Category: Truth and Faith

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Breaking Two Years’ Silence with Self Love

I’m just realizing my last post was 23 months ago.

I no longer have the desire to blog in the way I used to, spending hours pouring over every word, a little nervous every time I would click “publish.” While I am so grateful for what I was able to share, I couldn’t continue in the old process; I needed time away. Sustaining the writing process is a huge part of blogging, and I needed time to find a better way. So, if you you’re here for the first time, welcome. If you’re still here, thank you. I’ve loved having this space to share my life with the King of all, and I am so grateful to be able to get back to it.

I am in the middle of a season of working on self love, recently kicked into high gear. I don’t know about you, but loving myself never came as naturally to me as loving others. I’ve learned that they truly go hand in hand. The cliche is entirely true, that you have to love yourself before you are capable of fully and truly loving others well. We are all so connected, much more than we tend to realize. The way we love ourselves, or don’t, affects others whether we realize it or not.

So, how do we love ourselves?

For those of us who struggle with this, I’ve found it helps to first rest in Jesus. We can’t white-knuckle our way to loving ourselves, we have to let ourselves go. For me I think it’s the control that I try to keep, often without even realizing it, that blocks love from flowing. When we rest in Jesus, our defenses aren’t up, we are present, and we are showing up in trust of Him that He will keep us safe as we rest. Self love requires trust, and faith in Jesus’ strength, not our own. We can rest sweetly because of Him.

Another way is through the renewing of our mind. Taking every thought captive that is negative about ourselves, recognizing it as something that doesn’t belong and isn’t from Jesus, and resisting, praying that Jesus would release us from the grip of the enemy and keep him far, far away. And, injecting some praise and worship music into that process, rejoicing in the Lord and repeating some declaration lyrics doesn’t hurt either!

And while there are many other ways to love ourselves, the last one I’ll share is to take time to care for the body. Body and mind work together and both need intention to keep aligned with love. Vagal toning exercises to calm the vagus nerve, core strengthening exercises, and strength training have made the biggest impact for me. Strong bodies are needed to support a strong mind, and vice versa. Every time we invest in our bodies, we are also investing in a solid defense mentally against negativity, and lies or doubts about ourselves.

Thanks for reading my first little post in two years (!), and let me know in the comments what has helped you in your own self love journey, let’s support each other as we love ourselves to love others as Jesus loves us.

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3 Ways to Walk in Humility

This past weekend, I took a silent retreat on a beautiful little property where life was thriving. The bugs, beetles, flowers, and animals were all singing their songs happily in the summer sun. I had never been there before, and going in, I thought I would use the time in silence to reflect and grieve and process life with the Lord. However, my environment had such an effect on me, that I couldn’t help but pay attention to it. I got caught up in the dance between butterflies, the ripples in the pond, the scent of an old pine tree, the coo of a dove. I couldn’t help but find joy in the moment and in being where I was among so much beauty, designed by our Creator. I felt free to wonder and be in awe in the present moment.

But a few days later, that feeling has worn off. I woke up feeling the same dread that I’ve woken up with on many days; dread of the sadness I’ve endured and sadness I’ve yet to endure. Dread of the pain and process of living. And while that’s a legitimate emotion that should be fully acknowledged and felt and processed, I want to challenge myself and anyone who can relate, with the truth that that feeling is based on an assumption of going through life without God’s presence. Of doing life on our own. But the truth is that God is with me just as much today as He was during my retreat, thus, the feeling is simply unfounded. Not worthless, not shameful, but normal and human. And also, the feeling is robbing me of the full joy of being, here and now. I challenge you and myself to choose to believe the truth that God’s presence is here and provides every reason for joyfulness, even on days when we wake up and don’t feel it’s true. What is true is that He has provided all we could ever need.  

Humility is depending on the Lord to provide. 

We all encounter this dilemma of choosing between humility and pride, both in the big and small decisions in life. I have discussed an aspect of this before in my post, Dealing with Pride. We all want our way, sometimes overtly and sometimes subconsciously, but beneath it all is the same sinister thing that keeps us from humbly submitting to the Lord and trusting His goodness and provision. This makes us feel distant, can turn into that feeling of dread or worse. This is something that we all deal with and learning to deal with it in healthy and life-giving ways can make all the difference in the very trajectory of our lives. We all are born with pride, it’s the human condition, so we all must learn to handle it when it does wash over or take hold of our perspective. So how do we handle pride in a healthy way that won’t distance our hearts from God further?   

1. Remember how God dealt with you kindly even in your worst moments.

An amazing story in the Bible of not only God’s kindness, but the kindness of people for each other is found in the book of Ruth. Kindness is the thread that runs throughout the short four chapters and it goes around the characters like a chain reaction. Kindness and humility go hand in hand. Boaz’s character reflects that of the Lord, who sees our humble loyalty to Him and rewards it with blessing. 

Later in the story, Ruth proposes marriage to Boaz, an extremely bold and humble thing to do, as it vulnerably demonstrates her dependence on him. Boaz dealt with her boldness kindly. It is out of a keen awareness and gratitude for God’s kindness that true humility can rise up in our hearts and help us to act in the love that Jesus calls us to. Even when we don’t act in great love as Ruth did here for her mother-in-law Naomi, we can all think of ways the Lord has dealt kindly with us. As Romans 2:4 says, it is God’s kindness that leads us to repentance. Fully owning our worst moments and repenting of our pride is the first step in humility.  

2. Decide, once and for all, to pursue genuine change of heart with Jesus.

At some point in our lives, we have to make the choice in faith that God’s way truly is best for us. We all have that decision to make for ourselves, whether His will for the long term is better than getting our way in the short term. There comes a point when we must stop excusing our pride away. At some point we need to acknowledge that anytime and every time that temptation arises, it is never justified to act upon it and follow it if we have committed our lives to following Jesus. We need to recognize it for what it really is, idolatry of the self. By letting our own will rule our perspective, we are placing ourselves in a place only God is righteous, just, and loving enough to fill.

When we are able to own up to our sinful nature, not just a single event or instance, but our heart condition of sin, only then can we fully allow Jesus through the door of our hearts to begin to heal what pride has twisted up in us. When we rely on Jesus with our entire self, we are no longer powerless against pride. We are instead empowered by the Spirit of the Living God to walk in love and humility, even becoming able to truly love our enemies because of God’s love for us while we were still His enemies. This ability is the beautiful and mysterious truth about authentic followers of Jesus. But it doesn’t come easily, and it doesn’t happen immediately. It takes a very close, intimate relationship with Jesus, spending time learning from Him and knowing His love ourselves, not through anyone else’s opinion or experience. It may be helpful to remember that even the demons “knew” Jesus, but they did not believe with a personal trust in Him, which is the kind of knowledge we’re talking about. Knowing Him and His character takes time, just as any relationship does, but it starts with faith that this long journey of learning and seeking to understand the love of Jesus is worth it. 

3. Remember Jesus is King and you are not. 

The more we learn about Jesus, the more beautiful, healing, and powerful we understand Jesus to be, it’s important to remain aware that we will come to identify ourselves with Him, because He identifies so closely and intimately with us. However, we must understand that there is potential in that process for pride to sneak in. Yes, we can identify with Jesus, we model our love and humility after Him. But we must remember who we are, under the authority and ownership of the King, Jesus Christ. Though He can and does work through us, we are not the judge, ever. At best, we may hope to be called His servants, a title of the highest honor for any mortal. As His, we are abundantly provided for, perfectly protected, and infinitely loved. In His care, there is no more need to look for satisfaction in the things that tempt us, because we know where true satisfaction is found, and we have found Him. 

Where is our heart’s condition and motives? This is what Jesus looks at; He fully knows the true condition of our hearts. Come into His presence today. Allowing ourselves to be driven by pride is damaging to us in the long term, but He knows what it’s done to our hearts, and He seeks to fully heal and restore each and every one to wholeness as His beloved ones.

It is only in His presence that our heart is fully at home.  

