Category Archives: faith

Freedom Friday: Resting in God

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My youngest son as a baby, napping on my lap

Have you ever watched a child sleep?

My younger son is now 20 months old, but he is still beautiful when he sleeps. He took an extra long nap today after a short sleep last night. I went to check on him a couple of times, and had to restrain myself from taking his face in my hands and covering him with kisses.

So calm. So content. Not a care in the world.

“I will lie down and sleep in peace,
for you alone, O LORD,
make me dwell in safety.” Psalm 4:8

I have been thinking about the concept of resting in God lately. I seem to be continually encouraging people in my life to stop striving, trying to measure life by achievements and accomplishments, and just rest in Him. Like a good father or mother, God watches over us, carrying us, when we rely on and cling to Him.

“He will not let your foot slip;
He who watches over you will not slumber
Indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.
The LORD watches over you;
The LORD is your shade at your right hand.
The sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon by night.
The LORD will keep you from all harm;
He will watch over your life.
The LORD will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore.” Psalm 121:3-8

Are you resting in God, secure in His love? Allowing your worth to be found in Him and who He created you to be, rather than what you do and accomplish?

We generally spend a lot of time doing what I’ve heard called “should-ing on yourself”.

“I should be doing this; I shouldn’t be doing that. I should have accomplished this, I should be at this certain point by now.” Of course, it’s good to recognize what is beneficial in our lives and what is not, what is edifying and uplifting and what is dragging us down.

But what types of feeling do these “should” statements usually bring up in us? Encouragement and passion for growth? Or shame and condemnation? It’s usually the latter.

Whose arbitrary standards are we trying to meet, anyway?

That’s why resting in God is so important. When we rest in Him, He puts in us a desire to do those things He wants for us to do, not what we or someone else thinks we should be doing or achieving.

Cling to Jesus. Come to Him as you are.

When you are struggling, even in the moment, invite God in. Allow Him to just love you because He loves you – not for anything you’ve done or will do, but because He created you, He called you by name, and you have been adopted into His family. This may not be how your family & friends have treated you, or even how you treat yourself, but it’s how God treats you. He desperately wants to love you and fill you with His peace.

So stop. Right now. Plant your feet firmly on the floor and imagine that God is your firm foundation. Take a deep breath. Like a baby bird, picture yourself resting in the shadow of His wing.

Smiling in his sleep

“The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.” Zephaniah 3:17

My little one was so exhausted that he slept for 3 hours in perfect peace. His brother and I finally woke him with snuggles and kisses.

Your Heavenly Father delights in you. Soak that in. He sings over you, quieting you with His love.

Rest in Him. His burden is light.

Freedom Friday: Who Is Your Source?

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I am tired.

I don’t know why.

This morning, after my usual 5 AM wake-up (thanks to our wonderful dog), I did something unusual: I went back to bed.

When our dog started rising earlier & earlier, I realized after letting him out I rarely fell back to sleep. Rather than lie in bed & stare at the ceiling, I decided to go running at that early hour.

Running, rather than trying to go back to sleep, became my pattern. I’ve been slowly increasing my weekly mileage to the point that last week, I ran 35.5 miles & competed in a 10K on Monday.

I’ve gotten to the point where the benefits of running first thing were worth more than trying to go back to sleep.

That’s what made this morning so unusual. I was so exhausted I let the dog out & crawled back into bed. Unfortunately for me, my 2 children did not stay asleep and after an hour, I got up & went running anyway.

I have now spent the entire day, completely exhausted. This is generally not a good set-up for writing Freedom Friday; add whiny kids to the equation (they are likely as tired as I am!), and forget it.

I needed to pause. Stop grabbing food & coffee (my go-to when completely spent). And rest in God for a minute.

I need to ask myself (yes, I ask myself these questions in 2nd person):

Who is your source?

What or who breathes life into you?

Who sustains you?

What gets you out of bed in the morning? (For me, the answer is clearly my dog!)

Who is the first person/thing you check in with in the morning? Facebook, email, the Bible?

To whom or what do you run when you are drained, wiped, out of energy, or just plain done?

We all know what the answer to these questions should be. But what is it really?

Today, I’m struggling to believe that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me (Phil. 4:13), but in the midst of my struggle, I’m choosing to believe that it’s true.

