An Unexpected Blessing: Happy Mother's Day!

Have you ever read a passage of Scripture a thousand times only to have the Holy Spirit reveal a new truth about that very passage that you thought you understood so well all these years?

Matthew 25:

31 “But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. 32 All the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats;33 and He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left.

34 “Then the King will say to those on His right, "Come, you who are blessed of My Father,inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

35 For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; 

36 naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me." 

37 Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink? 38 And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? 39 When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ 

40 The King will answer and say to them, "Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me."

I always thought this passage of Scripture was like the ultimate Christian goal.  It's the reward we all strive for--the "Well-done-My-good-and-faithful-servant" Award.  I always assumed it came at the end of times when I'm finally in the presence of my Jesus.  It's what I would spend my life trying to attain, but never really be able to see.  Just like the righteous in verse 37, I would humbly ask my Jesus, "When did I ever do these things for You? I just raised two kids. Just the two you gave me.  I'm pretty sure that's the only thing I ever really accomplished, and I'm not even sure I did a great job. You really did all the heart work."

And recently, the Lord literally took this passage and whispered into my heart, "Exactly. If you have ears to hear and eyes to see, look, and be encouraged!"

Verse 35: Who comes to you hungry, asking for food, needing to be fed, unable to feed themselves more than a child?  And Mama, whether that child be of your own flesh or someone else's, the choice to serve them is the same.  There are millions of mothers across the world who choose not to serve their own children.  The fact that you make that choice for your own flesh and blood does not demean or belittle your calling or your service.

This verse also does not specify whether the food given is spiritual or physical.  If you choose to do one or the other or both, are you not unknowingly feeding Christ as well?

Who comes to you more thirsty, asking for water or juice, needing to be rehydrated, unable to pour a cup for themselves than a child? Mama, if you have done this for a child, you have done this for Christ as well! If you have poured words of life into the cup of a child of any age who is searching, in need of hope that only comes from the Wellspring of Life in Jesus Christ, then you have given Living Water to the thirsty.

Who comes to you more of a stranger in a strange land than a child birthed out of the womb, taken from another home, or perhaps another country?  And yet mama, you choose to bring them into your home, to invite them into the vulnerable places of your heart and life, to love them, to care for them, to bathe them, to nurture them, to pour yourself into them. To make it so they are no longer a stranger, but a child who has a place of belonging.  Well done. Jesus sees you and accepts your invitation, your sacrifice.

Verse 36: Who comes to you more naked than a newborn baby? or a child who has been stripped of all they have known, of anything familiar? And Mama, you choose to clothe them. To give them new garments, new coverings to warm and protect and celebrate and give dignity! We do this not only with physical clothing, but with our words and what and how we teach them. By doing so you choose to clothe Christ.

Who do we spend more time ministering to than our own sick children? You blow their noses, medicate their fevers, sleep at their bedsides when the coughing is thick, hold their hands, hug their tiny, weak bodies, willing every moment that you wish it was you and not them suffering. I ask you, Mama, who do you minister to more than your own sick babies?!?!

Jesus says, "Truly I say to you, Mama, to the extent that you did it to one (even one!) of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me."

And who do we visit in prison more than our own children? Whether their prison be physical--such as actual prison bars or closed bedroom doors, or whether it be spiritual--such as a rebellious or unrepentant heart, or whether it be mental and/or emotional--such as past abuses and hurts, who visits a child in theses circumstances, meeting them exactly where they are, whether in person or through prayer, more than their mother?!?!?!?!

I'm telling you, I have rejoiced in the unveiling of this truth to me for weeks now!

Because on the days as a mother when I feel like all I accomplished was cleaning, feeding, and laundering, I NEED THIS.

I need to hear the whisper of my Lord say, "You fed ME today. You washed MY clothes today. You soothed MY heart with your hug today. You made ME feel better with that medicine today."

Because at the end of the day, every day, for the rest of my life, if all I do is serve HIM, then my heart can live with that and rejoice in that and find hope and purpose and meaning and joy...in THAT.

"Thank you Lord for unexpected blessings, for new truths revealed in old passages, for proving Yourself to be faithful to Your Word in Your Word and through Your Word over and over and over again."

So Happy Mother's Day friends! Be encouraged Mama! You serve the King of Kings each day and every day right in your own home!

Be Missional

(So, my dear friends over at BeStillBeFree asked me to write for them this week, and I'm praying everyone will hop over to their website to check out the podcast and other resources that go along with this post. Here goes...my first assigned topic since college....)

I started writing this post a week ago. I wrote one long, deeply complex explanation of what I thought God had been teaching me about what it means to be missional, and somewhere in the middle of writing that long explanation I had a giant "Ah-ha" moment.

My entire life has been missional; it is missional. It's not something I do, it's who I am in Christ.

"But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; 10 for you once were not a people, but now you are the people of God; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

11 Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul. 12 Keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles, so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may because of your good deeds, as they observe them, glorify God in the day of visitation." 1 Peter 2:9-12

You see, according to Google, mission can be defined as "an organization or institution involved in a long-term assignment in a foreign country." Which means from the moment I accepted Christ into my heart at the age of four, I not only became a new member of the body of Christ--the institution of God's church--but I have been on a mission for Christ ever since and didn't even know it. (Hebrews 11:13-16, 13:14, Philippians 3:20). This world is not my true home. I have felt this in every part of my inner being since I was eleven and old enough to decide Christ is who I wanted to follow, He was what I wanted to pursue.

