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.

June 26, 2020June 26, 2020

The Serpent’s Question

I always thought it was a little harsh for Jesus to call Peter “Satan,” after he didn’t want to accept the news that Jesus would be killed. I mean, can I blame Peter for at least trying to lighten the mood after Jesus made such a dark pronouncement? Maybe Peter’s motives weren’t really “evil” and he just wanted to bring a little hope to Jesus, right?

This week, my perspective has been completely changed, and I wanted to share it with you. What finally became clear to me about this oft-quoted scene was that Jesus was seeing past both Peter’s actual words and perhaps motives too. Instead, Jesus was discerning the true meaning and belief Peter had, a basic assumption that allowed him to even utter these words.

“From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.

Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. ‘Never, Lord!’ he said. ‘This shall never happen to you!’

Jesus turned and said to Peter, ‘Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns’” (Matthew 16:21-23).

Jesus saw that Peter, perhaps unknowingly, was actually questioning what God said in the Old Testament. Though it clearly foretells through the psalms and prophets that the Messiah must suffer (eg: Isaiah 53), Peter revealed that he could not believe these prophecies.

Peter’s question had the same meaning as the serpent’s question to Eve in Genesis 3:1, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”

Did God actually… was the seed of doubt planted in Eve’s mind, a question of her belief. After a bit more of the serpent’s reasoning in verses 4-5, Eve’s belief in God’s trustworthiness was swayed, all because of the serpent’s question.

Asking herself a serpent’s question,“Is that REALLY what God said?,” had disastrous consequences.

Sure, for Peter, it might have been comforting in the moment to question whether his friend and teacher Jesus’ death was inevitable, but it wouldn’t have been in line with what God said in His Word. If Jesus believed a lie about God, even just one, it would have been disastrous.

Okay, you may be thinking, I get it. But what exactly moved Jesus so much as to call Peter “Satan?” Peter’s words “Never, Lord! This shall never happen to you!” in Matthew 16 are not the same words the serpent used with Eve.

However, if we look at the belief behind Peter’s words, it is in direct opposition with God’s Word. Peter’s meaning essentially comes down to, “I do not believe God!” Jesus saw Peter’s words to be a clear rejection of God’s truth. He saw it as a complete lack of faith in the Word of God. To deny the foretold suffering was to deny that God was actually telling the truth–there it is plainly, Satan’s trademark. In light of this, Jesus was perhaps not so much harshly overacting toward Peter as simply calling it what it was.

Listening for the meaning behind any question will help us see as sharply as Jesus did.

Friends, I invite you to join with me in asking the Holy Spirit for discernment to know the belief behind the words we take in and tell ourselves.

Luckily, the serpent’s questions are unoriginal. Their underlying meaning and belief are always the same. But they are crafty. They can sneak into our thoughts just as easily as they did with Peter’s if we don’t watch for them. The essence of Peter’s rebuke and all serpent’s questions are, “God couldn’t possibly have meant that!” Other variations include, Is God really like that? Is that actually what God said?

Learn to recognize the serpent’s question.

Coming to terms with our own serpent’s questions is no small feat. When we recognize we are trying to do something on our own strength, realize we haven’t prayed about something we’ve been worrying about for weeks, or simply don’t understand why our putting in more time and effort for something we want is getting us nowhere, we have a moment of opportunity. It is there we can stop and see the truth of our position, which is humility. One of my new favorite verses speaks perfectly to this, “For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all” (Romans 11:32). When we go our own way in disobedience, even there we find God’s grace.

How to break this cycle? Living in honest dependence on God involves recognizing that we are desperate without Him. Complete dependence is terrifyingly vulnerable. Yet, that’s how intensely and intimately God invites us to trust in Him. “...unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3). As His children, God invites us to depend on Him for every need and every desire; He is and never stopped being our Good Father.

Being aware of our desperation for God can lead us to two extremes: total surrender or complete resentment.

