Grace Abounds.

The question churned in me for days. For an entire season in fact. I gazed around my church, watching them raise their hands high, singing and claiming those lyrics, "Oh how He loves us." And I couldn't myself sing. Because I doubted those lyrics. How can God look at me - He who sees ALL that's inside of me that I can hide from others, and He who sees EVERYthing that I have ever done - and yet, still love me? Yes I'll loudly claim the popular, the cool sins. The drunkenness and the rebelliousness of the past. But what about the vicious, the hidden, the shocking sins of now? The anger which births rage held secret. The murderous attitudes of the heart. Is there still grace for the already Christian? And He whispers what King David discovered. King David, the already Christian, found knee deep in adultery, murder and tangling of lies kept secret. His whisper comes and I am freed. "My grace knows no boundaries." So THIS. Could THIS be how King David earned the most glorious of titles 'a man after God's own heart'? Because there, in the horror of his sin, he saw how far God's heart reached. And so I have found...you don't really understand grace, you can't really sing confidently of God's love, until you realize just how much you need it.

My Battle with Anger and Rage

I thought parenting was going to portray my strengths, never realizing that God had ordained it to reveal my weaknesses. ~ Dave Harvey

God has been writing this post in my heart for about the last 6 months (just take a glimpse at how long it is and you won't doubt that for a minute!). A recent sermon at my church on ‘using anger wisely’ really sparked me to know it’s time! It’s time to share about how the Lord has been disciplining me in this area, and how He has helped me to ‘get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger…’(Ephesians 4:31).

I was relieved to learn the truth in that recent sermon that anger in itself is not sin. God created us in His image. God gets angry. Jesus got angry (Mark 3:5; John 2:13-17). God can use anger for good and for His Kingdom purposes. Anger can spur us to rebuke evil and sin, call out lies, stand up against injustices, and boldly proclaim the truth, all of which bring honor and glory to His name. And as I believe the prophet Jeremiah revealed, anger in the form of zeal can be the fuel that allows us to prophesy with passionate conviction, in full confidence of the Lord’s messages that He would speak through us….

I am ridiculed all day long; everyone mocks me. Whenever I speak, I cry out proclaiming violence and destruction. So the word of the Lord has brought me insult and reproach all day long. But if I say, ‘I will not mention Him or speak any more in His name,’ His word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot (Jeremiah 20:7-9).

There is such a thing as righteous anger.

But we humans can take anything that God ordained to be used to glorify Him and His Kingdom purposes and instead turn it into something evil that becomes sin.

Anger in itself is not sin. It’s what comes after our anger, how we manage it (or don’t manage it) that can entangle us and give the devil a foothold in our lives (Ephesians 4:26-27)….and worse, destroy those who are in our line of ammunition. And for us moms, many times, that becomes our children.

It is my own children’s sin that provokes my anger. When I observe their self-centeredness...thinking/acting like the world revolves around them, direct disobedience to authority and disrespect of authority, self-seeking attitudes…it’s those kinds of situations (and many more) in which my anger starts knocking down the door. I’ve heard the ‘advice’ before to not get offended by your kids’ sin. For myself I consider that hogwash. Of course I am going to be offended when they sin! I am their mother. A wise son brings joy to his father, but a foolish son grief to his mother (Proverbs 10:1). I have a responsibility to train and instruct them in the way they should go. It is repulsive, offensive, and grieving to me when they depart from the way of life. I was SO thankful that in his sermon our pastor pointed out that our children’s sin should make us angry. He noted that the opposite of anger is apathy….the man who is angered by nothing cares about nothing.

But, all that said, herein is where my problem lies: my anger triggers a physical reaction inside of me. I can literally feel a rush of adrenaline begin to rise up in my chest ready to explode. It’s like a power surge. If you plugged me in at that moment I could give electricity to the entire town. You can imagine what this gives way to when in those moments I am supposed to discipline and shepherd my children in love. What instead often comes out of me has been something so ugly, so dark, so sinful, so shocking, that it absolutely repulses me. RAGE. Impulsive actions. Venting my anger. Allowing words that destroy, cut down, and dishearten to come carelessly flying out of my mouth - instead of words that shepherd, encourage, and lift up. And all of that, stemming from anger. In me, anger turns into rage.