Every day after that for me has been one missional day lived after another. Because to be missional means to live for Christ. "Ok, ok," you're thinking, "I hear you. Being a Christian is a mission in itself, but aren't we called to more? What about our dreams, our passions, our gifts? Don't those play into our mission?" Yes! Absolutely! Take a big picture look at your life, then look closely at the details. What do you see?

Google also defines a mission as "a strongly felt aim, ambition, or calling." This is where it gets tricky because I think God sends us on many different missions within the big mission of simply being His child.

At the age of eleven, my mission was being an obedient child to my parents and a growing seeker of Christ. (Isaiah 30:21)

At fifteen, my mission was to discover the truth about who God says I am. How did He see me? (Psalm 139, Ephesians 1)

At eighteen, the mission became to discover who God says He is. Do I relate to God correctly? (Isaiah 55:8-9)

At twenty-one, my mission became to be a godly wife. Do I exemplify how the church should love Jesus Christ in my relationship with my husband? (Ephesians 5:22-24)

At twenty-seven, God added the mission of being a godly parent. He gave me the responsibility of shaping young hearts and minds that were created in His image. Do I represent God in a such a way that is honoring to Him and appealing to my children? (Deuteronomy 6)

At thirty-four, God sent our entire family on a mission to move across the United States from east coast to west coast in following of a call He had clearly laid on our hearts. (Exodus 14)

And now at thirty five, as if all those missions aren't large enough as it seems, I can feel Him stirring my heart for something more, something deeper. (Isaiah 43)

If people looking from the outside in, see my journey, my life, as being missional, then to God be the glory!!! I'm praising God in writing this blog because He's shown me my life HAS been missional; it IS missional. Living for my Jesus has required deep sacrifices in all areas of my life--physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. It has required that I hold nothing back from Him. I have learned to bare my soul to Him and for Him. (Psalm 62:8) I have to practice living life with open hands, and it is not easy. Because open hands means my husband, my children, my dreams, my anything are in those open hands. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. (Job 1:21)

Will God still be enough? To be missional, the answer has to be yes. That is both a terrifying and freeing place to live depending on the day of the week and whether I'm experiencing a flesh-filled or Spirit-filled kind of day.

And friends, I am a nobody by the world's standards. I have no books, no speaking engagements, no cause to promote, no ministry calling (at present) except for being a child of God, a wife, and a mother. Don't you think that's a pretty BIG "except for"? I believe God is teaching me that if I live out the missions I already have, faithfully, He will continue to add to those missions in His time, in His way, slowly building me toward those hopes and dreams He's given.

I don't have a name for my next mission, but I can feel the Holy Spirit preparing me for it. I can see God's handwriting all over the pages of my life. He's uprooting old dreams, long dead and buried, and breathing new life into them. He shows me even in the stillness, the seeming nothingness of life, that He sees me right where He's placed me. He proves that He hears me because my prayers have never been more alive or answered.

Being missional means doing life with Jesus. Not like He's some distant religious god or statue or figurehead. No, being missional means Jesus Christ is as real of a relationship in my life as my husband lying breathing in bed next to me--warm, close, and intimate. Being missional means living like I value that relationship so much, I don't want to do anything intentional to screw it up.

It means I spend my life seeking after the heart of God. Whatever that looks like, whatever that takes, wherever the Spirit leads and God calls--that's where I am to be, and that is being missional.

Moses was missional.

When you read the life of Moses recorded in Exodus through Deuteronomy, you start to see the depth of how much Moses just wanted God.  God asked him to do hard things, and Moses had to answer some hard questions about himself. He screwed up and still kept plugging away at his relationship with God. In the end, it didn't matter that he would never get to experience the Promised Land for himself; it was enough that he was on a mission with God together, doing life God's way.

Do you really want to be missional, to live life mission-minded with great purpose? Because I have learned and experienced that God will ask you the hard questions and your answers will determine the direction of your mission, whether you head back to Egypt or toward the Promised Land.

Are you aware of all the areas in life you fall short? Can you identify them, admit them, own them? Can you lay them all out at God's feet and let Him equip you anyway? (Exodus 3-7)

Will you go where He's leading? Who or what is your Pharaoh? Will you face him? Who are the people God has called you to passionately intercede for? to lead? Who or what breaks your heart for God? (Exodus 8-14, Exodus 32, Numbers 14:13-16)

Are you willing to brave the wilderness with them whatever that may look like? Trusting God to be your Protector, Provider for every need, to be your ever-present Guide, and you only move when He moves? (Exodus 16, Numbers 9:15-23)

When the people around you that you serve and/or lead, when they inevitably complain, moan, groan, grumble, question your authority, your decisions, will you complain also? Will you take matters into your own hands? Or will you go directly to God with all your complaints, all your concerns, all your everything? Will you seek God's forgiveness and favor not just for yourself, but for those grumbling people as well? (Numbers 11-19)

And when you inevitably screw up, when you take matters into your own hands, when you forget that God deserves all the glory for anything and everything you are, and God seems to come down hard, will you accept His discipline? Will you accept that your sin has consequences just the same as the people you serve and lead? Will you continue on your mission anyway? Will you serve faithfully, following God despite the fact you may never set foot in the Promised Land this side of heaven? (Numbers 20-Deuteronomy)

Will God be enough?

God must be enough. He must be simply all you need. To be missional, you must consider these questions and be able to answer them honestly.  

The point being, we can be missional anywhere at any point in time as long as we accept and believe the grass is never greener anywhere else--we're not going to even look. Your satisfaction with where God places you in life, where He leads you, shows how much you truly desire God's will and plan for your life. Are you satisfied with the place, the time, the season, the circumstances in which God has you currently living life? To be missional, you must be able to answer that question with yes! 