In surrender, we are humbled, in awe, broken and owning up to that brokenness. We are aware in that place of surrender that we have nothing to give without God. On the opposite end, recognizing how dependent we really are on God can also feel frustrating, even demoralizing. If we’re honest, we can resent that we will never truly be able to fulfill that natural human desire for power and control. Knowing the truth that God is the one in control can be a struggle to come to terms with. But take heart, God takes this into account too, “For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust” (Psalm 103:14).

Maybe you’re like me, and struggling with overcoming pride might be a huge part of your spiritual journey too. That’s okay. When and as we are ready, God is faithful to show us the beauty of that other side, the side of our willing surrender to His capable hands. He is constantly showing us His goodness, and how good it is that He is in control, and not us. We need only to look for it and be open to seeing it. There is always more to learn, more to understand, more to discover about God. That is what makes our Life with the King so exciting!

We cannot glorify God if we are too busy glorifying ourselves.

I’m telling myself this too! So, how do we deny self daily (Luke 9:23)? How do we fulfill the greatest commands, to love God and love others as ourselves (Matthew 22:37-39)? It is a constant decision to pick up our crosses and obey Jesus willingly. How do we keep this up? To love God is a daily choice. God is the one who then takes that choice and makes us able to love. Love is the most fulfilling part of life. The Way of love brings fulfillment! We must depend on Him and His love completely, fully, and humbly to walk in the Way of love. Maybe this too is why Jesus reacted so harshly to Peter; He knew that Peter wasn’t surrendered fully to God’s will.

That place of obedience and surrender to the Way of walking out His command is where our ego dies. Denying ourselves doesn’t just happen. It takes a willing humility to choose it every day. We will fail sometimes. That’s okay. But there is nothing better than being surrendered to the will of God. That is the place God intended for us from the beginning, when all was perfect in the Garden. There is no room to feel self important in that place of complete grace, mercy and childlike dependence. Jesus’ work on the cross made a Way for us to come back into God’s will. In that place, serpent’s questions are silenced. There is no ego in love.

Allow your heart, your soul, your very self, to be moved by God’s love for you.

It is in that place of acceptance of being loved by God that we can begin to live freely and lightly, under the authority and protection, the abundance and goodness, the meaning and fulfillment, of Christ.

We do not make ourselves able; we make ourselves available to Him.

That is our step; to be open to God and all He has for us. In doing that, we let Him come close to rescue us, give us His Spirit, and fight temptation with us. God makes us able. Amen.

“Resist the devil and he will flee…” (James 4:7)

“Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, ‘He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us?’” (James 4:5).

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

May 23, 2020May 23, 2020

Purpose in Patience

I can think of many instances throughout life in which I’ve been impatient. I’ve been impatient to make friends at a new school, to succeed in a new job, and to just get to the next place I’m dreaming of.

How many times have we all believed that to get somewhere, we were the ones who would have to make it happen? This is common advice. But is that actually the best advice to follow?

While I am absolutely an advocate of taking personal responsibility for our lives, I find this motivating, feel-good piece of advice dangerous because it can easily lead people farther off the path of patience and into a state of hurry, striving, and impatience. That state of impatience seems to be preferred over the alternative state of feeling dissatisfied with the present condition of our lives.

Have you ever been so eager about something you expected for your future that you tried to rush ahead before you were ready? Abraham did that too. Or maybe you spent months or years not knowing what you were supposed to do with your life? Moses could relate. Both situations are a real test of patience.

Humans are meant to progress and grow, and when we aren’t doing so, it can drive us to go too far or do things that we might later regret. At least the impatient option provides the feeling of moving forward, right? But what if there was another state to choose from–a third option?

There is purpose in the here and now, no matter how you feel.

Here and now is all we ever have, but it can be difficult to think of life that way. In fact, as humans we are uniquely wired to expect the future to always be there.

What is God teaching us in the discomfort, whether feeling impatient or stuck? It is important to pay attention to our feelings here, they are a warning sign that we are getting too far away from God’s best for us. We must learn how to avoid the temptation of rushing ahead of God’s will for our lives. When we don’t know what our purpose is, it can be easy to get filled with our own ideas about what’s best and run ahead. Often in the wrong direction entirely.