You didn’t know I had it in me did you? Yeah, me either. The fullness of this wasn’t revealed until I became a parent….and the full fullness wasn’t revealed until the past 6 months when I became a full-on mother of 5. But the other thing is that this sin is so easy to hide. Moms can hide it at play dates or on the playground or at family gatherings. But get us home alone with our kids and you’d see it all in full view. I know the devil would have me to believe that I am the only mom who struggles with this. But in my current bible study group, as I’ve become transparent about warring against this sin of rage, instead of being met with dead silence and crickets chirping or seeing judgmental looks of condemnation, I’m hearing “hallelujahs” and “amens” and seeing heads nodding yes. So, I’ve come to realize that it’s not that I’m the only one struggling with this. It’s that this is a widely un-talked about topic within the church….especially among women. It feels shameful and awful to share these things as a mom….especially to other moms. For one, our worldly culture so desperately tries to invite us to compete with each other and compare to one another. To put on the ‘I’m a good mommy mask’, keep our failures to ourselves, lest we show that we don’t measure up. It’s safer to keep these ugly things hidden and to instead share recipes and talk about potty training strategies. Second, isn’t the word ‘rage’ a long ways off from defining the essence of Mommy? I am supposed to be the warm, cuddly, gentle, sweet, patient, maternal one, aren’t I? Aren’t those the traits that are supposed to come naturally to moms everywhere?  Yes I felt those things when my children were infants.  But slam with me an 11 year old, 7 year old, 6 year old, 5 year old, and 2 year old and oh, how my inner nature begs to differ. Now I see what other natural traits are in me, and it ain't pretty. Yet, as a Christ-follower, I know the King I follow. He opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. God would rather have me bow down low in my failures, humble myself and confess that I need Him, and use my transparency to encourage and help others going through something similar. I hope this post can be that for someone.

So on with my personal struggle. I got to a point this summer where I was so sickened over this sin of rage in my mommyhood that I wound up in the closet (the only place in the house I can lock the door and receive peace and quiet) crying out to God that I was so weary of wrestling with this.  I told God I couldn’t do it anymore, and that it was like I had no power to stop myself. In their misbehaving times it was such a huge release to vent at my kids and respond on impulse, yet moments later I would feel awful condemnation and guilt over what I had just done, needing to apologize and ask for their forgiveness - only to know and expect that an hour or so later it would be happening all again. How can I lead and instruct my children out of their sin, when all they see in those moments is mine? The end goal of self-control wasn’t even on the radar. It was like I was stuck in this cycle of living in defeat. The devil had created a dominion of rule in this area over my life. I would wake up in the morning and say to myself “Ok. Today I am not going to lose it. I am not going to blow up on my kids. I am going to stay self-controlled and take deep breaths. I will not allow my anger to become rage.” But I’d fail by 10am, and the devil would be right there, snickering in my ear, confirming my deepest fear – that I was an incompetent, unfit mommy. “What kind of mom does that.” “Your kids don’t even want to be around you.” “They’re going to grow up to hate you.” “Your child doesn’t feel loved because you’re a terrible parent.” “They think you’re mean.” They’d go over to the neighbor’s house to play and the devil would whisper of my neighbor, “They wish she was their mom.” I had all of that and more rolling through my head as I talked with God there in the closet, trying to understand if I was going to be plagued with this the rest of my life. I told God that this sin repulsed me and I hated it. It was shocking to me that this vicious thing was living inside of me. I was becoming so grieved over it. I didn’t want it anymore. I even asked Him why I had to struggle with this sin. Why couldn’t it be some other sin that wasn’t as ‘horrible’? In my calculations it seemed that it would be a better idea if He just took me on up to heaven right then. I could not continue battling on in defeat….I was losing heart. I asked Him to rescue me from this body of death. I was ready to shed this earthly dwelling full of sin and yuck and get on with heaven. My plea was so honest and urgent that I fully expected that He may just shoot me right through the roof on up to glory in that moment. Didn’t happen. So I asked Him for a word of encouragement that would enable me to go on fighting this battle. I closed my Bible, and left the closet.

