glenna marshall

How to Thaw a Cold Heart

We call it the “February Funks” in our house.

How toThaw a Cold Heart: If you’re finding yourself apathetic when it comes to faith, growth, and affection for the Lord, try working through these suggestions.

Lagging between holidays, this short month feels long and cold. Spring is tantalizingly close, but we’re constricted by the temperatures that still keep us inside. The lack of activity and sunlight, the draggy feelings that often come after major holiday seasons—these can make us feel despondent internally. The heart feels cold and reluctant to engage in anything other than miserable wool-gathering.

Usually we bring this despondency with us to church and to our time in the Word, if we can even overcome the ennui that prevents us from getting out of bed in the morning. Emotions are fickle. Though they have their place, I put entirely too much of my decision making at the disposal of my feelings, which usually results in some poor uses of time and the kind of internal reflection that doesn’t do anybody one bit of good. I shouldn’t let my floundering emotions prescribe how my faith breathes and expands.

As a February Funk veteran, I’ve been thinking about how best to get through these doldrums that bleed into the spiritual life and make everything seem drab and dismal. Sometimes you just need a list, you know? Something to jot down and cross off so you can see some semblance of movement in the right direction, and sometimes just a direction. I’m going to make this real easy for you and give you some steps to help you work out some of those loathsome, internal blues you might be feeling this winter. If you’re finding yourself apathetic when it comes to faith, growth, and affection for the Lord, try working through these suggestions. The list isn’t an equation for renewed spiritual fervor, but the process might be helpful in shifting your perspective.

1) Wake up early and read the Bible, whether you want to or not.

Feelings aren’t trustworthy. Ignore the ones telling you it’s pointless to read the Bible in your current mood. You won’t regret setting the pace for your thoughts by making them line up with Scripture as soon as you wake up. Placing your attention on Christ will help you renew your mind, conforming those rascally, petulant thoughts into something that honors Jesus rather than something that feeds your restlessness. Time spent immersing your mind in Scripture is not wasted time.

“But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”  (2 Timothy 3:14-17)

2) Pray with a list.

You’re tackling your wandering, apathetic thoughts and feelings, so straighten them out by not allowing your mind to wander to unsafe, unhelpful places. Write down the things you need to pray for on a daily and weekly basis, being sure to include personal confession, the names of those you desire to see believe in Christ, those who are ill, and those who are suffering for the gospel. Praying through your list will help you verbalize your inner turmoil to the Father while also urging you to move on to others who need your intercession. In purposefully praying through your list, you’re taking your eyes off your own situation and putting the plight of others in view. Regard your intercession as needful work because it absolutely is.

In purposefully praying through your list, you’re taking your eyes off your own situation and putting the plight of others in view. View your intercession as needful work because it absolutely is.

3) Practice gratitude.

You don’t have to start a flowery gratitude journal unless you just want to, but make a point to thank the Lord for each expression of grace you see. His provision comes at just the right time? Stop and thank Him. A friend texted some needed encouragement? Be thankful and express your thanks. Look for the ways God is continually good to you. If you can’t think of anything, sit down and write down the details surrounding your salvation when you first believed the gospel. God has continued to bless you since then, but even if He never did again—that would be enough. Still struggling? Start with Psalm 1 and write down every statement about God’s good character until your heart begins to thaw.

“Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” (1 Thessalonians 5:18)

4) Have conversations with humans. Specifically, other Christians.

Look, I don’t know about you, but my first line of defense when I’m feeling raw around the edges or dull to all things spiritual is to hunker down at home and turn off my phone. It’s not a healthy response to edge people out of your life when you’re prone to discouragement. The Body needs all its parts, and we need to pull each other out of the quagmire of doubts, despairs, and loss of focus. I know it’s hard to be authentic when you want to crawl in bed with a bag of Cheetohs and an endless stream of oblivion brought to you by Netflix, but insulation can be dangerous to your future faith. It becomes too easy to make a habit of hiding. Take a deep breath and ask someone to help you bear your burden. We weren’t meant to live our Christians lives in isolation. Sharing our struggle should be our default when we’re in the midst of spiritual doldrums. Accountability is built into the structure of the Church, and this is for our edification and our safety. In her article at Desiring God, Trillia Newbell writes:

“Ultimately accountability can be a means in which God draws us, through the friendship and fellowship of others, to himself. Self-sufficiency says we don’t need anyone, but humility shouts for help from those God has placed in our lives. This habit of sharing and praying with others will inevitably teach us how to cast our cares on the only One who can fully bear their weight and who loves us with an unfailing love.”

Stop pretending to be self-sufficient. Only God can boast of that quality.

Stop pretending to be self-sufficient. Only God can boast of that quality. Share on X

Start with Psalm 1 and write down every statement about God’s good character until your heart begins to thaw.

5) Serve someone else.

Like prayer, looking for ways to serve others removes self from the focal point, and if I’ve learned anything from cold-hearted seasons, too much self-focus is almost always the problem. I’m an analyzer, a journaler, a melancholy, wordy processor who falls squarely within INFJ descriptives (Intuitive, iNtuitive, Feeling, Judging…see? My hobbies are self-analysis and moping), so I’m nearly always guilty of spiritually unhealthy introspection. When I’m frustrated by my circumstances or when I’m struggling to feel at all, I need to knock my problems off their self-aggrandizing pedestal and look to the interests of others (Philippians 2:4). Pride cripples and enslaves, but the sacrificial love of Christ can free us from self-worship.

When all is said and done, there is still one more step to encouraging warmth in a cold heart. Well, maybe two.

6) Cry out to the Lord. Often.

He understands human emotion. He created us to have them, and He lived 33 years without being enslaved to them. He is relatable and near. Cry out to Him to soften your heart, recognizing that even if you do everything on your end, you’re still at His kind mercy for the ice to melt. Remind yourself that He is known for His faithful love, and that He is teaching you perseverance while you seek Him when your heart feels cold.

And lastly:

7) Repeat steps 1-6.

Study, pray, talk, be thankful, serve, and cry out until the Lord brings springtime to your soul. He is faithful.

Study, pray, talk, be thankful, serve, and cry out until the Lord brings springtime to your soul.

 

 

I am not strong: a year of writing publicly

I think I scared him.