To change this cycle, to factor God’s purpose into the equation, requires a shift in belief that goes against the world’s view:

Our life is not something that “we make happen,” but instead something that God makes happen.

Some of us have already been given a glimpse as to what that life is going to look like in the future, and some of us don’t know until after we’ve already gotten started. But God is preparing us all for a life of deep meaning and purpose, doing the work He has uniquely designed for us. He’ll lead us to do incredible work in His name that will last to the New Earth.

But are we patient enough to wait for His timing for this beautiful vision? Patient enough to wait for our maturity to catch up with a life that goes beyond our biggest dreams? Thinking back on my own life and how many times God has been willing to accept me back after running ahead of His will simply baffles me. God is patient, even when we aren’t.

The apostle Peter provides insight into the virtue of patience as a characteristic of God: “He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9).

No matter where we are, impulsive or directionless, God is patient with us.

We can take reassurance in that. He knows it takes time to grow. He knows we need time to mature and uncover our gifts and develop our strengths. When we are ready, no earlier and no later, but at exactly the right moment, God will then make a way for the purpose He has for us. We don’t have to strive to make this happen ourselves. In fact, even trying distracts us from the here and now moment that is meant to serve our greater purpose.

Each and every one of us is called to the same initial purpose: to repent. For a discussion on repentance, click here. We need only to be willing. To repent opens doors of possibility. God has plans for our lives after repentance, plans that will go beyond everything we could ask for or imagine. In His great mercy, God is patient with us, allowing us the time we need to repent, grow, and meet His call.

God’s patience is a sign of salvation! (2 Peter 3:15).

“Okay that sounds great,” you might be thinking, “God’s patience is overwhelmingly merciful and loving, but real talk, how can I myself be patient right here and now when here and now is so tough?” I hear you. How can we develop this fruit of the Spirit?

Colossians 3 says that in Christ we have been brought to fullness, that God made you alive in Christ, and canceled our condemnation. This frees us to live a life of patience. Because God has given abundant patience to us, we in turn are equipped by Him to be patient with how our lives unfold, with ourselves, and with others. The key is keeping our eyes fixed on Him and not on our pain. We must intentionally stay inspired by Him and in tune with the ways He is working.

We must not run ahead, but walk alongside Him.

“Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience,” (Colossians 3:12).

Being chosen by God and loved by Him gives us every reason to be patient! We have no need to hurry through our lives any longer. We no longer have to be subject to the constant striving for more in this world, but instead to keep pace with God.

The apostle Paul wrote, “And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all” (1 Thessalonians 5:14). We are to have grace and show patience toward people when they show their humanity, their weaknesses. And sometimes, maybe even most of the time, we’ll need to show patience to ourselves too.

Paul was one of the most patient people, maybe ever. Imprisoned for long periods, he patiently waited out his sentence. He wrote, “But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life” (1 Timothy 1:16). We see in Paul’s life:

Faith leads to passionate patience.

It all starts with the faith and repentance of the sinner; that’s every one of us, me and you. We must die to this world and its toxic values to be resurrected in Christ. The resurrection of our souls in Christ gives way to a life in which God is in control, a life in which we are transformed into a new creation, and held in perfect patience as we walk beside Him.

If something is holding you back from stepping into the patience that God freely gives us all in Christ, please reach out, I’d love to pray for you.

It’s okay to stop trying to earn what God has already given us.

“Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer” (Romans 12:12).

“And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil,” (2 Timothy 2:24).

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,” (Galatians 5:22).

Further suggested reading:

Garden City by John Mark Comer

The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by John Mark Comer

To Hell with the Hustle by Jefferson Bethke

November 13, 2019December 4, 2019

Repentance

Turning back to God didn’t happen just once for the Israelites, and it certainly didn’t happen just once for me. In my own life, I’ve turned back to Him more times than I can count, sometimes multiple times in a day. However, one time in particular was the start of a big change in my life. Admitting we are wrong isn’t easy. Yet in a sense, it is exactly what repentance, and in fact Christianity, calls for.