Later that day, in order to complete my ‘homework’ for a bible study I am in I was walking through verses in Hebrews chapter 11. As I often do, I started skimming around the surrounding chapters to catch more of the context. As I did, my eyes zoned in on Hebrews 12 and once I started reading I couldn’t stop. This is what I read:

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before Him He endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider Him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And have you completely forgotten this word of encouragement that addresses you as a father addresses his son? It says,

“My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline,    
and do not lose heart when He rebukes you,
because the Lord disciplines the one He loves,    
and He chastens everyone He accepts as his son.”

Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? If you are not disciplined—and everyone undergoes discipline—then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all. Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of spirits and live! They disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in His holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it (Hebrews 12:1-11).

Oh. Well that put things into perspective. I have not struggled against this sin to the point of shedding my blood as Jesus did…I’ve only shed a few tears. I can struggle and war against this more. And who else but God could lead me to a passage of scripture that spoke the exact words I had cried out to Him about…Lord, I’m weary, I’m losing heart, please give me a word of encouragement to help me press on. Those exact words were in that particular scripture. Only my King can do that….speak to my soul in such a personal way….and right on time. And God reminded me of something that I had been hoping to walk around and avoid instead of go through….His discipline is painful. He and I have places we need to go, promised lands to claim and enter, and this sin cannot go with us…..it was time for Him to expose this sin, rebuke me, and start the sifting process. In the end, being trained by His discipline would grant me the rescue and peace my heart was longing for, but for now I was still in His training grounds….ugly as it felt at the time.

In that set of scripture I had definitely received the word of encouragement I had asked for. But I still had one lingering question in my mind:

What am I supposed to do, practically, in those moments when that anger rises up in my chest as if it is a rush of adrenaline, an electric power surge, ready to explode?

Am I supposed to suppress that feeling? If so, then how do I suppress it? What practical steps am I supposed to take in order to deal with that anger that boils up,up,up, just waiting to make its appearance as rage? We hear verses like in your anger do not sin (Ephesians 4:26), and be self-controlled (1 Peter 5:8), and be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry (James 1:19-20)…..well, ok…..but how practically do you accomplish that when the physical uprisal inside of you is screaming to do the opposite? With many other sins the answer is to avoid the temptation in the first place….to actually flee from it and run the other direction. But my trigger is my kids. I can’t just flee from them every time they misbehave. :) So what do I do practically in those moments?

God would give me the practical answer that week in my bible study.

The study I am doing is called ‘Believing God’ by Beth Moore. On this particular week I was working through page 25 in the workbook which had nothing to do with anger, self-control, or the like, but actually was a message about faith being a quality of the fruit of the Spirit. However, in the author’s commentary, two sentences stood out to me like a sore thumb and spoke directly to my condition:

When we are yielded to the Holy Spirit’s authority, His personality fills us and eclipses our own. When we’re not yielded, we grieve the Holy Spirit and operate from our carnal (sinful) nature.