While only Jesus heals, there is responsibility on our part for our own heart’s condition. It is always God’s will to heal us of our pride and gently, patiently teach us the humility of Jesus, but He always takes our choices into account. Friends, I invite you to choose to know His presence with you in a fresh and deeply healing way. I invite you to the perspective that there is always reason to rejoice because of His presence and salvation. I invite you to stand in awe and wonder in the present Presence of the Lord, because there we are home.

Further Reading: The Prodigal God by Timothy Keller

“…I rejoice in your salvation.” (1 Samuel 2:1, ESV). 

“But the Lord said to Samuel, ‘Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.’” (1 Samuel 16:7, ESV).  

Thank you for spending some of your time journeying with me. If you haven’t yet, please subscribe to Life with the King, and like & follow the Facebook page; it truly helps me continue writing this blog. Grace and peace. 

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The Intimate Love of God

Half of 2021 has been harder for me personally than the whole of 2020 was. While I love writing and sharing with you on this blog, sharing has seemed next to impossible at times, even to those closest to me. I’m grateful you are here after all this time away. In the past 14 months, I’ve found amazing solace outdoors, taking in the beauty to be experienced on nature walks. Nature somehow has a way of putting me back in the present moment, and it (usually) helps to drown out the noise in my mind.

I remember one day on one of my walks this spring, a particular daffodil caught my eye. It was not yellow; no yellow at all, just all-white petals. I stopped to look closer. The daffodils all around it were either all yellow, or had white petals surrounding an egg yolk-yellow center. Even the inner trumpet was a pure white. Now, maybe this is completely ordinary to you and you’ve seen many a white daffodil, but it struck me as particularly beautiful. I just stood and stared for a while, in awe of what I’d found. It felt special to behold, like seeing a four-leaf clover, or a black squirrel. It felt meaningful somehow, and I was grateful to be there (and present) for it.  

I don’t often mind walking alone, but a couple moments later, I felt a pang of loneliness, wishing I could share the beauty I had found. Feebly, honestly feeling a bit silly, I asked Jesus as I walked toward home, “Did you see that?” Immediately, He was there. This unexplainable knowing of His presence came over me, one I’ve had rarely. Somehow, I knew all at once that Jesus had been and was present with me, I knew He’d heard me, and I just knew the answer was yes, He’s seen it too. “More than that, I see you seeing it,” He seemed to say in my heart. And just like that, I had shared in the wonder I’d found, my longing fulfilled. 

When we draw near in faith, Jesus is quick to fulfill our longings with His love.

Being loved by God and loving Him is so foundational to faith because it allows us to stop trying to fulfill our longings with anything but Him. Faithfully trusting His love, we grow in our own ability to show true love, even when we don’t want to (there are plenty of times when this is the case!). Within God’s love, we are set apart as Holy with Christ, aware of and operating from a place that draws from the well of His deep, complete love, completely different from the partial elements of love we may seek after in the world. I’d like to share a few beautiful passages that illustrate God’s incredible love for us. 

A question God asked was about, arguably, the most damaging decision of all time. Not an obvious choice to show God’s love, but perhaps that is why I find it so remarkable. In Genesis 3:13, God asks Eve, “What is this you have done?,” when He knew she ate the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. But, did you know that this question isn’t only asked of Eve? 

Many years later, after establishing the nation of Israel through Moses and Joshua, God also asks the same question of the wayward Israelites (Judges 2:2). God used the faithfulness of Moses and Joshua to set the stage for the next best version of Eden possible. Eden, after all, represents God’s set of ideal circumstances for humans to thrive in. However, the Israelites could not keep God’s commands or stay faithful to the Lord.  

When God asks “What is this you have done,” again, hundreds of years later after He had freed His people from slavery in Egypt, built up their character through trial, and established everlasting covenants with them, I read this question with a tone of heartache, not just anger. With bitten-back tears, not only wrath. God wants the best for them, but He does not make decisions for people, or have faith for people–He opens Himself to the vulnerability of true relationship with humanity, and asks what we’ve done, perhaps not for His benefit but for ours. His love is apparent for Israel; even in their whoring against Him (Judges 2:17), this heart-wrenching question may be read from the heart of a Teacher, guiding the people to search their own hearts and ask it of themselves.

God heartbreakingly models what it looks like to love even when we don’t want to.

Hosea chapter 11 is quickly shooting to the top of my list of favorite Scriptures. In it is, to me, one of the most beautiful love letters in the Bible, straight from YHWH Himself to His beloved people Israel, here referred to as Ephraim, who was one of Joseph’s sons. I love to read this chapter as a love letter from our Father directly to us.

“When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. The more they were called, the more they went away; they kept sacrificing to the Baals and burning offerings to idols. Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk; I took them up by their arms, but they did not know I healed them. I led them with cords of kindness, with the bands of love…” (Hosea 11:1-4a). 

God’s love for Israel is given imagery, and reading on we see that His love never stopped, no matter what the people did. In Hosea, God continues, “How can I give you up, O Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel? … My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender. I will not execute my burning anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim; for I am God and not a man, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath.” (Hosea 11:8-9). God’s compassion for us is so clear in this passage. Despite His “burning anger,” which unchecked would destroy them, God’s compassion makes destroying His “child,” meaning His people, an impossible option due to His loving character.   

The force of God’s love is stronger than anything, and will never fail because He is God.

Other passages that directly express God’s deep, intimate, and devoted love for us include this one from the prophet Isaiah who writes, “Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. Behold I have engraved you on the palms of my hands . . .” (Isaiah 49:15-16a).

Again we read the comparison of parent and child when it comes to the compassion of God. But I love this passage because it may refer to the nails driven through Jesus’ hands when He was crucified on the cross. Regardless, we are remembered by God on the very body of Jesus, by the scars from the nails that after His resurrection still engrave His hands (John 20:27), even as He is seated at God’s right hand. That is how intimately God loves us.  

Remembering relationship with God is a recurring theme throughout in the Bible. Jesus can never forget us as this passage from Isaiah states, for we are engraved, if not on his body then on His heart. In turn, God implores His people not to forget what He has done for them, who He is, and who they are because of Him. He asks the same of us, to remember the ways in which He has been and continues to be faithful to each one of us. 

Remembering Whose we are is a vital part of living in relationship with God.

“Is Ephraim my dear son? Is he my darling child? For as often as I speak against him, I do remember him still. Therefore my heart yearns for him; I will surely have mercy on him, declares the Lord” (Jeremiah 31:20). Because we read that God’s heart actually yearns for His people, even when they constantly are unfaithful, committing idolatry against Him generation after generation, I invite you to ponder for a moment the weight of the fact that David was referred to as “a man after my own heart” (Acts 13:22). Of calling Jesus, David’s descendant, His Son, “with you I am well pleased” (Mark 1:11), God shows us that personal devotion to our relationship means everything to Him. Yet, we must remember because we are so prone to fall in line with the Israelites’ way, living in a state of pride and attempting autonomy on our own strength apart from our fiercely loving Father.

In Christ, we no longer have to be afraid of the closeness of God’s love. I admit, Jesus’ presence can be difficult. For me it sometimes seems too good, and too close. But intimacy with God is something that we were made for before sin entered in. What does the enemy know of intimacy? It is innately human to feel the the pull of intimacy we were all born with. May we allow it to drive us to, like David, seek after God’s own heart for ourselves.   

Intimacy with God is more innate to us than our sinful nature.

After I found the white daffodil, that same night I was talking to Jesus about the beauty of the experience, and I felt His almost-too-good presence near again. He spoke to my heart, “Yes, it was beautiful. I saw you seeing it. That’s the way I see you, you know. The way you stopped to see the beauty of that white daffodil is the way I look at you. You’re so beautiful, I stop and point at you and say to my Father and the Holy Spirit, ‘Look! Isn’t she beautiful?’”  

Well, I just about lost it. Maybe you can imagine what hearing that meant to me in a season of isolation, and the intense intimacy of that. It was deeply personal and unique, and yet this is Jesus’ heart towards everyone, even with a “silly” faith the size of a mustard seed that feebly reaches out to Him, He is there for us. Please hear my heart and know that I am not sharing this to brag by any means, but to express the intimacy with which He loves and knows you just as well, and certainly immeasurably more. We are seen, known, appreciated, and loved deeply by Jesus whether we have a relationship with Him or not, and when we reach out to connect with Him, there is truly nothing better. He fulfills our need for love both in the ways we can understand, and far, far beyond them as well. For me that day, it was through a flower. For you, I hope you remember today that He loves you with an unending love, and experiencing that is only ever a reach of your heart in faith away. 