He knows my dreams. He knows my heart. I trust His plan, so for now, one seemingly, insignificant day at a time, in this stillness--maybe for you it's a hardship--we just need to take the next step of obedience toward Christ, whatever that is. I have learned there is more forward progress in our lives toward the heart of God in the seeming nothingness of daily obedience out of love to our Lord than in a lifetime of mountain top, dream-fulfilling experiences. 

I want to live my life with steady forward progress toward my Jesus.

And while as the body of Christ, we have one mission in common--to be His ambassadors (2 Corinthians 5:20)--how He goes about accomplishing this mission looks very, very different in each one of us. We all have different dreams, passions, gifts, talents, hobbies, interests, personalities, backgrounds, cultures, families, environments, etc., etc., etc.  The differences among us are as vast as the heavens itself! How then can we expect to find a cookie-cutter, three-step answer on how to complete a mission no one else has ever embarked on because no one else has ever been you? 

The answer is actually surprisingly simple. You choose to live your life to glorify God in everything you say, do, and think, and then you tell God's story about your life when the opportunity comes or more often, you just live out God's story for others to see. (1 Peter 2:9-12)

You say. "Yes," to God. Every. Single. Time.

He says, "Pray without ceasing." You say, "Yes." And you practice saying prayers in the grocery aisle over which cereal is the best use of the money God has given you. You practice praying about everything and anything, no matter how small or ridiculous. You pray expecting answers. You're listening and looking for God to answer. And He does! You hear God's voice! (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18; John 10:27)

He says, "Take every thought captive." You say, "Yes." And you practice being aware of how your thoughts influence your attitudes, and you begin to separate the lies from the Truth. You choose to cut things out of your life that are feeding you lies. You experience freedom! (2 Corinthians 10:5)

He says, "Believe all of My words to be truth." You say, "Yes." And you practice seeking God's point of view first, on everything. Before your friends, before your mom, before you google or check Facebook, you begin checking Scripture first. And despite all the horrible, ugly things in the world, you fall in love with Jesus and realize you have the Pearl of Great Price, and you will sell everything you have to keep it! (2 Timothy 3:16, Matthew 13:45-46)

Being missional means you say yes to God in everything because He is enough.  And if you look carefully at those examples above, you will see that most of the doing is taking place inside your own mind and heart, it's not happening on the outside where people can see. You have to be missional on the inside first for people to experience Christ in who you are on the outside. If you try to forcefully reverse that process, people don't see Jesus; they see you striving to be something you are not.

Missional people don't complain, they don't manipulate, they don't negotiate. They don't have their own agenda. They are not fake, and they are not proud, and they have nothing to hide. As soon as I find myself living in one of these categories, I have a choice to make. Repent, making progress toward the Promised Land or live in sin and keep plodding back toward Egypt.  

God says to repent and missional people say yes to God.

Because the truth is if God isn't enough, then you must have some idea of what would be better, of what could be more fulfilling. For the first forty years of his life, Moses had all of that, and that era of his life ended in murder. No, I'd rather learn from Moses' mistakes instead of live them--at least the best I can--because in the end, Moses died in sight of the Promise Land, having seen the backside of God's glory, having spent countless hours in personal conversation with the God of creation, and God personally defended and honored His servant. (Exodus 33:22, Numbers 12:5-8)

I wonder if Moses looked back on His life in the end and saw the big picture of the mission he had accomplished through God's power or rather if he simply viewed his life as saying one yes after another to his Lord, no big deal, just a simple life of obedience. You get a sense of his heart in Psalm 90 that even at the end of his life, he still felt like it wasn't enough. Maybe that's the truth I need to embrace...my mission will never feel complete until I'm rested in glory with my Jesus, sitting at His feet.

What is God calling you to do? What is He asking of you, right now? It may seem very insignificant, small, pointless, or meaningless, but GOD is asking you to do it.  Will you say yes? Make that phone call, send that text, smile at that random person? Remember, this is the God of the Bible who breathes life and meaning and symbolism into the simplest of things like a lamp stand or salt. (Matthew 5:13-14)

Will you say yes to the big, scary, difficult thing God is asking of you?  Will you stop ignoring His voice, putting Him off, and telling Him to wait for you to be ready? Who do you think you are anyway?!? Will you be missional and say yes to God, no matter what?

You are always simply one yes away from living the missional life God has called you to live! Decide now! In what way can you say yes to God today, right now? Your missions in life are dependent upon your yes to the only Person in all of History you can fully trust. It is His story after all. We just have the opportunity to be the messengers to tell it. Will you say yes?

And for those of you that are saying yes to God in the daily little things that seem insignificant in a world that always wants to put people in a spotlight, be encouraged!!! You ARE living a missional life. You ARE making a difference. You may not be on a stage with a microphone in your hand, but is that really what matters?  God is enough for you. Claim that promise and truth for yourself. Put it on a t-shirt and wear it for the world to see. God is enough. 

And I am convinced that one day, all of us missional children of God will look back on our lives, just like Moses, and feel like we didn't do enough, but that--praise Jesus!--living life for Him and with Him was worth every moment.  And friend, you will have lived a life like Moses, accomplishing great things for God, and never even have known it.  But those watching will know it, and by your life of saying yes, they will learn to live a life of saying yes to God, and that is maybe the greatest legacy any of us can leave behind, that is mission accomplished.

