What we need to navigate these crazy days…
Baking bread can wait; we need to talk.
Today’s my beloved baking day, where we make no plans besides our normal homeschool routine, and I heat up the oven and chop the veggies and knead the dough and whip up all sorts of wonderful all afternoon long. I love Tuesdays. I measure and munch and inhale heavenly aromas and revel in domestic deliciousness. There’s just nothing like loaves of fresh-baked bread lining your kitchen counter.
BUT, today baking can wait.
We’ve been busy and I haven’t been able to write much, and quite frankly there’s so much happening around me I can barely keep it all straight, let alone articulate anything with any hope of cohesion. It’s no wonder God led me to quit reading books for a season — He knew that just reading LIFE would require all my attention. No need for the distraction of additional inputs!
Here’s why I’m writing: I hope to share some simple ways help us navigate these crazy-days we’re living in.
I’m not going to include links and, “Did you hear about???” stuff here. My point is not to draw attention to the insanity out there, but to help us be prepared just in case we need to navigate it well. We probably will at some point.
I will say this. I’m not a dreamer. I’m not a vision-person. I’m a regular ol’ girl who reads her Bible and tries to pray. But in the last 18-months, things have ramped up in the spiritual realm something serious. I’m not trying to be dramatic, I’m just saying that I wholeheartedly believe the “last days” described in Acts 2, quoted from Joel … are here. Specifically, much of what’s been brought to my attention has to do with false teaching, deception, and potential natural disasters. I’m not shouting doomsday here, I’m just saying these are serious times and we need to stay awake and pay attention. Here are some thoughts. These are three things we desperately need in order to navigate crazy-days.
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We desperately need truth.
The Word, prayer, fasting, and the local church community are no longer optional items we can take or leave.
Gone are the days where we lazily pull out our Bibles because we “should.” Here are the days where we desperately need to see current events, issues, and influences through the lens of God’s truth. ALL of the clear insights, warnings, guiding, and direction of this past year have been through the Word, prayer, fasting, and close, fellow-believers with whom I do life with. None of it has come through some famous person online, or a celebrity, or a politician. None of it is in isolation, but rather considered and prayed over with the community around me. Every dream/vision/impression been filtered, clarified, interpreted through Scripture. Too much is at stake to go without truth. We can’t be lone rangers trusting our feelings or be blind followers who swallow everything a certain leader says. No one is infallible except God. We desperately need His take on things. Jesus is the truth.
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We desperately need love.
We don’t just need open-arms love. We don’t just need truth-bombs love. We’ve got Gracers and Truthers but we need to be Lovers. We need Jesus love. God defines love. Jesus was the one willing to clean up messes he didn’t make. He didn’t ignore wrongs or error, he never swept sin under the rug. He called a spade a spade. He didn’t dance around hard topics. But He always spoke, acted, and responded in love.
For me personally, the Lord has put his finger on the importance of not just pursuing loving actions but on true love coming from my heart. I mean, I cannot act in a loving way toward another until I actually love that person. Recently, I felt a slight schism in a relationship and was agonizing over how to respond in a loving way. As I sat quietly and prayed about how to respond lovingly, I sensed God ask, “Do you love her?” Duh! What’s the point of trying to act in a loving way unless I actually love this person. I recognized that the problem was a lack of love, not a lack of understanding the right response. I stayed in prayer, asking God to change my heart until His genuine love was birthed in my heart. And He did! He’s amazing. Then, when genuine love was birthed in my heart, it was easy to know how to respond. It felt natural to respond lovingly because I loved.
It doesn’t matter a lick if we are on the “right side” of some controversy. If we don’t love, none of our super spiritually matters at all. (1 Cor. 13)
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We desperately need the mind of Christ.
Jesus was perfect truth and perfect love, on display for us. I believe that more and more, “conventional”‘ wisdom will not work. As Paul wrote,
6 Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. 7 But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. 8 None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9 But, as it is written,
“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,
nor the heart of man imagined,
what God has prepared for those who love him”—10 these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. 11 For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12 Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. 13 And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.[d]
14 The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. 15 The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. 16 “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.
This does not mean we elevate our own fancies and notions, assuming every flitting thought is divine revelation. But this means we humbly immerse ourselves in the Word, in prayer, in fasting, in love, and ask God directly to guide us during these crazy days. It is so exciting to me to hear story after story of people who are hearing from God more than ever! In beautiful ways that totally align with Scriptures, in ways that bring peace and confidence, that cut through confusion and bring clarity and direction. Hallelujah! We need the mind of Christ.
