Devotions For Real Life

God moments, lessons learned, and hope for the journey

Look for a new post every Sunday. My hope is you find encouragement, wisdom for real life moments, and share them with others who may benefit from any of the posts.

  • The Mighty Can Fall Pt. 2

    Recently I posted about challenges and facing them in God’s strength.  I want to continue along that same vein and discuss the challenges, these personal icebergs, that we face.  This bears discussing because it’s important to know what we face, even if we are facing it in God’s strength. After all, understanding the nature of these things can help us be better equipped to deal with them.  

    First let’s start with a few important reminders.  Remember, we all, mankind, just like all man-made things have limitations and weaknesses.  Man made things like The Titanic, the unsinkable ship that went down due to an iceberg.  We need to beware the icebergs.  In our life, our challenges and trials are the icebergs. When we navigate through treacherous iceberg prone waters, knowing what we might face can help us so to know to look out and prepare.

    It’s important to note that just like icebergs come in all shapes and sizes in real life, our figurative icebergs do as well.  Sometimes it’s just one really big thing, one iceberg that can take down the whole mighty unsinkable ship. But other times it’s one small iceberg after another small iceberg after another small iceberg after another small iceberg and eventually a breaking point is reached. Maybe you felt like that in your life before. Like instead of experiencing one giant challenge that could completely destroy you, you’ve had a lot of small catastrophes or situations that are weakening you.  They are getting you closer and closer to that point where you can’t take anymore. Both are difficult places to be, whether it is one giant iceberg or many smaller ones. It is impossible to survive without the strength and grace of the Lord no matter which kind of iceberg you face. 

    I remember when I was going through my divorce. It was difficult.  Well, call it difficult is an understatement, but there is not a word that would express the devastation caused by the divorce. It nearly broke me.  It wasn’t just the divorce though.  It was the year and 1/2 long separation in which I parented completely alone for over a year of it. With their father in a different state, he could not help. It was trying to adjust to a new school position only to find at the end of the year that I wasn’t reappointed. So, I had to go find another position. What choice did I have? I couldn’t give up, I had to keep trying to bail water out of what felt like a fast-sinking ship. It felt like that year was one thing after another and I was definitely reaching my breaking point.

    I had to learn through painful experiences that it’s OK to admit that you are at the end of yourself. I think it’s important that we admit that. Denying doesn’t change it.  Trying to face it alone doesn’t make it better.  Realize that we all reach that point at one time or another in our life whether it’s because of one giant iceberg or 50 small ones. It takes just the right circumstances to get us to a point of weakness that can cause complete collapse and devastation, if not for God’s intervention. That is what I want to focus on.  Yes, we will all face the icebergs; however, we don’t face them alone. 

    As a believer, we go from limited too limitless in God’s power. Here’s what I mean. In myself I have limitations on what I can handle and how strong I am. Yet God’s power in me gives me a strength beyond myself. Gives me a peace when there is only chaos. Gives me hope when there’s absolutely only darkness that my eyes can see. His power and grace gives me strength in a way that only God can give to his children. So, although God will allow life to bring things to us that we cannot handle in our own power and strength (because they’re beyond the limitations that we have inside of ourselves) he strengthens and enables us to go beyond our human limitations and abilities when we depend and lean on him. 

    This is a great mystery. It is a wonder how there are times when his grace is sufficient because his power or strength is made perfect in our weakness. Wouldn’t it just be nice if we didn’t have the weaknesses? Yes, it would be, and I can’t tell you why sometimes God chooses to heal in this life and sometimes he chooses instead to bring the ultimate healing in the forever to come. That’s not the point I’m debating or discussing here. I can tell you though that until you breathe your last breath if you are a believer, he will strengthen you to face whatever life brings you if you lean on him.

    Going back to that time in my life where I was at the breaking point, I remember saying to God “I can’t take anymore.” Yet it was only in that moment that I saw God move.  No, he didn’t move in the way I wanted; he didn’t melt all the icebergs.  No, instead he strengthens me and show me that although it would take time for me to recover, that he was working to bring about wholeness to my situation. He patched the hole and bailed out enough water.  He joined me as I continued to bail water out of my sinking my ship and slowly repaired my ship, so it was whole again, not sinking anymore.  It took time. He gave me hope that I wasn’t alone and that he would bring me to a place of complete healing again. That hope and peace gave me enough strength to keep standing. That knowledge that he was with me brought me comfort and fortitude where I lacked it in myself.  Knowing that he was working to restore me and my life, that knowledge sustained me and gave me that strength beyond my own to pushing forward.

    We all are vessels, clay jars if you will. Sometimes we get knocked off the shelf, we might just get one crack, or we might shatter into large pieces or be so irrevocably damaged that there’d be no gluing it back together the way it was. Let me assure you though, that our Potter is wise enough, strong enough, and loving enough to know how to gather the pieces of us altogether and remake us. He will remake us better and stronger than we were before.

    One of my favorite artists is Mandisa, she has such positive messages with her songs like “you’re an overcomer”. After she came out with that album, she wrote another song called “Unfinished.”  That lyrics go like this: “I’m not scared to say it, I used to be the one preaching it to you that you could overcome. I still believe it but it ain’t easy. Because that world I painted where things just all work out, it started changing and I started having doubts and it got me so down. But I picked myself back up and I started telling me. No, my God’s not done making me a masterpiece he’s still working on me. He started something good and I’m going to believe it, he started something good and he’s going to complete it. So, I’ll celebrate the truth his work in me ain’t through, I’m just unfinished.”

    I don’t know what your vessel or your clay jar is going to go through or what ultimately his picture of the masterpiece that he’s creating you will be. I can tell you that he’s not finished. He’ll keep working on you lovingly, gently, and with grace your whole life. I can’t tell you how many times your clay jar will fall and shatter or how many pieces that you’ll break into.  I can tell you he can gather up all your brokenness no matter how impossible that seems.  I can’t tell you how complicated the mending will be or how many times you will have to go back on the wheel for some remolding. I can only promise you that the Potter doesn’t give up on the clay jar.  That he will pick up all the pieces and continue to work to make the masterpiece that you are. I can’t tell you that you won’t reach your breaking point.  I can only tell you that through the power and strength of Christ you will find strength beyond your own limits.  You have to cling to these promises and hold fast to them. We aren’t Humpty Dumpty, we are not fallen and irreparably damaged. We don’t need all the King’s horsemen and all the King’s men to put us together we just need Jesus. We are not sunken or defeated no matter what icebergs we face. 