I called downstairs for a bottle of Aleve and some water. But I don’t think my husband expected to find me lying down in the hallway upstairs.

I feel silly when it makes me cry. I’m a grown woman, for crying out loud. I grit my teeth with every intention of bearing it, but my eyes are traitors and the degree of pain’s grip leaks down my cheeks. Even after nearly fourteen years of marriage to a man who knows me better than I do, I don’t want him to see it. I want him to think I’m stronger than he expected. He will never see me endure the pain of childbirth, that sacred event that always sends a husband into the waiting room, gushing to well-wishers about the deep, persevering strength he didn’t know his wife possessed. The respect on his face is written in tear tracks and blinding smiles.

But my husband won’t see that kind of strength in me, so I try to be brave when I crawl to the bed so he knows I would be strong if given the opportunity. This is my opportunity, but without the reward. Mutinous tears give me away. I couldn’t talk through the pain, and I remembered what the serious-faced doctor said: “When you can’t live with the pain, it’s time to do something.” These episodes are happening too close together, and I know what it means.

Nearly a year ago I went public with this blog when I shared a post about this very topic. I sat in a Wal-Mart parking lot that day and cried a river of tears over something I thought was long buried. Every episode of searing, breathless pain digs it up again. I shovel the dirt back on quickly, though. Ruminating on past losses and the permanency of my options isn’t helpful for moving on. It’s been a full circle kind of week.

I want to be strong. But I’m not.

And it’s okay, though it brushes against my desire for self-sufficiency with all the subtleness of a jackhammer.

It’s okay. My personal reserves of strength would never propel me through life like I need.

No, I need a much stronger arm to hold on to.

Or, to hold on to me.

And He does.

He is.

A year ago I decided to put my internal wrestlings in a letter that anyone could read. It’s been a year of bleeding out in the open with the hope that someone finds comfort in knowing they’re not alone in their hope of suffering well, in looking for Jesus in pain, and in knowing they are loved deeply by God. It gives me fulfillment knowing that pain doesn’t have to be wasted if it can become a place of ministry. Sometimes it’s emotional pain, sometimes spiritual, sometimes physical. Sometimes it’s all three tangled up together. It’s times like these when I know I’m down deep in the valley of shadows and understanding that God’s grace is sufficient for me. It’s in the vise of pain when I can see that His strength is being made perfect in my weakness. All along, it’s always His strength on display, not mine. And if my husband or you or anyone watching can see Jesus’ strength on display in my struggles, then that is far better than the apparition of physical strength I thought I wanted to display.

There’s nothing to prove when the strong arm upholding you belongs to the Lord.

I am not strong. A year ago I decided to put my internal wrestlings in a letter that anyone could read. It’s been a year of bleeding out in the open with the hope that someone finds comfort in knowing they’re not alone in their hope of suffering well, in looking for Jesus in pain, and in knowing they are loved deeply by God. It gives me fulfillment knowing that pain doesn’t have to be wasted if it can become a place of ministry.

There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.

                                                                                                                ~Ernest Hemingway

For a year I’ve emptied the contents of my heart on these pages, weakness pouring out so you can see where borrowed strength rises up in the middle of pain and fear. Sometimes I want to press the button to make it all go away. Vulnerability always exposes more than I intended.  But shared struggle leads to a shared hope, so I back away from the button and let it rest. The anchoring my faint heart needs is always found in the faithful love of Christ who, with each episode of uncertainty, reminds me just how faithful He has always been, how good, how present, and how very, very strong. All I have needed His hands have provided, and provide they will continue to do, even if it’s just faith to be strong. Every time I feel compelled to sweep the cobwebs out of my heart, the Lord faithfully pours back in what I need to press on.

I consider it a privilege and a joy to be weak in front of you, friends.

I want you to see His strong arm.

But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

                                                                                                                         2 Corinthians 12:9

Here’s to another year.

A Woman Without a Country

I keep scrolling.

News. Facebook. Twitter.

I keep scrolling.

Everything I read makes my stomach twist with discomfort. Hatred spewed from both “sides” of the political coin. Left? Right? Which side do I fall on? The lines have been  drawn with so many overgeneralizing angles, I can’t quite find their beginnings.  According to the vitriol emanating from my screen, if I’m pro-life, then I must be anti-refugee. If I’m not marching for something, I’m standing for nothing. If I’m not using my online presence as a platform to malign the authorities in power, then I’m supporting misogyny and fascism. If I’m not shaking with anger toward one specific group of people, then I don’t love Jesus in the convoluted, progressive manner that people are demanding.

The truth is, none of it fits.

There doesn’t seem to be a voice that’s being heard today that represents how I’m thinking and feeling about the divided nature of our country. I didn’t vote for either major party because my conscience wouldn’t let me. I knew my candidate wouldn’t win, but I only carried my vote in my hands—not yours, so please don’t see that as an indictment toward your right to exercise your personal choice in the voting booth. The beauty of democracy is that you carry your vote into the booth, and I carry mine. I didn’t want to be sitting here trying to sheepishly defend my choice any more than I wanted to be standing in the street screaming because I didn’t get my choice. Laying my head on my pillow at night meant disengaging from the two-party system. I understand if it didn’t look like that for you. It isn’t really about that, anyway.  It’s about what happened afterward, and how the division is as great inside the walls of the Church as it is outside.

no matter what kind of public policy people try to pull from the mouth of Jesus, the truth is that one day America will be a tiny blip on history’s time line, and the call for Christians will always be to follow Jesus with Scripture as our absolute authority--because in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. Holding to that will mean knowing that sometimes people will hate you because they don’t understand what you believe, and sometimes because they most definitely do.

As I knew would happen last fall, I’m now living in the middle of a great divide. I’m watching people I care about systematically take the other one apart with unbridled anger and ridiculous generalizations. And I know that people from both sides will lump me in with the other because I’ve been silent.

I’ve been silent because I’ve been watching. And what I have seen grieves me. Because, Christians, I’m seeing too many of us take up arms of hatred in the name of love. When I see the accusations toward certain types of professing Christians, I am ashamed that the name-callers are also professing Christians. This tactic seems to work well from either side.

But no matter what kind of public policy people try to pull from the mouth of Jesus, the truth is that one day America will be a tiny blip on history’s time line, and the call for Christians will always be to follow Jesus with Scripture as our absolute authority—because in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. Holding to that will mean knowing that sometimes people will hate you because they don’t understand what you believe, and sometimes because they most definitely do.