No area is too small or insignificant to invite Christ into. Jeff and I prayed over our ballots, we pray over our budget, we pray over our big and little decisions, all the time. And we need to grow in this as well.
Guide us, Spirit of God, in your truth. Help us humble ourselves and submit to your Word. Make us brave. Make us loving. Make us unflappable and full of faith. We love you.
{Thanks for reading.}
On Fear: The only place that’s safe
Fear. There seems to be a lot of it these days. There seems to be a lot of bad news, a lot of fear-mongering and alarmists and constant worse-case-scenario thinking. I get it. Things do not look real awesome right now in America.
But God. More than ever I’m convinced that it’s critical we pore over the pages of God’s Word more than the latest news story. News is fine and good, but it’s sure to cultivate fear unless we read it through the lens of truth.
It’s this time of year I’m always reading through Jeremiah and I’m always reminded of the only place that’s safe. Check this out, hopefully it will encourage your heart:
The prophet Jeremiah is prophesying to King Jehoiakim about the impending disaster coming upon them if they do not repent and turn from their evil deeds. His words aren’t popular, as you can imagine, so
“when he finished speaking all that the LORD had commanded him to speak to all the people, then the priests and the prophets and all the people laid hold of him, saying, ‘You shall die!’ (v.8)
“Then the priests and the prophets said to the officials and to all the people, ‘This man deserves the sentence of death, because he has prophesied against this city.” (v.11)
Is Jeremiah safe? How does he respond? First he exhorts them to mend their ways and obey the voice of the Lord, and then he says,
“But as for me, behold I am in your hands. Do with me as seems good and right to you … for in truth the LORD sent me to you to speak all these words in your ears.” (v.14-15)
I am in your hands.
How could Jeremiah say that? How could he entrust himself into the hands of an angry mob of people who most certainly intended to kill him?
He knew whose hands he really was in.
Jeremiah could entrust himself to their hands because he’d first entrusted himself to God’s hands.
Perhaps he knew the song of David by heart,
Jeremiah was safe because his heart was free of fear. He was then spared from death. But you know what the very next story holds? Another prophet, Uriah, who had spoken the same sort of words. His story is told,
There was another man who prophesied … Uriah … He prophesied against this city and against this land in words like those of Jeremiah. And when King Jehoiakim, with all his warriors and all the officials, heard his words, the king sought to put him to death. But when Uriah heard of it, he was afraid and fled and escaped to Egypt. Then … they took Uriah from Egypt and brought him down to King Jehoiakim, who struck him down with the sword and dumped his dead body into a burial place of the common people.” (vv.20-23)
Jeremiah knew whose hands he was in so he entrusted himself to the people and was spared. Uriah, who spoke the same message, was “afraid and fled and escaped,” and yet was put to death.
Where are we truly safe?
It’s true: this world is not safe.
The only place we’re truly safe is the place of refusing fear, of wholeheartedly trusting God. With our lives. With our children. With our future.
Then His peace rules our hearts and gives us the courage to enter dark places with the light of His love, and refuse to cower in fear. Then His Spirit empowers us to speak truth with bold love, no matter how those around us respond. Then He can entrust us with His message, His heart, His mission.
Fear will always lead us to captivity.
Faith will always lead us to freedom.
May we fully ENTRUST our lives to His good care, and actively intercede for those around us, with the faith and courage that only He can bring.
{In God we trust and we are not afraid. Thank you for reading.}
My one and only political post
I type these words with trepidation, feeling hopelessly ill-equipped and under-qualified to speak on political matters. For my 18-years of voting, I have never muttered much of an opinion. I basically avoided the topic, maybe mentioning I was voting for Jesus, or something like that. I also of course believe that Jesus is the answer to our issues, not some new political leader, so I honestly wasn’t tuned in much to current affairs.
But something happened during our 40-day fast, and I’m convinced I’m supposed to share about it here. My intent is not to persuade you to vote a certain way, necessarily, but to simply vocalize what I believe to God’s heart in the matter, at least for me.
During the 40-day fast, we prayed for our country, and about the election. I don’t want to say I labored in prayer, I didn’t, but it was one of the things on my spiritual radar, to be sure.