“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of Life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. …” (Romans 8:1-3a).

Thank you for spending some of your time journeying with me. If you haven’t yet, please subscribe to Life with the King, and like & follow the Facebook page; it truly helps me continue writing this blog. Grace and peace.

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God’s Will and Passover

Times are bad; that’s the word on the street (internet), anyway. There are hundreds of things that are cruel and difficult about our world today that I could list here, but I won’t do that to you today. Instead, I want to share some things that truly fascinate me about the power and also the relational nature of God’s will. For an early example, on several occasions, Moses was able to talk with God and dissuade Him from acting against His character towards the Israelites (eg: Exodus 32:9-14), even after they had done deeply offensive things that dishonored Him. 

God is willing to show great mercy and love in relationship with us. God’s will is that we would glorify Him in our character, work, and worship. God’s will is that we would have no more sorrow or struggle. He wants the best for us, to rest in the enjoyment of life with Him. So, what’s the deal? If God is who He says He is, why does our world seem to be in such bad shape? 

Both God’s will and humans’ decisions determine the state of our world–and life itself.

It isn’t one or the other, God’s will or ours, that makes things the way they are. It’s both, and the only reason we know of is because God wants it that way. For better or for worse, God wants to partner with us in our lives. This particular law of the universe is as influential as gravity; it’s what makes prayer matter. It’s why faith matters. It’s why our decisions matter. God desired so much to be in relationship with us that He set up the entire universe to ensure that we would be able to work alongside Him, partnering with Him in His will. 

Even though God’s original plan and will for humanity was detoured because of the Fall, the original, relational nature of the Universe still stands. Yet, God’s will has final say, and this is important to remember. 

God does not partner with us in the things that are outside of His will. 

God does not go against His will to fulfill ours. In selfish acts that disregard love and the well-being of others, He will not partner with us. But even, and perhaps especially, in those times He will never leave us. We are His beloved children and that does not change. Instead He patiently and diligently teaches us, through our sin, mistakes, and wrong decisions, what His will is. And it all goes back to His original design for us. 

Why be concerned about God’s original design if the whole relational partnership thing didn’t work out between us? Again, God has the final say, and thankfully His will is being brought about even now. Even with all the detours our own selfish wills have led us down. Nothing can stop God’s will, not even all the sin humankind has committed against each other, throughout all of time (can you imagine; just the sins against each other demonstrated in 2020 alone make me want to look away). God’s will is still coming about, and He never stops working but He always leaves the invitation open to us to join with Him by faith in the work He is doing to align with His will. He made the Way for us to do that fully through Jesus, because we cannot conform our wills to His without faith in Jesus’ sacrifice for us.  

Death is against God’s will for us; He has taken control over it through Jesus.  

Jesus overcame death after putting the sin of all humankind, including mine and yours, to death with Him as the ultimate atonement sacrifice, the once-for-all Passover lamb. Sin’s penalty is death, because apart from God we wither. Death wasn’t in His original design for us, we were always meant to be in close relationship with Him. Thankfully, God’s will to be in an unhindered relationship with us could not and cannot be stopped! His will is for us all to experience the everlasting life with Him that we were always intended to enjoy. 

Jesus’s atonement for our transgression comes alive (pun intended) in the context of Passover, the holiday celebrated first by the Israelites right before they were set free from slavery in Egypt.

God’s final plague on Egypt was death of the firstborn sons in every family, but any house that had the blood of a sacrificial lamb on their doorposts would be passed over by God. “‘…The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt. ‘This is a day you are to commemorate; for the generations to come you shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord—a lasting ordinance’” (Exodus 12:13-14).

Passover is the perfect time to remember Jesus, the new covenant of His blood shed for us, and hope of ultimate freedom from death and sin. 

We are now in spring, and Passover is here. Jesus ate His last Passover meal on this earth with His disciples in Jerusalem. He fully understood the significance of that night, the night of his arrest, and what His death would mean for the world. 

The first Passover night in Egypt marked the establishment of the nation of Israel with the escape from slavery to the Pharaoh that very night (Exodus 12:31-34). Israel as a people was established and given freedom, all in one night! Similarly, we all are established into God’s family and given freedom from death in Jesus. 

Passover is the time of establishing identity.

During the Last Supper, Jesus’ last Passover meal on earth, He consecrates the new Israel to the Lord. God’s original covenant with Abraham (Genesis 12:12) was to make Israel a great nation, and to bless “all peoples of the earth,” and establishing Israel as a nation was a pivotal step in bringing about God’s will. But God didn’t stop with Israel. 

Jesus knew He was the ultimate Passover Lamb when He ate the Last Supper. In that moment, Jesus establishes God’s people–yes that’s us!–under a new covenant of His blood, “And he said to them, ‘This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many” (Mark 14:24). 

Jesus’ Passover is for all people on earth, not just Israel. 

With His new covenant, He welcomes us all into the family of God. But this wasn’t easy, even for Him. After His last Passover meal and just before His arrest, Jesus got alone in the garden of Gethsemane and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will” (Matthew 26:39). This prayer Jesus prayed in anguish and distress tells us something of God’s will. 

Jesus had a human will just like you and me. He didn’t want to have to die. He didn’t want to suffer and bear the biggest burden ever asked of any human before or since. And He was honest with God about that. 

But, Jesus yielded to God’s will, even though it was against His own. 

That’s part of what made Him so uniquely different and able to fulfill a role that none of us could fill. All the rest of us “have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23), because we have chosen our will over His in our lives.

The point is this, that by relationship, by using the fundamental law of partnership that God laid down in the foundations of the earth, we can partner with Jesus in our own atonement and eternal life by faith in Him and His sacrifice. Because of Jesus and our relationship with Him, we are restored to relationship with the Father God as He originally designed. God does not will for people to die for any reason, period. Jesus came and suffered in death so that people wouldn’t have to die anymore. He made a way for His will, to partner with Him restoring us to everlasting life. Gives a whole new meaning to the old, “where there’s a will there’s a way” phrase, doesn’t it?

It is our own choice whether we lay our own will down to His.

Whether or not we surrender to God’s will is completely our own choice. He will never force His will upon us, because He is a loving, patient God. To surrender our will to God as Jesus did so beautifully at Gethsemane, we must fully trust Him. To trust Him, we must know Him. To know Him, we must seek his character; for more on this check out the Life with the King blog series Characteristics of God). 

Building our relationship with Jesus takes curiosity, intention, and sometimes desperation if and when our own wills lead us into pain and sorrow. God’s will always has more for us than we could ask for or imagine (Ephesians 3:20). God’s will provides true hope that connects back to who we really are and why we’re really here through Jesus. God’s will is what our true identity longs for if we are faithful to dig deeply enough to see it. 

Jesus rules (yeah, I said it)

God always intended for a human to be king, to rule the earth (see Genesis 1-3). Jesus’ coming not only fulfilled God’s will to provide atonement for His beloved people, the sheep to His shepherd, but Jesus also fulfilled the role that Adam, and all men and women after him, could not. Jesus, fully God, fully human, came to rule the earth as King. Only Jesus could do that work. He fulfills this role of King even today, at the right hand of the Father. There, He is interceding for us, even in this very moment (Romans 8:34). Jesus is the ultimate King, reigning with both justice and mercy, both grace and truth. Jesus our rightful ruler and King has not left us to follow His own will as we have but invites us to partner in His reign with Him. Can I hear a Hallelujah!?  

As we walk through the remembrance that Passover brings, and approach Good Friday to remember Jesus’ sacrificial death for you and for me, I encourage you to broaden the picture of Holy Week to consider its rootedness in the story of Passover, God’s covenant relationship with humankind, deepening our understanding of the Gospel stories with a new layer of profundity and a glorious vision of hope.   