God spoke to me so clearly through those two tiny sentences. I have been governed by my feelings rather than the Spirit. When I allow my flesh to choose the reaction, I am smothering the Holy Spirit’s personality that wants to work through me, and I am instead choosing to operate from my own sinful nature. The practical answer in those heated moments is to YIELD/PAUSE right in the middle of the moment and submit and wait for the Holy Spirit’s response to invade me. I began to get a vivid picture of my afternoon drives to Ankeny which happen daily. One of the first parts of my route is merging onto the interstate. Many times lately I have been so lost in thought that I am literally gunning the gas pedal along the on-ramp while completely tuning out the yield sign to merge onto the interstate. More than once I have almost been knocked over by semis flying by that don’t have enough warning time to switch lanes before they see my car right there and merging….because I haven’t been observing the yield sign. I’ve just been gunning it right onto the interstate without thought. Hmmmmm. This is the exact thing happening with my anger. I’ve just been gunning it….and letting it go wherever it would take me. Not even giving thought to yield, submit, and merge with the Holy Spirit, allowing Him to take me onward instead. That same week, a magazine that we receive from our adoptions called ‘Thriving Family’ actually had an article entitled ‘Women and Anger’ included in it. Of course it caught my eye because I’ve never heard anyone address the topic before! And in the article, God confirmed this idea of yielding/pausing to the Spirit. The author of the article said:

When I yell, I communicate to my family that they have the power to make me act crazy. And I don’t want my kids, my husband, the family dog or anyone else to have that kind of power over me. So, in that split second before I yell, I try to insert a pause. Pausing reminds me that God gave me emotions to experience life – not destroy it. Pausing helps me look for a little perspective. And best of all, pausing allows for the Holy Spirit to intervene in my response. ~Lysa Terkeurst~

Alright. Pause for the Holy Spirit confirmed.

Although I had finally found the practical answer I was looking for, God was going to take me even a step closer to Himself through my weakness.

You see, for weeks I tried this pause method. Some situations I could do it. But many times I would find that I would fail, even though I now knew what I should do….yield. The physical uprisal of anger inside of me was just too strong and overpowering. And coming to that reality, that now I even knew what I was supposed to do, and yet still couldn’t do it, was something that God used to give me a reality check of my own depravity...to show me my desperate need for Him. I started to see something profound: God didn’t want me in a place of self-sufficiency. Because then I don’t need Him. I was going to learn that I could not rid myself of this rage on my own. It was going to take something supernatural….His all-sufficient grace.

About this time that I was beginning to see that even with a practical method to avoid my sin, I couldn’t do it, I was now weeks further along in my bible study. And the author had put forth a challenge….ask God to consecrate our mouths...to give us a desire to stop misusing our mouths. Yet, I knew I didn’t stand a chance at that if the source, my boiling rage, was still stirring around in my chest. My misuse of my mouth 95% of the time comes as a result of giving full vent to that physical surge that rises up. I had that in mind as we walked through the homework for the day. As the backdrop for the challenge we were taken through Isaiah 6:1-8 ~

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of His robe filled the temple. Above Him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another:

“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty;
 the whole earth is full of His glory.”

At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.

“Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.” Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”

As we looked up some of the words of the verses in the original Greek, I started to see something that I never had before. The words ‘taken away’ translated into ‘removed’ and the words ‘atoned for’ translated into ‘purged’. And then it dawned on me. I had never asked God to simply touch me and rid me, purge me, remove from me, the boiling rage that would rise up somewhere in the pit of my sternum. Could I approach Him and ask Him to touch me in the sternum, just as the angel did Isaiah’s lips with the coal, and simply remove it? Let it be gone? Let it not even be part of me anymore? The next verse we were led to gave me my answer:

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are – yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need (Hebrews 4:15-16).

My faith was being stirred. Over the past 6 months I had so desperately wanted this to go away. It felt like I had tried everything, and yet through it, my insufficiencies were only highlighted all the more. I, in and of my own power, could not rid myself of this. And yet, that’s it, isn’t it? That’s the whole point of the gospel. That’s why Jesus came for us. We must learn that only God can take away our sin and heal us….we are insufficient to do that on our own. I started to get a visual in my mind. Of another who had faith to believe that if she could just touch Him, touch His cloak, she would be healed….

A large crowd followed and pressed around Him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind Him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering…..He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering (Mark 5:24-29,34).”

Her need was physical. A healing from the suffering of sickness. My need also felt physical….that yuck there in the pit of my sternum. Yet also a need for healing from the destroying work of sin…as was Isaiah’s need.