    I don’t know what state you’re in right now. Whether you are proclaiming how unsinkable you are and believing it, whether the vessel that is your life is freshly fallen on the floor and broken into a million pieces, whether your ship has hit an iceberg or two already, perhaps not enough to sink you but definitely leaving you more vulnerable.  Whatever your state I want to encourage you that although you have limitations and vulnerabilities within yourself you can stand firm on the solid rock that is God. In his strength no matter how strong the winds, no matter how devastating the situation, in his strength your house will stand.

    All of the mighty can fall, I will choose to go ahead and bow humbly and recognize the one who can give me the strength to stand against it all. The true Mighty One who never fails. What will your choice be?

  • The Mighty Can Fall

    There are certain things that we look at that we see as innately strong, invincible even. Whether it’s because of the materials that have been used to construct it or the longevity of the materials. Things like the Titanic that was called unsinkable when it was created. After all, it was made with the latest technology and the best materials, carefully and intelligently crafted. Many of our monumental buildings are also seen as strong and almost indestructible. After all, the engineers plan for all the different catastrophes that could confront the building so there are little to no weaknesses. If they plan for it, then it should be able to survive right? In this we put our faith and our trust. Yet we’ve seen time and again with things such as the Titanic disaster and even on 9/11 when the World Trade Center fell, that although we might see certain material things as indestructible or as able to face all kinds of catastrophe and survive –  we can be entirely wrong in our assumption.

    The lesson we can learn from this misconception is that faith can be misplaced with devasting outcomes.  You see, people are no different than these buildings, these carefully crafted vessels, that we see as unsinkable or unbreakable. There are certain people we see as amazingly strong and invincible. We place our faith in these people and at times will inevitably find ourselves disappointed.  What we don’t know about the great people in our lives is the right set of circumstances that can bring that person down. We don’t see the weak points or areas of vulnerability in them, but they are there.  The truth is, they are in all of us. We are all destructible, we are all flawed in some way.  Faith should not be placed in people because people fail. 

    Today I put forward the idea that inside of all of man and everything we make there is weakness and vulnerability. That is what it means to be human, or man-made. I know this doesn’t seem fair or right because we were created this way. If we are flawed it is not our fault. Why couldn’t God have just made us perfect? Indestructible?  Oh, wait he did, but we corrupted ourselves.

    Therein lies the issue, the weakness in man to seek his own way, to tend to selfishness and destructiveness. We have limitations to our strength and abilities.  Limitations to the amount that we can handle challenge wise in our own strength.

    The Titanic had limitations too.  If the iceberg had been a little smaller, if they had turned more quickly, and if the iceberg had only connected with the ship on one panel maybe the Titanic would have made it, or they would have had more time for all the passengers to disembark safely. Instead, the iceberg that they struck exposed a limitation in the engineering. A vulnerability that existed because the design had not anticipated the weakness or planned for the specific set of circumstances that caused Titanic’s ultimate failure. This was no different than the situation with the collapse of the Twin Towers because it had survived bombings before when other bombs had been used to try to destroy them. However there was a limitation to the strength in the materials. With the right set of circumstances(the events of 9/11), the structural integrity failed. It was a catastrophic failure. Limitations whether known or unknown and whether the first time or subsequent times being brought against something can cause failure on small and sometimes on catastrophe levels. The idea of limitations affecting things we make has truth that applies to us as people. There is  no difference for us, limitations affect us also. 

    Sometimes our limitations can cause catastrophic failure in our lives. Our limitations can present us with challenges, not all of them are ones we can conquer on our own. We’ve seen it before thanks to social media. It’s easy to find stories on how people have fallen from glory. I don’t know if we want to watch it because just like the people who stood there on that day of the terrorist attack, and they just stared at the flames coming out of the buildings in shock. They couldn’t help but watch it in disbelief even as the towers began to fall.  They were trapped by a morbid curiosity they could not escape. It’s a “you can’t believe what you see” moment so you just keep watching. Those are the moments that exposed failures, limitations, and weaknesses become apparent as we see the fallout. This can happen to people’s lives as well.  We watch as people unravel and I’m sad to say, even judge them for it many times.  

    It is important to note that not everybody’s destruction is obvious. For some it can go rather quickly and privately. But either way humankind has a breaking point. Every one of us has that point at which once we’ve reached the limit of what we can handle or accomplish in our strength, we can go no further. We are not different than all the things we have made, we are both limited and fallible. 

    What good is it to recognize that we have these limitations? Why does it matter? Well, I think it shows us a point of our need. You see one of the phrases that I can’t stand that people like to say comes from the Bible, but it doesn’t is “that God won’t give you more than you can handle.” It is not scriptural, and I don’t believe it’s true because I’ve seen time and again very godly people face and encounter things that are more than they could handle in their own strength. It is beyond their capacity if they have to endure it alone. The correct phrase should be “God won’t give you more than you can handle in his strength and power. “ God doesn’t ask you to face or handle the challenges and the pain that can come in your life in your own power and in your own strength. With him, his support, and his strength you can face life no matter what it brings. No matter your own personal limitations. You can’t stay standing when you stand alone.  As a believer it’s easy to get misplaced pride in yourself for being strong enough when the truth is, if it was not for the grace and the strength of God, you would not be standing. It was through his power that you were transformed, and it is through his strength and grace that you are sustained. It is not your own effort; it is all thanks to him.

    It all comes down to a matter of faith.  We put our faith and our trust not in our own strength or infalliablity, instead we trust in God.  In God in us, the hope of glory.  That we were not made to stand in our own strength or power, if that were the case, we would get the glory.  Instead, God gets the glory because it is he who sustains and preserves all who put their hope in him.  Trust the true “might one”, the one that never fails, has never failed, and will never fail.  When we put our trust in him, we will not be disappointed.  