When You're Not Sure What To Do Next

There is one message the Lord keeps repeating into my life these days:

 "Do the hard thing." (Hebrews 10:36, 39)

I'm really good at goal setting and doing and formulating a plan and accomplishing and list checking, so for me, this "doing-the-hard-thing" means I'm suppose to be still, so still that all I can hear inside my head is Jesus and the ocean.  You know that sound a conch shell makes when you hold it up to your ear?  That's how still the inside of my head, heart, and body are suppose to be.  And for me, this is a hard thing. A very difficult thing. It takes spiritual discipline and work for me to rest in my Savior alone, to quiet everything about myself, to allow Him to quiet everything within and without me. (Psalm 37:7; Psalm 46:10)

For someone else, you love being still.  You would rather do nothing else but sit and rock and bask and ponder and just be in God's presence.  By nature, you are borderline lazy, at least that's your tendency. You ignore and/or avoid all forces that might make your body at rest begin to move, either physically, mentally and/or spiritually. But instead, God's asking you to move, to put feet to your faith, to dive in, to get busy, to say yes to everything He brings across your path. Read that book, attend that conference, do that mission project. For some of you, this is the hard thing. (James 2:14-26)

For me, I'm suppose to stop thinking.  I'm so hyper-aware of all the spiritual forces and realms that surround me and weave themselves in and out of my everyday life that I see meaning in almost everything, and I drive around town thinking and mulling and picking apart and piecing things back together in my head, trying to make sense of how God works, and it wears. me. out.  I'm good at being analytical and critical and all those higher-order thinking skills.  That's my sweet spot! So what does God speak to my heart? "Stop thinking. Do the hard thing and stop making this beautiful world I've fashioned just for your pleasure so dad gum complicated. Do the difficult thing and be simple. Enjoy. Don't think." (Psalm 19)

For someone else, you are oblivious to life on any level other than the immediate physical circumstances surrounding you.  You take each day at a time, exactly as it is, never looking past the nose on your face.  You are unassuming, possibly very resourceful and street smart, quick on your feet. But God is telling you, "Do the hard thing.  Open up your eyes!  Look.  Be aware. Connect the dots. Life is so much more than it seems. See Me in everything, everywhere. Learn more. Put yourself in a position to be held accountable for more knowledge, more virtue. Grow in Me. Do the difficult thing." (Acts 17:22-31)

For me, I'm suppose to pray.  Pray more often.  Pray about more things.  Pray without ceasing. Pray out loud. Pray whenever over whomever the Lord leads. Pray as the first resort. Pray about the stress of making a grocery list. Pray about the choice of salad dressings. Pray fervently with great passion for the people God brings to mind. Pray in tears, crying out for the Lord to listen. Pray until it hurts. I'll be honest, I don't know what this looks like.  I don't know what this feels like.  I don't even know where to begin some days other than to just start talking at any point in time to Jesus, other than to attempt to carve out time in my day to actually be folded over on my knees.  Because I'm really good at listening and learning, but I don't do so well actually interceding and asking and believing that God will really come through.  And sometimes it's just weird and uncomfortable to pray out loud over people, but God keeps telling me to do it anyway. Do the hard thing. (Philippians 4:6, Colossians 4:2, 1 Thessalonians 5:17, 1 Timothy 2:1-2)

But for you, you may be an amazing prayer warrior.  You always know what to say, how to say it. Prayer is a talent, a gift, a calling for you in your life.  But maybe what's difficult is listening.  Maybe God is calling you to spend less time talking and more time bent over in silence at the foot of His throne, ears and heart open to receive what He's saying.  Maybe for you that awkward, deliberate silence, that active listening is the hard thing.  God says do the hard thing anyway. (Habakkuk 2:1, Proverbs 19:20, James 1:19, Psalms 34:11)

My type A personality has taken every personality, spiritual gift, whatever test, assessment, etc. that is on the market.  I've studied myself for a long time, and I feel like I have a real sense of who I am and where my strengths lie.  But God keeps repeating in my mind, "It's in your weaknesses that I am made strong." In other words, He doesn't want to use my strengths right now; He wants to use my weaknesses. He wants to make me work all the muscles in myself I've ignored and let atrophy because our culture shouts, "Play to your strengths!" God persistently just whispers to my soul, "Do the hard thing and let me go to work in your weaknesses." This is truly the hard thing, the scary thing, the most difficult of all things. (2 Corinthians 12:5-10)

And for you, maybe you are keenly aware of your weaknesses.  You can name every one. You dwell on them and use them as excuses for why you can't do anything or go anywhere or talk to that person or do this or do that.  Blaming your weaknesses has become a lifestyle. You need to take a closer look at yourself and face the demons inside that surface when you look at your past and how you have been formed by God's providence into who you are today. And God says, "Do the hard thing and learn to love yourself, learn to see yourself as I see you.  Learn how I've gifted you, how you can be completely and totally fulfilled when living within the unique set of strengths, talents, and gifts I've given you out of the generosity of My heart. Do the difficult thing and know who I say you are and who I've created you to be and why your story matters." (Psalm 139, Ephesians 1, 1 Corinthians 12)

And those are just a few small examples of how God challenges us to grow and stretch, of how He's growing and stretching me.  If it's challenging in the moment to focus on my husband and give him the attention he needs, then I need to do that.  If it's hard for me to stop everything and see and listen to and be with my children, then I should do that. If it's trying for me to not write everything I'm thinking on a blog or in my journal, then I don't write, and I'm learning to pray it all out to the Lord instead. 

Do the hard thing, the difficult, challenging, scary boundary-pushing thing.

If you're wondering what's next in your life, where God might be leading you next, if you're in God's waiting room wanting to be used, but you just don't know what to do next, I challenge you to do the hard thing.

Do the thing that seems impossible for you to accomplish in your own strength, but so abundantly glorious for God to accomplish in you through His strength!