May God bless you as we remember the story of our King together. Praise and thanks be to Him, the King of Kings, forever and ever! 

“Now may the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen” (Hebrews 13:20-21). 

Thank you for spending some of your time journeying with me. If you haven’t yet, please subscribe to the blog, and like & follow the Facebook page; it truly helps me continue writing about Life with the King. Grace and peace. 

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Freedom to Love

In my previous post, I wrote in depth about the pervasive force of fear, but ended on the idea that truth brings freedom, “… the truth will set you free” (John 8:32). My post 5 Ways to Step into Freedom in Christ goes into some of the practical details. Now I want to go into more depth about the idea of freedom, and why it’s so important. 

Freedom is all about Love.

“You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love” (Galatians 5:13).

Freedom in Christ points to freedom from the power of sin and death over us. But that’s not all; freedom was intended to give way to a culture of love.  

Somehow, the longer we are in the world, the more we seem to fall asleep to the fact that we are free. It becomes all too easy to only love those who love us back, and only love that which benefits us personally. As Jesus said, “what reward is there for that?” (Matthew 5:46 (NLT)). When we feel obligated to love, it is not love of our own free will. It is not love freely given, the kind of love God longs for us to have towards Him and toward others. Once we understand that in His great love Jesus has already set us free, everything can change.

Freedom is why I gave up everything to choose faith in Him—it’s the best thing I ever did. 

I used to constantly chase love, happiness, success, and contentment. The longer I was striving for my desires, the more I felt that somehow, I was under their power—and I was! In a way, we are enslaved to whatever it is that our heart desires. That’s why it is so important to guard your heart.

God understood this fully when He created us. As humans, we were designed to be subservient to something beyond ourselves. God made us this way with the intention to only be subservient to Him, who never exploits this delicate feature of who we are. This is my opinion friends, but I believe this is the reason the first commandment prohibits idolatry (Exodus 20:3). God knew how He designed us better than anyone or anything, and wanted to protect us from the harm that serving anything other than Him would do to us. 

From the Beginning, God wanted us to dwell in His presence and have intimate relationship with Him—and He designed us accordingly!

How beautiful is the vision of a life where we could withstand the holiness of God and experience the unimaginable glory of His full physical presence! This is what Jesus’ restoration of all things looks like—God, restored to His rightful, original place as our ruler and friend, the literal and only “owner” of us and everything in the universe. No more being “owned” by the world’s consumerism, alcoholism, pornography, money, drugs, alcohol, relationships, fame, influence, status, lies, most types of societal expectations, the list goes on, for the exploitation of our thoughts and feelings. Until He comes again, we are susceptible to these traps; “They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity—for ‘people are slaves to whatever has mastered them’” (2 Peter 2:19). 

So many of us settle for being “free” to pick our own poison, fooling ourselves with this “good enough” freedom, convincing ourselves, “This isn’t so bad.” Friends, this is false freedom, and is not what we were made for. We can only deny our bondage for so long before our souls cry out. Being truly free comes when we yield our hearts, minds, and souls to God, the only One trustworthy enough to be our owner. The One whose judgment is impartial, who never exploits us by His power, and will never overstep our free will. He patiently gives us space to respond to Him in our own way in our own time. In Him, and Him alone, we are free—free indeed.  

Trust God to set you free from your idols today.

He is able. He is bigger than even that thing that scares you more than anything else in the world. Ask Him to end your bondage today and for help to stop luring others into bondage with you. God expresses His love to us by giving us freedom from sin and death, and free will to make our own decisions in life. He will help you if you ask Him with a sincere heart. It’s no wonder we struggle at times to feel His love, His gift of freedom is constantly being threatened by the world we live in! This is by no means new.

God first promises freedom to the Israelites via Moses in Exodus 6:6, “Therefore, say to the Israelites: ‘I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. I will free you from being slaves to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment.” God wants to free and redeem us just as much as He wanted to free and redeem the Israelites in bondage. He is faithful, and will show mercy. The question for them, and for us, then becomes, 

“Okay, so you’ve been liberated from your Egypt, but are you going to continue living in a mentality of bondage?” 

We can become so accustomed to being manipulated by a partner, family member, or friend, being loyal to a particular party or denomination, being unwilling to learn the Bible for ourselves, listening only to other people talk about what Jesus is like instead of talking to Him directly, that our minds struggle to break free of those old patterns. Our minds can come to expect bondage and subservience and reinforce it, even when we are actively trying not to.

But, there is good news, friends! Jesus’s truth makes it possible to transform any bondage mentality; Scripture commands it: “be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2). We now know that even the physical fissures formed in our brains that reinforce routine patterns can be changed. Thankfully, God made our brains with neuroplasticity so those pathways can be transformed! For many, freedom comes slowly through hard work, not all at once. It takes time and intention to change our thinking to align with the truth of God’s love and freedom, but it is possible. Take heart and do not give up hope, friends! Through Christ we no longer have to feel stuck in our minds believing we’re free when our hearts and spirits know we’re not. He frees us fully and completely.

“What does Jesus have to do with freedom? Everything! because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death” (Romans 8:2).  

If you don’t know who Jesus is, I encourage you to seek Him. God promises that when you “seek the Lord your God … you will find him, if you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul” (Deuteronomy 4:29). Luke 4:18 describes Jesus as proclaimer of good news to the poor, sight for the blind, and freedom for prisoners and those who are oppressed. Revelation 1:5 describes Jesus as the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler. But even as powerful and glorious as He is, He makes it clear in Scripture that He is a personal God who wants you and me to know Him on a deep and intimate level so we can experience the depth of His love and the gift of the true freedom that only He can give.

When we devote our lives to seeking and following Jesus, we are given the Holy Spirit. He awakens us and empowers us to be our authentic selves, truly free of anything that might hold us back in our lives. In the freedom that Christ has generously given, we are free to be the people that we already are fully and as God designed us to be, without being subject to the rule of anything but God, as He intended.  

The vision of freedom looks like each one of us being all of our true selves.

Maybe you’re thinking, that sounds great and all, but it sounds too good to be true, or, I don’t feel victorious or free, even though I believe in Jesus already! Friends, as Jesus Himself said, “all things are possible with God” (Mark 10:27). Our faith is what counts as righteousness. God did not promise a life of feeling good, He promised His presence and faithful love for us. He is with us, even when we don’t feel it. “In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence” (Ephesians 3:12).

Jesus allows us to live a life even now of continual restoration and blessing! In Him, we are no longer subject to spiritual death (Hebrews 2:14). All we must do is have faith in Him, and the full gifts of righteousness Jesus bought by His blood shed on the cross become ours, not that we deserve it, but thanks to His grace and love.

God’s plan will come about.

His plan involves full freedom, from a physical body prone to decay, heartbreak, and anything contrary to love; a plan with nothing more to separate us from Him. God wants all barriers between us and Him to be broken, as He has desired from the very beginning, and is working even now to complete this work. Nothing we’ve done, or the enemy has done, can stop God’s plan from unfolding, or His promises from being fulfilled.   

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” (Revelation 21:3-5a). 

God carries you, as a Father carries His child, into a future of His glory.

I love to imagine what the fullness of God’s glory will look like, but nothing we imagine could ever come close! His glory is total and complete love and acceptance, boundless freedom and creativity, incomprehensible grace, and profound truth. His glory is endless worship and praise of His real and true name, intimacy and closeness to His amazing presence, and wonderful loyalty and faithfulness. He wants nothing more than to tuck you into His arms and carry you in His love and provision until the day when you take your place in the room He has prepared for you. To be fully loved gives us the freedom to love in the same way, and create the culture of love that exists today between Father, Son, and Spirit. God’s will and all of time are pushing toward this reality, no matter how distant it may seem.

The freedom to be in the presence of God is the most wonderful freedom there is. It costs everything the world offers, but it is worth everything and more. “But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life” (Romans 6:22). We must not forget that there is freedom here and now in God’s gifts, not just in eternal life. Here and now, Jesus allows us to experience a healthy and truth-honoring transformation of our minds, to choose to walk with the Holy Spirit moment by moment, to love with a selfless and free love, and to have hope of the glory to come in life eternal.