So I keep scrolling, hoping for something that will give me hope.

It won’t be found in any news outlet. There isn’t one that isn’t absurdly skewed or politically slanted.

It won’t be found in any online argument. Could there be a worse place for discussions than Facebook?

It won’t be found in celebrating or condemning a person on the internet. Your allegiance, Christian, is to one Man only.

Here’s where hope is found for Christians who feel like we’re living in a foreign land: if you feel like you don’t belong here, it’s because you don’t belong here.

“…but our citizenship is in heaven, from which we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.” (Philippians 3:20)

Here’s advice for those of us who are living in a foreign land:

“I urge you as strangers and temporary residents to abstain from fleshly desires that war against you. Conduct yourselves honorably among the [nations] so that in a case where they speak against you as those who do what is evil, they will, by observing your good works, glorify God on the day of visitation.” (1 Peter 2:11-12)

That’s a call to both active living and patient waiting.

No, I am not represented in today’s political platform.

That’s not a terrible thing for a Christian. I am free to believe things that bother both sides, and I do. I can fight for life inside the womb and out. I can choose to be respectful of our country’s leadership while disagreeing with their decisions. I can live in the tension of rendering to Caesar what is Caesar’s while giving to God what is His. I must live in that tension.

I can look for ways to welcome the sojourner because I am one—living in a place where I do not really belong, where assimilation feels impossible, where I feel at odds with every headline, where I speak the language but do not understand it. I can believe that women should have equal rights as long as they don’t infringe upon the rights of the unborn. I can feel angry about racial injustice while raising kids of color and teaching them that all humans are image-bearers. I can speak up in a way that calls for responsibility without murdering in my heart. It seems difficult to do these things, but Christians—we must, we MUST seek a better way to live here on this planet where we’re temporary residents.

On Sunday my husband preached about the line of people highlighted in Hebrews 11 for their steadfast faith in God. Steadfast faith isn’t the absence of doubt. It is pressing forward when doubts settle around your shoulders like a heavy, itchy blanket in the middle of summer’s heat. It is believing in God’s faithfulness when uncertainty looms ahead, a formidable opponent that scares you with its restless anger. It is actively pursuing a life that looks like Jesus’ when all you’ve got to hold on to is the belief that God will continue to be faithful and that His Church will prevail in the ugliest of times.

I long to be steadfast.

To live my life acknowledging that I am a stranger and exile on this earth, to make it clear that I am seeking a homeland, a better country, a heavenly one whose designer and builder is God. (Hebrews 11) In the meantime, I watch, I pray, I look for ways to use my privilege as a tool to help those without such tools and privileges. I stop scrolling so much. I seek to detract from the noise by opening my Bible more often, praying more deeply, and having the noteworthy conversations face-to-face.

I feel very much like a woman without a country these days. I don’t belong in any camp, can’t align myself with any “side.”  But the more I dig into Scripture, the more I am okay with my sojourning. When I absorb the words of Jesus, the apostles, and the saints who were the earliest Jesus-followers, I see a pattern of misrepresentation and not-belonging. This was never meant to be home.

Come, Lord Jesus.

Secure in His Love

Sometimes I want to believe lies.

“Fake news” is tantalizing and volatile, emitting knee-jerk reactions from even the most diplomatic of observers. We react, we make plans, we form opinions and theories around what might be true. We hold on to those things even when the facts are shown to be false. We struggle to dismantle the lie and admit we were wrong.

All of my adult life I’ve struggled to believe that God loves me. I’ve held to the notion that He generally loves me in that begrudging way that you love someone who gets on your nerves but you’re related so you have to love them.  God promised He loves me, but maybe He wishes He could take it back if it weren’t in keeping with His character and that whole “I never change” thing. Perhaps on some level He regrets His promises to me.

I became a believer in Christ at quite a young age. My parents took us to church, conducted family devotions, and talked about the Lord with us so much that it was easy for me to believe that God loved me and gave His Son to die for me. I knew I did bad things. I knew I needed a Savior to rescue me. It was simple, and I guess that’s the beauty of childlike faith because I didn’t question the grip that God had on my young heart. My mother used to find handwritten notes crumpled up in my jeans’ pocket, full of scribbled letters of love and affection to the Lord. I don’t really remember that, but I don’t doubt it. It was before I let hard circumstances inform my perception of what God was like. When I was young, there was no question that God was the great Lover of my soul, and I found security in knowing my heart was His.

We can’t really know it in the green pastures of tranquility until we can learn it in the rough, troubled waters of suffering. Though in opposition to all we perceive about love, it is in the trenches of trials and adversity where God’s love for us is best grasped and understood.
I remember exactly when my belief in His love began to unravel.

I was sitting in a doctor’s exam room, all the blood draining out of my face when the lady in the white coat said, “Probably never.” In a moment, just a fraction of a second, really—everything shifted, and my future seemed to come unhinged. I drove home that day in a blur of soul-crushing tears and disbelief. It was rush hour. I got stuck in traffic, and when I looked around at the people sitting in their cars looking so unbothered,  I wanted to scream at the injustice of having my future tipped over and emptied of its contents while everyone else went about their business with infuriating normalcy. The “probably never” reverberated through the following months and years. We moved to another state and began a new life while I walked around in a fog with a gaping, humiliating wound that had to mean God didn’t love me.

Time marched on, but my wound didn’t heal properly because I didn’t apply anything besides a gauze sloppily constructed of bitterness and grief. The wound scarred over, but was always prone to reopening and infection. It festered when our ministry became the most unhappy and discouraging of broken-down things. It throbbed when illness and chronic pain robbed me of rest for years on end. And it finally became numb when trauma and sorrow took a hammer to my sanity after a long season of waiting.
I knew the Bible well enough to know that my circumstances don’t define God’s character. He does. But it takes faith to believe the truth, and sometimes it takes a while for that faith to overcome the lies that are readily presented for my spiritual consumption.

One morning, I sat on my couch and thumbed through my Bible listlessly. I was so desperate to feel something other than the pain my circumstances produced. I wanted to know that God wasn’t begrudging in His love, needed to believe that His love was stronger than my doubt. I had to be sure that the dysfunctional workings of my body and my heart didn’t detract from His love for me. I needed to be secure in who I was when God looked at me. I needed to know what He saw.