Whatever it is that makes your stomach turn or knot, whatever it is that makes you inwardly cringe or shift in your seat nervously and uncomfortably, whatever it is that scares the life out of you when you even think about it--do that, volunteer for that, make time for that. Those small twinges of fear, doubt, hesitancy, all those "I-really-don't-want-to-do-that-right-now" moments--do those.  Do those hard things until they become easy, and you find yourself moving on to something else that is difficult for you to even imagine accomplishing.

Because people, God is fully present in the difficult, scary, challenging, hard things, no matter how small or insignificant they may be. God doesn't just call people to go live in foreign countries. He asks people to trust Him to travel to a foreign country for just a week out of the year. God doesn't just call people to pray over large congregations of followers, beseeching the Lord to incite revival among His people. He calls people to pray out loud over their neighbor when she tells you she's going through a divorce.  He doesn't just show up in the Beth Moores on stage in front of millions of people.  He shows up in the car ride conversation you have with your five year old about how God can be three people in one. He shows up in that moment when you share your heart in answer to a question during Bible study. God provides and sustains in the midst of ALL the hard things, big or small. (Philippians 4:13)

So if you need God to show up in a big way in your life, stop trying to do things the same way every day.  Stop ignoring the Holy Spirit because that hesitancy to do a good thing, a right thing, to take a holy stand in faith--that stomach ache or nervous heart beat in the back of your throat--that's the Spirit nudging you to do that difficult thing.  Stop ignoring that Voice or putting it off until the Voice fades and disappears and that uncomfortable feeling goes away and you can settle back into a comfortable life of ease and predictability. DO THE HARD THING.

Make that phone call. Send that email. Pray over that person. Write that letter. Send that gift. Buy that random item the Spirit puts on your heart for someone else. Take advantage of the opportunity to make that apology. Stop what you're doing and pray--pray out loud. Pull over to the side of the road so you can take advantage of a teachable moment or conversation.  Do the weird, crazy thing that makes no sense other than God is urging you to do it.  Don't feel like you have to explain it.  If someone asks, just tell them, God wanted you to do it!  Do the hard things and see if God doesn't follow through by holding up His end of the bargain and filling in all your doubts and fears and what ifs with Himself completely.

And fellow Christians, we have got to stop comparing ourselves to those around us because as I've hopefully tried to outline above what is hard for me to follow through with out of obedience is probably not what is hard for you, and I truly believe God is calling His people to deny themselves, take up THEIR cross and follow Christ. (Matthew 16:24-26) My cross may not be the same hard thing as your cross, but I guarantee you it's just as heavy.  It costs us all everything we have to follow Christ, so I'm praying God continues to remove my critical, comparing eyes and replace them with encouraging, compassionate ones instead. Let's do our hard things together instead of constantly feeling like we are less than or have to be better than someone else.

What is the hard thing today, right now in this moment, that God is asking you to follow through and do?  I hope you can hear me cheering you on to do it! Go for it!  Trust God and do the hard thing!!!

Surrendering to Stillness

God is moving in my life deeply in a way that is hard to wrap words around.

He's literally called me to a place in time where I am to BE STILL...and breathe. Really breathe. Breathe deep His presence.  Breathe deep His glory and majesty in His creation. Breathe in the blessing of my family.  My family.  Just the four of us. Breathe in a Genesis 1:2 moment in time--the stillness of beginnings.

I've continued in BSF again this year, and God is already beginning to plough the fields of my life with the study of Moses.  Moses who spent the first 40 years of his life thinking he was somebody, only to spend the next 40 years of his life as a nobody, so that God could use the last 40 years of his life showing the world what God can do with a nobody by turning him into a somebody for His glory.

I want to see God's glory.  I've asked to see it, and God has answered, "Here you are.  Here am I. Trust Me with the three remaining most precious things I have not removed from you.  Trust Me fully and be still and watch Me work...in you."

And so I am learning to see space for God's opportunity in the white space of availability on my calendar instead of believing the lies that I do not matter, that I am forgotten, that I am useless.

I am learning to relish hours of long quiet moments in time when I can actually sit and take in and breathe deep the beauty of this land where I live.  Not just stare at the bird feeder in passing, hoping one day I will have a moment to go refill it, but actually taking time, not hurried, to fill the feeder and sit and just watch birds.  Just watch birds.  Practicing being still.  It's the practice of filling a day with rest and meditation and prayer, instead of a long list of things to do, and believe it or not, this is so counter cultural and opposite to my own personality that I find this to be harder work than the list of things I love to accomplish!

Because believe it or not, I didn't realize I didn't know how to be still anymore.  Do you?  Do you know how to be still?  Not just take a nap or a vacation or lounge for 30 minutes over a cup of coffee. To have nothing so pressing in your life more than the responsibilities of raising your family and being a godly spouse, being a true child of God.  No planned activities.  No family to call and invite over. Heck, with a three hour time difference, I find it difficult to even call my family! No church function to attend.  Nothing to volunteer for.  Just space and time and stillness....and God.

His presence is palpable in the Stillness. Seriously, sometimes I can almost physically feel my Jesus right beside me.

No, there is a deep, abiding stillness enveloping our lives here that requires we only follow God's cloud cover by day and His pillar of fire by night.  (Exodus 13:21) That's it.  Nothing more.  He's even provided all the manna we could ask for.  We have all we need.  Now, it's time to settle in to the stillness and follow God wherever He leads us next.  I'm trying not to search for anything more than that.  All it requires is my availability and courage to make myself available.  I'm not walking through any doors that God doesn't hunt and find and open for me.  No, my days of hunting and pecking and opening for myself have dwindled to a stopping point.

