If you could describe your relationship with Jesus in one word what would it be?
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This whole year, I have been reading along in the New Testament with my faith family. We’ve taken it one chapter a day, five days a week—leaving a day for catching up if we’ve fallen behind—and resting the last day.
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The way our society portrays relationships is confusing more often than not. I spent a lot of time being single before meeting the man I later married. And I spent more time than I’d like to admit being worried about that state of singleness. The advice offered to single women seemed to fall along the lines of, “Enjoy the time that you have by yourself.” To me, this always came across as either trite or—depending on my mood—even somewhat insulting.
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Obedience — our culture has put such a negative connotation around in, when in reality, it is such a beautiful thing in the context of Christ. Think about this; Christ was constantly obedient to our Heavenly Father (John 14:31). In that, we received grace, forgiveness, peace, mercy, salvation, love and the list could go on. Well, aren’t we called to live a life exemplified by Christ? Wouldn’t that include being obedient to our Heavenly Father? The answer, to both of these questions, is YES!
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God’s call on your life is greater than the “yes” or “no” of men. When going through a personal experience of my own, I have wondered about the people that stand in the way of what God wants to do. I mean, I know God's plan will ALWAYS come to fruition, He doesn’t have a Plan B.
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I love to worship Jesus. I love to pray, and I love to read His word. He deserves our worship, because He alone is God, and He is holy and worthy of our praise. In light of this, though, have you ever sat in church and just didn’t feel like it that day? I’m not condoning this feeling, by the way, because if we lived based on our feelings and thoughts, we would be letting the enemy thrive in our lives, and we never want to do that.
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There I sat, thousands of feet in the air with my Bible open and pen in hand. My most honest thoughts come when I am in the cabin of an airplane; forced to sit still with my phone turned off. As the sun slanted through the window, my pen hit paper and honesty poured out.
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What do you focus on the most in your life? What fuels you, in a positive way? What lets you down? Is it a person? Is it a tangible thing? I think that our outlook on life is an indicator of our faith.
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Somewhere in my elementary years, I delightfully encountered bossy Mrs. Armstrong and the motley Herdman gang of ”The Best Christmas Pageant Ever” by Barbara Robinson. I remember feeling outraged as each unruly child bullied their way into the Christmas pageant roles - only to breathe a sigh of relief at the end as they truly portrayed their characters that first Christmas: messy and scared, but willing to give all they had. They might have been small actors in that play, but they played a big part in helping that community understand the true meaning of Christmas.
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Everything about who I am stems from what You say about me. Do I know what that is? Is who You created me to be something I have knowledge of? I don’t mean in the sense of “what is my purpose” and what it looks like in practice to fulfill Your plan, but the very essence of who I am or more importantly, whose I am.
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Did you know that as believers and followers of Jesus, we need to be careful with how we spend our time? We do. We need to be careful with what we read, what we watch, and what we listen to. A lady that I have “followed” for years through her blog posts made me aware of this fact. Before I start, though, can I just tell you how thankful I am for an online community of women who love Jesus that I have never personally laid eyes on? Social media gets such a bad rap, but when it is used for good, the enemy needs to beware!
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Is the cup half empty or half full? Personally, I remember this question mystifying me as a kid. You look at the top of the cup and there’s nothing there, so obviously it’s half empty. I’m not sure when my perspective changed, but I do remember it being a light-bulb moment, “Oh, I guess there is water in the bottom half of the cup!”
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I don’t even know where to start with this, it’s so easy to become lost in emotions. I wanted to pen this letter to women who were failed by the feminist movement. You who sit with these guarded and secret dreams that you are afraid to share. You who want to be homemakers.
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Yesterday my close friend and I gathered in my living room amidst toys, empty juice boxes, and unfolded (but clean!) laundry. We buzzed with excitement despite the mess as we shared what God has been teaching us this week through Scripture, prayer, and everyday life. Hopes lifted up, tears shed, hearts humbled in prayer.
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Through most of my teenage years and into my twenties, I spent a lot of time wanting to hear from God - I needed direction on what to major in, what job to accept, whether I should go to law school, where I should live, who (and if) I should marry. People told me to read my Bible and pray - that it’s where I could find the answers I was seeking, but for years, I couldn’t find them there either.
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“Break up your fallow ground” means to rend your heart, break down the barriers of your soul, and repent. I believe one of the hardest things to admit, especially for those “seasoned saints” or anyone who has walked with the Lord for any length of time, is our misunderstanding of repentance. I will admit that I once believed the word “repent” was directed only towards unbelievers or used only in the context of an altar call. Until recently, I never embraced the beauty that repentance brings to my relationship with Jesus.
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Let’s talk about Halloween - about its origins, what it is today, and what the Bible has to say about this issue.
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I used to play tennis in high school. At least three times a week, we would run drills in the afternoon. The countless hours of sprinting, swinging the racket, and hitting shots over and over again seemed mind-numbing in the moment. But by the end of my senior year, I could see how much I had improved since being a freshman. I could play tennis well because I had practiced it almost every week.
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Somewhere along the way, a belief might have become a part of our thinking: we receive love when we do something good or something worthy of praise. As a result of believing this, we end up doing things, not out of love, but with the motive to receive love. When we view our relationships with a transactional mentality, it shapes how we believe God loves us. For example, if we do something good, we get love and if we do something bad, that love is taken away. Our brains revert to this perverted version of love; that is a lie. This destroys our view of God, what He has done for us, and His grace.
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I’m in one of those seasons of life that makes me question a lot. I’m questioning my motivations and passions and work habits. The future seems like a mass of unknowns and the past seems like a patchwork of disconnected experiences. Despite being 29 years old, I’m still not sure what I want to be when I grow up.
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