  • Don’t leave it all behind (Simple comforts)

    My 12-year-old son came home from school with a prize he had earned in class.  It was this is really cute pink floppy eared Easter bunny. He said he got it for me, but he said he wanted it for himself also. He seemed almost ashamed that he would want something cute and comforting because he’s a 12-year-old boy who’s supposed to be strong and grown up. His hesitancy made me pause and think about why. Why do we think being grown up means not needing or wanting something that brings comfort?  Why do we think that being grown up means not enjoying something that might seem childish or immature? It’s like we think when we go into adulthood that everything that we used to find fun and comforting should just be something we put aside, but is that really true? Have we outgrown these once enjoyable and comforting things?

    As a part of my single grown up life, I have begun having game days with my friends. At first, we only played more mature games like rummy, hearts, or BS. One of the times we were playing we looked over and my friend had a game from his childhood sitting on the shelf – Parcheesi. Now our first thought or my first thought was “that’s a kid’s game, we can’t play that.” But we started playing it because we have played the same games repeatedly and wanted to do something different that day.  What we found was it became one of our favorite games to play when we had a game day. There’s a lot of strategy and it can be played pretty cutthroat. It’s loads of fun. So, something that I deemed as too childish, a game from my past was actually really amazing.

    I’m not saying that we should keep all childish things.  There are childish things that we should leave behind because we mature and grow out of the need for them. I don’t think that all things that are fun and simple or childlike are things we should run from though. They’re not things that we should be ashamed of wanting. 

    Maybe it is OK to want a teddy bear to hold on to or to hug. Or perhaps it’s perfectly acceptable to play a game like Parcheesi or Sorry and have a good laugh with all of your other grown-up friends doing it. It’s even fun to sing those old campfire songs or Sunday school songs and remember what it was like when life was much simpler. Not all of our childhood should completely be banished out of our minds or banned from our current life experiences because we’re adults now. Maybe every once in a while, we need to remember how far we’ve come but still get to enjoy a few simple pleasures in life. Perhaps we don’t need to try to be so grown up all the time. 

    So, as I sit here tonight holding this silly little cute floppy eared bunny, I want to tell my son that we’re not weak or silly because we enjoy small comforts. That even adults have simple childlike activities that they still like to do. That not all of being an adult is taking yourself too seriously or overthinking every situation. Sometimes it can just be about enjoying a moment we’re having fun. And yes, the Bible does say that we should enjoy our life so let’s do that. Let’s not take ourselves so seriously or be so quick to leave behind simple pleasures that can bring us so much joy if we’re daring enough to not be worried about what other grown-ups will think about us.

    Listen, the bottom line is that we can’t avoid responsibilities as an adult, but we can work to not take ourselves so seriously or have life feel so heavy. We can take time to smell the roses. We can reminisce and even do some of the activities that we used to enjoy just for the sheer pleasure of remembering. Not all of adult life is adulting, don’t forget that. If you do, you’ll miss it, the fun and lighthearted moments.  That would be a tragedy.

  • A Right Friendship

    If you are musical like me you love lyrics.  When I listen to songs it is hard for me to not think of a person who that song would be dedicated to.  Most of the times they are harmless thoughts, but the other day I had to pause.  You see I heard a song and I was thinking about how I could sing this to a guy friend that was in my life at the time.  The basic message of the song was we are just friends, nothing more so don’t get any ideas.  This does happen in real life, people are friends, and their feelings can get confused especially when they spend a lot of time in each other’s company.  This confusion was happening to me and altering my motives for our friendship. I needed to check myself because I realized I was in the wrong. It was one of those moments where God hits you upside your head with a truth. What truth was he showing me?  

    The truth was, I needed to check the motivation and intentions I was coming with in regards to that particular friend. It had long since been determined by both of us that we would only ever be friends and marriage and a couple life together was not in the cards for us, but then there were moments when I wished it was more. Weak moments. This realization was hard because after all who wants to check themselves? Who wants to admit that they have selfish motives in a friendship?

    Sometimes I could be too girly or flirty, remember we were only friends and never intended to be anything more. What was the point in being flirty? It’s not hard to figure out and it was certainly not a Godly motive. Maybe I didn’t show it all the time around him, but I did it often enough that he would notice and he did.  Yet I knew that we were both believers and that in a true Godly friendship there are places you don’t go, even in your mind.  Lines you don’t cross in word or action.  Innuendos you shouldn’t make.  I looked in the mirror that day and the mirror showed me that I was the one in the wrong.   I was being the temptress, the one who toyed with how close to the line I could get.  Wow, I did not like the thought.  The reasons didn’t make it better.  I did it because I could, because I let myself want something that was not mine to want.  Because I knew he would not take away his friendship or that was what I banked on.  I had ulterior motives in our relationship and I had to admit it to myself.  I knew that was not fair to him, not the right way to be, especially as a fellow believer. I determined to set a new course in our friendship.  

                When you know that someone is a friend you should care enough about their spiritual success to put aside your hidden agendas.  To not behave in ways meant to attract or distract them. We certainly shouldn’t be tempting our friends to sin, to do things that could inhibit their relationship with God, or to pursue paths that could potential harm them. It wasn’t wrong that I would, as a woman, want to attract a partner or desire to be sought after. The problem was that would never be my friend’s role to fulfill in my life so it was wrong for me to seek that from him.

    You probably think that this is just silly, or maybe you think it’s too harsh, but it is not.  How many times do friends act in ways that are not actually good for the other friends?  This is not always about attraction but there can be other ways to misuse our friends or to take advantage of our relationships. There are ways to consider only your own wants and needs and not care about the cost to them. The truth is that if you have your friend’s best interest in mind, you will put your hidden agendas aside and care more about them than getting what you think you want or need.. 

                In all our relationships we interact with people, for different reasons, and we invest into them and there is usually a payoff. We do get something out of our friendships and it’s different for different friendships. This is natural and it is not wrong. Where can things go wrong then in these relationships? Hidden agendas, unbalanced relationships, one sided relationships, caring only for yourself and not your friend or their spiritual life, etc… Lots can go wrong.