When I discovered this, I didn’t like it at all. It made so much more sense to me that I was fine just the way I was. That sin wasn’t a big deal to be ashamed of but something we learn to cope with. That I wouldn’t really be held responsible for sin, especially the inherited kind that I had no control over. Following this logic, it was easy to lose ground with faith, and I slipped further and further away from the truth of what God’s Word actually says about sin. After losing my faith entirely, living my own way, and believing these “comfortable” things for several years, repentance from sin as the Bible describes it finally became real to me.

One of my favorite verses in Scripture now is Romans 2:4, “...God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance.” While I was fully convinced of the merits of not believing in sin or God, He reached into my life and showed kindness so undeniable that I couldn’t ignore it or explain it away. When I realized that it really was God’s kindness, not some happy accident or coincidence, it changed something in my heart.

On the path of losing my faith, my heart had gone through a number of phases toward God; I became skeptical, then callous, then arrogant, cold, and unloving. I had been awful to God if He truly was real. I had denied Him. Yet, even still, God showed me kindness. Despite how awful I was to Him, His kindness was the only thing that finally warmed my cold heart. Only a few months later I truly wanted to repent, to turn everything in my life around and trust God instead. It all started with His kindness. His kindness led me off the path of faithlessness and onto a new path of true repentance.

God’s kindness can reach beyond all intellectual and emotional barriers.

The call to repent really intensified shortly before Jesus’ three years of ministry when John the Baptist began preaching, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near” (Matthew 3:2). After John was put into prison, Jesus moved to Capernaum and “From that time on Jesus began to preach, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near’” (Matthew 4:17). These two major figures of the Bible both had the same core message! So, what is so important about repentance?

Repentance comes up quite a bit in Scripture. It is associated with baptism and life. In trying to Biblically define repentance, I found that it is to allow oneself to be corrected (Jeremiah 5:3, Revelation 2:21), to realize and turn from wickedness (Jeremiah 8:6), to turn from idols and renounce all detestable practices (Ezekiel 14:6), to turn away from all our offenses (Ezekiel 18:30), to (re)turn to God (1 Samuel 7:2b-3, Hosea 14:1, Acts 3:19, Acts 26:20), and to produce [spiritual] fruit (Matthew 3:8, Luke 3:8); it involves faith in God (Matthew 21:32, Mark 1:15, Acts 20:21), it is a command to all people everywhere (Acts 17:30), it involves Godly sorrow (2 Corinthians 7:9-10), it involves and is done in relation to sin (John 1:28, 2 Corinthians 12:21), it involves recognition of the truth (2 Timothy 2:25), it is something God wants for everyone (2 Peter 3:9), it is a sort of waking up (Revelation 3:3), and it can result from God’s love, discipline, rebuke (Revelation 3:19), and kindness (Romans 2:4).

God wants nothing more than for us all to repent. When we do, it unlocks our hearts to be open to receive His promises, His gifts of the Spirit, and His presence. He longs to be close to us. When I chose to keep Him away in my own life, I fell into the sin of idolatry, among others. God’s very first commandment to the Isrealites is to have no other gods before [Him] (Exodus 20:3). While I don’t recall having any golden statues in my house to worship, for me, idolatry came in the form of putting other things before God. The prophet Samuel spoke to the Isrealites about this;

“Then all the people of Israel turned back to the Lord. So Samuel said to all the Israelites, ‘If you are returning to the Lord with all your hearts, then rid yourselves of the foreign gods and the Ashtoreths and commit yourselves to the Lord and serve him only, and he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines’” (1 Samuel 7:2b-3).

This Old Testament passage speaks not only of repentance but idolatry, of putting other gods in place of the one true living God. He wants nothing to come between Him and any one of us. He wants our hearts to be committed to Him.

I had gotten lost in the prevalent explanations that society offers: we all make our own truth, there is no one absolute truth, all you need to do is be a good person, you don’t need to feel ashamed of anything about yourself, there are no eternal consequences for anything, and there is nothing after we die.

These lies became idols in my life.