Moses spent 40 years in the wilderness of Midian with just his family.  He became intimately acquainted with the wilderness.  God used the wilderness to humble him and mold him.  He spent 40 years in Midian with only his wife and child to minister to him.  No one was probably more prepared to wander in the wilderness of Sinai that would come next more than Moses.  I wonder if he ever actually came to love it?  To call the wilderness home?

We all have a choice as to what wilderness we choose to sojourn.  Like Moses, we can allow the wilderness to mold us into who God wants us to be or like the Israelites we can moan and whine and complain and rage against a sovereign God, letting the wilderness kill us, heart, body, and mind.

I choose to be molded.  I choose to be wrapped in silence and stillness for as long as God sees fit because I think my heart has finally grasped the truth that I am NEVER truly alone. (John 16:32)  Loneliness is a lie from the devil.  Stillness is a rare treasure from God.

I should have been seeking for the stillness sooner.  I should have been seeking it not only for myself, but for my family.  I should have built a cocoon of stillness around our lives, creating a haven in my home where Stillness was honored, appreciated, and practiced, but I let the busyness of every day life dictate my "ministry" instead.

My family within the four walls of my home is my greatest ministry, and had God not physically removed me from my busyness in all things good and godly, I think I might have missed raising my children.  I think I might have missed the small conversations and teachable moments in the chaos of trying to remember where I had to be next at what time.  I think I might have missed connecting with them because I was too busy making sure they had a relationship with every other member of our families back East.  I think God saved my family from my own blind ambition by bringing us to California, by placing us in stillness.

(Deep Pause)

I am grateful for the stillness.  It is deep and warm and intimate here in the land of my sojourning. There are difficult days.  Days when you wish you were remembered.  Days when the thorn in your side of loneliness throbs deeply.  Days when you fight the antsy, urge in the bottom of your throat to just do something for the sake of doing something!

But no.  The lesson is to be still.  So be still I will learn to be.  As my favorite podcast coined, 'I'm going to sink down into this stillness and just BE.'

I'm going to sink down, sink in, and learn what it means to savor.  Savor time to snuggle with my kids and just watch TV together.  Savor time to pack a picnic and watch time pass as the sun settles into the ocean for bed.  Savor so much white space in my life that I can sit at my kitchen table and stare out my patio window for hours if I like, Bible open, heart open, ears listening.  I'm going to be still and savor.

And in His time, God will move me.  A burning bush will call me out of the stillness back into the fray.  You can be sure He will never let you get TOO comfortable=)  And my prayer is that when He calls, when I return from the stillness, I pray with all my heart I will not be the same woman who sits here typing today.  I pray I'm stripped of pride and filled with courage and faith. A deeper faith than I've ever known. I pray that I will have learned how to be a still person on the inside despite the circumstances whirling around me.

Which probably explains why my blogs have been so few and far between.  Dropping off the radar of life is not necessarily a bad thing.  It's definitely not a bad thing when you're being obedient to God's call.  For me, it means I'm careful about when and what and how I blog.  May God always get the glory!  For some, it may mean deleting that Facebook page, monitoring the number of hours you and your family spend on "screens" during the week, or maybe it means cutting down or cutting out extracurricular sports and activities in your life that you find yourself just doing because everyone else does it.  I think my pastor said it best this past Sunday. I want to spend my life doing less things of more importance than doing more things of less importance.  Let that sink in.

True Stillness requires sacrifice, which is why I believe it pleases God. (2 Samuel 24:24)

And should you choose to do the same, should you choose to drop off the radar of life in following of His obedience to a calling He's spoken to your heart, know that He is not through with you yet.  He's not benching you.  He's conditioning you.  And it's ok to quit everything and be still in your own home with your own thoughts with your God who loves you more than life itself if that's what He's calling you to do.

We need to learn how to practice stillness.

Praying you find the joy of the Lord in the stillness of His presence alone. (Psalm 16:11)

Christmas Letter 2014

I post this every year, usually after Christmas, but well, life happens, right?  For those of you we missed on our Christmas card list, forgive me, but this is really the most important part anyway--our family testimony of the Lord in our lives in 2014.  Praying anyone who reads this will find JOY in 2015.  Enjoy being God's child and enjoy the loved ones around you this year, and don't forget to use every avenue and opportunity possible to tell others how being God's child changes everything about your life. Happy New Year!

*****************************
Monday, December 1^st, 2014

Dear Family and Friends,

From January to June, we saw God walk us through the biggest transition I have yet to experience in my life, moving East coast to West coast, away from all that I’ve known for 34 years into nothing I’ve ever experienced before, and my testimony is that our family has seen God, we have experienced His presence, and I have known He sees us right where we are.

From January to June, He led us through selling the home where my babies were born, to living with my parents, to landing our family of four here in southern California.  I saw His hand in every step, every tiny detail that just worked itself out. Eighteen days to sell a home in a neighborhood full of foreclosures in a still-recovering economy at a price where we still made money.  That was God.  I saw Him in the relationships of those we left behind, and I continue to see God working in the relationships we have formed here in California. I saw the Lord support our entire family emotionally, giving us strength to endure with joyous hearts and grateful attitudes.

I saw the Lord even in the tenuous circumstances around finding our home, and He found us the perfect home!  Spacious, open, beautiful backyard on a golf green, right next to the highway, ten minutes from the kids’ schools.  That was God because homes like this in California are hard to come by.  We literally had three to choose from when we started looking, and this one the Lord just dropped in our laps, literally.

And then we landed in California, and I haven’t seen Him stop working since.  The Lord brought friendships through friends from Savannah’s school.  Their kindness to a complete stranger over the summer still overwhelms me when I think about it. I continue to be blessed by their open hearts.