May we be people who choose the freedom to love without limits. 

“So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:36). 

“Live as free people, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as God’s slaves” (1 Peter 2:16). 

“For the Lord takes delight in his people; he crowns the humble with victory“ (Psalm 149:4). 

 “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” (1 Corinthians 15:55).

Further reading: Garden City by John Mark Comer

Thank you for spending some of your time journeying with me. If you haven’t yet, please subscribe to the blog, and like & follow the Facebook page; it truly helps me continue writing about Life with the King. Grace and peace.

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Guard Your Heart

I recently found the piece of paper that I was given at the last campus ministry large group service I attended before college graduation. On it is a single verse, a verse that I was told at the time was particularly for me:

“Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it” (Proverbs 4:23 (NIV)).

At the time, at 22, I was a bit thrown off by this verse. What did that mean? What was I doing to make it seem like my heart was too exposed? Ten years later I can say,

I didn’t know what I was supposed to be guarding. 

But, I wasn’t aware of how to read the Bible for that information at the time. The Bible seemed very removed from my everyday experience. Though I found parts of it interesting, I simply could not see how the Bible could speak much to my present day life.

Over the next six years, my life gradually falling apart, I tried everything else I could think of to guide me instead. The Bible eventually came back into my purview as almost a last resort, when I was exhausted from running into dead ends. Gradually, I had unwittingly done the opposite of “my verse” and let my heart be influenced by almost anything and everything else besides the Truth of the Bible. 

The heart can be manipulated when you don’t know its worth.

The worth of anything can seem different depending on who you ask. But God, the Creator of all things that have worth, determines the true value of our hearts. To uncover why it is so important to guard our hearts, I first needed to understand, from God our Creator’s perspective, what the heart really is and what it is worth.

In looking at the heart closer by how God hardened Pharaoh’s heart in Exodus and how Jesus quoted Isaiah 29 in Matthew 15, we can discover that in the Bible, the heart of a person is referring to the sum of their intellect, will, and emotions. It is like our steering wheel; wherever our heart goes, we will follow. The human will and emotions will surely wander into dangerous territory if they are not rooted. Jesus quoted Isaiah 29:13 which says, “their hearts are far from me. …” in describing the Pharisees, who had staked their lives on being the opposite! We must guard our hearts from getting far away from God, because where the heart goes, we will go with it. 

The heart is so significant that it is what the Lord judges us by. 

Every individual’s heart is precious and valuable. God made us this way. As our Creator, He knows where to look to see our true selves. 

“But the Lord said to Samuel, ‘Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart’” (1 Samuel 16:7). 

When our hearts are aligned with the Lord’s character–His love, peace, and grace, we are no longer so prone to having our hearts manipulated. Knowing God’s character is knowing the Truth, which sets us free (John 8:32). 

If your heart is not planted in Truth, you will believe lies. 

We see this in Matthew 25:24-30 in the parable of the talents (sum of money). While this is a familiar and oft-taught passage, I had never caught the fatal error of the heart that the servant made before:

“He also who had received the one talent came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you scattered no seed, so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground …’ . ‘You wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I scattered no seed? … . …cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness….’” 

Did you catch it too? The error of the servant was not so much what he did with the talent as it was his misperception of his Master’s true character! In this parable, the Master represents the Lord. It was the servant’s false assumption about who his Master was that determined both his fear and his resulting behavior. His heart had come up with a lie about the character of his Master, and he had believed it without testing whether it was true. 

Your heart is not the source of truth, but it can feel good in the moment to believe it is.

That our hearts will always lead us correctly in life is perhaps the most dangerous lie that pervades today. 

We all need a guiding principle to live by, but if it does not align with the Truth of who God is and what He is really like, we will be misguided. Believing our hearts are our guiding principle, or that simply “following your truth” will lead us correctly is simply false. We are not guarding our hearts wisely when we place it in a station in our lives higher than it was intended for. 

It is not popular to say that God’s Truth is the only truth. But, following a different principle only keeps us slaves to whatever lie we fancy most. 

Our false beliefs keep us in bondage, but only the Truth sets us free.

The thing is that deep down in a really honest place, our hearts know that they are not to be trusted to the level of a guiding principle. Over time, hearts fail us. They misguide us. They lie to us when we ask too much of them by treating them as the source of truth. But, when we surrender our hearts to the will of God, putting them in their rightful place under God’s authority, there they are properly guarded. There they will thrive. There our hearts can align with life itself and be the wellsprings that God intended. 

Friends, if you struggle with guarding your heart, I encourage you to ask for God’s help to test your own heart and see where you’re believing things that aren’t true, and where your will is coming against His. Trust that God knows what He is doing and that He knows what is best for your heart because He made it in the first place. No one knows your heart better than the Lord. Surrender your heart to Him today; you will never regret it. 

“And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7).

Thank you for spending some of your time journeying with me. If you haven’t yet, please subscribe to the blog, and like & follow the Facebook page; it truly helps me continue writing about Life with the King. Grace and peace. 

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What is God’s Grace?

Talking about the grace of God, especially during a verbal conversation, can sound very abstract, churchy, or vague. Even a very clear definition of God’s grace didn’t fully make sense to me until I came to faith in it for myself. For me, grace actually ended up being a lot more simple than I once thought it was.

God’s grace is the gift of life; it is also defined as the unmerited, unearnable gift of salvation that frees us from the consequences of inherited and committed sin.

It’s rather simple to describe, compared to the difficulty it can be to accept. After all, we aren’t used to accepting anything we didn’t earn. It’s easy for me to slip into feeling guilt and doubt that I ever had God’s grace in the first place, because I did no work to earn it! But that certainly doesn’t mean that these feelings align with the Truth. For Truth, we must look to God’s Word in Scripture: “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9).

God’s grace is “immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine” (Ephesians 3:20), it’s part of God’s character to want the best for us and to love us, even more than we can comprehend. God doesn’t stop showing us grace when we begin our faith journey, but continually shows us grace upon grace as he works in our lives daily and teaches us more about Himself.  

Are there people excluded from God’s grace? 

No, and yes. Everyone who has ever existed is given the gift of life by God, even if just for a little while. That chance at life is a form of God’s grace. Everyone has something to be thankful for. So in that sense, no one is excluded from God’s grace. However, using the definition above that describes God’s grace as the gift of life and salvation, we have the ability to choose not to accept this gift that God offers us. One could decide to reject God’s grace. God will never force anyone to accept Him; that is a choice He leaves to each individual to decide for themselves. 

Can you lose God’s grace, or fall away from grace? 

When it comes to the consequences of sin, Jesus stated that, “…No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). Those who rely on Jesus’ saving work on the cross have been promised salvation. It is still debated by Biblical scholars who have devoted their lives to these questions as to whether or not someone can then lose their salvation after they reach a point of repentance to Jesus. As I am certainly not an expert I will not be taking any guesses, but will encourage you to talk to God and to ask Him directly about this issue if it is weighing heavily on your heart. 

I will say that God loves everyone the same, He shows no favoritism, and He gives everyone unlimited grace in their lives, even until the very end. As 2 Peter 3:9 says of God, “…he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” That is God’s kind and generous heart toward us; again, it is ultimately our choice whether to accept His grace or not. 

How do you know you have God’s grace or that God’s grace is present in your life? 

It is normal to feel doubtful of God’s grace, at times it seems too good to be true, doesn’t it?! However, again, we look to the Truth in Scripture, “...if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9). Having God’s grace does not depend on feelings (praise God!) but instead on believing in your heart that Jesus is who He said He is. If you believe this, the fullness of God’s amazing grace is present with you! No more striving or searching, you are covered by His grace. It is finished.

If you haven’t accepted God’s grace before, or want to renew your confession of faith, pray this simple prayer with me: God, thank you for Your amazing grace made flesh in Your Son, Jesus Christ. I confess that I have sinned and need salvation which I could never earn on my own strength. I believe that Jesus died to pay the penalty for my sins, and was raised to life again to defeat death which held me captive. I accept your gift of life and freedom to have life everlasting with You. Amen. 