I had adopted them and they became louder in my mind than God’s still, small voice. I was trying to live out this new philosophy of life where I had landed, but I was still miserable. I was even more miserable than I had been when I wasn’t sure of whether or not God was real. It was all too much and I just became numb. It was a dark, confusing, and exhausting time. If you know someone going through a time like this, please check out my post, “10 Ways to Help Someone Struggling with Faith.” Friends, it is so easy to latch onto lies the world tells us; they usually sound good and fair on the surface. However, we must test everything against the truth in the Word of God. It points us back to the truth about ourselves, and to Jesus, who is our hope.

God keeps His promises. He promised salvation, and He keeps that promise through Jesus and the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

Repentance leads to receiving God’s promise of deliverance from sin through Jesus Christ.

God reached out to me even when my mind and heart were closed to Him, when the misery became too much to bear. It was wonderful, amazing grace. This miracle still astounds me. I finally knew without a doubt that God is real, but I couldn’t go back to all the same beliefs I had about God before. Some of those beliefs still needed to be changed, because they weren’t all true. Even though I had repented, I still had to rethink everything all over again. All I knew was that He is real; I had to just start there. I had lied to myself for so long it was hard to know the truth, but I craved it. The fact that I knew He was real meant I couldn’t trust atheist or agnostic sources anymore. He led me right back to the Bible for answers, a Book that I hadn’t trusted in a long time. But I trusted that God was real, so I gave it another chance.

It was a process to understand sin, and how it had cut me off from relationship with God, and that I had gone my own way because of it. I had repented, but then later after seeking truth I finally understood. “‘After I strayed, I repented; after I came to understand, I beat my breast. I was ashamed and humiliated because I bore the disgrace of my youth’” (Jeremiah 31:19). We need both repentance and understanding to sustain us in our faith. I had to come to face the worst of it which was finally clear to me; I’d KNOWN God and STILL walked away from Him! Maybe some of you can relate to this story. Even still, all God asks is for us to trust Him enough to repent. Through repentance–turning from sin and relying on the salvation Jesus offers each one of us–He promises us restoration back to Himself.

I pray that you can learn from my mistake: you don’t have to walk away from God like I did for your faith to be renewed and strengthened! By seeking Him and the truth about Him, you can know He is real now, you can know He loves you now, you can know His intentions for you were always good. “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:13). Yes, sin crept into humanity at the start and bad things happen. Being a good person isn’t enough to conquer sin and death; only Jesus can do that for us. With repentance comes restoration. “Therefore this is what the Lord says: ‘If you repent, I will restore you that you may serve me; if you utter worthy, not worthless, words, you will be my spokesman. Let this people turn to you, but you must not turn to them’” (Jeremiah 15:19). There is always hope.

God longs to restore us to walk with Him as He originally intended in the Garden.

Yes, true repentance will cost everything in your life. To fully trust God and walk in repentance, we must let our own logic about what is right for us die and surrender our lives to His way, “Then [Jesus] said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23). The cost is great, but it’s well worth it. God’s way is better than anything we could dream up for ourselves. I’ve never met a single Christian who was sorry they made the choice to follow Jesus.

When repentance and understanding came, the nagging sense of meaninglessness and numbness in my life disappeared. I accepted the truth the Word offers about my own sin, that it is in fact a barrier to relationship with God. Jesus brought justice where I didn’t deserve justice. He loved me when I didn’t love Him. He made a way for me even after I closed the door of my heart to Him.

No one is too far from His love to be found by Him.

After I repented and accepted Jesus’ gift of life for me, I couldn’t just go on as I had been going. My life dramatically changed. I started attending church again. I made Christian friends and sought their counsel. I prayed as much as I could because prayer had been restored to me, right along with my life. I had a reason to live again, and to glorify Him in everything. I’m sure my family would tell you I cried less tears.

Change is evidence of true repentance.

I am still learning and definitely still do things that are wrong. I still need to repent of those things. However, everything changed when I repented of the way I was living and believing. At that moment, change really began. My faith in God is now growing all the time where before it was dead. God restored my ruined life and handed it back to me miraculously whole again.

