Devotional Archives - Page 2 of 4

January 23, 2023

Finding Abundant Life in the I AM

I want to tell you a secret.

It is a story of my personal prison walls and a slow walk to abundant life.

The year is 2004. My husband, an Air Force Pilot, boomeranged across the globe flying in-and-out of combat zones. We had two children under the age of 2. (Hello crazy!) And my saving grace was afternoon nap time. With a cup of afternoon tea, and a side of thin mints, I would cuddle up on maroon sofa and study the book of John.

One afternoon I read John 10:10, “…I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”

Immediately I thought, “Yeah right! You have got to be kidding me. That might come in the next stage of my life. The one where my husband no longer deploys, my children don’t spill something at every meal, and I am not completely sleep deprived!”

It was all I could do to make it through dinner, bath and bedtime before I collapsed in the living room at 8:30 pm and fell soundly asleep. That is, until a hungry cry woke me. I was exhausted, drained by my children, and often angry and bitter about my husband’s frequent departures at my time of need!

Is this the abundant life Christ spoke about in John 10? Barely enough life to hover between total defeat and just barely squeaking by every day? I felt quite cynical.

Can anyone relate?

Yet, here is the kicker, I now have five children, my husband has twice the workload and responsibility, and I still have to be careful that the waves of bitterness do not drown me like they once did. God didn’t deliver me out of a hard place. But He did set my soul free to find abundance smack dab in the middle of the hard place.

Over the next few months as I sipped my afternoon tea, God whispered a melody to me that continues to play in my heart ever since. Throughout the I Am’s of Jesus in the book of John, there runs a continuous melody line. This melody is the word LIFE. Step-by-precious step the great I AM led me out of my Egypt of bitterness and anger, and into a land flowing with milk and honey. A land in which I found life abundant – spiritually joyful, satisfying, free, and richly deep.

And so the I Am invites all of us. Those whose lives are riddled with bitterness, anger, worry, loneliness, or depression. May our hearts be opened to abundant life and wide open spaces through the power of the I AM.

(Adapted from Wanting More: Following the I AM into Abundant Life)

April 14, 2022

We Promise the Best is Yet to Come, but What if Tomorrow Holds Tragedy?

We sit in the middle of Holy Week. That place between enthusiastic Hosannas and the crucifixion of a friend and son, teacher and miracle worker. As if following the bullet across the stage of Hamilton, time slows down. This space encourages us to look around. Notice. To hear the whispers of unspoken anxiety, and dreams put on ice.

In this space, the disciples beckon me. I read the written word of Scripture. And I pencil in the unwritten emotions. Confusion. Hope. Distress. Love. All jumbled up together like atoms bouncing around under pressure. It really is no wonder the disciples fell asleep in the garden. Their eyelids certainly carried the exhaustion of their hearts.

I’m also thinking about a phrase that gets tossed around in Christian circles these days. In fact, I heard it this morning in a devotional. “The Best is Yet to Come.” But, in a world of cancer and car accidents, wars and heart attacks, what if tomorrow, or, perhaps tonight, the best is not to come? Where does that leave us?

Smack dab in the middle of Holy Week.

So, let me ask, at what point should we tell the disciples, “The best is yet to come?” While they huddled in fear after Jesus’ death? The resurrection certainly is amazing news, but for 3 years Jesus was a constant, physical presence, and he is about to leave them. Yes, Jesus’ ascension ushered in a new Presence, but, like babies on wobbly knees, did the disciples learn to walk with the Spirit? Just like us?

Should we tell them while they watch Steven stoned, or hear that James was beheaded? As Paul said in Acts 20:23, “I only know that in every city the Holy Spirit warns me that prison and hardships are facing me.”

Perhaps, nestled into the American Dream, we so desperately want “the best to come” because, at some level, we don’t believe heaven is better than what we have right now. Perhaps our understanding of what’s best is fundamentally flawed.