During this time, I was sick of Donald Trump. He was such an idiot, I never dreamed he’d make it past the primaries. I was shocked when Ben Carson endorsed him, and I was a bit disgusted when I heard that some highly respected people I know were supporting him as well. Not me! I found myself feeling happy every time the media discovered more “dirt” on him from his past. Serves him right, slime-ball!
So, imagine my surprise when, during our fast, I was cleaning my kitchen and out of the blue I felt very clearly that I *heard* in my heart, “I want you to vote for Trump.”
It literally stopped me in my tracks. I stood still. Wait, what?! Lord, WHAT DID YOU SAY? Um, do you even known him? He’s kind of a jerk. Like, you DO know about those nasty things he’s done, right???
Nothing. All I was impressed by was the story of Nebuchadnezzar. Somehow, I sensed that Trump was likened to Nebuchadnezzar who God used to judge the nation of Israel AND who was publicly humbled in a extraordinary way (going insane, eating grass like an animal for 7 years), in order to bring about a supernatural transformation that brought glory to God in front of an entire nation.
Now, I wasn’t sure what to do with this, but I definitely didn’t want to tell anyone, not even Jeff. I figured I’d just sort of see how things played out, and I sort of forgot about the whole encounter.
But then, it was time to vote in the primaries. I let Jeff fill out my ballet, as a way of sort of skirting around the whole ordeal. Let’s just say he didn’t check the Trump box. I stayed quiet. But, as I was signing my ballot and sealing up the envelope, I heard so clearly in my heart, “I told you how to vote.”
Oh. Yes. So apparently that really was a thing. I’m ashamed to say I still didn’t speak up, I just sent in the ballot as it was, and still never said anything to Jeff.
Fast forward. Months go by, the election gets uglier, we’re left with Hillary and Trump.
And then, two weeks ago, in prayer during my morning quiet time, while sitting in a lawn chair in Arizona, the Holy Spirit convicts me big time that He had told me what to do and I’d ignored it, not even telling my own husband about the conviction. I was ashamed to say to anyone, “God told me to vote for Trump.” It sounded preposterous.
But I knew I couldn’t ignore Him any longer. As I sat there I just happened to be reading Luke 9 and verse 26 leapt off the page:
“For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.”
Yikes. I had never before considered this verse applying to anything other than Scripture. I’m not ashamed of the Bible! But, was I ashamed of the word that the Holy Spirit had clearly spoken to me during our 40-day fast?! Was I ashamed to admit that I thought I’d heard from God? Was I willing to endure the ridicule of looking like an crazy lady who thinks prophecy should inform our politics? Besides, I’m not exactly a wealth of political knowledge. Who was I to weigh in on such a matter?
Besides all that, if you say you’re voting for Trump many people automatically think you’re a racist bigot who doesn’t care about the poor. I’m not that! I would gladly welcome refugees into our home, just like we have welcomed the homeless, a drug-user & a prostitute. We welcome them not because they’re refugees or druggies but because they are PEOPLE, created in the image of God. (Just like the unborn are.) Our entire life has been drastically altered by choosing to give to the poor, especially those in foreign countries.
So, I was afraid of being misunderstood, but I prayed for a little further information on why this was God’s choice (for me), and I heard: “I have access to him.” I don’t think it’s that Trump is a godly man (he’s not), but I believe somehow God has access to him in a way he doesn’t to other candidates. Similar to Nebuchadnezzar, who God accessed through a dream and the prophetic gifts of the prophet Daniel, I believe somehow God will have access to Trump and use something (humiliation?) to exalt Himself publicly.
So, I told Jeff. I told our elders’ wives. I told my family.
And now I’m telling you. 😉
So there. I’m not ashamed. There’s much more I could say, but I am PRAYING with far more fervor than lobbying or rallying, I am not saying I agree with all Trump’s choices or lifestyle. I’m not saying you need to agree with me, or vote this way. I believe there are wise, godly followers of Jesus on both sides of this election. I just knew that I needed to share my experience with you, as crazy as it sounds.
The one thing I would say is this: PRAY AND VOTE. Do not pass up on the incredible privilege we have to influence our world through prayer and voting, for the glory of God. Please.
God, give us wisdom not only as we vote, but as we LIVE. May our lives be one giant ballot cast in favor of King Jesus, our only hope, the Lord and Savior of our country and of the world. Make Your Kingdom great again!
{Thanks for reading.}
What 100 churches have shown me
Saturday night I googled something I’ve never searched for before: “Churches near me.” It was so interesting, scrolling through the options, getting a “outsider’s perspective” as I perused websites and read About Us pages.