Eternal life begins now when we repent, we don’t have to wait until after we die to begin living it! Jesus has truly restored all things, including a life where I can find joy despite the pain this life can bring. It all starts with repentance. May we all be quick to repent and turn to the Lord.

“‘This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel, says: ‘In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength…” (Isaiah 30:15a)

September 4, 2019December 4, 2019

Confidence in The Promises of God

I go through these times when my inner space is filled with noise to the point where being calm isn’t even an option. I’m still very much in the process of learning to actually use the anxiety-reducing “tools” that help–breathing, for instance. I’m not very good at that. Or staying still. Not so good at that either. Or limiting the amount of content I watch in a day or a week. That’s definitely a work in progress. I’m writing to myself today, as much as to you, my fantastic readers, because this week, I’m in one of those states where I just feel scattered. Maybe you’ve experienced this too. It might last a few hours or a few weeks, but these are the times when I need to remember the Truth of God’s promises the most.

When I’m feeling this way, it’s easy to forget God entirely and focus on myself. This is what’s so dangerous about it. It’s easy to only hear the noise and feel that God isn’t there after all, and pretty soon my mind starts telling me that He’s not speaking to me, that He’s disappointed in me, or that He’s punishing me. My mind goes there, 0 to 60, despite all I’ve learned and all I’ve experienced and all the ways I’ve grown spiritually. I still need to pick up my cross daily, just as we all do. I’ve been reminded a lot of this lately, that it’s not a one-and-done deal to follow Jesus. I have to work at it every single day. On days like today, it’s especially difficult because the less my mind can focus, the more prone I can be to self-deprecating lies.

One particular lie I’ve been wrestling with lately is, the more you do, the better you are. Thinking this is a guarantee of getting into a swirl like the one I’m in. When I’m busy doing things, I hurry. I hurry to try to make a deadline for work or hurry to make an appointment on time or (cringe) hurry through my devotion time. In the book by Alan Fadling, An Unhurried Life, he writes that when we hurry, we’re actually committing violence to ourselves. I think this is at least part of where my sense of being scattered comes from; that violence splinters something in me. It reduces me to being what I can do or produce in a day, instead of being myself. When I commit violence to myself, I’m doing exactly what my sinful nature wants: weakening not only my spirit but also my resolve to treat myself as a child of God, with respect. I start putting myself down, pushing myself to do even more, and losing myself in the process. Needless to say, this is an unhealthy cycle but getting out of it is easier said than done.

Sure, breathing helps my body to calm down and deal with the adrenaline overload a bit better, it gets a little more oxygen into my overactive brain. Staying still, or stopping activity, can help to diffuse the stress of and in the moment. Limiting content can help keep my brain from being overstimulated. But, none of these tools actually address the real issue, only the symptoms. So, what REALLY helps? What is the real weapon against the lies that can splinter our souls? Along with prayer, the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God (Ephesians 6:17), is a powerful weapon. In the Word, God provides His promises. I take great comfort in them and the fact that they are True despite every swirl and every situation I may find myself in. Stopping to speak them aloud or meditate on them in my heart brings God into clearer focus. We must never forget to resist the devil, and he will flee… (James 4:7). Here I’d like to share three of my most treasured promises of God (there are hundreds!):

1. God promises to never leave you nor forsake you (Deuteronomy 31:6, Joshua 1:5, Hebrews 13:5).

When I started believing the Bible is True, I discovered something amazing–there are SO many promises to hope and have confidence in! To discover them while also believing they were True without a doubt was, and is, an unexplainably great gift. When I’m flooded with negative thoughts, remembering His promise never to leave us nor forsake us is a huge comfort. When I feel full of negativity and doubt, it’s easy to feel lost and that God isn’t there. But, the Truth is that He has already promised otherwise. He is there, even when we can’t see it or feel it or experience it, He is with us! We don’t have to do anything to earn it. As my wise sister Abby once told me, it’s not about what you can do; it’s about what He did for us.

