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I understood, and I forgave her, but it proved to be one more instance of how hurting people hurt people.
“Forgive them, for they know not what they do.”6
Because she learned not to define herself by how others treated her, or to shut off her heart because of unexpected hurt but let it remain open for unexpected blessings in the future,
We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.
But that’s when she chose to lean into him rather than walk away. As she drew near to him, he drew near to her.
“I knew that my God was a God of hope and a God of destiny. I knew enough to know that I could not let hopelessness be what destroyed me. I could not let my heart spiral out of control. I had to press in and trust him.”
Instead of living in despair for the rest of her life—living but not really living, which would have been so easy to do—she had risked it all to hope again.
Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous
Hope is unshakeable confidence in God.5 It doesn’t deny the reality of our pain, but it does give us a life beyond our pain.
God is good, God does good, and God wants to do good for me—all the time. But to keep my heart and mind thinking and believing this way on a daily basis doesn’t come naturally; instead, it’s always a choice, one I have to make again and again.
It is a place of freedom where we let go of what we once wanted in exchange for what we never expected—a new adventure.
We may never be able to completely silence hopeless thoughts, but we can quiet them with truth.
Our God is a transformational God. He transforms us from the inside out,
Will they look like we first imagined? Probably not. Will we go through more disappointments? Most likely. Will any of our future dreams die as well before they come to life? Quite possibly. Why? Because every promise is tested. Every dream is challenged. God does not always do what we want, when we want, or how we want—but he is always ready to do exceedingly, abundantly, above and beyond anything we could ever ask or think.10
Every time we’re faced with the unexpected, we have the choice to embrace it wholeheartedly or halfheartedly. Embracing it wholeheartedly keeps us moving forward in life; embracing it halfheartedly keeps us from growing.
God’s first priority for us is always transformation—a change from the inside out.
‘The land on which your feet have walked will be your inheritance and that of your children forever, because you have followed the LORD my God wholeheartedly.’
Like all of us, she wanted to be delivered from her emotional difficulties, but God wanted to grow her through them.
We can’t control what life sends us, but we can control how we respond. After all, the only way through is . . . through.
to live wholehearted in an unexpected place.
To choose being completed over being depleted.
How many of us have “bingo nights” in our lives—those weekly or monthly events for which we just aren’t willing to flex, even if one of the most important people in our lives wants to interrupt our routine? What if Jesus wanted to stop by and introduce a new adventure to us? Would we be willing to skip whatever it is to listen? How can we be truly open to God and his kingdom purposes for us if we’re unwilling to let go of bingo night?
I read books all the time to keep myself current with knowledge about leading teams, parenting my kids, and staying strong emotionally. I can’t expect to remain an effective leader to my team if I don’t keep enlarging in knowledge and the skillful application of it. I can’t expect to keep up with a generation that
speaks differently and was educated differently from my generation if I don’t enlarge my mind to understand them and learn how to communicate effectively with them. As tempting as it is, I cannot rest on the success of my past to take me into the future in any area of my life.
Right now, there are more than 76 million baby boomers in the United States and more than 83 million millennials.10
A keen sense of humor helps us overlook the unbecoming, understand the unconventional, tolerate the unpleasant, overcome the unexpected, and outlast the unbearable.
Taking a big sigh and drying my damp face with the sheet, I knew better than to give in to all my irrational thinking. I’m sure my friends were going through their own trying experiences. Everyone has his or her story. I had to believe God was going to use all of this—I just wasn’t sure what for.
Deep down, I knew God was good and that he does good.
The dreams, visions, and plans God places in our hearts take time, lots of time.
Patience is our capacity to tolerate delay—to wait. It’s trusting that God is good, God does good, and God knows what he is doing—no matter how long it takes and no matter what our purpose may be.
No matter the objective, the process is the same. God places in our hearts a calling, a mission, a goal, an idea, a destiny, and then he leads us to it through small, incremental steps.
The prophet Isaiah said it this way: “He tells us everything over and over—one line at a time, a little here, and a little there!” (Isaiah 28:10 NLT).
Virtually everything in our human experience is accomplished little by little. That’s how God works—little by little.
Little by little, she learned how to be genuinely loved and how to trust—the hardest step of all. It didn’t happen all at once, but it did happen.
Steps keep us dependent on God. They keep us on our knees in prayer, walking by faith and not by sight.
It’s human
nature to want to know the whole story first—to see the whole staircase from bottom to top—but we can’t possibly know the end fro...
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The answer was that God had a different future for me, and I wasn’t ready for it yet.
He forged me in the fire. My job was to embrace the process rather than run from it,
Even when there is a tempting shortcut, there is never a substitute for the long way around. God uses the desert roads of our lives to protect us and to prepare us.
If you have a dream, then chances are you’re on a long road. Which means sooner or later, the enemy will mess with you and tempt you to take a shortcut.
God is always out ahead of his people. The problem, with the Israelites and with us, is a lack of trust. Don’t repeat the Israelites’ mistake. Trust that God is always way ahead of you, protecting you from something you can’t see or aren’t yet prepared to handle: • A destructive relationship • A toxic work environment • A ruinous business partnership • A tragedy of epic proportions • A big responsibility
I don’t know what God has placed in your heart to do, but I know he has a journey planned out for you, and he’s never forgotten you.
One moment, I was laughing hysterically and the next I was crying from the depths of my heart. Minutes filled with gratitude gave way to moments of crippling pain. That’s how grief works. That’s how unexpected and unpredictable it is.
Timing is just as important as doing when it comes to following God. Even if I didn’t see any of this grief coming, working through it was exactly what God had planned for me.
When we cry out wanting to be married, doesn’t it stand to reason that his response might be an unexpected question: Are you ready for the vulnerability and transparency of being in a relationship? Or when we pray for new friends, might he ask: Are you willing to risk and invest your time and your heart . . . without any guarantees?
We cry out to him, wanting to move forward, but how would we answer if he asked us: Do you want to let go of the past once and for all, including forgiving all the people who have wounded you? Are you willing to do the work of uncovering bitterness and uprooting it altogether? Are you willing to give up trying to control every facet of your life? And make more room for me?
It is easy to focus on our limitations instead of our freedom, to be consumed with our “pool problem” instead of with the hope of Jesus’s healing.
So when Jesus commanded the man to get up and pick up his mat, he wasn’t just healing his body—he was challenging his sense of safety.
Often, when things get worse before they get better, harder before easier, darker before lighter, we doubt.