Such a variety.
Since Jeff would be competing in the Ironman 70.3 race, it would just be the kids and I attending, and we needed to be done by 10:30am in order to get to his race, so I made my super-spiritual selection simply based on who was nearby and had the earliest service.
8:30am, Grace Community Church, 3 miles away. Done. It was lovely. We might have been the only ones under 70 :), but it was simple, humble, beautiful. Everything pointed to God. The Scriptures were taught. Christ was exalted.
It was so refreshing to my soul, I wept my way through worship, my parched soul gulping down the amazing grace. Jesus is so glorious!
See, we visited three different churches during our road-trip, everything from extremely charismatic to Southern Baptist to non-denominational community church. God did some measure of work in my heart at all three, even though they were vastly different in doctrine and style.
Earlier in the trip, at the conference we attended, a woman seated next to me had talked to Jeff, and somehow it came up that I had recently spoken at a retreat located near the woman’s hometown. She was familiar with the venue, and raised her eyebrows as she remarked,
“Wow, I’m surprised they would have hired a conference speaker who would be attending this.”
I smiled. I sort of knew she’d say that. You see, I speak at a wide-variety of churches and conferences. Everything from Assemblies of God to Nazarene to Calvary Chapel to Southern Baptist to Presbyterian. And honestly? I absolutely love it.
I love the wide variety. I love that I have no idea what to expect until I get there. I love seeing the ages range from 18-88, dressed in sweatpants and stilettos, rich and poor. I love that to some being “led by the Spirit” means they sing a song verse a second time through, unplanned (!), while others think this involves spontaneously speaking in tongues. I love that some sit quietly, heads bowed, and some are dancing in the aisles.
I think Jesus can handle that.
I think God is big enough to move mountains in our midst, no matter our personality or preference or style. I think the Holy Spirit can change the course of someone’s life no matter how ecstatic he feels.
If there’s anything I’ve learned from partnering with nearly 100 churches in my years of speaking and teaching, it’s that I think we make a way bigger deal about our distinctions than God does. I think we place way too much emphasis on getting our distinct position exactly right and way too little emphasis on getting our hearts right.
Jesus rebuked people saying, “You tithe mint and cumin! But you neglect the weightier matters! Give as offering the things that are within.”
So many are concerned about creating exactly the right atmosphere for the Spirit of God to move. I’m raising my hand: Guilty as charged. The right lighting, volume, sound, the right graphics and humor and don’t botch the transition… and and and and and…
“The offering of God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite spirit God will not despise. (Ps. 51):17”
Oh! If only we would just focus on the atmosphere of our hearts! NOTHING can keep you from truly worshipping God. Even if everyone around you is yawning, even if the music isn’t perfect, even if the preacher isn’t polished, even if the lighting isn’t just so, or EVEN (*gasp*) if your toddler is squirming in your arms.
YOU might not have as much of an exhilarating experience, but GOD IS BLESSED by our offering when our hearts are truly set on Him.
Isn’t He the One that matters anyway?
Isn’t our worship about Him?
Isn’t HE the reason we go to church? How did we end up thinking this was all about us?
Saturday night, when I told the kids we’d be getting up early to visit a church before going to Daddy’s race, they both complained.
“We don’t like going to new places. I don’t want to get up early. I don’t like having to meet new people. I only like our own church.”
And I responded:
“I know this isn’t your preference. I know it isn’t your favorite thing. But you know what? We go to church not because we feel like it, or it’s our first choice, we go to church because it honors God. It’s for Him, not us. So, I will make it as comfortable as I can for you. You can stay with me and not go to kids’ class. If you don’t want to chitchat with strangers, that’s fine. I’ll talk for you. But we will go with a happy heart because it’s the Lord’s Day and we will honor Him, just as we’ll then go to Daddy’s race to honor him.”
By God’s grace, their hearts changed, and they agreed without complaint.
And we were so blessed.
Friends, I have an urgency in my heart to plead with you: Choose to worship God no matter what your atmosphere, how you feel or don’t feel, no matter how imperfect your situation. I believe there will come a day when it will truly COST us to worship God. Will we choose Him now, no matter how we feel? Will you honor Him, not only on Sunday, but every day, because He is worthy? Let us rend our HEARTS, not our garments, and give as our offering the things that are within. Our hearts. Our lives. Our all.
{Thanks for reading.}