If any of this rings true to you, let’s flip the script. Together. Here is what I journaled this week:

Hardships are yet to come, but the best is already here. Merciful. Gracious. Love.

And when the worst hangs me out to dry upon the desert winds, I will trust Jesus’ love will hold me fast. In stark contrast to this often times brittle world, I know the bountiful love of Jesus will find me. The best is truly the Lord.

Father, Son and Holy Spirit, You are the best. Forgive me when I get this wrong.

Once we get this straight, then we are more apt to flourish in the desert. To hold out hope for grace and beauty enough for today. Like 2 loaves and 5 fish, to feast on God’s Word and be satisfied. So much so, that there are still basketfuls leftover.

PS – One more thing, look for the little desert flowers that daringly push their way through dried cracks. They are found tucked in sunsets and snuggles, a good cup of coffee and a good morning stretch. This is certain to bring a smile. And goodness knows we need them every day!

Pressing towards heaven with you!

March 4, 2022

Hearts on Ukraine

Only a few times over the past week have I cracked my heart open to feel the weight of what is happening in Ukraine. Most of the time I protect my heart from the full capacity of this sorrow, because “boots on the ground hits different when you have skin in the game.”

Not that I have any skin in this particular battle, but emotions are stored like chips in our hardware; so, for a military spouse it is too easy to go back. To feel the depth of anxiety and fear that perhaps floods my heart more decisively now that I don’t need to pull on my big girl pants and be brave for the crowd.

Which, by the way, is not wrong. For the sake of my children and the people we serve, I must stand with courage on the homefront. However, I can look at photos of despairing women and children and in a small way understand the complexity of their distress. I can cry along with them and hold their fear as my own.

So, my dears, in the wake of our distress this is what we are going to do: We are going to open our hearts to feel the agonizing sorrow, and then we are going to step out and love deeply. We are going to be the boots on the ground of our communities because we have skin in this game. Our families. Our neighbors. Our friends. Our co-workers.

We are not going to love in pixelated squares or follows, but we are going to be the actual hands and feet of Jesus to our actual neighbors.

We are going to listen to Faye’s story about standing alongside the suffering and we are going to SHOW UP for our people. It doesn’t take gusto or exorbitant time. But it does take intentionality and discipline to choose love.

And in case you think I’m merely preaching what you must do better, I’m actually telling the world what I must do better. Together is not only better, together is the only way forward. So together it must be, in love and service.

I charge us to walk through our day and listen to our people. To ask the question, who needs tangible love right now? To see them and be the boots on the ground they so desperately need! You cannot reach the world, but you can reach your neighbor.

February 24, 2022

Trusting God When My Emotions Don’t

I hate to fly.

Not in the sense, “I hate to fly because airports are annoying and rude customers are aggravating.” But rather, I hate to fly because I might, best case scenario, throw up all over the person sitting next to me, or, worse case scenario, have a full blown panic attack causing the plan to divert for a medical emergency landing. (Thankfully, neither of these scenarios have happened. I always make it to the bathroom to throw up.)

Here’s the thing, everyone tells me that statistically I am far better off flying that driving. I emotionally don’t believe them. So when I fly I must trust the trained pilot and the mind-boggling physics, even though my emotions are running haywire.

In the same way, the scriptures teach us that trust trumps emotions every time!

I read Psalm 13 this morning. The Psalmist is a wreck. “How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever: Day after day I have sorrow in my heart. How long will my enemy triumph over me?”

BUT…

“But I trust in your unfailing love.”

Statistically, God is batting 1000. When I look back on my life, He has always been faithful!! 100 percent of the time!

Trust is not always an emotion. Often, trust is a declaration when our emotions run haywire. So, when my situation feels fraught with danger, or my soul is shaken with sorrow, I can still declare my trust.

And you can, too!