This was all it took. I went back to my closet and confidently approached His throne of grace. I can tell you that in those moments I felt so certain of what I was about to ask of my Savior. I literally, honestly felt like He had already whispered that the healing would be given to me before I even opened my mouth. I went for it. But this time, instead of asking Him to remove me from this body of death, I asked Him to physically remove the body of death from me. Not the anger. Not the zeal.  But the rage. I told Him that I had faith that He could just simply touch me, as He did Isaiah and the woman, and heal me, rid me, remove from me, the filthy, destroying work of rage.

And He did.

I didn’t see angels or a vision or anything with my eyes, or hear anything with my ears. But I can tell you that in those moments I simply felt tremendous peace and stillness. I knew that it had happened. It was a John 14:13-14 moment for me. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it. I truly had not a doubt that God had removed it.

And it didn’t take long to find out for sure. The next day a misbehaving scenario came about that normally would have sent me through the roof. I still felt anger against the sin, but there was absolutely no rush of rage rising in my sternum to fuel me into fury and impulsive actions. It was awesome. I can only describe it as a stillness resonating inside of me that I have never known in situations like that before.

It has been weeks since God removed this from me, and the stillness is still there. It has been so awesome, so relieving, so freeing, so glorifying to God in my life, that I have at times started to fret that the rage is lurking around somewhere, just waiting to crawl back inside of me and chain me up in the pit again. Even in the days it took to write out this post, it felt like the enemy was doing everything possible to squander and discredit what God had done. In my Bible study the author shared with us that if you start to feel threatened once again by a past stronghold that the enemy has gotten a lot of mileage over in your life, you should speak out against it in those threatening moments. Renounce it. Literally with spoken words. She said that for reasons ultimately known to God alone, He has ordained that SPOKEN words carry a power, authority, and effectiveness that exceed words we simply think. When we get in the devil’s face, by speaking scripture out loud – verbally removing all attachment from the sin, we intimidate the devil. Renouncing is our loaded gun against our enemy. Using my authority with the spoken word saying scripture out loud like, “I renounce the secret and shameful way of rage (2 Cor 4:2), I am not characterized by it anymore. God has removed it. As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed my rage from me (Psalm 103:12)” has enabled me to get the devil out of my face and continue to rest in my healing.

I was not sufficient to rid myself of this rage on my own.  Nine years ago I put my faith in Jesus alone to rescue me from the eternal punishment that my sin deserves. And yet, today, I have become increasingly aware of how desperately I still need Him to rescue me from my sin. Apart from Him I am nothing, and can do nothing. Every hour I need Him.

I am able to bring beauty out of the junk of your mistakes. Thinking that you should live an error-free life is symptomatic of pride. Your failures as a mom highlight your dependence on Me. View your insufficiencies as doorways to a deeper reliance on Me. In My kindness, I am stripping you of self-reliance, of confidence in your own strength and abilities. Although the world applauds those things, I see things differently. I may choose to use your weaknesses and failures to glorify my Name. I may choose to give you ‘thorns in your flesh’ to acquaint you with My grace in ways that you have never understood before. Why? For, it is only when you arrive at that dreaded place of weakness that you will discover the place where you learn to depend on My power. (Tailored from Jesus Calling and 2 Corinthians 12:9)

Jayla's Fear: The Hairy Man

Earlier this year Jennifer and Jayla started learning their recital routine for dance class. The studio is set up so that the parents sit outside in a waiting area so as not to distract the dancers or the teachers. [There is, however, a little viewing window that you can watch the dancers through.] One such evening I was sitting in the waiting area during class and playing with Jasara. About half-way through the class the girls came out to get changed from their ballet shoes to their tap shoes. As they flooded out of the studio one of the other little dancers announced, “Jayla is crying!” Sure enough, around the corner came a red, blotchy faced Jayla with tears streaming down her face. She was crying so hard that she wasn’t able to answer my pleas of, “What’s wrong?” Her classmate filled me in, “I think she’s scared of the ‘hairy guy’ that came into our class today.”

“Who is the hairy guy?” I asked.