Thanks be to God for His rich and abundant grace to restore us back to life in Him. 

Have a faith question and wish you could get a response? Send an email or drop me a comment to let me know your question. I just might respond in a blog post like this one!

Further reading:
Acts 15:11, Romans 4:4-5, 11:6

Thank you so much for spending some of your time journeying with me, it is truly an honor. Please be sure to subscribe to the blog, and like & follow the Facebook page for updates; it helps me continue writing about Life with the King. Grace and peace. 

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My Elimination Diet Story

This week marks one year of changing everything about the way I eat by adopting a strict elimination diet.

Thirteen months ago, I was in tears at my parents’ kitchen table. I was talking to my family about the overwhelming task of drastically and permanently changing my diet, and by extension the way I go about life. But hold on, you might be thinking, what does an elimination diet have to do with life with the King? 

It called upon me to step out of passivity and step into what was right for my body, a temple of the Holy Spirit (Romans 5:5; 2 Timothy 1:14), not just sometimes but at every single meal. It called upon me to develop a spirit of discipline and perseverance. It called upon me to practice self-control. It called me to trust God in a deeper way. Ultimately, I want to share my story because it revealed things I needed to let God heal in me, and if I can do it, you can too.  

What I Gave Up

I was at a point where I felt stuck in a grab-and-go and restaurant-heavy diet. It worked with my busy lifestyle at the time, eating out on my way here or on the way back from there. The more I gave in to unhealthy diet choices, the more I was tempted by the constant food marketing we all see advertised. Not to mention giving all those foods up would surely ruin my social life; so much of it revolved around eating together with friends. Some of my favorite memories with them involve elaborate potlucks, and going to restaurants for birthdays or other celebrations. We even made a run of trying to sample all the world cuisines; many of us just love food. 

Eliminating the ingredients found in virtually everything? I was very concerned about sounding snobbish, rude, or judgmental if I refused the foods all my friends were eating. Not only that, but how else would we spend time together? (Yes, this was pre-COVID-19). 

While diet was my only ticket out of a prescription I had been taking for years, I was also terrified to stop taking it. To give up my prescription was what I wanted, but it actually meant that I would be facing the scariest withdrawal side effect, depression, head-on. It had hit me with a vengeance less than two weeks after I stopped the prescription once before, around three years prior. Depression messes with my concept of identity, not to mention life itself. Believing the lies depression tells is what scares me perhaps more than anything else. That fear of depression had kept me passively accepting my health situation to that point.

I also just doubted my own resolve. I felt unprepared to give up my restaurant fixes and my social life, like all I had to fight it with was my weak and admittedly underdeveloped self-discipline. 

But my feelings were wrong; the truth was I had God on my side too. 

Little did I know then that He would work so much more in this food journey than I ever imagined. I also had people in my family who encouraged and believed in me to see it through. They prayed for me and believed I could stay on course even though I didn’t. That kitchen table conversation? I left that night with renewed hope and resolve. 

Perseverance and Discipline

The initial motivator that made me push past all these hangups and attempt to discipline myself? The desire to stop taking the prescription I was on (an elimination diet plan would prepare my body for weaning off). Diet was the only option I knew of for doing that. Also, that same prescription was starting to cause ever-more-severe side effects that I had grown weary of tolerating.  

To clarify, I am NOT anti-medication. Medication can and does help people in many cases and there is absolutely a place for them. However, when the costs outweigh the benefits, I believe we need to look for safe alternatives; so that is what I did. 

After six years on my prescription, I had developed severe gastrointestinal (GI) side effects, or “leaky gut.” This is a known side effect. Sadly, my doctor dismissed it as something that can’t be tested or measured, despite my acute and nearly constant pain. 

Changing your lifestyle sounds like such a cliche until you actually try it. It’s hard work, and it takes planning and a willingness to disappoint other people if and when necessary. It takes removing temptations entirely from your environment. It also takes a really, really important reason. 

Sure, I wanted to feel better and get out of pain, but mostly I wanted to gain back my freedom from this prescription I no longer felt was helping me. I did not want to be that dependent on anything but God. And it was harming my body as well. Being strung along against my will just would not do any longer; it was clear to me then that it didn’t fit with what I believe. But soon I came to realize there were many other ways it didn’t fit me. 

Self Control

To help prepare my prescription-dependent brain and body to wean off, I committed to clean foods. I committed to investing a bit more in my health and purchasing organic fruit and vegetables, grass-fed meat, and pasture raised eggs. I went gluten, grain, soy, dairy, corn, caffeine, alcohol, processed/added sugar, potato, and peanut free on September 3rd, 2019. 

Miraculously, I stuck faithfully to this for the first six months (I followed a fantastic book’s plan which also included some supplements—with my doctor’s approval). This meant that suddenly, cooking became a much bigger part of life. In order to make it work for me and my personality as much as possible, I got rid of everything in my kitchen that had any ingredients I couldn’t eat and replaced them all with plan-friendly alternatives, like swapping soy sauce for coconut aminos, or white flour with almond flour. To help myself with self-control, I needed to minimize temptation. 

I was going to make sure that I was welcome in my own kitchen, even if nowhere else. 

I armed myself with plenty of versatile, fun recipes to try, like Thai chicken soup and spiced stir fry, so I never got bored within the ingredient limitations. I can count on one hand the times in those first six months that I ate anything I didn’t prepare myself—mostly times when I was out with friends. Most of those times I was eating within my ingredient restrictions, but none of those instances went particularly well. The cross-contamination was likely just too high. However my body was, thankfully, able to recover more quickly than before I started the elimination diet.

My previously constant GI symptoms mostly disappeared around the two-month mark of being on this plan, around early November 2019. Let me repeat that, 

It took only two months of diligence in self control for my leaky gut symptoms to disappear. 

That’s when I started feeling really good, relieved, energized, and motivated to keep going. I stuck to it through tempting holiday foods at Thanksgiving and Christmas with no unmanageable cravings.  

For anyone who believes inflammation or GI symptoms can’t be helped from diet and supplements alone, from the foods and plants that God’s earth provides for us, I am living proof that they can. 

After four months, I felt my body had gotten accustomed to the diet and was still feeling good. Finally, I was ready to stop taking my prescription in late December (again, with my doctor’s approval). I also started some more intense supplements to help repair intestinal damage and support my liver function even more. At that point, I’d done all I could do and prayed to God, asking Him to take care of the rest. I’d reached the first milestone—four months of eating for my health. Would it pay off? Could depression and other medication withdrawal side effects really be staved off? 

I continued faithfully with the diet through January. By late February, I had no negative side effects of stopping my prescription. I was both shocked and delighted. I could begin the food reintroduction phase of the elimination diet.

First, I tried reintroducing gluten, then dairy, corn, rice, potatoes, and peanuts. Each time I felt mildly tired and lethargic. It wasn’t painful, but I knew how great it was to feel at my best, and surprisingly, even just the “mild,” pain-free cost was no longer worth it to me. I could try reintroduction of these things again after a few months; these costs can lessen over time. For now, I only eat these ingredients in small amounts and very occasionally.  

I reintroduced oats with no negative symptoms, so I now eat them regularly. Because of the way my body reacts to them, I have not tried and have no plans to reintroduce soy, caffeine, alcohol, or added sugars—maybe ever.  

I am still very much in the middle of my self-control journey, but I’ve learned a lot in just one year.

Before starting an elimination diet, I didn’t restrict myself at all as to what, how much, or when I eat. But all these factors affect our bodies, and in turn our minds and spirits as well. Proverbs 25:28 reads, “Like a city whose walls are broken through is a person who lacks self-control.” This past year’s elimination diet has been more than a diet, it has been a process of first realizing that my own internal “city” had some broken walls, and then putting the walls back together, piece by piece, day by day, meal by meal. Excess of anything without restriction, and ultimately gluttony, isn’t the Way of Jesus. In fact, it is in opposition to it. 

In an elimination diet mindset, you have to die to your will, forget about what you want to eat or feel pressure to eat, and follow the plan, because it’s the best thing for you and your health. Sounds familiar, right? Similarly, I can’t just go and do or say whatever I want because I have chosen to yield to the authority of Jesus. 