February 15, 2022

When Life Feels Uncertain

Standing on the banks of uncertainty, I, like Jacob, wrestled with God. I anguished in the not knowing. I wrung my hands over my unknown future. Would the other side of the river hold tender celebration or my worst nightmare? Weary and fearful, I looked into the dark unknown and wrestled God with my doubts and questions.

My prayer list right now is full of women standing on the banks of uncertainty. One friend struggles to find a lifeline as she navigates her mental health. Another wades through the torrent of doctor’s appointments and chemotherapy. And a dear Mom feels like she is drowning under the stress and grief of her teenage son’s addictions.

Oh, the weight and the temptation to despair!

But then I remember Jacob. I remember his wrestling and his plea for blessing. And I remember the years before the Jordan River scene; how he fled from his brother, the deceiver becoming the deceived. The world must have felt twisted and wearisome and unsatisfactory.

Yet, as dawn broke wide open upon his wrestling, Jacob was a different man. A blessed man. A man with a new name. But a man with a limp.

As we watch Jacob hobble across the River and into the arms of forgiveness, I wonder at a God who stood with Jacob on the banks of uncertainty and gave Himself to Jacob’s wrestling. A God who chose to become weak so that, in Him, we could be deemed a victor!

So if you are standing on the bank of uncertainty, find freedom to be like Jacob, who wrestled with God from the setting of the sun until it nearly rose. It’s really exhausting work. Let that be said. And you will walk out with a limp touched by love. Let that not be swept under the rug.

But once you have wrestled on the banks of uncertainty, and hobbled out across the River, may your limp be a reminder you saw God face-to-face. Just as the rising sun is a beacon of hope, may this truth shine bright: God became weak so that in our weakness He might prove His strength!

You will walk with a limp, we all do, but you will have wrestled with God and seen Him. And you are blessed for it!

November 30, 2021

God’s Best Work is Done in the Secret Places

As I sat down to type a post recently I realized that even though I could share the lessons learned, much of the story would have to go untold. This lack of transparency felt inauthentic, and if we value anything in 2021, we value being authentic. After a little internal wrestling I finally came to peace with the fact that some pages of our storybooks are never meant for public consumption.

In these wrestlings, God taught me a valuable lesson. And although I won’t be able to share my story, I will share the story of the diamond. By the end of this article my hope is that we would treasure God’s secret work as His best work.

The Secret Place of Diamond Formation

I wear a diamond on my ring finger. My dear husband spent most his small, post-college savings on a beautifully set princess cut engagement ring. Although many of us publicly display diamonds, no eye has seen the secret places of their formation. At a depth of about 100 miles below the earth’s service, a combination of high heat and intense pressure fashion these precious little jewels. Once formed, natural occurrences, such as volcanos carry the diamonds closer to the earth’s surface where miners find them. Jewelers cut them. Consumers buy them.

100 miles into the depth of our own hearts, God does this kind of brilliant work. High heat. Intense pressure. Where no eye can see, nor drill can fathom.

I recently studied Matthew 6 where Jesus taught about giving, prayer and fasting, and thought about diamond formation.

Create Rhythms of Secret Disciplines

Matthew 6:17-18 says “But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you.”

Three times Matthew 6 repeats this phrase, “Then your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you.”

How many secret prayers have you prayed? How many solitary grief-stricken pleas? How many unknown sacrifices of generosity? Or undisclosed choices to fast from a tangible item so you can feast on God?

No eye sees…But God does!

So at all time, but especially when life feels overwhelming, press into these secret places create rhythms of daily secret disciplines.

Give generously…”do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.”

Pray consistently…”go into your room, close the door and prayer to your Father, who is unseen.”

Fast patiently…”wash your face so it will not be obvious to men…but only to your Father, who is unseen.”

And don’t be discouraged if your life is not currently tied up with a pretty instagram bow! (Let’s be honest, mine rarely is!) As deep calls to deep, He will do His best work in our secret places and make them beautiful, dare I say bountiful!

How do I know He will do His best work in these secret places? Because He promises it! “Then your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you.”