I was reading the book of Isaiah when something uncurled down deep. It was the slow opening of a tightly clenched fist, knuckles bloodless and white, palm littered with the imprint of fingernails.  It didn’t happen overnight, but over long months of perusing and questioning and finally realizing I was doing this all wrong. I kept reading, and it kept happening. After Isaiah, it was a long year in the Psalms. And presently it is John. This pattern, once I recognized it, stood out from every page that I read. How had I missed it?

My Bible wasn’t about me.

Instead of looking for a way to feel loved, I began to trace the character of a sovereign, strong, faithful God all throughout Scripture. It was always about Him. It is always about Him. I didn’t know what to think about my circumstances, but the words of the prophets, the psalmists, and the apostles told me who God was—who He really was. Previously, I’d thought that if He loved me, He wouldn’t allow so much heartache. Why didn’t He miraculously step in and fix things? I believed He could but didn’t want to. Therefore, my logical conclusion was that He must not love me—me specifically—beyond His general declaration of love for what He has made.
But when I read about Him with my feelings on the back burner, I found that He wasn’t what I thought He was. Over and over I saw this phrase used to describe Him and His relationship with His people—faithful love— “chesed” in Hebrew. It’s a covenant love, a steadfast love, a committed love. It reads like a belonging, possessive kind of love. The kind of love I was desperate to know applied to me.

I bought a stack of spiral notebooks, and began to write down every phrase about God and His character that appeared in Scripture. Every morning, I read and wrote, taking a heavy hammer to my flawed and inadequate perception of God. It took some time, but subtly my vision changed. I saw that the Bible I’d read so much during my life as a believer in Christ was a book about God. I could find myself in it, but only after I began to see God rightly in His story. The more I wrote down in my notebook (God is sovereign, He is wise, He is compassionate, He is faithful when His people are not, He is present, He is just), the more plainly I could see my faulty approach to understanding God’s love for me.
His love isn’t based on merit, and sometimes He doesn’t express His love in the ways that feel like affection to us. Sometimes He puts us in the valley of brokenness so that we understand His faithful love is the only reliable source of sustenance. Sometimes He lets us endure hard things so that we understand that His promise to us wasn’t an absence of trouble but rather a covenant that He would always be with us. We can’t really know it in the green pastures of tranquility until we can learn it in the rough, troubled waters of suffering. Though in opposition to all we perceive about love, it is in the trenches of trials and adversity where God’s love for us is best grasped and understood.

What I needed, I found in the Word.
I saw that God is more than my perceptions ever allowed. His character is layered with faithfulness, and His love is sure. When He looks at me, He sees the beautiful covering of Jesus, and it is enough.  When He captured my heart so many years ago, He promised to never let go of it. Because of His faithfulness and steadfast love, I am safe and secure in the palm of His hand. And no lie about His goodness is so strong as to pull me from the grip of my Father who is always faithful and always good.

Lord, let us rest securely in Your love:
Psalm 107
John 10:27-30
John 16:33
Psalm 119:71
Psalm 130
Isaiah 46
Isaiah 52-53
1 John 4:7-21

Let January be a catalyst for Bible study.

January 1st dawns cold and bright, heavy with the weight of restriction for many of us. We use the birth of a new year as an opportunity to scale back our indulgences, tighten up our budgets, and pledge our allegiance to structure and discipline after a season of feasting and unrestrained consumerism.
Many Christians will assure themselves that THIS is the year they’ll finally commit to reading the Bible regularly. They’ll start in Genesis, but by the beginning of March find themselves confused by Leviticus and uninspired by all the lists in Numbers. By April, all pretense of Bible reading has been abandoned along with the tiresome march of salads and steamed vegetables, and replaced with an odd mixture of relief and guilt and cheese fries.
Not that I’m writing from experience or anything…. (sigh)

take January 1st as an opportunity to let a Bible reading plan be the catalyst to get to your deeper desire to know the Lord better and to draw near to Him. It’s impossible to know God without reading the Word. He gave us all we need to know in His Word and through the person of Christ. How can we love what we do not know? We can’t.

In years past I’ve viewed my annual January commitment to read the Bible with gritted teeth and what turned out to be the same short term resolve that I took to dieting or exercising.

But then one year I successfully stuck to a diet plan and lost forty pounds, which proved to me that I could actually be disciplined, contrary to popular belief. A horrifying number on the scale and the winded feeling in my chest after climbing one flight of stairs revealed my need for new habits. The pressing need was the catalyst for establishing the much-needed habit changes.

That same year I went through some difficulties that sent me to the Word out of sheer desperation and I realized how much I needed the daily ritual of being in the Word with the Lord, and it had nothing to do with checking off a little box each day so I could feel good about myself. But you know what helped me go to the Word with regularity? Going to the Word with regularity. I don’t know why I was surprised, but the act of setting up the habit of reading the Word served me for times of adversity when I absolutely had nowhere else to go. My default go-to-the-Scriptures response to suffering came from ingraining in myself the morning ritual of opening the Scriptures. Daily patterns prepared me for suffering because it trained me to know where to go for help.

Checking off a list had nothing to do with it. As a follower of Jesus, my heart longed to know Him better.  Allowing the daily reading requirement to be a servant to my desire to be in the Word regularly was everything. So, rather than viewing a plan to read the Bible in 2017 as a necessary-but somewhat bothersome-habit, take January 1st as an opportunity to let a Bible reading plan be the catalyst to get to your deeper desire to know the Lord better and to draw near to Him. It’s impossible to know God without reading the Word. He gave us all we need to know in His Word and through the person of Christ. How can we love what we do not know? We can’t.

I don’t know if you’re committing to a healthier year physically (I am really going to miss potatoes), but I hope that above all you’re committing to know Christ better. If that’s the case, I’ve got some resources to help you in your resolution to read your Bible with some regularity. I promise, no time in the Word is wasted. Even if it feels dry and dull on some days, the Spirit is still doing His work and imprinting the Word on your heart.

 

Resources: Bible Reading Plans

If you’re new to daily Bible-reading (or if you always find yourself struggling to make a plan), here are some resources that may help you get started. I recommend a Bible-in-a-year plan if you’re not in the habit of reading the Bible regularly as the daily requirements will help you establish the habit (which will serve you in the future).