You can deny yourself and pick up your cross even when it comes to food choices.

Specifically, picking up my cross means loving God, loving others, and loving myself. Was eating whatever, whenever, even when it was harmful for my body, in line with my beliefs–in line with loving myself? For me, it was not. Treating my body in any way other than as the temple of the Holy Spirit that it is was not loving myself. It was suppressing who I am, mind, body, and spirit. My mind made excuses for it, my body tried in vain to compensate for it, and my spirit was dissatisfied by the whole thing. If I hadn’t suffered with the intolerable symptoms of leaky gut that tipped the scale for me to take action, I shudder at the thought that I might still be in that place.  

I honestly was blind to the issues with eating whatever whenever before I actually started taking the actions of preparing and eating the right foods. Usually, our thoughts motivate our actions, but sometimes our actions help clarify our thoughts when it comes to the Truth–this was one of those profound times for me. 

Restricting my diet helped me gain a sense of self-control that I didn’t have before, and it healed a part of my spirit and mind in the process!

I started out last August dreading a restrictive elimination diet, thinking I would fail and feel terrible about myself, but today, thanks be to God, the opposite is true. I feel happier with myself having acted on it and seeing it through faithfully. My friends didn’t abandon me, in fact, they fully supported me in my health journey; now looking back I wonder why I didn’t think that they would! 

Sticking to something healthy for my body was an act of love for self, which I now see as an act of love for God. I wasn’t compromising my peace of mind or arteries anymore for a greasy, sweet takeout meal. I was doing what I set out to do for my health and well being, letting God take care of the rest. And that’s exactly where I’d ever want to be! 

Trust God 

I learned that God gave us an amazing array of foods that can interact with our bodies in some very healing and restorative ways. 

This journey on an elimination diet helped me to learn that looking at food with this perspective can free us from wanting to make the unhealthy diet choices constantly being marketed to us via all forms of media. It also gave me a whole new layer of self agency—I was at a point with diet a year ago where I didn’t believe I could resist some of the food marketing (doughnut commercials, anyone?), and now that I’ve gone through it, I believe it is possible for anyone. 

Eating differently and making food choices for my health led me to see food differently; I thought it was interesting to note that it didn’t happen the other way around–the perspective shift came by doing. In the day-to-day, I have learned that self control over my food choices is ultimately much more satisfying to my soul, and is much more in line with who I am and what I believe, than indulgence. 

Now, I am still on this journey! I have had some recent, though much less severe, health issues show up that are still in need of full healing. I am fine-tuning, working with doctors and experimenting with natural supplements to support overall health and heal the root issue of symptoms instead of taking medications to mask them, as I had before. Natural, “God-made” ingredients are the way I want to go whenever possible. I would not have thought a natural remedy was even a legitimate option had I not gone through the food journey I went on this year or experienced the healing I did. 

My elimination diet process showed me how deeply our bodies are connected to the health of our minds and spirits, and that our bodies are equally important for our overall health. 

God provides what we need to heal, and change is possible no matter how intimidating, when it comes to being more of who God made you to be and living out your beliefs about Him. 

I had to let go of some things in my life to live out what I believe and live out my trust in God. I now have a desire to continue taking action and walking in trust, to continuously act on trust that God provided me with a body that can adapt, heal, and thrive on the foods that He made, instead of the (in my case) harmful chemicals that man made. 

When we pay attention to and love our bodies, and what information they are giving us about our health (they always do!), we love ourselves and fulfill His commandment to walk in love (Ephesians 5:2). By allowing God to heal us, and walking in that healing, we become a living testament of His goodness.

“Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Ephesians 5:1-2).

“And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us” (Romans 5:5).

“...make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love” (2 Peter 1:5-7).

Thank you for spending some of your time journeying with me. If you haven’t yet, please subscribe to the blog, and follow the Facebook page; it truly helps me continue writing about Life with the King. Grace and peace.  

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The Fear of Death

Death is the last topic I thought I’d be writing about to kick off my blog’s second year. Yet, here we are; the highest highs always seem to bring to my mind the lowest lows right along with them. And perhaps that’s just as it should be. 

I’ve been taking morning walks lately, and one morning this week I walked to a park I haven’t been to for years, just outside of a well-manicured neighborhood. The park is all woodland, with a creek running through it. Once inside under the completely shaded canopy, I saw that the park itself seemed a completely different world from the sunny neighborhood just beyond. Instead of neatly trimmed grass, there was a mess of moss and fungi blanketing rotting logs. Instead of bushes full of blooms, there were downed trees with their roots exposed, brutally ripped up from the earth beneath. Instead of small blue jays or cardinals hopping about, there were two large, hulking black vultures, still and silent, perched in a pile of fallen leaves above the creek. 

These starkly different scenes just yards from each other perfectly illustrate how death and reminders of it are consciously kept out of sight and ignored as much as possible. 

Death is uncomfortable to think about.

Given how prevalent and obvious death is in this world, I’m interested in why this remains so. I certainly don’t have all the answers, but I do know that we all have an innate sense of the fragility of our lives and our loved ones’ lives. 

Even so, we have to keep surviving, right? No time to think about death when we’re trying to survive. However, there comes a point at which facing death becomes absolutely key to fully embracing our humanity.    

According to the Bible, humans gave up the option to ignore the knowledge of good and evil long ago (Genesis 3:6); we simply don’t have the luxury anymore of being unconscious of it. In a podcast interview, psychologist Jordan Peterson posed the idea that perhaps the remedy now is to be fully or “all the way” conscious of good and evil, since we can’t go back to being “unconscious.” I like this idea, but whether it’s correct or not I think it holds true with the Good News of Christ.

Along with the knowledge of good and evil comes a responsibility to face the good and evil in us.

To face the evil in us could also be described as becoming conscious of our own sin. This is exactly what we must understand before we can sincerely repent; C.S. Lewis talks about this in Mere Christianity. We realize the extent of our sin (evil) and the extent to which we need God’s grace (good) to free us from death’s grip. 

For repentance to come, we need to do something God didn’t design us to do–to stare death in the face. It is when we really see that the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23)–and that death forces us into something we were not created for–that we can understand all that we’ve been saved from by Jesus and how truly amazing His grace really is. 

Turning from our willful ignorance of death to follow Jesus, the Master of death, means we will stop avoiding it and trust that He’s bigger than death itself, as well as every one of our fears.

If we knew the Master of death better, we wouldn’t be so afraid of our own death. 

Jesus came to master death and set us free. To use the woodland analogy, Jesus came to lay His life down, like a fallen tree in the forest, that we might live like a newly sprouted seed from the soil He provided by His act of love. 

Yet, death is still worthy of being sad about, something to deeply mourn and to grieve. Separation from loved ones, though temporary for believers in Jesus, is still deeply painful and still very much a loss. I want to be very clear that it is okay to grieve, mourn, and be sad when it comes to death, no matter who it is, whether or not they were believers. Grief is not something to be brushed aside or ignored.  

When my Jewish grandfather passed away years ago, I was able to experience a community that faced death together in a beautiful way. The love and support of my grandmother’s friends and family was hugely beneficial, even for me in my own grieving process, as they came to simply be present and literally “sit” with her. Shiva following a Jewish burial typically lasts for seven days, providing not only community support but food for the grieving first-degree relatives. 

There is great value in appreciating the seriousness and weight of death and taking time to acknowledge what our hearts are feeling. 

While our culture has lost the skill of being open about death and understanding of grief, we don’t have to when we stay close to Jesus and understand the truth He brings–that death is not the end. Jesus Himself spoke openly about death. He was not afraid to do so, predicting his own death several times. People who had experienced death also came to him in a state of grief. He didn’t turn them away but even grieved with them (John 11:35). He even chose to raise the sick girl (Matthew 9:25), and His friend Lazarus (John 11:44) back to life. 

While I don’t think it is healthy for death to be excessively avoided as a topic of conversation, I also want to make a point to say that an excessive focus on death is not the answer to any problems either. It is only by understanding how God intended life that we can understand death and see it for what it is, no more, and no less. Romanticization of death glorifies the wrong god. 