2. God promises that He has plans to prosper you and not to harm you, and to give you hope and a future (Jeremiah 29:11).

When I was experiencing violence to my soul, reading this promise and finally believing it was True was perhaps the most life-giving thing I’d ever heard. It was as if I’d never heard it before; I read it with a new heart, finally ready to receive what God had offered me long before I was even born. I had been at a point where I believed I had no future, that the odds were stacked against me, and that God, if He was there at all, didn’t care. How beautiful this promise was to see with fresh eyes! I had basically given up planning for a future, but took new hope in the promise that God really did have one in mind for me, for, “If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31).

3. God promises to restore all things (Acts 3:21).

The awareness I’ve gained of the world’s brokenness and my own brokenness can be difficult to bear at times. But thanks to God’s promise, I can rejoice that He will restore it all and that at His appointed time, [t]here will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain (Revelation 21:4). My hope is in Him, who is bigger than any problem you or I may face, and who has promised to restore what has been broken in and around us. What incredible hope we can find in His promises to us! What reason to live and endure and bring His hope to this world! Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything (James 1:2-4).

It takes faith to believe in the promises of God, it’s certainly not a popular thing. But I’ve tried it the other way and there was nothing for me there. No hope, no meaning, no future in sight. Stepping confidently forward in faith, everything changes and suddenly, all things are possible. Thanks be to God.

Though an army besiege me, my heart will not fear; though war break out against me, even then I will be confident. -Psalm 27:3

Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her! -Luke 1:45

Further suggested reading: An Unhurried Life by Alan Fadling

The Grace Upon Grace blog (www.graceupongrace.space) by Abby King

July 31, 2019December 4, 2019

How Belief is Our Most Powerful Tool

We humans have an incredibly diverse array of beliefs. Many beliefs come from upbringing, language, culture, social class, family of origin, region of origin, education, friend group, and so on and on. Some people firmly believe in a higher power, and some firmly believe there isn’t one. Some people believe that once you die, that’s it, but some people believe your spirit lives on, whether on this earth or in another world altogether. Some people believe there are eternal consequences to our actions and some people believe there is no debt to pay on a life they didn’t choose in the first place. Today, we have access to all of it with a lit-up wi-fi signal. No wonder it can be hard to know what to believe!

What is it that’s True?

I asked this question six years ago, having no idea that it would lead me to a completely new path in my life’s journey. I had to be sure that what I believed was true. And not just true to me, but universally, undoubtedly, True with a capital “T.” True in the sense that all humans, no matter their beliefs or backgrounds, would agree with me that it was True. No pressure, right? However, I was tired of constantly being suspicious of deceiving myself just to make myself feel better about who I was and what I could do on this earth. I remember asking myself,

“Why do I feel so joyless and hopeless if I believe in a loving God? What’s the point of believing in God if this is what life feels like?”

I struggled to get past this question. Everything I’d been taught about God growing up in Christian services, classes, and groups taught that if I believed in Him–meaning if I relied upon Him to provide the need of my sinful soul to be saved–then my life would not only be bearable but full of joy and hope. I felt nothing of the sort; something was off, and these beliefs just didn’t align anymore with my experience. I felt forced to conclude that not only didn’t I believe in God after all, but that God was never there to begin with.

After all, these soul-level questions seemed irrelevant and plain unanswerable in work settings, university settings, and intellectual conversation. What did I really need them for if they weren’t helping me? The reality is that my beliefs about God and the human soul colored every decision I made. The relevance of what I believed was just as important as it always has been for anyone else since the beginning of humanity; that hasn’t changed. Wrong or untrue beliefs still have the potential to bring ruin upon our spirits and our hearts, which I know first hand.

Before I continue, I want to clarify that belief and free will are two different things. Beliefs are assumptions about how the world works, how humans work, how God works. Free will on the other hand is our ability to make choices independent from the control of anyone or anything else. There are plenty of groups in existence today that rely on taking away the free will of their members in the name of “higher,” or “more important” beliefs and ideals. By planting a belief in someone’s mind, they can turn a person to their will, if the person is willing. I plan to explore this extensively in a future post, but for now, know that these groups exist, and you mustn’t give up your gift of free will to anyone. Ever.

