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Kindle Notes & Highlights
Elohim . . . The Strong Creator God. Adonai . . . Lord of All. El Roi . . . The God Who Sees Me. El Shaddai . . . God Almighty. Jehovah-Shalom . . . The God of Peace. Jehovah-Rapha . . . The God Who Heals. Jehovah Raah . . . The LORD is My Shepherd.
What is still standing when everything else is gone?
The “good thing” I wanted, I might not get. The “good thing” that remained was greater.
We’ll never have enough to fulfill all the demands made on us, but that’s okay. We’re not supposed to have enough. We’re supposed to bring what we have, our clearly not enough, to Jesus and ask Him to meet us where we are.
When we give Jesus our not enough He blesses it and breaks it and He feeds His people. Understanding that principle has shifted something deep inside me.
Jesus simply asks me, “What do you have?”
I’m not living by faith if I have an answer to everything. If I understand everything God does or doesn’t do, then all I need to love Him with is my mind. We’re called to love Him with more.
We love with our heart, even when it’s broken. We love with our soul, even when our humanity wrestles against our situation. We love with our strength, even when it’s almost gone. We love with our mind, even when we don’t understand.
Not only did Abigail make it clear that she knew who her husband was, more importantly, she told David that she knew who he was.
I asked her if she could design the life she imagined, what would that look like? She said that she’d love to reach women who would never come to church, those who felt they would not be welcome. “Sounds good!” I said. “Let’s pray together to see that dream find wings.”
as we continue to walk with Christ, His presence becomes greater than the wound and a scar forms. Our scars are proof that God heals. For some, however, the wound has given them identity, a story, one they’re not willing to give up. The wound becomes the thing that is most true about them.
The very things that make you feel disqualified from ever being used by God can be the channels through which He reaches another broken life. When wounds are fresh, they need space and grace to heal, but when scars begin to form, we have a story to share.
When we’re well loved we feel no shame in failing; it’s accepted as part of the great adventure of life. We discover both what we love and are drawn to and the things that might be fun to try but clearly are not our strengths.
When you allow a label to become the greatest truth about yourself, you’ve missed out on the glorious redemption Christ bought for you on the cross.
I have had to bring the little girl in me to Jesus over and over and ask Him to help her.
He invites us to bring to Him all of who we were, who we are, and who we hope to be.
The truth about our lives is that we are all broken. It’s more obvious when the scar is on the skin and not on the soul, but we are broken nonetheless. The decision we get to make is whether we hide that brokenness or offer it to Jesus.
When you realize that you don’t have to have it all together you can give others that freedom too. Understanding that Christ is the hero of our stories allows us to be human.
I am an overcomer. I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength. I am part of heaven’s royal family. I am a new creation. I have a future and a hope. Just as I am, right now, I am completely loved by God.
Rules attempt to modify our behavior, but love, the love of God, changes our hearts. When our hearts are free to love with abandon, knowing that we’re not being judged for every failure, our behavior changes. It changes not because we have to, but because we love Him so much that we want to. The love of Christ propels us to take the next step, and the next, and the next.