This word that is translated “strengthens” seems to imply that it’s a process. It is also translated in the New Testament “grew strong” or “increased in strength”.

When I started running, I would run 2 miles, max., and it would take me 24 minutes (a 12 minute mile). I ran my 10K this week in 58:10 (that’s just under a 9 minute & 23 second mile, but the course was really flat). I could only do that time, and my 3 mile run of 31 minutes this morning, because my muscles have grown stronger with extended use.

Here I am, getting a congrats smooch from my grandmother-in-law!

Muscles grow through exercise. Use of muscles creates small tears. Your body reacts to this damage by repairing the muscles and growing stronger in the process.

If I keep running to other sources, those muscles will never grow, and I will never learn to respond differently.

So today, I imagine my patience & endurance muscles tearing in small ways (hence the pain & exhaustion). I picture God knitting them back together, even stronger, so that the next time I face a similar situation, I will be all that more equipped to deal with it.

“I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.” Philippians 4:13

Amen.

Freedom Friday, Choosing to Trust, Part 2

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Hi, Freedom Friday readers!

We have a lot going on right now. I feel as if I say that a lot in this blog. Well, that’s because it’s true 🙂 But this week, we had several more issues added to the mix. Some of these had been brewing for quite some time, so they weren’t completely unexpected.

My reaction, on the other hand, was something I didn’t expect.

Over the years, I have learned to go with the flow, to not react, to not try & predict, over-plan, over-calculate. I have learned, in many respects, to really actively choose to trust God. Mostly.

Mostly.

When the stuff hit the fan this week, I didn’t choose to trust God. I chose to freak out. Just a little. But freak out nonetheless.

It’s actually quite amusing to be me. I am, generally, fairly confident in who God is, who I am in Christ, and who God created me to be. I write what I’ve experienced and what I know deep within my soul. I don’t write about it if it hasn’t already begun to pulsate in my blood.

There are some exceptions. At times, I write about concepts I am grappling with or aspects of God & myself that I’m struggling with. But most of the time, I simply write what I’ve learned through reading the Bible, living amongst other believers, and through my recovery and ever-increasing walk of freedom.

It becomes amusing when I am stubborn and refuse to take my own advice.

About 6-8 hours into my freak out, I started telling myself I needed to go read my own blog. Did I? Of course not. Because a part of me wanted to keep freaking out rather than tell myself the truth.

Eventually, I snapped myself out of it. As I was running the next morning, the phrase “look up” kept coming to me. And I couldn’t help but preach to myself a mini-sermon based on this blog post about seeing with God’s eyes.

Since then, I’ve been back to my usual self, relying on God when the doubts come, resting in the knowledge of His character, diving deep into Him, and allowing His peace to fill me. Mostly 🙂

Peace, rest, reliance: none of these things are dependent on my circumstances. They are dependent solely on the character of God, who He says He is, and all that He has offered to us as believers.

God either is who He says He is, or He isn’t. It’s that simple. God is either the source of my peace, or my planning and my provision and my best guess are the source of my peace. I did the latter long enough to know where that gets me! The part that is more challenging is to believe all that God is & trust that all He has is available to us.

God did not jump off the throne, my pastor used to say, just because your circumstances have thrown you for a loop. He is still in control. He still has a plan.

I have come a long way in this area. It wasn’t all that long ago that I was writing this article, Opportunities for Joy, about practicing acceptance. Contentment, resting in God, trusting in Him comes a lot easier these days.

I hope that’s encouraging to you, readers. Progress is possible. Change is possible. Freedom from unhelpful & unhealthy patterns can be a reality.

Practice does not make perfect, but it can make progress.

Cling to Jesus. Learn about whom He really is. Show Him your heart. Open your heart to His. Rest in Him. When you find yourself striving, run to Him.

Freedom Friday: The God Who Sustains

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We are back from the conference! It was an amazing time, refreshing and yet tiring (I’m sure being in the car 24 hours over the course of 3 days added to that!). There is a lot to think about & reflect on. In addition to that, there are several situations within my circles of family & friends that require lots of prayer & attention.

Yesterday, as I leaned against our chest freezer, wondering what to make for dinner, I became keenly aware that God alone is my Sustainer. I went to a Bible search tool to remind myself of Scriptures that speak to this.