My husband is a big fan of the 5 day reading plan. You can find a print out, app version, and even a Spanish version. With this plan, you can skip a few days without getting too far behind. If you feel that reading the Bible in a year is a lofty goal or that you’re setting yourself up for failure, this plan may be exactly what you need.

Tim Challies has a good list of resources including Ligonier’s plans, a plan to read through just the four gospels, and others. This ESV resource has several reading plans, including a chronological one.

Most study Bibles have a 1 or 3 year reading plan in the back, so flip your own Bible open to see if there’s a reading plan included. No downloads or apps required!

If you would rather do an in-depth book study, check out my post on what I call “One Book Study.” There’s even a VLOG demonstration. This post was part of a series I wrote over the summer of 2016 on knowing God through His Word. You can find all the posts here. This is my current approach as I’m camping out in the gospel of John for the next few months.

 

No Excuses.

There are so many good resources available for getting into a pattern of studying the Word. With technology, we have the Bible at our fingertips at all times. We really have no excuse. God has given freely of Himself to us. Let’s dive deep into His Word and know Him better this year!  Desiring God Ministries gives some wise advice for guarding our time with the Lord in 2017. “What might God be pleased to do in us and through us if 2017 was the year of our deepest fellowship with him through the word and prayer? Certainly far more than we can think or imagine today.”

Happy New Year, friends.

Remembering to Long

I find myself full of longing at Christmas, yearning for what I’ve missed and for what comes next. There have been years when I’ve wanted to hold tightly to the last days of December, finding comfort in all the joy that has transpired and filled up our days. And there have been years where I could hardly wait to tear the calendar from the wall and empty my mouth of the bad taste of a year of crushed hopes. Either way, I wake up on Christmas morning remembering. I’m remembering the things I can recall with the fragrance of a cup of apple cider, the things that hover at the barest edge of my memory, and the things written down deep on my heart that I long to fully know when Jesus comes next time as a warrior instead of a helpless baby.

Read the rest of this post at Crystal Stine’s blog.

the harbor we are longing for

What is it about Jesus that makes you love Him?

Is it what He’s done for you?
Or is it aspects of His character?
Maybe a little bit of both?
When you have felt the most drawn to Him, what was it that pulled you toward Him?

One of the things that’s really drawing me to Him lately is His authority. I think that was one of John’s main objectives in writing his gospel–to show Jesus’ authority as the Son of God.

As I dig into the fourth gospel account on these finally-chilly fall mornings, I’m pulled to Jesus’ purposeful approach to His time on earth. I want to sit across a campfire from Him and laugh about how five loaves and a couple fish could feed so many. I want to sit on a Galilean hillside and listen to Him talk about bread and life and faith in Him and the One who sent Him. Lately, though, I really want to stand on top of a raging sea, salty wind blowing hair in my eyes while I’m locked into His gaze—face to face, knowing He’s the only One holding me up.

According to John, Jesus walked a long way across the sea of Galilee before the disciples saw Him. Did the water still as soon as His sandaled foot touched the surface? Did an unbroken, smooth expanse of sea spread out behind Him? When you line up John’s and Matthew’s tellings, you know the sea was still angry when Jesus got to the boat.

I can picture Him: shoulders forward, purposefully striding across a tossing, tempestuous body of water. Is there any other way for a God-Man to walk across a raucous, salty swell than with determined intent?
I can picture Him: shoulders forward, purposefully striding across a tossing, tempestuous body of water.
Is there any other way for a God-Man to walk across a raucous, salty swell than with determined intent?

When Jesus got to the boat and scared His friends witless, John reports that they finally arrived at the harbor they’d been fruitlessly rowing toward all night.

The study notes in my Bible signal the reader to look back to Psalm 107 as it’s possible John was making an allusion to a portion of this passage. I spent about a week in Psalm 107 in August, so I knew the verses the study notes editors were referencing. Those verses became some of my favorites in all the Bible for the imagery they give:

They went to sea in ships, conducting trade on the vast waters. They saw the LORD’s works, His wonderful works in the deep. He spoke and raised a tempest that stirred up the waves of the sea. Rising up to the sky, sinking down to the depths, their courage melting away in anguish, they reeled and staggered like drunken men, and all their skill was useless. Then they cried out to the LORD in their trouble, and He brought them out of their distress. He stilled the storm to a murmur and the waves of the sea were hushed. They rejoiced when the waves grew quiet. Then He guided them to the harbor they longed for. (Psalm 107: 23-30, emphasis added)

I know Bible study can be arduous at times, but that is beautiful.
It’s most likely that the subjects of this passage are some of the people God had redeemed from exile, probably the Israelites who had returned from Babylon. They saw the wonders of the Lord at sea. He caused the waters to revolt; He stirred up the tempest Himself so that He would have a stage set for the people to see His goodness to them. Sinking in fear, they cried out to God to save them, and He stilled the storm, hushing it down to a murmur. And then He guided them to the harbor they had longed for.

the Man who purposefully walked across the raging sea walked purposefully up a hill and secured our soul-safety forever when His blood poured out and ran down the splintered wood of a crude cross, spreading out to both cover our disbelief and give birth to saving faith.

You’re probably seeing the connections between Psalm 107 and John 6 now, and this is one reason I love to dig into Scripture. It’s seamless. It’s one big story, and while I think the events in Psalm 107 happened to specific people during that time period, I think they were also meant to point us to Jesus. While these exiles were being redeemed, God was sending Jesus, preparing His people then and now for the Savior He was always planning to send. 

As believers who have the whole story about Jesus, we can read passages like Psalm 107 and think of Him walking across the water and guiding the disciples to the shore they longed for. We should see that Jesus held authority over the sea He created. We should also picture Jesus as the safe harbor for our souls, the One we anchor ourselves to for all the hope we could ever need (Hebrews 6:19) in knowing our salvation is sure–because the Man who purposefully walked across the raging sea walked purposefully up a hill and secured our soul-safety forever when His blood poured out and ran down the splintered wood of a crude cross, spreading out to both cover our disbelief and give birth to saving faith. 
If you feel like your faith is weak and that your life circumstances are stamping out any vestige of hope, look at Jesus. Shift your gaze away from your troubles and toward Jesus. Cry out like Peter, “Lord, save me!” Know that ultimately, Jesus is the safe harbor you are longing for. I know He is mine, and without Him holding out hope across a troubled sea I would surely have sunk long ago. Over and over, He reaches out and keeps me from sinking into unbelief, and every day He is propelling me closer to the harbor I long for.