“The guy with the big beard.”

What on earth was this about? I had never seen this ‘hairy guy’ before, but little did I know I was about to become very familiar with him. I looked at Jayla and asked her if that was why she was crying and she nodded yes. We got her shoes changed, grabbed a sip of water, and I walked her back into class as she reluctantly followed. That’s when I saw him. Nothing out of the ordinary honestly. It was just a young man who had grown a very thick beard for the winter, covering the majority of his face. With our family being surrounded by mostly the basketball crowd, Jayla does not often come into contact with anyone who isn’t clean shaven, or at the least they don’t have more than a little scruff on their face. Seeing this was an all new experience for her. This man literally terrified her as we walked by him and I scooted her back into the studio. As I watched the remainder of her class through the viewing window, I saw that she still hadn’t quite recovered from this encounter with the hairy man, who I found out later is part of their recital routine. He had come that day, and would be coming to their future classes, to practice his part that goes along with theirs in the recital. Well, Jayla could not pull herself back together, and kept looking over her shoulder to see if he was coming back into the studio. I also could literally see these waves of fear come over her as she let her mind go with scary thoughts and she would start crying all over again. Oh boy.

Class ended and since the hairy man was still in the waiting room, I met Jayla at her studio door. By now, it was obvious to everyone, even the hairy man, that Jayla was terrified of him. Talk about awkward. And honestly, I felt quite embarrassed. In all the different cultures and colors and appearances she had been around, how could my child be afraid of a beard?

As we packed up our things to go, I found myself offering Jayla some very worldly advice and counsel in an effort to talk her fear down. “It’s nothing to be afraid of, honey,” I said. “It’s just hair. Daddy has a beard sometimes - it’s just like that.” “That man is not going to hurt you. He’s a dancer. He’s just there to dance.” There’s nothing wrong with trying to bring in a little reality. But nothing of what I said helped her that night. We even tried our best to make light of it all later on once Daddy got home and we filled him in on what had happened. We all joked around about beards, and got Jayla to giggling a little. I figured that after she was exposed to this hairy guy a little more that she would eventually realize it was just hair. Tonight was probably the worst of it I thought. Next time she won’t be so scared.

WRONG-O.

The next week rolled around and the girls were back at dance class and practicing their recital routine. I saw the hairy guy arrive at the studio once their ballet piece started. He waited until his cue and then entered the studio to practice his part, which is rather short-lived. He comes in at the very end of their piece and the girls are supposed to gather around him and jump up and down and chirp as he pretends to feed them birdseed. This time I watched the whole thing unfold from the window. The minute Jayla saw the hairy guy enter into the studio she completely lost it, broke down, and ended up frozen in a corner sitting on the balance beam. They hadn’t even gotten to his part yet. But she was done for at just the sight of him. The class helpers huddled around her, trying to convince her, as I had, that there was nothing to be afraid of. But to no avail. Jayla couldn’t get herself to move off the balance beam until the piece was over and the hairy guy had left the studio room.

This time I was at least aware that it might happen again. And as I had observed the class helpers trying to calm her, it felt like a punctuation mark on that failing strategy. Trying to rationalize with Jayla was not going to work. In fact, my mind floated back to something I had just read in a book a few weeks ago:

You cannot reason with irrational fears. Irrational fears only submit to prayer. (Praying Circles Around Your Children by Mark Batterson).

I waited for Jayla to come out of the studio since class had ended, and she did, still in tears and shaken up. I asked her if she wanted me to pray with her and she nodded yes. We ducked into the changing room and prayed for God’s power to smash this fear.

That night, I turned to one of my favorite books, ‘Power of a Praying Parent’, and re-read the chapter the author had written titled Enjoying Freedom From Fear. I was looking for clarity on how to exactly pray Jayla through this. As I read, a little paragraph stuck out to me:

There are times when fear is more than a passing emotion. It can grip a child’s heart so strongly and so unreasonably that no actions or words can take it away. When that happens, the child is being harassed by a spirit of fear. And the Bible clearly tells us a spirit of fear does not come from God (2 Timothy 1:7). It comes from the enemy of our soul.