Yes, the reward will be in heaven, but what about now as we trudge through this side of the thin veil?

I think Psalm 42 sums it up beautifully:

“Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me.

By day the Lord directs His love, at night His song is with me.”

Because His love song is more than enough, I will keep running to these secret places.

November 16, 2021

Unanswered Prayers

Not too long ago God broke my heart when He denied a miracle I had prayed for with great faith. Not only had he told me No, but we answer to received was unjust and horrifically painful.

I took it up with God, desperately needing a way forward. I needed to find a gentle space to land in the tension between the mysterious way He acts, and the perfection of His well.

The truth is, God is the God of the unexpected, both the unexpected that delights and the unexpected that disappoints. He is the God over healthy babies and sunrises, clear scans and job promotions. But He is also the God over disabilities and car accidents, persecution and loved ones lost too soon.

How do we to balance the weight of this juxtaposition?

Certainly John the Baptist understood this. Locked in a cold dark prison he sent word to Jesus, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another.” (Luke 7:20) Even after all the miracles John had seen, even after his years of baptisms and ministry, he still held a flicker of a doubt that Jesus was the expected Messiah.

If He was, shouldn’t John’s circumstances look different than the 4 walls of his prison cell?

When I sat in my own circumstantial prison of denied prayers, I learned an important lesson. While I still pray with purpose, my most beloved expectation is incarnation. Presence. Emmanuel. God with me.

Comfort.

Peace.

Strength.

Remember, through every delight and every disappointment, He is good...

…and He is the only good we truly need!

Lock eyes on Him, and trust God with us to see you through!

“But as for me it is good to be near God.” Psalm 73:28

November 9, 2021

If you are the Son of God

This time of year often brings with it the rumblings of worry and anxiety. About every other year we know a move is on the horizon. People begin to ask us where we are going next, or when we will find out where we are going … and the answer is we have no idea!

So I am inclined to worry. To stress. To shoulder the burden of anxiety over something I have no control. As I fall down the spiral of worry, my words and actions quickly follow. If you were a fly on the wall overhearing some of my conversations, you would notice cracks in my trust as doubts flood my mind.

It reminds me of Sarah and Abraham. Sarah doubted the faithfulness of God to His promise of a son. She recklessly gave Hagar, her servant, to Abraham as his (second) wife. Hagar birthed a son, and even if you don’t know the entire story, you can imagine just how messy this was for everyone.

There was another time that someone was tempted to doubt God and act recklessly.

We find the story in Matthew 4. After 40 days of fasting, the Devil took Jesus to Jerusalem and “set him on the pinnacle of the temple.” The sweeping view of the city lay before him, and the devil taunted him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down.”

With steadfast trust, Jesus responds, “It is written, “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.”

Jesus is quoting from Deuteronomy 6:16, which reads, “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test, as you tested him at Massah.” So what happened at Massah?

When the Lord split the waters of the Red Sea and led the people of Israel through on dry ground, they were greeted on the other side by wilderness. Not surprisingly, they were thirsty. So the Israelite people did no differently than my children might do, they quarreled and grumbled against Moses. So intense was their grumbling that Moses told God, “They are almost ready to stone me.”

God gave Moses instructions to stand on the rock of Horeb and strike it with his staff. So Moses did and water came out. But “Moses called the place Massah…because they tested the Lord by saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?”

Isn’t this question at the root of all our worry, anxiety and fear!? We doubt God is among us, so we wring our hands and act recklessly, both in our thoughts, our words and our actions.

If you are God, I would not have this diagnosis.

If you are God, my child would not have died.

If you are God, I would not have lost my job.

Don’t get me wrong, there is room for doubt and dialogue within steadfast faith! But we must delineate between trustful doubt versus reckless thoughts, words or actions.

The next time you are tempted to jump off the edge of trust into doubt, remember Jesus’ last trip to Jerusalem.