I came across a gem:

“You give me your shield of victory, and your right hand sustains me; you stoop down to make me great.” Psalm 18:35

Since returning home, Holland Davis’s words on the last night of the conference have been at the forefront of my mind (he lead worship). He reminded us that the devil comes to kill, steal & destroy, and prayed that we would not allow him to take away from us what God did in us at the conference.

So I’ve been praying for myself and others, that whatever God spoke and/or called us to at the conference, that we would stand firm and tell Satan he has no power in our lives. That we would obey what God has called us to & the areas He may have challenged us in.

But I was missing an important piece.

I am now also praying that God the Sustainer would fulfill His Word, being confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in us will perfect it (also translating “carry it on to completion”) until the day of Christ Jesus (Phil. 1:6).

The God who leaned down to earth, who stooped down, to rescue us & make us great.

God is our Sustainer. But we need to accept His gift of sustenance. We need to allow Him to maintain and nurture those things He’s deposited into our hearts.

“For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline.” 2 Timothy 1:6-7

I need to be reminded that Satan wants to steal God’s best out from under me, just like he did in the Garden of Eden. Satan’s power is limited; God’s power is unlimited.

So my prayer for all of us today is that we would continue to cling to Jesus, that we would allow God to sustain and preserve the good work He has begun in us, that we would be aware of the work of Satan, but not intimidated by him.

God is Sustainer.

Read these Scriptures. Pray through them. Memorize them. Devour them. Soak them in.

Psalm 54:4
Surely God is my help; the Lord is the one who sustains me.

Psalm 55:22
Cast your cares on the LORD and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous fall.

Psalm 89:21
My hand will sustain him; surely my arm will strengthen him.

Psalm 119:116
Sustain me according to your promise, and I will live; do not let my hopes be dashed.

Psalm 119:175
Let me live that I may praise you, and may your laws sustain me.

Psalm 146:9
The LORD watches over the alien and sustains the fatherless and the widow, but he frustrates the ways of the wicked.

Psalm 147:6
The LORD sustains the humble but casts the wicked to the ground.

Freedom Friday: Do You Really Know God?

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I am a Judges slacker.

I have lots of good reasons, as we are leaving tomorrow (I’m writing this Thursday) for a road trip that will end at the national conference (at which I will speak). I’ve been preparing my workshop, along with packing all the stuff we will need for all those hours in the car & all those meals out (kids with food sensitivities, after all).

So, I’m going to briefly share about something else that’s been on my heart. More Judges later.

At the conference, I’ll be giving my “Learning to Walk in Freedom” teaching to just the women attendees. Though when I was initially asked to tailor my talk for women, I was excited by the possibility! And I still am.

As I began to re-work my talk for this specific audience, I just happened to be reading chapter 7 in “Breaking Free“, a book I mentioned in my hopelessness post. The chapter is entitled “The Divine Caricature”.

It asks the question, “Do you really know God?” Do you really know His attributes, His character?

Step 1 of learning to walk in freedom is to spend time with the freedom giver. As I re-read what I’ve said on this topic, the following excerpt from “Divine or Distorted? God As We Understand God” by Jerry Seiden came to mind:

One day as I walked through my favorite park, I recited the 12 Steps as was my custom. This day I stopped at Step Three: “Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.” Something inside me asked, “Who do you understand God to be?” I responded by reciting all the wonderful characteristics of God, but the voice within me said, “No! That’s what you’ve been told about God in school and in books. Tell me what you really believe God to be.”

Just as if a dam broke in my heart and mind, I began to cry, grit my teeth, and curse. I was angry. I believed deep inside that God was unconcerned with my life, unforgiving of my sin, impatient with my weaknesses, intolerant of my failures, very angry with me, and more. I believed I deserved all of God’s wrath and nothing of his grace. Nothing good could or should happen to me. I wept until I was ashamed.

Then came silence followed by that voice in my heart again. It was God’s voice. It said, “You have described yourself and the way you treat yourself. And I am not like you. I am none of those things.”

“You thought I was altogether like you!” These are God’s words, found in Psalm 50:21.

When you envision your Heavenly Father, do you imagine an angry man with furrowed brow, wagging His finger from up in heaven, waiting to punish you at any mistake? Or do you imagine a caring Father, who is slow to anger, quick to run to you with love, even in your pain & brokenness?

Do you know who God is? Who He really is?