Life is a gift from God. 

Examining our feelings about death along with the truth of the Bible can give us a deeper appreciation of life and its meaning. Reading Genesis, we find that death as we know it was never meant to be. We were not built for it! We were created to walk with God and eat from the Tree of Life. Death was not in the original plan. 

It is no wonder that it can be so devastating to us psychologically, physically, and spiritually! Knowing this, it is completely natural to avoid death, and it makes perfect sense that we would brush traces of death aside because innately we know what we were intended for.  

Facing death is so hard because God never intended for us to experience it in the first place. 

Death may never stop being hard to face, but it need not take us by surprise, as it so often does. With Jesus’ wisdom and grace, we can explore our knowledge of good and evil. 

We can let Him help us through to the other side of fear as we examine what He says about life and death. We can begin to safely open ourselves up to facing the realities of death when we trust Jesus and His love for us, for there is no fear in love (1 John 4:18). 

Christ and His love sets us free.

The bigger the debt of sin we have been forgiven from, the more we will love Jesus for canceling it. The story in Luke 7 gets me every time, when Jesus forgave the sinful woman with the alabaster jar of perfume. 

Her display of gratitude for forgiveness led Jesus to tell those in His company, “...Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little” (Luke 7:47). When we are conscious and aware of our sins, fully acknowledging our need like this woman, gratitude for our canceled debt leads us to a life full of love and peace. 

As I was headed back from that morning walk in the decaying woodland park, walking once again past neatly spaced out trees and colorful blossoms, these words came to my heart, “All that was lost will be restored to you.” 

That is what God does; He restores what is lost, damaged, sick, even dead, in and for us. 

The very first book of the Bible that was written was Job, which speaks to and confirms this simply, “If you return to the Almighty, you will be restored . . .” (Job 22:23).

The last book of the Bible speaks of the restored life that God will bring to His people: “[His servants] will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads” (Revelation 22:4). How amazing that the story (which is not ours but God’s) that is unfolding will end in God calling us, servants created to glorify and enjoy Him, by His own name. 

Think of the intimacy of giving someone else your name, or of taking someone else’s. That is the intimacy God intends for us to have with Him. What vulnerability and trust to be called by His name! Death is not the end, but rather this beautiful picture of restored, everlasting life in the family of God.

“For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his” (Romans 6:5). 

Thank you for spending some of your time journeying with me. If you haven’t yet, please subscribe to the blog, it helps me continue writing about Life with the King. Grace and peace.  

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Life with the King Turns One!

Sharing words with the world has been one of the scariest and most rewarding decisions I’ve ever made. I’ve always loved writing, but only since last year did I get up the courage to share it for the world to read.

The idea to share a behind-the-scenes peek into Life with the King (LWTK) came from a question from one of YOU fantastic readers: Where did you start and how are you finding contentment and creativity in artistic style?

I always love hearing your ideas; thank you for reflecting with me on the first year of the Life with the King blog!

Why start writing in the first place?

Just like many of the stories I tell in this blog, it all started with an internal struggle. 

I have wanted to be a writer almost as long as I’ve been able to read. The problem was, I didn’t know what I would write about. The more I learned, the more I learned how much I didn’t know, and the more I doubted that what I had to say would be either new or helpful. 

I also knew that if my writing wasn’t vulnerable, it wouldn’t be great. And I wanted to write something great. I didn’t, however, want to be vulnerable. So, I put writing off. 

I journaled off and on; I wrote occasional poems and plays and essays. But I never called myself a writer.

I thought about starting a blog many times in my 20s. In 2012 I experimented with a travel blog and gleefully documented one of my trips nearly every day. But when it came to writing about life and meaning, the things that interested and fascinated me the most, the task seemed just beyond my reach. 

I can’t properly explain how, but I knew intuitively that I didn’t have the life experience yet to produce the depth of content that I wanted to be able to share. I was aware enough to know a well of wisdom about this topic existed, and also that I needed more years in flesh and blood reality to anchor whatever it is I’d write about in that wisdom. So I waited, telling myself I’d write something great someday, trying to make myself feel better about not really doing what I loved. I told myself for years that I just had to be patient. To trust that someday writing would find me again.

How did LWTK start? 

During my 20s, reality developed. I moved twice, had 3 jobs, 3 relationships, a family crisis or two, and a personal crisis of faith. Last year, I finally had a story that I was ready to tell. 

It was then that writing became something I could no longer not do. Speaking to the question of contentment, I was at a point where I just wasn’t content until I started taking steps toward sharing my story through writing. I took this as a clear signal that writing this story was at least part of what I was meant to do here on this earth. 

Yes, part of me felt it was a little self-indulgent to be writing about myself and my experience directly. But again the contentment wasn’t there until I sort of held my nose and did so. After all, writers must write what they know. Artists must express what they feel and observe. That’s the only way I know of to be honest, and honest writing is all I’d ever want to read. Or offer.  

Despite being completely terrified, I published my first blog post one year ago today. I told my friends, “If only one person is helped and doesn’t feel alone in their faith experience, it’ll all be worth it.”

Needless to say now, it’s been more than worth it. 

It’s been a life-giving creative outlet to write my story with the Lord, sharing what He has taught me in the process of rebuilding shattered faith. 

And there is so much more to share that goes beyond the scope of this blog. My hopes to write that book someday are now more alive than ever, all starting with saying “YES!” to obey that tug on my heart. 

Behind the Scenes 

To get a little more vulnerable still, the writing journey while mostly positive hasn’t been all rosey. There was so much passion and momentum when this began a year ago. Not only that, but I was also helped and inspired by my sister Abby, who had launched her own blog just a month before. In those first couple of weeks, we packed our laptops on our family beach trip to keep consistent with our blogging. Without an internet connection where we were staying, we simply got up early nearly every day and drove off to find air conditioned WiFi, leaving the family asleep to work on our writing together. The first few weeks were relatively easy because of the excitement around it and the forethought I had put into a handful of topics.

However writing on my own was harder. Topics eventually run out. Blogging took time, discipline, and energy that I had underestimated in the initial rush of novelty. I soon struggled to post blogs weekly, working a full time job as well as a part time job. Discouragement set in and I stopped posting for several weeks at a time, not because I wanted to stop, but because I had to. I couldn’t continue if I was associating the blog with a feeling I dreaded.  

Because I love this blog. It took a great deal of time, attention, and planning to get it up and running. I have pages and pages of notes just from working out what to call it. I talked to friends about their own blogs and what they learned along the way. The online hosting process alone took me weeks to set up. I set up a post structure to keep me focused before I ever started writing content. 

Just because it was tough and discouraging at times didn’t mean I was going to give up on the blog. 

And that’s exactly how God feels about us. 

God didn’t give up on me, even when I quit on Him. He will never give up on you either.

This time, I wasn’t going to let go of the opportunity I’d been given that easily; I had already done that whole letting-discouragement-stop-me thing in my 20s. Not anymore.

How do you feel about the blog now?

I remember telling my family this January, “I finally feel like I’m doing what I’m supposed to do.” 

Writing is my act of obedience to God. There is meaning in the sharing of Life with the King, and that makes the pain I endured apart from Him have a purpose now. Writing is indeed my way of artistic expression. Bringing truth and light to the darkness is what God does. My aim for LWTK is to bring attention to what I see God doing. We all need a reminder to look for it, myself included.

Today, I can call myself a writer. Today, I can say that God is Good.

I hope Life with the King will continue to encourage you as it begins its second year; no matter how desperate or painful your faith journey might seem, God hasn’t and won’t ever give up on you. Even when you don’t see Him or experience His presence. Even when you don’t believe Him. There is still hope, and joy is still possible. 

Don’t give up. You are not alone, and there is grace even here. 

“I will exalt you, my God the King; I will praise your name for ever and ever. Every day I will praise you and extol your name for ever and ever” (Psalm 145:1-2).

Thank you for spending some of your time journeying with me. If you haven’t yet, please subscribe to the blog, it helps me continue writing about Life with the King. Grace and peace.  

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