It isn’t just an allegory. Jesus really did walk on water–a sea He created, actually. He didn’t calm the sea until after Peter jumped out of the boat, and when fear displaced Peter’s faith, Jesus both rebuked and saved him. Only God holds the authority to rightly rebuke and save.

 
I love Jesus for His authority, His ability to march across the unwalkable, to tame the untamable, to heal the unhealable, to love the unlovable, to trade the unthinkable by exchanging places with me and letting me wear His righteousness like a robe that I feel like I stole while He was watching.  But it was a gift, His eyes locked with mine—knowing all the deceitfulness down in me, the hopelessness, my bent to disbelieve Him—and saying anyway, “you are Mine. Get up and sin no more.” And I can because I am His, and because the One who walked on water and quieted the wind and fed the hungry and told broken men to get up is also the One who took out the ugly heart inside me and put in a new one that loves Him.

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The Mountains Cry Out Because I Do Not.

I was on the longest solo road trip of my 35 years. I’d spent roughly seven hours driving when the first glimpse of the Smoky Mountains appeared. I was almost giddy, to be honest. I kept up a running commentary with each sharp curve and steep grade, equally excited to be driving through the mountains and terrified that a big truck was going to push me over the side of a cliff.
It was a beautiful drive, and when I turned around a bend that provided a sweeping view across the expanse of blue, hazy mountains, I felt tears well up in my eyes.

Yes, I actually cried.

You have to understand. Though I grew up in Tennessee, I now live in some of the flattest terrain I’ve ever seen. Miles and miles of flat, uninterrupted farm land surround the town where I live in Missouri. While I’ve grown to appreciate the fact that you can see the sunset from pretty much anywhere, it isn’t lost on me that my kids don’t know what hills are.

The mountains were at their autumn peak, bursting with orange and yellow, red and green, and crying out with a misty, blue covering. What also welled up in me (in addition to those surprising tears) was praise. Not for the mountains themselves, but for the hands that made them, the voice that spoke them into being, the One who thought them up in the first place. The expanse of mountains are His footstool, and they drew me to worship the King whose feet rest upon them. They were fulfilling their purpose.


The mountains were at their autumn peak, bursting with orange and yellow, red and green, and boldly pushing through their misty, blue covering. What also welled up in me (in addition to those surprising tears) was praise. Not for the mountains themselves, but for the hands that made them, the voice that spoke them into being, the One who thought them up in the first place. The expanse of mountains are His footstool, and they drew me to worship the King whose feet rest upon them. They were fulfilling their purpose.

:::

I was traveling to North Carolina for a writing workshop. It was my first big commitment to bettering my craft and honing my message as a writer, and even though I’ve now been home for a couple of days, I still find myself wondering if my gifts are really that necessary.

You know what I mean, right?

Your friends have remarked that you’re so gifted in serving, or teaching, or helping. Your family sees that you have the gift of encouragement, or discernment, or wisdom. Your pastor or mentor from church has pointed out the areas where God has clearly equipped you to serve. They’ve tried to give you a gentle push to use those gifts.

But.

In your head is a voice that wants to be louder than the rest of them. “Too risky,” it says. “You’ll be opening yourself up to criticism. Nobody needs what you have to offer.” If you listen, it requires less of you. “It’s safer to hide.” There’s no risk involved if you squelch down the desire to do what you see God has equipped you to do. If you ignore the compelling urge of the Holy Spirit to tell the truth about who God is, then you don’t have to worry about what might happen.

What if I draw attention to myself?
What if people don’t like how I {insert usage of gift}?
What if I fail?

But maybe the bigger question is–what if you don’t obey?

I’ve lived a lot of years pushing down the urges to put pen to paper, fingers to two sets of keys, words to ears. I’ve asked myself those questions so much that they’ve become the mantra that helps me hide. But the people in my life who know me well have urged and encouraged toward my doing, pushed and remonstrated against my hiding.

I’ve lived a lot of years pushing down the urges to put pen to paper, fingers to two sets of keys, words to ears. I’ve asked myself those questions so much that they’ve become the mantra that helps me hide. But the people in my life who know me well have urged and encouraged toward my doing, pushed and remonstrated against my hiding.

As a Christ-follower, my purpose is to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ to any and all who might listen. And if you’re a Jesus-follower, then your purpose is exactly the same as mine.

What’s different, though, is how we carry out our one calling. God has uniquely gifted His children with different talents and tendencies. Some gifts are public, others are more behind-the-scenes. But all are valuable and necessary for the Church to function as the Body of Christ. Some gifts are easy to locate in singers or speakers or writers. Just as important are the administrators and caretakers, organizers and pray-ers. Each one is needed.

But when one of us starts to stuff down his or her gifts because they may not utilize them perfectly or they may feel funny stepping forward to serve, then the whole Body loses out on what God gave that believer to encourage and exhort the rest of the Church. We all need one another to walk fully in freedom when it comes to our gifts.

The thing is, though—we don’t. We hide. We argue that we’re not that good at XYZ, we don’t have enough time, passion, or energy. We don’t want to risk doing something poorly, so we don’t do it at all. We think it’s humility, but it’s selfishness. We confuse the two and miss the mark of pointing people to Christ in the way that He has equipped us to do so. It’s not humble to swallow the gift God has given you and keep it to yourself. It’s selfish. Humility doesn’t mean hiding. Humility means acknowledging that everything you have is from God. Why would you want to hide what He’s given you?

Christians, our purpose is to serve as a giant arrow pointing to Jesus so others will know Him and believe. But when we fool ourselves into thinking our job in the Kingdom isn’t all that much and doesn’t really matter, we’re robbing Jesus of glory and ourselves of the joy found in making Him known. Who are we to decide what is or isn’t that much? We didn’t make the mountains or appoint gifts to each believer. It’s not ours to decide what gifts are worth exercising.

In our wake is a vast expanse of mountains crying out for the world to know its Creator, to see the purpose in His creation, to know that there is more and it’s found in Jesus. The mountains do it because we aren’t doing it.

