me not being prepared in advance with a fullness that can only come from God.
We must respect ourselves enough to break the pattern of placing unrealistic expectations on others. After all, people will not respect us more than we respect ourselves.
it’s not wrong to need people. But some of our biggest disappointments in life are the result of expectations we have of others that they can’t ever possibly meet.
That’s when the desire to connect becomes an u...
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It’s not that they don’t need people. They do. God created them for community. But the way they love is from a full place, not from an empty desperation.
But living loved isn’t just their mind-set; it is a choice they make daily.
We have to tell our minds to live loved. But then we must also tell our flesh no.
Being full of God’s love settles, empowers, and brings out the best of who we are.
On the other hand, the more full of the flesh we are, the more we grab at anyone and anything to fill that ache for love and acceptance.
It’s so much easier to turn away a dish of pasta if you’re completely full already.
It is impossible to grasp the fullness of God without grasping the fullness of the love of Christ.
If we grasp the full love of Christ, we won’t grab at other things to fill us.
We have the power through Christ, who is over every power, including the pull of the flesh and the sting of rejection.