Although this time Jesus was not tempted to throw Himself off the pinnacle of the temple, He would choose certain death. As sweat like blood fell from His body, He prayed, “not my will but yours be done.”

Jesus modeled steadfast trust, honest prayer and selfless surrender.

So trust the love of Jesus and His Father, “who did not spare His own Son but gave him up for us all. How will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:32)

As I look into an unknown future, I want the song of my soul to move from doubt to steadfast trust. As Jesus showed us, I can wrestle with God in honest prayer, but I will choose surrender as my last words.

Will you join me?

October 29, 2021

My Only Expectation is Incarnation

Not too long ago God broke my heart when He denied a prayer I had prayed with great faith. Not only had he denied the prayer, but the answer we received was unjust and horrifically painful. What do we do when we feel betrayed by God?

Because He could, and in my (insignificant) estimation, He should.

But He didn’t.

As I was studying Matthew 2 recently, the study of the magi stuck me in a new way. As they arrived in Jerusalem asking for the the “King of the Jews,” I wonder at the stir they created. There was so much chatter about this King, that even Herod caught the whispers, “Where is He? King of the Jews?”

A King? A star? Here? Now?

Certainly hopes were raised. The Israelites lived on land given to them by God, but now conquered and ruled by Rome. Was this King the expected Savior? Was he here to overthrow Rome?

As rumors spread about the King, perhaps the Israelites dared to hope. They knew the miraculous stories of Noah and Abraham, Joseph and Moses. They knew that God could…

But as they sat with bated breath … He didn’t.

While the Magi slipped through Herod’s fingers, “Herod…sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were 2 years old and under.

Can we sit in this grief for a minute?

With a broken heart, it’s here I might throw in the towel. But then I remember when I took up my anger with God at my own broken heart.

The truth is, God is the God of the unexpected, both the unexpected that delights and the unexpected that disappoints.

He is the God over healthy babies and sunsets, clear scans and job promotions. But He is also the God over disabilities and car accidents, persecution and loved ones lost too soon.

How are we to balance the weight of this juxtaposition?

While I still pray with purpose and hope with expectancy, now my only expectation is incarnation. Presence. Emmanuel. God with me.

Comfort.

Peace.

Strength.

Remember, through every delight and disappointment, He is good…

and He is the only good we truly need!

“But for me it is good to be near God.” (Psalm 73:28)

April 22, 2021

On Sundays I Rest

I have never been good at resting. Sleeping, well, I have that nailed. But not resting. On the spectrum between Martha and Mary, I lean far towards Martha; the girl that races to complete the necessary tasks with dizzying speed.

But then I taught Genesis. Creation. Sabbath. Rest. And I never looked at Sundays the same way.

In a world that pressures us to do more, I want to break free to be more. Ironically, our becoming is hewn in the soft sands of stillness. Being still is one way to embrace my limited energy, and to declare that the Lord is my source. Isn’t it just like God to lovingly author our limited capacity as a means of transformation?

I can’t do it all. It just simply isn’t healthy to sprint through my tasks 7 days a week, 10 hours a day. No only has rest proved a necessary recharge, but rest reminds me that strivings are in competition with my soul, and embracing humility is for my healing.

So on Sundays I rest. I don’t clean. I don’t cook. I don’t do laundry. I don’t open social media.

You might look at this and wonder, why all the rules? Here is why. Because I have learned my soul is bent towards aspiration. Getting ahead. Conquering. Nothing is wrong with these things in submission to God’s authority, but when I survey my miniature kingdom upon a hill of productivity, I am apt to fall prey to Satan’s whispers of power and prestige. And I must fight this temptation.

So I fight with rest. In acknowledging my helplessness, I acknowledge my ultimate Help. I acknowledge I can do nothing, like really, nothing, without my God.

So what do I do on Sundays? I worship with my family. I serve at church. I read. I soak up time with my family.

I admit that I am weak, but He is strong.

Rest is a gift beyond reason. Don’t ever turn down a good gift. I hope you accept it!

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