The prodigal son, when he was close to his father, living near him & spending his days with him, knew his father’s character. He knew that if he went to his father & asked for his inheritance, it would be given to him. As he walked further and further away from his home, through distance and action, he slowly lost sight of the nature of his father’s character, to the point where when he decided to go back, he thought the best that could happen would be to become a hired man.

Have you lost sight of God’s true nature? Or maybe you never really knew it & are only learning who God really is now?

For some of us, it might be more accurate to say we think God is like our parents or other authority figures who were imperfect (just as I am) or maybe even mistreated us. The New Living Translation says in Numbers 23:19 “God is not a man, so he does not lie. He is not human, so he does not change his mind. Has he ever spoken and failed to act? Has he ever promised and not carried it through?”

Do you know who God is? Who He really is? Do you know the nature of His character? If not, will you allow yourself to absorb the truth of Scripture & what it says about His relationship with you and His heart for you?

I will likely next be posting from the Exodus conference. Hope to see you there!

Freedom Friday: The Biggest Enemy of God’s Gifts

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I began writing this post 3 months ago after a series of events sparked my thinking on this topic.

This is how quite a few of my blog posts begin – just some random thoughts I’ve written down.

I needed to read it today.

******************

I’m tired. Tired physically, emotionally, even spiritually.

It’s been a challenging few months.

I don’t feel like blogging today. I feel like napping. I feel like wallowing a bit on the outskirts of my default setting.

Instead, I open my saved, but unpublished, blog posts, and found this one.

It’s excruciatingly appropriate.

Back on that day in February when I started this post, I read this blog about being afraid to use our gifts. The author reposted this June 2008 post on his Twitter, and the words really dug into my heart.

That was the first impetus for my thoughts beginning to churn.

Then, also back on that day in February, I read this entry from “My Utmost for His Highest.” Also thought-churning.

I can totally understand what the blogger spoke about concerning being afraid to use our gifts. There was a time I was a very prolific songwriter. It was my main means of communicating my overwhelming feelings to God and to others. And then, there came a time when God asked me to stop writing.

God did this by gently nudging me. He loves my songs. But He wanted me to learn to communicate in other, healthier, life-giving ways. Like sitting down face to face with someone who loves me & cares about me and telling them what I was experiencing.

I’m able to do that now. Well, most of the time. 90% of the time. That’s quite a bit of progress over 0% of the time.

Then the Oswald Chambers entry opened my eyes to a frightening truth. When I’m insecure about what I can take on or achieve, I’m really saying that Jesus isn’t able to help me. I’m saying my insecurities and weakness are too much for Him to fix and/or work through.

The entry says: “Beware of the pious fraud in you which says – I have no misgivings about Jesus, only about myself. None of us ever had misgivings about ourselves; we know exactly what we cannot do, but we do have misgivings about Jesus.”

He goes on to write, “My misgivings arise from the fact that I ransack my own person to find out how He will be able to do it.”

Back to the above blog post. I feel as if God clearly spoke to me through several means a decade ago concerning how He wanted to use my gifts. I’ve allowed Him to use some of my gifts in limited capacity, but for lots of reasons (fear, shame, pride and letting Satan win being among them), I have not been and am not living in the fullness of all God has for me.

Add my family to the mix. I can think of a million reasons that God’s call is not doable or even feasible given various family circumstances. What about God’s call for my husband? My kids? These are excuses – yes. But they are pretty convincing ones. This would be a great example of the “how” Oswald Chambers referenced.

The reality, for me, is the biggest enemy of God’s gifts being used in my life is me.

It’s not just Satan (he plays a part, certainly). It’s not my life circumstances. It’s not money or time or anything else.

It’s me.

It’s me and all my rationalizing and explaining away. It’s me and all my small sighted-ness. It’s me believing the lies Satan is speaking and forgetting to tell myself the truth.

It’s the very stuff I pound into your heads week after week that I seem to not be able to hear right now. It’s the very things I usually can put into practice. But I feel as if I’m hitting a roadblock in this area.

For my family, I have felt for quite some time as if God is pushing us out of our comfort zone in several areas and we need to really seek Him without fear. I laugh at that. Seek God as a family? I feel as if my husband & I barely have time to sit and figure out our schedules, much less seek God in concentrated prayer.

Another excuse.

What are your excuses? God can’t use you until you’re healed? You’re too busy? Too tired? Too…..?