Belief is the driver of the intentional decisions we make (we can also make decisions unintentionally or passively). Belief is the most powerful thing we have as human beings for this and many other reasons; here are a few I’d like to share.

Belief can’t be bought or sold.

The most important things in life can’t be bought or sold, and belief is one of those things, among love, forgiveness, grace, joy, and peace. You could have all the money in the world and you still couldn’t buy more. Belief is a gift. It’s something that each individual soul has the ability to do, simply by being born. It is part of being human to believe. It gives us a framework to live by, and motivation to keep going. The earth is round (it is, by the way), and the sun will rise tomorrow (probably). We also can’t fake our belief. Each accepted belief demands our complete authenticity and loyalty. We either believe or we don’t and that’s okay. But, we can always find ways to work on our belief or lack thereof. We can challenge our beliefs, we can bolster them, and we can choose what we put our belief in.

Belief dictates the direction of your life.

What we believe influences the choices we make. If you believe the earth is flat, you’d balk at the idea of boarding an ocean liner for fear of falling off the edge and into outer space (okay, okay, I’m done with that analogy now). The choices we make day-to-day determine what direction our lives will take. For a stretch of time in my journey, I let go of all the beliefs I possibly could to figure out what is True, including the belief that there are eternal consequences to my actions. While I didn’t do anything criminal or mean-spirited in that time, I let go of the belief that there was purpose or any greater meaning to my life than the here-and-now of it. That made the direction of my life lack meaning too. Turns out it was just another lie I was believing–the very thing I was trying to avoid! It’s easy to overlook the huge amount of influence our beliefs have over our lives. A major reason we need them is to free up our minds to focus on details, to be able to assume certain truths in order to move further into a topic or activity and not get perpetually stuck in a state of inaction. Having assumptions gives us the ability to forget about the big questions that can give us a headache. But I would challenge you to examine your assumptions about yourself. Don’t go on believing lies that keep you from acting and moving forward in your life if you don’t have to. There is great freedom in believing the Truth about yourself.

Beliefs are your own; no one can believe for you.

Some of us have a harder time believing than others, but that ability as well as our own set of beliefs is unique to each one of us. No one can believe something or bear its burden of responsibility for you. You alone must own what you say you believe. In order to believe something, you must identify it as true, at least for you. We have different ways of testing what we believe in, like fact-checking, counsel-seeking, or experiencing. But we all must participate in the act of believing. It takes action on our part to believe something with all that we are–heart, mind, and spirit. Belief is something that demands to be taken seriously; the power and sway of a belief in your life is too strong to do otherwise.

Without belief, we lose our humanity.

I settled on the fact that I could not accept life without meaning. There came a time when I couldn’t deny that meaning was present even while still feeling completely lost and identified way too closely with Ecclesiastes 1. Even though I didn’t know what it was at first, (and at times I still lose sight of it), I know life has meaning. That is because I have accepted the belief that meaning exists; I hold this to be true after careful consideration and examination. I experienced what life would be like without believing in meaning, and Truth wasn’t there. Belief is part of how we operate and make decisions in the world; it is fundamental to being human. Without belief, we lose not only the Truth but we lose our very humanity.

Examining what you believe is not easy, it can be scary to challenge yourself because you can’t escape yourself once you do. You give yourself no place to rest from that challenge once you enter into it; you can only go through it. But belief in the Truth is worth the journey. It will be hard, and there will probably be days you feel like quitting, but there is amazing potential to engage for yourself with an experience that is uniquely and beautifully human. Belief is a powerful force, the most powerful one we have, as it holds the power to save our very souls. The act of believing has the power to allow us the hope of life itself (John 3:16). My prayer lately has been that of the father of the boy with the unclean spirit, who says to Jesus, “I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24). Jesus says to him, “All things are possible to the one who believes” (Mark 9:23).

“If you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” -Romans 10:9

Resources for further reading: Starting Point by Andy Stanley