It took a few months to find the church we call home now, but in the three months of visiting churches, the Lord was faithful to provide encouraging sermons almost every Sunday from different pastors and through different experiences—that was a gift from God, water in the desert.  When we heard the practically applicable heart of Pastor Ambrose at Pacific Coast Church in San Clemente, we knew we’d found a home, somewhere where we could find refreshment in honest, Biblical preaching, somewhere we can praise God with others for all He is doing in our lives.

Our neighbors are amazing!  From the first day we arrived, the kids in the neighborhood befriended my children, and each of those kids has become dear to me. I see God in providing this unexpected blessing.  We prayed for it, but couldn’t have planned for it when choosing our home.  We also have a neighbor who adores our dog Samson and has been so kind to open her home and heart when we need someone to care for him.  What a blessing!  An unexpected, unplanned blessing from the Lord!

We are truly in a season where God is pouring down manna from heaven in every format. We are humbled, grateful, and overwhelmed by the responsibility to share His blessings, as good stewards should.  We are looking and open to the opportunities the Lord places in our paths, but we also find ourselves in a season of stillness.

There is stillness in our activity, stillness in our friendships (to some degree, although I am grateful that stillness is beginning to ripple with new faces), stillness in our extracurriculars, stillness in our church involvement.  We are simply being called to be still for a season.  To enjoy the Lord and tell everyone who will listen how He has been so faithful.  To enjoy our children.  To see them grow. To grow with them. This stillness is a gift I did not expect, and although there are days when my entire being grows antsy to “do” something, the Lord is quick to remind me I am “doing” exactly what He’s called me do by just being exactly where I am today, in this moment in time, being a mother, really learning to be a godly mother, and being a wife, really pressing into what that needs to look like for my marriage and for my children.

Blessings!  Gifts! Unmerited favor!  This is our testimony.  There are no illnesses to report for the entire year, no major set backs, no complaints.  Weston is excelling at his two-day home school co-op for Kindergarten at Heart Christian Academy. Savannah is doing well at Grace Classical Academy, a school of excellence of which I am so grateful to be a part.  Joey loves his work, and we are enjoying the perks of his travel not being cross-country any longer. I am in love with California—its beauty is palpable; it sinks into my soul.  The ocean is my second home here. I never knew how much it ministered to me until I could be on it every day if I chose.  It’s true you never miss what you’ve never had.

Savannah memorized Psalm 19:1-11 at school, and I feel like it is the perfect summation and testimony to who God is in our lives right now, a testimony to all that He is Righteous and His ways are right. I pray that in reading those verses you too will be humbled by the greatness of our God, drawn to the desire to do things His way--exactly His way--because our family has found there is no better way.

And so with grateful, joyous, overflowing hearts, we are living life in California, building new relationships, strengthening the ties that bind our family of four, and actively looking to see where God shows up next because I promise you, I think He has shown up every day for over a year now in my life, and I can’t stop looking for the next glimpse of His goodness, the next revelation of His glory.

Sigh.  So many verses!  The entire chapter of Psalm 16 speaks testimony for our family, but I will leave you with verses 9-11:

Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will rest secure, because You will not abandon me to the realm of the dead, nor will You let your faithful one see decay. You make known to me the path of life; You will fill me with JOY in Your presence, with eternal pleasures at Your right hand.

May your family know the incomparable joy of experiencing the presence of God in your lives this Christmas season, for isn’t that what Christmas is all about?  Celebrating Immanuel, GOD with us, His very own presence born here on earth to be experienced by man? True joy!

Do You Recognize the God Moments?

My son's teacher emailed last week to remind me to stay for chapel on Tuesday because little man would be receiving the character award for this month in his kindergarten class.

Imagine my delight and knowing thankfulness when she informed me he would be receiving a character award for none other than JOY.

I found it no coincidence that the Bible verse we memorized for the month was Psalm 16:11--the same verse that has been written on the chalkboard in my bathroom since our journey to California first began.

"You make known to me the path of life; You will fill me with joy in Your presence, with eternal pleasures at Your right hand."

There has been JOY throughout this entire journey. Joy in the changes, joy in the process, joy in the disappointments, joy in the transitions, joy in the loneliness, joy in the hard, joy in the new. Ever-present JOY.

Which leads me to finally write down a definition of joy for which I've been searching, based solely on my experiences: Joy is experiencing and being filled with the moment-by-moment presence of God in your life.

It's not simply the knowledge that He is there. No, I've always known He was there. Believing He is an omnipresent God has never been the issue.  Practicing living my life in a such a way that I realize He is actually WITH me at all times--now that's a whole other discipline in itself. (Matthew 28:20)

Experiencing His presence in the every day, the mundane, the ordinary,  the grocery-store moments, the car-driving interims, the twinkle of a child's eye, the mention of something silly in a conversation or on the radio--experiencing God in all those moments--this is where the rubber meets the road.

Joy is an experience of the Holy Spirit. It's a continuing event. It's not just a state of mind. Joy occurs when you open your eyes to the eternal life of all God has created around you, to the truth of how He has designed you. Little 'ole you. (Ephesians 1)

One of my favorite authors, Ann Voskamp, writes in her book One Thousand Gifts about seeing God in everything around you, even the tiny bubbles in your dish washing water. When I first read that, my immediate reaction was, "Ok. I get where she's coming from. But come on. Really? Soap bubbles? Isn't it exhausting, a little over the top to see God in everything?" And quite honestly, I scoffed a little thinking, "Well, Ann just might be a little too holy, a little too deep for me."