What are your misgivings about Jesus, as Oswald Chambers asked? Evidently, mine include having to pray a certain amount in order to hear from God about what’s next. Hmm. Treating God like a vending machine where I need to put in a certain amount of something in order to get something in return is never a good idea.

I remember when God made it clear He wanted me to talk about my struggle with overcoming same-sex attraction. I was like, “Really, God? ARE YOU INSANE? You want me to tell Christians about this? I’ll likely end up ex-communicated!” And look at me now 🙂 Yet there are clearly other areas that I need to surrender and be obedient in.

What gift is God asking you to use? Does the very thought of being obedient terrify you?

What big dreams is God asking you to fan the flame of?

Are you the enemy that is keeping you from obedience?

I want to end with a prayer, for me & for you. Feel free to pray it aloud.
God. I choose to trust You. I choose to trust that the gifts You have given me & the plans You have for me are Yours, not mine. I surrender the fact that sometimes, Your plans & gifts won’t even make sense to me. I release them to You to figure out the “how.” Forgive me for my complacency, my falling into despair and indifference. Forgive me for only looking at things through my eyes and not asking for Your eyes. Help me to stop being my own worst enemy. Re-deposit Your spirit & Your Word into my heart to encourage me, to challenge me, and to spur me to action. I love You. You are good. Thank You for caring for me as only a perfect Father can. Not my will, Lord, but Yours – really. I pray this is the mighty name of Your Son, Jesus. Amen.

Freedom Friday: Hopelessness

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Hopelessness.

Hopeless.
1 a : having no expectation of good or success : despairing
b : not susceptible to remedy or cure
c : incapable of redemption or improvement
2 a : giving no ground for hope : desperate
b : incapable of solution, management, or accomplishment : impossible
— hope·less·ness noun

Hopelessness.

That dark place we resort to when things are not turning out the way we thought & hoped they would. The place we go when we had dared to hope and those hopes were dashed.

Despair. Fear. Isolation.

I’m reading Breaking Free by Russell Willingham (highly recommend this book, and even more so recommend Relational Masks). Breaking Free is geared more toward heterosexual male sex addicts, but don’t let that deter you from reading it or continuing on in this blog post. I am neither male nor have I dealt with sex addiction, but Russell Willingham is such a powerful speaker & writer that I am getting a ton out of it.

The chapter I’m on, “The Myth of No-Fault Victimization,” discusses the following verse: “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.” 1 Corinthians 13:11

Russell Willingham talks about how in many ways, the sex addict is stuck in childish ways of relating. I think many of us, addicts or not, can relate to this. I heard someone recently refer to it as “Arrested Development” – a part of us or an aspect of our personality can get stuck at a certain age & never mature past that point.

Russell breaks each aspect of the sex addicts arrested development: talking, thinking and reasoning.

I’m going to quote from the book now.

“I thought like a child.” Many of us can’t use the past tense as Paul did, because we are still stuck in childish beliefs, perceptions and notions that protect us from having to take responsibility for our choices. In another place Paul calls these strongholds (see 2 Cor 10:4-5).

He goes on to outline the various ways of thinking that children exhibit, such as egocentrism, centrism, animism, and hopelessness.
Hopelessness? That seems somewhat out of place. Listen to how he explains it (bolded emphasis mine, italics are the authors).

Hopelessness is not only a response to traumatic losses; it can also become a habit-forming coping mechanism. Children may lapse into hopelessness because they don’t have all the information. My daughter once cried uncontrollably because her balloon popped. To her, all was lost. Because of her sobs she was unable to hear me telling her I would get her another one out of the bag. It wasn’t until it was blown up and placed in her clenched fists that she opened her eyes and chose to hope again.

For many of us a popped balloon was the least of our worries in childhood. Some of us had childhood years that were filled with parental abuse, rejection or just plain indifference. In order to keep our sanity, many of us had to let go of the dream of ever having our needs met in these relationships.

Is hopelessness your default setting? Think about it. Are you, like Russell’s daughter, holding on to that hopelessness with clenched fists? He goes on to say:

Two things can be said about the sexually broken. First, their hopes for love & protection were often shattered in childhood. And, second, they refuse to hope even now even though the Son of God is pleading with them. They cling to the familiar feeling of abandonment and rarely venture outside into the open spaces of God’s love & grace. Why? Because they don’t really believe it exists, or, if it exists, they believe they are not eligible for it. This is a repudiation of what they claim to believe.