    Mostly it starts with our motivations for having a relationship with a friend. People don’t talk about their motives and we don’t like being completely honest with ourselves about them, but we should.  We can’t just sidestep the issue and pretend that all is well in our relationships as believers.  I see clearly now that things went wrong in my friendship with him when I changed in my mind about why I was in it.  It wasn’t about what was good for him or right, it became about what I wanted. Have you done that?  I’m not saying it is wrong to receive from your friends. Most of the time even though we receive something from our friendships (companionship, support, encouragement, fun) we give back in equal measure as we are taking.  It is the nature of relationships after all, the give and the take.  It’s only when it is unbalanced or when the taking is for the wrong motives that we need to proceed with caution. That’s when we need to ask ourselves the hard questions. In that moment, I realized I needed to make sure I was investing in my friendships for the right reasons and it was time to make a change.

                So what shouldn’t we expect in our relationships with our friends? What’s the wrong thing to want from them? Basically, it is not right to want from your friends something they were never meant to give. They cannot bring you contentment, which is your own decision or choice.  They cannot cure your loneliness, you can feel absolutely isolated while surrounded by many “friends”.  They cannot give you purpose, you have to find the path for your life and meaning in Christ.  They cannot right all the wrongs inside you, you have to face your own demons. So now you’re thinking what good are friends then?  What benefit do they bring to my life?  It’s simple really. Friends stand by you as you face those demons, supporting you and cheering you on.  They remind you where your purpose is found and even encourage you in the gifting and service they see God doing in and through your life.  They show you that even though we are all alone, we are not alone, because we are alone together.  They live their lives demonstrating contentment in Christ, or at least they try to, that they have decided to live in as well.  Your friends are like the breeze on a hot day, a long cold drink after working in the sun, or that warm blanket around your shoulders in the dead of winter.  They don’t change the situations in your life, they make them feel a little less, well less whatever discomfort you are in and help make it more bearable. So isn’t it worth making sure you have right motive, balance and proper care of those relationships.

    In your relationships, perhaps you should check your motives as I have had to do.   Maybe there are some friendships that can be improved by a little honesty with yourself, by looking at the image in the mirror and making sure that you are really being the friend you should be.  Remember, if you lack wisdom in what to do, ask God, after all he created both you and your friends.  Whatever you do, don’t continue to do what you know is not right in your relationships.  It will cost you or them and neither would be an acceptable loss. Remember, the best model of how to be a friend is Christ.  Look to his example.  It matters greatly that we do this as believers so we can model true friendship in a world where it really is only about what we can get from people and the cost to them doesn’t matter.  Let’s together, show them a better way, the way to be a true friend.      

    ,

  • Pearls Beyond Price

    While scrolling through Facebook today I ran across a story that made me think. You see most of my life I have thought that pearls were formed by a bit of sand getting inside of an oyster and then it would form a pearl around that little bit of sand. I guess I haven’t read very many science journals because today I discovered I was wrong. The truth is a pearl is formed when an irritant slips between the shell of the oyster and lodges in its mantle. In an act of self-defense, the oyster secrets a liquid concoction of both argonite and conchiolin which then mixed together to create nacre.  Narce is otherwise known as mother of pearl, and this hardens and forms a pearl around the offending thing that has invaded the oyster. So, a pearl is not formed when something natural in its environment somehow gets inside the oyster. Instead, it’s actually formed when either a parasite or a food particle gets stuck or lodged between the shell of the oyster and its mantle. Why does this even matter?

    There’s a lesson to be learned here that applies to real life.  When it comes to the devotions I am inspired to write, I have referred to them as little pearls of wisdom. What did most of these pearls form from? Just like an oyster I’ve had irritants and painful things occur in my life.  Challenging moments and events.  Things that forced growth and learning. From these moments and times, I have learned many lessons and often sought God for assistance and aid. It’s from that place, a place of difficulty that this wisdom I share with you comes. It isn’t something I’ve manufactured on my own. It’s not my wisdom or my words really, although I am using my words to express these thoughts.  Instead, it is what God has laid on my heart and taught me through the adversity I have faced. Lessons I learned, many times the hard way.  I guess I finally realized that true wisdom and learning only comes from challenges and adversity. Just like a Pearl can only come from an irritant such as a parasite or a food particle that got stuck where it shouldn’t be.

    What an amazing thing to realize! That there’s a point to the pain and the challenges in our lives. When I was going through my divorce, I remember this song that I listened to at the time, and it was called “nothing is wasted.” It was talking about how in the hands of our Redeemer everything that we experience or absorb in this life God somehow uses, it’s not for nothing. This is actually a comfort because it’s not that he causes our pain because I don’t believe that. It says that every good and perfect gift comes from the father above. The rest of it isn’t his fault it’s because we live in the world we live in. Having said that though, he still is able to use these difficult and even painful things and make something beautiful. He can make a pearl out of a parasite in our life. Pretty amazing right. He didn’t cause the parasite, but he has given us the ability through his love and comfort to transform our pain and our challenges into something of beauty and worth.

    That’s what these things I share with you are. Whether it was a devotion about God sustaining grace, learned through a good bit of pain. Whether it’s a devotion about contentment in singleness learned through feelings of loneliness and realizing the truth that I’m not alone. Whether it’s a devotion about how it’s OK to not be ok because of God’s love and acceptance in all of my moments even the not so amazing ones. There have been so many times I have sat down to write in tears over the pain and the challenges that have brought me to the place where God’s truth in that moment was revealed to me.  To the place where I’m ready to share with you that pearl of wisdom and truth and hope created from struggle. I share these pearls in the hopes that it can be a blessing to even one of you who perhaps has struggled in a similar way. I share these pearls in the hopes that perhaps even one of you who has felt that same pain can find peace and know you’re not the only one. I share them because it is the beauty and the good that comes from the challenge and the pain. It’s the pearl beyond price. 

    I won’t let these irritants and this pain take over and become my truth. Instead, I will wrap it with the love and comfort from my Savior and allow it to instead become a pearl of wisdom that can be a blessing to others.

    In this way, this truth that nothing is wasted and that out of such ugliness can come such amazing beauty, there’s hope. I hope you find that hope today. Without the irritants there would be no pearls, without the struggle there would be no growth, and without the pain we would never know true joy. I pray that whatever challenges you face that you could let God’s love surround you and hold you.  That his love would transform every irritant, parasite, or pain that you face into something of absolute unique beauty. Into opportunities to help others and to display God’s faithfulness. 