Really?  Is there any such thing as too holy? Joy abounds in the experience of all things holy, and since this world is sinful and fallen and eaten up with the unholy, sometimes we balk at things that are even subtlety holy...like seeing God in soap bubbles.

So if God is the only true Holy Entity in all of creation, then seeing glimpses of God anywhere in anything  (like soap bubbles and ocean waves) is probably the best we're going to get to actually seeing the holiness and glory of God in this sin-filled, fleshly body.

And to see God, even just a glimpse of Who He is, to relish in a moment that God is choosing to reveal Himself through a set of circumstances, a person, a place, a thing, a thought, a song, anything--to be aware of and to capture that moment with a smile and prayer of awe and gratefulness--THAT process, THAT experience, THAT continual event is JOY. It equals joy. It is the definition of joy.

And if you're blissfully ignorant or distracted by busyness or naively unaware, undiscerning--you will miss the God moments happening all around you. Like the gift of sunshine on a day when your heart feels heavy. Or the phone call from a friend when you are in the pit of loneliness.  What about that Bible verse that popped out of nowhere into your day? Or the neighbor you've never really spoken with gladly opening her home to care for your dog?

Do you recognize the God moments? Are you tapped into, abiding in the Holy Spirit such that you see Him? (John 15:5) Hear Him? That Voice that said turn left instead of right that kept you out of hours of traffic--did you thank Him for that? That prompting to stop what you're doing and play a game with your kids then having conversations with them you could have never prompted. Did you thank God for that prompt in your spirit?  Did you give Him the credit--the glory--where credit is due?

This is joy living, friends. And it's not always hugs and butterflies and good feelings. What about that verse you felt the Lord leading you to tape to the middle of your steering wheel? (Psalm 62:8) And then she dies and that verse stays taped to your steering wheel for 18 months until you feel the Spirit say, "It's time for a new thing." And you realize, looking back, that in the midst of your grieving, in the center of the hard, in the middle of your pain, that verse has helped you experience joy in small moments when the searing heat of the loss seemed too much to bear.

No, joy is not just for the good times. It can be your only glimpse of light in the bad times as well. Joy is the flower that blooms in the rubble of what remains after destruction has passed, but it is also the eye of the hurricane. Joy can be lived, experienced, at any point in time.

Because God is everywhere at all times in all things (Jeremiah 23:23-24); therefore, we can experience Him, see Him, at all times in all things (Psalm 139:7-12); therefore we can have joy at all times in all things (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18). Of this I am confident.

Open your eyes, my friends. Start by seeing yourself as God sees you (1 Peter 2:9). Then look around and see if you can't find Him even in the soap bubbles while washing your dishes (Acts 17:27).  And soon, you will find yourself being a light of joy to others when you weren't even trying, you weren't really even thinking about other people, you were just thinking about your Good God and how grateful you are He calls you His own, yet in that process, you shine JOY to those around you, and they notice, and it makes a difference.

See God in all things, and others will experience God through you. That's how you spread the joy. See God. And thank Him that He sees you exactly. where. you. are. Right now. In your circumstances, in your stage of life.

Did you see your God moment today? Did you recognize it? Can you reflect and find it? If so, you found joy my friend, you found JOY. 

Now keep finding it.

Romans 15:13 

May the God of hope 

fill you with all JOY and peace 

as you trust in Him, 

so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Dear Children

Dear Children,

We saw God's creation this weekend in all His glory. We saw trees as tall as giants, thousands of years old, reaching to heaven, incomprehensible in size. We saw mountains majestic, wrapped in blankets of clouds. We witnessed such a small piece of the glory of God, of His testimony to us of His greatness. 

Remember that.

Because one day someone is going to try to tell you it all evolved over millions of years from the nothingness of a Big Bang. One day someone is going to plant seeds of doubt in your mind and make you wonder if maybe you can actually logically explain it all away.

Children, don't believe them. Don't let them steal the joy and the wonder of believing in Someone so much bigger than you, Someone so much more than you. Because we're just not all we'd like to make ourselves out to be. And people try to make God small, so they don't have to fear Him, so they can be in control, so they can be all-knowing and all-powerful.  But in trying to make God small, understandable, explainable, we rob ourselves of joy.

Never let them steal the awe of creation out of your soul with their studies and facts and speculations. That feeling in your gut, in your very being, when you stand gaping so small at the base of a tree...a tree for goodness sakes!!! Never lose that feeling of being so small, so humbled that your heart just knows God HAD to create this with His very words because no other explanation really speaks to the testimony of the intricacy of what you're seeing, feeling, and experiencing.

Only the words of the Alpha Omega God could design the beauty in this world, giving us just a small peak into His own glory. Only His words.

And don't feel like you have to defend yourself to the critics, the skeptics, the non-believers. There are facts to support what your soul already knows if you feel called to know, but there's also Genesis 1 and Job 12:7-10 and Psalm 19:1-4 and Romans 1:20 and Deuteronomy 29:29. And that's all you really need. The faith of a child that you have now that still just simply believes. Never lose that.

After all these years, your Mama stills feels giddy like a child in the presence of God's creation. It may be one of the few areas of my life that I haven't allowed the world's view to completely jade, and I pray I could gift that to you as well--the joy of the innocence of childlike faith. See God, children. See Him in everything. See Him all around you, but my prayer is that you grow to see Him in you, the pinnacle of His creation and the apple of His eye.  If you want to know who you are children, how you were created, how you came into existence and for what purpose--seek Him. Ask Him.  Find Him, for He is not far from each one of us (Acts 17:27), and He will tell you exactly who He says you are, who He created you to be (1 Peter 2:9).

With all my hope in Christ for your future,
Your Mama