I don’t have much more to say about the above. There is a reason He is called the God of Hope. It’s because hopelessness is not from God. Look at what it says in Hebrews 6:

Now when people take an oath, they call on someone greater than themselves to hold them to it. And without any question that oath is binding. God also bound himself with an oath, so that those who received the promise could be perfectly sure that he would never change his mind. So God has given both his promise and his oath. These two things are unchangeable because it is impossible for God to lie. Therefore, we who have fled to him for refuge can have great confidence as we hold to the hope that lies before us. This hope is a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls.

If God is real, if He is who the Bible says He is, then hopelessness is not an option. If His promises are true, if He doesn’t change, and never lies, then we have to reverse the pattern in our lives of getting sucked into hopelessness.

If you see a pattern in your life of hopelessness, if that is your default setting, start to choose to trust today by beginning to tell yourself the truth. Ask God to show you how to see your situation with His eyes. Read about hope in the Bible. Memorize those verse and meditate on them when you find yourself sinking into hopelessness.

I’ll leave you with a few of my favorites:
“We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love.” Romans 5:3-5

“Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see.” Hebrews 11:1

“I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe.” Ephesians 1:18-19

“This is why we work hard and continue to struggle, for our hope is in the living God, who is the Savior of all people and particularly of all believers.” 1 Timothy 4:10

“Through Christ you have come to trust in God. And you have placed your faith and hope in God because he raised Christ from the dead and gave him great glory.” 1 Peter 1:21

Freedom Friday: God’s Specific Plan

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I recently had an interesting conversation with a group of friends about whether or not God has a specific plan for our lives.

It seems many were brought up in a generation that was very focused on uncovering your specific “plan & purpose” that God created you for. Having prayed for years, hoping to discern this purpose, some have given up on finding it.

As you all know, I’m reading Joshua. Slowly.

I have to admit that getting in the later chapters, it can be a little tedious to read all the town names and valley names and which tribe got what land, etc.

But as I read, I can’t help but think about how specific God’s plan is. He spelled it out for them. It was His job to make His plan clear, not their job to somehow locate it.

I used to kill myself trying to find God’s plan. I understand the brand of frustration my friends shared about. I’d get on my knees and tell God I wasn’t moving until He spoke to me & told me everything I wanted to know about my future.

Then, one day, in May of 2004 while teaching at a student ministry conference, He spoke. Here is part of what He said.

“I do have a plan for you – a wonderful plan that will shock, delight and surprise you, a plan that will blow your small ambitions out of the water.” He then went on to tell me I wasn’t ready to hear about that plan.

This wasn’t what I wanted to hear.

God spoke to my heart that day that I needed to be still and experience Him as God, that He is so different than any other relationship I’ve ever experienced. He called me to climb up into His lap and allow Him to change me, to lean back & rest my head against His heart so I might know & experience all the wonderful things He feels for me.

God didn’t primarily want to “use” me, as in have me do great things; He primarily wanted to change me. His goal for me in that time was to deposit in my heart His love, the new identity He died to give me, and His vision for my wholeness.

It’s amazing to look back on that time in my life, and see what God has done in those 7 years. When I look at His children now, I wish I could literally take what God has deposited into my heart (His deep & passionate love for each of us, His tender care & compassion, His desire to see us walk in freedom & live abundant lives) and transplant it into someone else’s heart. I now do this little by little, bit by bit, through teaching, writing, and blogging. I would not be able to do that now if I hadn’t allowed God to work in me for the past 7 years.

Let me be clear. I absolutely believe God has a specific plan for each of His children who call Him by name.

But we can kill ourselves (and kill our faith) trying to “find” it.

Jesus said my sheep hear my voice. Period. The God who spoke the whole world into existence can make His voice heard by you when you need to hear it.

God does not give us a road map. It would be easier in some ways if He did, but then we wouldn’t have to trust in Him and cling to Him so tightly; we’d simply have to trust in the map.

I don’t want to get to know a map. I want to purpose to know my Creator, the One who shaped me & formed me & laid out my life.

I’m not going to argue over whether or not God literally maps out every minute of every day. What I do know is that God created each of us with gifts & talents, passions & desires, that He wants to use in specific ways.