    The cool thing is that what makes pearls so lovely is that they’re all different. They come in different shades, sizes, and shapes. Just like the ones that we share with others that are formed from the unique adversity in our life. Who knows when someone will need the pearl that has been created in you. I hope you like me are willing to share them because someone else most certainly needs the bits of wisdom and hope you can offer. Share your pearls unashamed and be amazed at where they came from! No longer parasites or pains, instead pearls beyond price!  

    ,

  • Disappointed vs Disappointing

    How many people really have the fairy tale life? Well, we don’t really expect the fairy tale life, do we? How many people even have the life that they dreamed they would have when they were kids? Most of us realize that we’re not going to get the fairy tale, but we do hope to have our dreams come true or at least some of them. Yet more often than not the things that we imagined for ourselves doesn’t come to fruition and if they do, they certainly don’t come the way we expect. The truth is, if we’re honest with ourselves, even though our life isn’t exactly what we expected, our life is still good. 

    There’s a trap that we can fall into if we are not careful. Something that we need to guard against. The trap of believing that disappointing things leads to disappointment.  Let me explain this trap. We can allow ourselves to view our situation as disappointing because our life wasn’t what we thought it should be. When the reality we face is not a bad reality, but not the expected or hoped for one (a disappointing reality) we get trapped in disappointment. Even if we see that there’s a lot of good in the reality we live in, yet it’s different than what we expect so it feels disappointing. Do you see how we can allow ourselves to be disappointed in something that’s not truly a let down, that’s maybe even good? Different does not have to be disappointing.  Unexpected does not have to be disappointing.  It is all in our point of view and seeing the blessings in what is. 

    Let me try to give you an example. I have a good friend of mine who is a beautiful woman who’s just turned 40. She has never been married or had children and she has always wanted both, but it never happened for her. Whether the reasons for her seemingly singular state is what she thinks they are, because of her choices, or if it was the way God intended it to be, it is the reality she finds herself facing. The reality of a single childless woman. Not the mother or the wife that she one day dreamed she would get to be. Although that is her current reality. It’s not all of her life, there’s a lot of details missing if you look at it from that point of view. She has a great life, wonderful friends, a good job, a loving family, and her relationship with the Lord is strong. Her life is a very good life. It’s just not the life she expected.

    When school started this year, she went through several difficult days because she was grieving that she didn’t have a child to take to school, to take first day pictures of, or to enjoy the excitement of a brand-new school year with. This truly grieved her, and she felt very disappointed with her life. She was seeing what she wished would be, a found her reality lacking.

    At the same time, I was experiencing my own disappointment with life.  I was stressed and frustrated as a single mom.  I was grieving for a totally different reason. I was having difficulty because I do have children and they had a lot of needs. I had to worry about uniforms to buy, school supplies to purchase, doctor’s appointments to coordinate, morning schedules to reinstate, papers that needed to be turned in at school, car line situations to work out, and bills to be paid that I didn’t necessarily even know where the money would come from.  I felt the heavy burden of being a single mom and carrying that wait with just Jesus and me.

    I am truly thankful for my children, and I’m being 100% transparent when I tell you that as thankful as I am for my kids, there are days when it feels very heavy to be the mom. It felt heavy to me that week. The very thing that was heavy to me was the thing that my friend dreamed of wanting. It kind of made me feel disappointed in myself for not being thankful because I was forgetting what a blessing I had. Yes, I am a single mother who has a great deal of responsibility on my shoulders especially at the beginning of a school year however there’s a huge blessing that I receive because of having those children that are my responsibility. The irony of it all – I was disappointed because I was tired of having to carry the burden and responsibility of motherhood and my friend was disappointed because she didn’t have the responsibility of parenthood that she so desired. Isn’t it crazy! How we can both have very blessed situations yet find ourselves disappointed because life did not turn out how we expected or dreamed. 

    The real truth is that my friend is blessed beyond measure exactly where she is. That whether she ever is a mother or even a wife, God has promised that he would give her everything she needs for life and godliness. God has promised her that he would be to her everything she needs. God has a special ministry and plan for her life unique to her. He has promised the same to me. You see I am blessed beyond measure exactly where I am. God has promised me he will give me everything I need for life and godliness. God has a special ministry and plan for me that is unique for my life. God has promised me he will be to me everything I need. Neither of us are lacking anything!

    The enemy wants us to not realize the blessing of where we are by distracting us with what is not. He wants us to be disappointed because our story isn’t the story that we dreamed it would be, so it must be wrong. The truth is the steps of a righteous man are ordered of the Lord. He knew where you would be, and he is sufficient always. His grace is sufficient for you exactly where you are. You are enough because he is enough inside of you. 

    Wherever you find yourself I pray that you will no longer allow the enemy to rob you of the joy of the moment you’re in. Perhaps when you’re struggling with disappointment because there are still unfulfilled dreams, we can take those to God and let him know that we grieve over what we’ve never had or has been lost to us. Yet even grieving we can still be thankful because we can understand our reality doesn’t have to be a disappointment to us because it is not what we expected. We can be in disappointing circumstances but not be disappointed. There are still blessings in every moment.

    When you find yourself in that moment where you have to choose how to see your situation.  I challenge you to take a step back. Look at your situation from another point of view. What is most challenging for you may be someone else’s dream come true.  What you already have is greater than you can imagine. I pray that God will open your eyes to the blessings of the moment you’re in. 

    For my friend it was seeing all the opportunities that God had for her because she had the availability to serve and love. It was the opportunity to mother and love those around her even if they were not her biological children. It was in knowing that God would comfort her for the parts of herself that still ached for those unrealized dreams. It was in seeing the gifts that God had given her in her life. For my part I had to see the blessing of the fun moments that I get to have with my children, for the love and the care that I see them show me not all the time, but sometimes they have brilliant moments. For the little steps I see them taking as they’re starting to grow and mature. I’m seeing them become more and more independent. For the realization that they won’t be here forever so even if it’s hard sometimes to be a parent, I need to enjoy it. Yeah, I have a lot to be thankful for too, we all do.