We can’t blame everything bad that comes up or happens to us on Satan. But I felt by the Holy Spirit’s discernment that this was an exact description of what was going on. When Jayla was in this state of fear she was frozen. Paralyzed. That’s the work of the enemy. He gets us to stop moving forward.

Once pinpointing that, I became even more confident that the power of Jesus was the only thing that was going to break down this fear. And I knew that we had authority to access this power. Luke 10:19 ~ I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy… But Jayla was not confident in this power yet. Nor had she learned how to access it. And that was my role. I needed to lead her to experience this power over the enemy. I thought back to what Jesus did when He needed to fight Satan off in the desert (Luke 4). For every attack, Jesus fought back with scripture. And we would too.

I looked up verses on fear, and there are a lot! I wound up in Isaiah chapter 41 were there are two really good verses on fear. I ended up picking this one:

Isaiah 41:13 ~ For I am the Lord, your God, who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear; I will help you.

I picked this verse for three reasons. One, I loved the imagery of it. I knew Jayla would be able to visualize God taking hold of her hand to help her. When the scary thoughts started coming in, this would be a good picture to have in her mind. Two, I loved that it used the exact word fear. I know that this hairy man will not be the only fear in Jayla’s life. Looking further down the road, my hope is that whenever the word fear comes up, it will trigger this verse in Jayla’s mind. Three, I loved that this verse teaches God’s character. When you are scared or afraid, God can be trusted. So, it’s not just giving a command to not fear. It’s stating why: Because you can trust in God’s power to help you.

That night I introduced this verse to Jayla and I told her it was going to be ‘her verse’. I said we were going to practice it and pray it and talk about it until we knew it by heart. We walked through the hairy man scenario that would come up again next week at class, and I talked her through the application of the verse - highlighting that she could trust in God’s power to deliver her from this fear.

The night of the next dance class came, and this time I prayed for Jayla right before we left for class. We rehearsed the truths that we had been talking about the past week. We called on the power of Jesus to break down this stronghold. And we blasted Jeremy Camp’s “I Will Trust In You” on the car ride there.

And wouldn’t you know it……..that night the hairy man didn’t come to recital practice! Interesting move by the Lord I thought.

The next week, we went through the same preparation scenario, but I must emphasize that this did not feel like going through the motions. There is POWER when you pray through scripture. There is CONFIDENCE when God’s truths take up residence in your heart. In fact, I felt my whole perspective about this hairy man situation changing. This wasn’t just an annoyance. This wasn’t just another situation as a parent that would leave me feeling caught off guard and flustered. This felt purposeful. Working through this with Jayla (with Jennifer right alongside and also learning these truths for the first time) felt intimate and full of life. I felt a high in getting to lead Jayla to this awesome confidence of being able to trust God in the midst of fear. In fact, one night during that next week I actually found myself thanking God for all this hairy man trouble. Yes, Satan was capitalizing on Jayla’s weakness, and no parent ever likes to encounter that. But I had a revelation on the flip side. My continual prayer as a parent has been that God would help me to guide my children to know Him and to know His word. And here God was giving me the opportunity to do just that - it was just coming in a way that I didn’t expect. It wasn’t packaged up all organized and prepared while we sat sprawled out in the living room for family devotionals – our conventional teaching grounds. It came huddled in the corner of a ballet studio, paralyzed in fear, with a tear-drenched face. Via a beard.

I should mention this: there were at least 10 other class times that we could have signed up for at the dance center in which Jayla would have been part of a different recital piece (none of which included this hairy man). I don’t believe in the fate of coincidences. Therefore, I believe that God is Sovereign and placed Jayla in this exact dance class, on this exact day of the week, at this exact time, so she would get this exact recital part that included this hairy man so that God could teach her about His character. That He can be trusted. And in so doing, He was also answering my prayer and giving me the mommy role of leading my daughter to encounter His truths. God was drawing me closer to my girls, and all of us closer to Him because of it. No matter how this all would end up turning out, that in itself was totally worth it.