Rather than strive to find the map, it’s been much healthier (as my friends mentioned above have also realized) for me to try and follow His commands and teachings, to love Him and continually surrender to Him, to dream, to live out Proverbs 3:5-6, trusting He will make my paths straight as I go, rather than always seeking after the next big thing or sign. In the midst of that, as I cling to God, as I read His Word & spend time with His people, God will show me what He has for me.

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11

If you’re looking for help discerning whether or not you are hearing God’s voice, this blog post might help.

Freedom Friday: Seeing with God’s Eyes

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Good day, Freedom Friday readers!

We’re still on Joshua here. I know; I can’t help it! It’s just that good!

Let’s turn to Joshua 5 🙂 The Israelites have just stepped into the Jordan, crossed it, and taken up their Stones of Remembrance. Joshua circumcised the Israelites, they healed & rested, and then they celebrated the Passover.

13 Now when Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand. Joshua went up to him and asked, “Are you for us or for our enemies?”
14 “Neither,” he replied, “but as commander of the army of the LORD I have now come.” Then Joshua fell facedown to the ground in reverence, and asked him, “What message does my Lord have for his servant?”
15 The commander of the LORD’s army replied, “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy.” And Joshua did so.

Many commentators on this passage believe that the commander of the army of the LORD was Jesus Himself. Joshua worshipped Him & referred to Him as “my Lord”. Prior to this time, God had been speaking directly to Joshua, over & over. He had not bodily appeared to Joshua, nor had an angel visited him.

Why, then, did Joshua need God Himself to come speak to him face to face?

I can’t help but wonder if he was possibly discouraged.

Notice that Joshua was near his obstacle when the above happened. What he was thinking about? Was he staring at the obstacle, wondering how they could ever overcome it? Had he forgotten all the Lord has already done? I imagine him standing there, trying to remind himself of who his deliverer was. In that moment, the ESV translation says that Joshua “lifted up his eyes.”

The commander of the Lord’s army, whoever he was, reminded Joshua to consecrate Himself to the Lord and to press on.

6:1 Now the gates of Jericho were securely barred because of the Israelites. No one went out and no one came in.

2 Then the LORD said to Joshua, “See, I have delivered Jericho into your hands.

Huh? That doesn’t even make sense. To the natural eye, Jericho was shut up, snug as a bug in a rug, with high walls and no way in. No one was even coming or going. But God said to Joshua, “Look at this with my eyes. I have already delivered this city into your hands.”

I have had a series of challenging events in my life recently. It’d be quite easy to get discouraged based on the circumstances I see around me.

The truth about life for us all is that it’d be easy to find things to be rip courage out of us, and it’s much more difficult to find things to deposit courage into us.

But the reality of following Jesus is you & I have already been set free from the laws of sin and death. In fact, you’ve already been set free from that thing that just came to mind as you doubted the truth of my last sentence. That situation you are looking at, the one that seems perfectly hopeless, God is saying, “Consecrate yourself to me. I already have a plan to be glorified. I will deliver you from that thing that has you bound. I can do the miraculous in the midst of that hopeless situation. Look at this with my eyes.”

Are you speaking truth to yourself concerning your troubling situation, the obstacles facing you? Are you placing your hope in all the ways you have possibly conjured up to fix it, or all the possible outcomes you’ve imagined? Or are you hoping in the power of God, the same God who parted the Jordan, and as we read on, brought down the mighty walls of Jericho?

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. 2 Corinthians 4:16-18

What we see, our struggles, our circumstances, our burdens, are not only light & momentary, but they are temporary. Read that again: this is temporary.

We have a choice: stare at the walls of Jericho, or look into the eyes of our great God.

In Joshua’s moment of discouragement, he chose to look to His Creator, the Lover of his soul, His Deliverer. And in that moment, it seems as if God replied, “Because you chose to look to me, I am about to do something amazing.“

Freedom Friday Tools for the Journey: Stones of Remembrance

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This is a continuation of the last 2 Freedom Friday posts. It falls into the “Tools for the Journey” category, but it’s also a continuation of the discussion of Joshua (I recommend going back & reading this if you haven’t already).

We pick up the story in Joshua 4. The Israelites have just crossed the Jordan. They’ve seen God’s hand move powerfully and faithfully, as He continues to do what He has promised He would do.

Then God tells Joshua to have one man from each tribe go back into the middle of the river, take a stone from where the priests are standing, and carry it back out of the river.