    Maybe you’re like me and my friend and life has not turned out quite like you envisioned it would be. You don’t have to be disappointed though, God isn’t, and he’s not surprised. Disappointing doesn’t have to mean we become disappointed. Trust in his care of you, trust in his grace for you, and rest in the hope that you are in his hands right where you belong. How can being held in his hands be disappointing place to be? 

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  • God is Faithful

    I have to testify today of God’s faithfulness. This morning when I was on my walk, I was trying to figure out how everything would be covered at the beginning of the month with just my paycheck. I couldn’t pay as much towards my rent out of the check the month before like I normally do because of some extra expenses such as school supplies. I knew there were things that would automatically come out and I knew that if I added up how much I needed to pay my rent on time and those bills it was going to be more than my paycheck.

    In my mind I was thinking about how my bank account going negative would really cost me and trying to figure out how to avoid it. I was also thinking about how my children needed supplies for school and I had only really been able to purchase some shoes so far. Now I knew that my child support would come, but not in time. It would arrive a week or 2 after I needed it. This would be too late to cover all the bills automatically withdrawn at the start of the month and I didn’t want to go negative. So, I tried to work out in my head some way to solve the problem.

    About 1/4 of the way through my walk I stopped trying to solve my problem and realized I should pray. So, I did, I just prayed. I said God you know what I need. I’m going to stop trying to fix this and find a solution and I’m going to ask you to make a way. And I did stop trying to solve the problem. That was in the morning time. By afternoon my children’s father had contacted me and arranged to pick up and take the boys to get school supplies on Sunday afternoon. So, this was pretty amazing right? But the Blessings didn’t stop there. You see I was surprised to receive an e-mail later that very same day that my child’s supported came in about two weeks early. God knows my needs before I know them. He’s was already making provision. I don’t have to try to solve all my own problems. I don’t have to try to solution out every answer. As a believer I am blessed and honored to be able to go to him and lay my needs at his feet. I don’t have to come with an answer, I come with a problem. And he then that provides the solution and the answer.

    It’s so easy to read and not really absorb the scriptures about how he provides everything we need for life and godliness. We read it but I don’t think we really believe it. How many times have you come across a need and instead of going to God about it you try to solve it yourself?

    I know I’ve been guilty of doing that before. I made the right decision this time, but I haven’t always done that. We know that he owns the cattle on 1.000 hills, and we know that he gives us favor in situations. We know that he provides for our needs. Or we know that this is what he has is promised but sometimes I don’t think we believe that promise is really for us. I’m here to tell you today that the promise is for you. God’s faithfulness extends to all generations. To you and to your children. When he’s your father and you have that relationship with him you can go to him with every need. No matter how minor it might seem to others, no matter how it might be something that only really matters to you, no matter how impossible or great it seems. No matter what you can come to him.

    Don’t come with an agenda and an answer. Come instead inspecting him to meet the need. To meet your needs in his very unique way. I wouldn’t have guessed that he would have met mine through child support coming in early, I wouldn’t have guessed that my ex-husband would so generously offer to help with the children’s school supplies. Yet this was God’s solution for me.

    As I sit here this afternoon, I am reminded that God is faithful. We put our hope in him we are not disappointed. I have to tell you that I would have still believed in this faithfulness even if I hadn’t gotten an answer this quickly. I’m confident that God would have found some way to meet my needs and that it wouldn’t have been late even if it might have been a bit longer than I would have wanted to wait. The truth is I don’t deserve anymore blessings from the Lord. None of us do. We don’t deserve the love and faithfulness that he so graciously extends to us. We don’t deserve to have his ear or a piece of his heart. We are faithless, fickle, weak people. Yet he made a promise and when God makes a covenant, he keeps it. So just try it. If you’re a believer and you have a need, any need come and go to God and ask him to come through with an answer. Be patient. Not every prayer God has answered so quickly for me, yet every single time he has proven himself faithful. Reminds me of that song Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus. how I prove him over and over, Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus oh for grace to love you more. 

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  • Motives

    Motives are defined by Google in regard to character as the reason behind a characters behavior and actions. In life every word or action has a motive behind it whether we care to admit it or not. This morning I find myself contemplating the motivations of my heart. What are the motives for the actions that I take? Does it even matter?

    Yes, my friends, if you are a believer our motives matter in an even deeper way than it would for a non-believer. First, I want you to consider the Pharisees and Christ reaction to them. In Matthew 23 Jesus pronounces woes on the Pharisees and the scribes. The pharisees and scribes where the religious leaders of the day. He said they followed the letter of the law, but they missed the heart of it. Meaning they were doing the right things, but they were doing them for the wrong reasons. Do you see that their motivations and their motives mattered? In the case of the Pharisees and Scribes they lived hypocritically preaching what was right but living another way. Not only was that one of the options but some of them chose to live right but they did it for attention or for prestige. So, there were two incorrect paths that they were taking depending on the person. Legalism-following this for your own glory or do as I say not as I do. Their words instead of offering life and hope to others we’re meant to condemn them and only exalt themselves. They weren’t worried about exalting God they were worried about benefiting themselves. It actually says” whoa to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees you hypocrites. You shut the door to the Kingdom of God in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.” Wow, what a statement! Their motives were wrong, and their actions had serious consequences.

    Motives matter. God sees to the heart of every man. It’s not about what you do so much but it is more about why you’re doing it. So, if we recognize that motives matter to God, perhaps more even than our actions, how then do we live in light of this revelation? What were the Pharisees missing?

    I would argue that Christ should be our motive. Let me explain. We should be motivated to bring him glory, to bring him acclaim, to build his Kingdom, and to promote his message. The pharisees and the scribe should have been all about God. They should have stayed humble and given God the glory, instead they became corrupted. Even the way they gave was publicly to receive recognition for their offering and their prayers were complicated with eloquent words not really said to communicate with God but instead to display their own intelligence and greatness. They were not horrible people; they were people who lost their way. They may have started for the right reasons and with the right motives but in time their focus and their aim shifted from God’s glory to their own. We should be careful not to fall into the same trap. 