:::

On my way home from my writing workshop, I was already feeling tempted to back down from the plans I’d made to further my message through writing. “Can I really do this?” I asked myself while driving down I-26. “Does it really matter so much whether I finish what I started? Do I really have anything to say about Jesus that a thousand others haven’t already said a million times better?”

While the questions tangled themselves up in my head, I saw a haze of blue in the distance. In one moment, all my doubts fled while I again beheld the beauty and majesty of these up-croppings of rock and trees.

My gifts can’t hold a candle to the awe that surrounds God’s handiwork in nature. But the message He has entrusted to me—and you, Christian—is even more important. Creation can tell half the story, but we hold the rest of it. His name is Jesus, and I’m urging you right now to feel safe in flinging off your doubts, fear of failure, and uncertainties when it comes to proclaiming the name of Christ in the way God created you to do it.

It’s just stone and earth, just trees and grass, but I couldn’t help but see the hands that formed it. Tears streamed down my cheeks while I made each harrowing turn. The wonder misting the valleys and peaks filled me up with feelings of adoration for my Savior. I can’t explain it other than that the mountains were crying out the glory of God because that is what they were created to do.

They have to, they have to—because I am too afraid to.

My gifts can’t hold a candle to the awe that surrounds God’s handiwork in nature. But the message He has entrusted to me—and you, Christian—is even more important than the highest, most glorious mountain peak. Creation can tell half the story, but we hold the rest of it. His name is Jesus, and I’m urging you right now to feel safe in flinging off your doubts, fear of failure, and uncertainties when it comes to proclaiming the name of Christ in the way God created you to do it.

I need you to use your gifts, and you need me to use mine.

Let’s not let the mountains steal the show with their half-story.

We have the whole gospel. Let’s fill ourselves up with it and pour it out lavishly. There’s soul-safety in obedience, and there’s joy in making known the One who loved us and gave Himself for us.

It’s why we’re here.

:::

The heavens declare the glory of God,and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. (Psalm 19:1)

Thus says the Lord: “Heaven is my throne,and the earth is my footstool; what is the house that you would build for me,and what is the place of my rest? All these things My hand has made,and so all these things came to be, declares the Lord. But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.” (Isaiah 66:1-2)

As [Jesus] was drawing near—already on the way down the Mount of Olives—the whole multitude of His disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen, saying, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” And some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Him, “Teacher, rebuke Your disciples.” He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.” (Luke 19:37-40)

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I Don’t Promise My Kids That God Will Keep Them Safe.

I was five years old and tucked into a bed that was pushed up next to a quaking window. Outside, tree branches bent and swayed beneath slashing sheets of rain and house-shuddering winds. Tornado sirens were blaring while lightning lit up the sky every few seconds. I remember curling up into as small a figure as I could in hopes that I would be safe. If I stay small, maybe it will miss me. My grandmother was in the living room watching the news, no doubt, but I was afraid. Of course she knew what was happening outside. I know now that she would have pulled me into the bathtub and covered us up with pillows and blankets if the storm had really been pressing down on us like I thought it was.

Soul security that is anchored in Christ is the best thing I can offer, and it is the thing our fearful hearts need the most.

I’ve mentioned anger being rooted in fear, and we all know that anxiety is rooted in fear…and sometimes I think everything I struggle with has something to do with the fact that fear is my heart’s default. It’s my pre-redeemed factory setting. I’m pretty sure I came out of the womb this way.

Illness. Loneliness. Lack of provision. Rejection. Natural disasters. Death of a loved one. (Death in general.) Loss. Broken relationships. Crushed hopes. Accidents.

Some things I’ve experienced, and some are the worst nightmares that I’m sure are waiting around the corner of my next uncertainty. Being prone to toe the line between what seems like normal fear and the need to hyperventilate into a paper bag, I have had to learn to combat my fears with truth. Some of the things that petrified me as a child have little effect now. Storms today don’t scare me like the ones of my childhood. My grownup fears are more complicated and more deeply rooted, and they don’t pass as quickly as a rumbling mass of clouds.

Fear can twist my stomach into a knot so fast that I know I won’t eat for a long while. It can jerk me awake in the dark when I’ve finally felt safe enough to doze off. Sometimes it’s my overactive imagination and a result of too much what-iffing. Sometimes it’s a lack of trust in God’s sovereignty over my life. Sometimes it’s the whisper of the enemy, spoken in my ear at just the right moment because he knows how given I am to unraveling.

I’ve been fighting fear for as long as I can remember.

So, it’s no wonder that I’ve had a fearful child under my roof.

I often wondered if his childish fears are somehow a reflection of what he sees in me. Did I show him how to be afraid during that spring when he was two and severe storms seemed to roll in every other night? Did he internalize my frequent fretting over our tight budget? Does he pick up on my anxiety and take it as his own?

I’m learning not to dwell on all the ways I have probably failed–am failing–my children.  Nothing good comes from guilt. Maybe my son did borrow some fear from me.  Or maybe it’s wired into his DNA to be fearful like it seems to be in mine.  The “why” may not always be important when it comes to raising a fearful child (and honestly, I can’t think of a child who hasn’t struggled with fear at some point). What IS important is teaching him how to confront whatever he’s afraid of. As I seek to put fear to death in my own life, I’ve pared down my responses to my son’s fears to one thing I can’t promise and one thing I can.  In the middle of the night or at the end of a broken confession, there’s not really mental space for much else.

Here’s what I can’t promise:

I can’t promise his physical safety.

Let’s be honest, moms.  We want to tell our kids that they’ll always be safe, and that God will always keep them safe. We think we’re making much of God when we say this, but we can’t promise those things in good faith. We could have a car accident that results in very unsafe bodily harm.  Either of my sons could develop a terminal disease. War could come to our shores, or natural disasters.  I cannot promise my kids they will always be physically safe, and so I never do. God doesn’t always spare us from physical suffering. It might make my son feel better in the moment if I tell him he’ll always be safe, but that’s a promise I’m unable to make or keep. I’m not going to set up for him a faulty view of God based upon something that isn’t actually promised in Scripture and can fracture with the first painful thing he encounters on this broken planet.

Here’s what I can promise:

I can promise that his heart will be safe.