4 So Joshua called together the twelve men he had chosen—one from each of the tribes of Israel. 5 He told them, “Go into the middle of the Jordan, in front of the Ark of the Lord your God. Each of you must pick up one stone and carry it out on your shoulder—twelve stones in all, one for each of the twelve tribes of Israel. 6 We will use these stones to build a memorial. In the future your children will ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’ 7 Then you can tell them, ‘They remind us that the Jordan River stopped flowing when the Ark of the Lord’s Covenant went across.’ These stones will stand as a memorial among the people of Israel forever.”

I can’t help but wonder why God doesn’t tell them to get the stones on their way through the river. Is this again another little faith test, like when He commanded them to step into the Jordan, and only then would the waters part? While crossing the river, the Israelites were specifically instructed to stay a half mile away from the Ark of the Covenant, whereas now they are told to gather rocks from where the priests are standing. The stones needed to be from that very spot where the Ark of the Covenant, a sign of God’s presence and His promises, was held. God also instructed Joshua to make another pile of 12 stones in that very spot in the middle of the Jordan.

Notice they weren’t celebratory stones. It would have been a fine time to celebrate, but no. The “Stones of Remembrance” served as a memorial. A reminder of God’s faithfulness. That His promises were, and still are, true. The end of an era (slavery and wilderness wanderings), and a new beginning in the Promised Land.

The reality of life is that we all get discouraged. “Discouraged” is likely too weak of a word – “disheartened” is better. Proverbs says “Hope deferred makes the heart sick”. Our focus gets sidetracked by the wait. We forget all that God is, and all He has done in us & through us.

We get hyper-focused on our vision of how things should be. We even have a picture of how, when and why God will show up and come through.

The Israelites certainly had a preconceived idea of how God’s deliverance should look. Imagine the Israelites, enslaved for 400 years. For all those generations, they spent their days, while subject to the whims of Pharaoh, dreaming of how God would show up. In my article “Craving Egypt“, I wrote about how quickly the Israelites lost sight of all that God had done to deliver them from slavery in Egypt. The following words were spoken by the Israelites soon after the parting of the Red Sea.

“If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.” Exodus 16:3

Even the Pharisees and Jewish leaders had an idea of what the Messiah, their deliverer, would look like. They had built in their minds an image of Him so inaccurate that when Jesus came, they didn’t even recognize Him.

The Stones of Remembrance after the crossing of the Jordan served not just as a reminder, but also as a warning. You will forget. You will lose sight. You will get off kilter, lose focus, sink into despair. You will even come up with your own ideas of what freedom looks like and how it should arrive.

It’s as if God is saying: I’ve carried you this far. Trust me. I’m not going to stop caring for you now. It may not look like you think it will. but I’m still here and I’m still working.

The Stones of Remembrance encourage us to focus on the “who” rather than the “how”. We love the “how”! We love imagining and conjuring up the grand scheme of how God is going to work in a particular situation. We’re not so enthusiastic about simply resting in the knowledge of who God is. We get too caught up in the details of the “how” to remember to fix our eyes on the eternal: Jesus.

This tool is different from the encouragement file in that the encouragement file is a place to keep reminders of thoughtful notes, affirmations, and thanks from people from over the years. Stones of Remembrance are times God came through, often in surprising ways.

So start writing it down. Look back through your journals, your emails, your Facebook status updates, and start a new journal. Write the date, and the way in which God came through. The manner in which He reminded you that He is good. The person through whom He spoke truth. The Scripture you heard three times in the same day, through three different means.

Write it down. You will forget. You will lose sight. We all do.

The Stones of Remembrance are what we reach for when we are disheartened, weighed down by the burden of the problems we were never meant to carry.

In the words of Sara Groves in her song by the same name, “He’s always been faithful; He will be again”.

That’s why we need Stones of Remembrance.

21 Then Joshua said to the Israelites, “In the future your children will ask, ‘What do these stones mean?’ 22 Then you can tell them, ‘This is where the Israelites crossed the Jordan on dry ground.’ 23 For the Lord your God dried up the river right before your eyes, and he kept it dry until you were all across, just as he did at the Red Sea when he dried it up until we had all crossed over. 24 He did this so all the nations of the earth might know that the Lord’s hand is powerful, and so you might fear the Lord your God forever.”