    We need to check our motives as a believer. Why do we want the things that we do? Are we really wanting the right things? Is it for selfish ambition that we’re seeking or are we seeking instead for God’s glory? We need to be honest with ourselves when we start to waver off that humble path that we’re called to.

    What do I mean by Christ is our motive? It’s simple, building his Kingdom and bringing him glory should be our only aim. Here’s what I mean. In Colossians chapter 3 verse 23 to 24 it says” whatever you do” {literally it does not matter what the action is (speaking, working, singing, playing, living, learning, etc.)}, “do it with all your heart as working for the Lord-not for human masters. And not for yourself.” So even though you have a human boss or someone in authority over you, you need to recognize that God placed you in your position and what you do in your workplace or in your position you do it for God and God alone. Why? Colossians goes on to say that “we know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.” You see the payoff for everything we do is receiving Christ and the inheritance he has for us. So, we’re not working for the money that we temporarily receive here and we’re not working for the acclaim of those around us instead we understand that every action is really being done to build up the Kingdom and glorify God.

    When we become believers there is a shift not just in our actions although those will change as well but also in our motives and our focus. We keep acting, working, living, loving, and serving but we recognize it is all as if it is done directly for God. It is for his glory and for his Kingdom to be built. Your world becomes colored and changed as you shift your focus to see it all through Christ and for him alone.

    You are not loving your coworker and showing them kindness. No, you are loving and showing kindness to Christ as you serve and love them. You are not giving and offering out of obligation, you are giving really to build the Kingdom knowing that he will continue to sustain you. It’s not for your recognition or benefit, it’s to build the Kingdom. It’s not for your benefit or for what you can receive from it instead it’s for his benefit. You no longer clean and cook for your family or friends you are expending your energy and effort for Christ himself as you serve them.

    It is hard to imagine or see it especially when you’re in the middle of it, but it is as if Christ stands before all others saying love me by loving them, serve me by serving them, give grace to me by giving grace to them, be generous to me by being generous to them, give your life and yourself to me by giving your life and giving of yourself to them.

    Let’s not fall into the same trap the Pharisees did. They served, gave, and went but completely missed the point. Instead let’s love, give, go, and do it out of love for our Savior Christ Jesus. Let’s continue our whole lives in the same way. Everything done for his glory and his acclaim never our own.  

    Our actions motivated by love for a Savior who for some amazing reason lavishly loves us. People don’t need you or me. They need Jesus and Christ’s love shining out of us as vessels for his glory. Check yourself today. Look into your heart and investigate your motives. I know I’m checking myself. Am I doing all that I do for Christ and his acclaim alone? Are there places I have lost the proper focus and perhaps am seeking for myself whether it be recognition, acclaim, or wealth? Be honest with yourself, I’m being honest with myself. All we have to do is repent if we find that we are in the wrong. Simply ask God to get us back to the proper focus. He understands that we all fall short of his glory and we all at times have the wrong motives. He can make us right again and bring us back to the proper motive, the right focus.

    I hope today that you can challenge yourself to have the right motives as a believer. I certainly do not want to fall in the woe category because I wasn’t willing to be honest about my motives. Because I wasn’t willing to ask God to help me make right what isn’t right in my heart. So, let’s get back and focus on what we should focus on. Let’s move forward together motivated by Christ. Let’s do everything as unto him for his glory and his glory alone. 

  • Embrace Your Story

    In the last 20 years of my life I came to the point where I can’t stand generic romance or love stories that are unrealistic fluffy love stories. I guess I’ve become too cynical after seeing the challenges in relationships, my own and those around me. What appeals to me more are stories about real life. Sometimes there are happy moments, but sometimes there are agonizing moments as well. There’s also a little bit of everything in between happening. It’s real life after all. I like these real life stories so much more than the fluffy unrealistic stories because to me they’re real and as much as I would like to think that I could live in a fairy tale world; I don’t. Instead, I find myself walking in a very harsh reality with many unfair things occurring and a fair share of challenging times as well. Of course, there has been joy along the way also. Life is raw and unfiltered in the moments it offers all of us. 

    It’s the same for everyone all over the world. There’s not a single life that is one note really. All good or all bad, just extremes. Our lives are symphonies. They have a start, they have an end, and a lot of movement in between. So, if our life was a genre it would probably be called a drama. It would be full of mini scenes, cliffhangers, successes and yes, our fair share of disappointments. Of course, there’s a little comedy thrown in there as well. My point is life is messy and complicated. Our stories are messy and unpredictable. Sometimes if we tell our stories, they’re painful to hear. Sometimes when we share them they’re even painful to say or get through without tears whether they be tears of joy or sorrow.

    The great thing is that God is the author of our messy stories. Life was never intended to be easy or just all trouble. It is mountains and valleys and everything in between. If you look at the Bible, you see that God is faithful to all his people through the many stories shared there. Even in the middle of their ups and downs, their highest moments he’s with them and in their darkest pit he’s there to pull them out. Yeah, he’s seen it all and loved us in all our states. 

    So in light of the fact that life is messy and challenging what do we do? If we don’t get a fairy tale, how do we face our life? We can be comforted when we see that our life is actually on track, nothing is wrong. There were supposed to be the lows and the highs.

    Perhaps you like me have long ago given up on the idea of a fairy tale and you have a very realistic idea about life, love, and even laughter. Perhaps you like me realize that although we cannot control the twist and the turns of our life because our life is more like a roller coaster ride than a walk in the park, you can still enjoy it. Life is something that we didn’t actually map out our path, our plans just don’t work most of the time, and we have no control, or very little, but it’s OK.  We don’t get to choose what kind of roller coaster we’ve been given honestly, yet we realized that we can throw our hands up and enjoy the experience for what it is. Yes, there will be terrifying descents but there will also be amazing heights reached. And it won’t look the same for you as it looks for someone else. And that’s OK. That’s the beauty of this crazy thing that we call life.

    We are all since the beginning of time, or at least time as we know it, souls clinging on in life. We want to live even when it’s so hard. Even when we’re not sure that we want to we still want to because I know that there’s still a bigger part of us that wants to keep trying and fighting, to keep breathing.