When it’s the middle of the night and lightning brightens the dark sky while the windows rattle with thunder and high winds, I lie in bed with my son and assure him that God is with us and that He controls the storm. I talk about Jesus standing up in the boat and yelling at the raging sky and sea. It’s one of my favorite things about Jesus—His authority. But storm aside, this is when I promise my son that God keeps safe the ones who follow Him. No one and no disaster can steal us out of His hands because His authority extends beyond the physical to our hearts. “When your heart belongs to Jesus, your heart is always safe,” I tell my son. He wants to know if he is safe, and I assure him that ultimately, in Christ, he is. “When you belong to Jesus, He keeps your heart safe,” I tell him.

Maybe you want to know if it helps.

It does.

I watch fear lose its power when the realization comes that God is in charge.  Darkness flees in the wake of God’s strong arm. Fear is shattered when the promise of God’s presence sinks down deep.

Soul security that is anchored in Christ is the best thing I can offer, and it is the thing our fearful hearts need the most.

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.  I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.  I and the Father are one.

John 10:27-30

I’ve failed many times to encourage my son to confront fear rightly; some days my own poor wrestling with anxiety speaks louder than my midnight promises. But I take what I can and cannot promise and confront my own worries about the future as I mother my kids. I cannot promise myself that they will always be safe, wise, or good.  But I can promise myself that if they follow Christ, then their hearts are forever safe in Him. When I take apart my fears and sift through what’s at the center, knowing that their hearts are safe cures my fear. And then my panicked pleas are shaped into prayers for them to follow Jesus with their whole hearts.

In Him is the only safety I can promise.

The Lord is my light and my salvation—
whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the stronghold of my life—
of whom shall I be afraid?

Psalm 27:1

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Ordinary Grace

Concern sat in the passenger seat next to me on Tuesday, kept me company while the miles spun out in front of us with the familiarity that comes on a road well traveled. I’ve made this round trip three times in the past month. Concern is always a willing traveling companion.

The last several weeks have mostly consisted of driving back and forth across state lines to be with my mother. From the moment the phone rang in September until the moment I left just three days ago, it’s been a series of realizations proving how much her existence is woven into mine. Living a state away while she’s recuperating from such a serious operation hasn’t been easy. I feel the pulling conflict of needing to be with my kids while also needing to be with my mother.

What you’re doing is understanding that God is gracious in the midst of trouble, and that the gifts He gives encourage you to trust Him with all that’s difficult and discouraging.

Shifting from the quiet presence of company and a bit of care-taking to the reentry of being Mom full-time has been a strange, unsettling rearrangement. And while the pull to be in two places at once feels strong—I would worry about either place on both ends—I can’t let the opportunity pass to soak in the moments of ordinary grace that I might have otherwise missed.

It’s reckless to focus only on what’s hard. To ignore the new memories that are presently unfolding, however strangely they fit, is to argue that I would have done things differently than God. After the last month, I’m so glad He’s in charge. I would have screwed up my corner of the universe in one keystroke, in one panicked conversation, in one troubled glance.

This week I’ve been meditating on John 3, and what is so mind-bogglingly calming is the assertiveness of Jesus’ authority. Direct in conversation and backed up by the always-knows-his-place John the Baptist, Jesus is so clear about being from God. When John tells his friends, “A man can receive nothing unless it has been given him from heaven,” I’m struck by the authority given by God to Jesus. “It’s Jesus who’s God, can’t you see?” John seems to be saying. The manifestation of God Himself is Jesus Christ, and He has the same authority as the Father.
That’s deeply comforting to me. Not because I have trouble holding on to Jesus’ divinity, but because I need to remember His authority extends to all of creation, big and small.

Direct in conversation and backed up by the always-knows-his-place John the Baptist, Jesus is so clear about being from God. When John tells his friends, “A man can receive nothing unless it has been given him from heaven,” I’m struck by the authority given by God to Jesus. “It’s Jesus who’s God, can’t you see?” John seems to be saying. The manifestation of God Himself is Jesus Christ, and He has the same authority as the Father.

Last night was one of those nights that I live for and draw from later when I’m scrambling in frenetic activity. An empty blank on the calendar, quiet phones, and an opportunity to just be without expectation or care. I stood in my kitchen, stirring a fragrant sauce while my family huddled together on the couch in the living room doing whatever it is that boys do—sports stuff, I think. Music poured through the house while I simmered and roasted, stirred and served. The children had ravenous appetites that resulted in clean plates, and as usual we laughed our way through our loose translation of family devotions. The eight year old reads the cluster of verses, stumbling hilariously over the pronunciation of “Melchizadek,” and the baby squeals appropriately during the prayer. We leave the table full and happy. There’s football in the living room while I wipe down the table, scrub pots and pans, and when it’s all over I’m just a girl standing alone in a dark kitchen while a song about Jesus streams through speakers and carrying such a deep awareness of His nearness that the tears on my face are a surprise. In the middle of these challenging worrying weeks, there have been moments of ordinary grace that I might have missed if not for the gritty, fearsome days.

Maybe you know what I’m talking about. The niggling fear that keeps you up at night, the concern for the one you love, the piles of bills you can’t bring yourself to open—sometimes it feels like too much. But then you stand outside on a finally-autumn day, and you give yourself to the coolness of a breeze that caresses your face, washing the worry away for just a moment. You remember the story about Jesus speaking to the wind, and you know that even this breeze obeys Him. It’s okay to stand still for a minute and give yourself to the goodness you could never earn, to crawl under it like the consoling heaviness of January’s down comforter. You’re not denying the current circumstances or pretending they don’t exist. What you’re doing is understanding that God is gracious in the midst of trouble, and that the gifts He gives encourage you to trust Him with all that’s difficult and discouraging.

It’s a neighborhood walk at dusk, it’s the baby working hard at climbing up the stairs on his own, it’s the arms that encircle you while you stand at the sink elbow deep in suds. It’s the verses about Jesus’ strength that you didn’t realize you memorized, coming to light and settling around you like a well-loved blanket. It’s the steady cadence of laughter and conversation around a wobbly, third-generation table. It’s standing in the kitchen, just you and the Lord and a tear streaked face. It’s the gift of praying until sleep finally pulls you under for the night.

Let the small moments of ordinary grace propel you to trust in the good, sovereign purposes of God.

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