    Find peace in knowing that your story like mine may not be exactly what you expected, but it’s still good. You wanted a hallmark movie and instead you got a real-life drama. The truth was we were always meant to have the real-life drama. The reprieve we get as believers isn’t a break from the challenges of what life offers us.  No, instead it’s support and hope during every moment. We have a hiding place to run to when it gets too hard. We have armor to shield ourselves with as we stand, even under bombardment. We have a body of Christ and fellow believers to link arms with and even hold us up when we cannot hold ourselves up. We also have a great ending coming, well a beginning really. 

    We’ve been given so much as believers. Peace that passes all understanding, joy that comes in the morning, and a hope that endures all hardships. Other people are living through their dramas and their stories, and they don’t have any of those things. My heart truly aches for them because I don’t know how they do it. I couldn’t make it one day without my savior and his grace for me because some of my moments haven’t looked so great but God was still there.

    Embrace the story that you’ve been given. Know that if you’re in a tough moment, it won’t last forever, you’ll have lots of chapters ahead, better chapters. Understand that our final chapter here, well it’s just the beginning of a whole new section we have yet to even understand or imagine. Don’t worry if the chapter you are in is fair, easy, or otherwise. Don’t stress if living is not even what you want to do in this moment, just live anyway. And for goodness sakes, if life is really a roller coaster, throw you hands up and enjoy it, it’s better than dreading it because either way you’re on the ride. Be thankful for your real life story being lived right now by you and walk in confidence and hope as a believer because you know he’s always with you. He’s there for the highs, the loop de loops, the great descants, the moments that take your breath way, the times that break your heart, and those that mend it again. He is with you through it all. So do it, embrace your story for what it is, I am sure it will a good one!

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  • Quality not Quantity

    I heard something interesting recently. About our children and how they are being raised in a day where they are constantly seen and recorded. So many pictures taken by themselves and by others. This kind of constant observation can lead to the idea that you have to be perfect or always appear on just right. That you have to have a cutting edge POV to be relevant.  It must be frustrating to feel that way and really impossible to live up to. Because we are people (very human) and people are messy. We have things about ourselves that are not beautiful, but they make us who we are. This constant viewing is causing people to feel highly insecure.

    I think there’s another byproduct of this constant observation. We always want to be noticed as people and remembered. You’re born with this desire to make a mark or somehow be important even if it’s only in your little part of the world. But for most of us, we will live our whole life and it will be unnoticed by almost everyone but the few lives that we touch. I think there was a time that would have been enough in our minds but there’s a pressure put on the young nowadays to influence so many. People do all kinds of crazy things to get noticed, to find some kind of a niche where they can speak out and make a difference. Is this really healthy? Is it realistic?

    I would argue that part of the rising depression and anxiety faced by our youth are these pressures that are put on the young to be influencers and honestly to be perfect due to constant observation. It’s more than just constant observation it’s the criticism about the observation. So, they post a picture and then there’s comments. Not all of them are kind. This unhealthy obsession with influencing and perfection is very damaging to the psyche of many young people today.

    They really think that if more people see them that they’ll feel loved, that they’ll feel adequate, and that it will give their life meaning. Even if they achieve it for a time, it rarely remains for their lifetime. You see it time and again influencers come and go. How many one hit wonder bands are there? So, these instant celebrities feel very loved and seen for a time and then they fade off into the sunset. Not seen, not acknowledged anymore. I think sometimes tabloids follow old celebrities just to mark events in their life so they can make money off of them like divorces or struggles with the weight, addictions. It’s really ridiculous honestly and completely unfair.  This mistreatment of someone because they choose to stand out and be public, so now their life is free game for the media.  It’s sad.  The reality is the more seen people become the less seen they really are. We may know their names or their faces from popular movies or from the tunes they sing but we don’t know them. So, what does it really matter if you have 100 million followers if none of them really know you. 

    We sell the lie to the youth that if people see you, you’ll feel validated forever. It’s like your existence made a difference and you matter because people see you. But that’s a lie. It’s not the quantity of people who see you that bring about validation to your soul. It’s the quality of the people in your life that bring the sense of love and belonging that I know we’re all desperately seeking. That little bit of approval, that at a girl or at a boy, that I see you for who you are and love you. We all want that. That you matter in my life and have made a difference to me. We all desire that. This isn’t wrong to feel this way. What we have wrong is the idea of how to achieve it.

    Who cares if you have a million pictures of yourself when you hate and criticize every single one of them because you don’t feel like you’re good enough in them. Or if you only like them because someone commented that it was good. Who cares if everyone in the world sees you if no one cares to have you in their life as a friend, and not just to get something from you. If they don’t want you for more than what you can do for them and what they could use you for they’re not any one you need to worry about. This is what I want to speak to the souls of the youth out there who are struggling because of the obsession with somehow filling the void of companionship and validation through the number of views they receive or through positive comments made by others online who don’t know you and don’t care about you.

    Stop wasting your life looking for the quantity of likes, followers, or views.  Instead spend time cultivating the quality in the people around you. In your relationship with your family, in your relationships with your friends, and then in how you see yourself. Perfect, that’s exactly what you are because that’s how God made you. Seen, that’s exactly what you are because he knows how many hairs are in your head and he sent people right there with you who love you if you just cultivate relationships with them. Stop sitting at the table with someone talking on your phone to other people who could care less about you in that moment and talk and love the ones you are with. If you don’t have those people then go out and find them, you have to put down your devices to do this and you don’t have to go far.

    We’re all looking for the same things, so it won’t take much work to find other people who just like you need love and companionship. Take it from somebody who’s seen people in all stages of acknowledgment by those around them. Acclaim only matters when it comes from somebody who truly loves you and sees you. Acceptance feels especially good when it comes from somebody who actually knows you. Acknowledgement means nothing unless it’s personal and when it’s not really an acknowledgment of who you are because it’s given by strangers who don’t know you.  

    I know this a new perspective for many people and probably not popular. The truth rarely is. Yes, this is definitely not the wisdom that the world is telling you right now. But that doesn’t make it less true. This truth is something that needs to be said and share because there are far too many who feel completely anxious, unimportant, and frustrated in their lives. I challenge you stop worrying about the quantity of your “followers” and find peace in the quality of the people (friends, loved ones, or potential friends, those who share life with you) that you have right there within arm’s reach. 

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