The night of the next dance class rolled around, and this time Jayla asked me to pray with her beforehand. I loved that she came to me requesting it.

Once at dance class I watched the girls practice through the window. Jayla kept looking over her shoulder to see if the hairy man had made his appearance yet. And about halfway through, he showed up to practice his part. This time, when he entered the studio Jayla was able to keep going with the routine right up until the very end. That’s the part where all the girls are supposed to gather around the hairy man while he pretends to give them birdseed. About that point the fears made their way in. The tears started and wouldn’t stop. And Jayla once again found herself off in the corner, knees-a-shakin’ until the hairy man’s part was over and class was done.

As Jayla walked out to me in the waiting room, defeated and sniffling through her tears, I felt something different. I wasn’t mad or frustrated with her failure or thinking “well, so much for that scripture stuff! It didn’t work!” Instead I looked at her and felt a tremendous peace. The peace of knowing that we were on the right path. I knew God was going to come through`….in His time, when we had all learned what we needed to.

I steered Jayla into the changing room to talk with her. For the past few weeks I had been reaffirming to her over and over again that she could trust God with this fear. This time, I felt the Holy Spirit spin things differently and it came out something like this: “Jayla, the enemy of your soul does not want you to trust God. He’s against you and he’s against everything that God wants for your life. The devil wants to scare you so much that you can’t do this dance. Because if that happens, and he scares you so much that you can’t do it, then God won’t receive glory in this. And that is what the devil wants. He does not want God to be glorified in your life. But, if you can trust that God is big enough and powerful enough to help you, then other people will be able to see how God worked in your heart. You would get to tell them that you aren’t afraid anymore because you trusted God. And that would bring God glory, and you would be able to punch the devil in the face.”

Sometimes you just need to call it like it is, and the Holy Spirit in me had said Jayla was ready to hear it.

For the next 3 dance classes, the hairy man didn’t show up to practice. Each week we felt ready and prepared as we rehearsed the truths about God that we were learning, memorized her verse, and exposed the deceiving work of the enemy warring against us. Each week Jayla would wonder, “Is the hairy man going to be there tonight?” And each week that he didn’t come I could sense her relief.

Then the next week came. By this point I hadn’t been watching through the window for weeks because each time the girls started practicing their routine the teacher would call the parents into the studio to watch. On this night we got the call to come in and be the audience. We got settled in the studio as the teacher was busy prepping the music and the girls took their places. And then. In walked the hairy man. BUT. Something had changed. HE WAS CLEAN SHAVEN! Let me tell you, I totally did not see this coming! And Jayla didn’t either. She saw him come in and did a double, triple, quadruple take which finally turned into a full out stare down. I could see her mind was in complete shock. The hairy man now just looked like your normal, everyday, clean cut dude. There was barely any time to let it sink in as the music started and their routine began. And Jayla danced FEARLESSLY. At the end she got right up to the now-non-hairy man and chirped away during the birdseed part and finished the routine without a trace of shakiness or tears. Then, they practiced their finale piece which the now-non-hairy man practiced with them on this night. There is a part where they all chassѐ in a big whirlwind of a circle together and Jayla ended up right next to the now-non-hairy man, just inches from him. And she just looked absolutely confident. Beaming from ear to ear.

As class ended my mind was beginning to question was this real victory? Why would God have had him shave off the beard before Jayla was able to fully face the fear head on? I was still thinking through it all on the way back to our bags when Jayla came running up to me, bursting with excitement, and blurted out loud as can be, “Someone in hell is mad tonight!” It took me a few good seconds to get through her bluntness and realize she was talking about the devil and how she had just squashed him! And that’s when I knew. I looked at her face and I knew. She was stating her triumphant battle cry. This was victory. Because it never really was about hair. It was about what was going on in her heart. FEAR verses TRUST. And the opportunity to learn how to rely on God to get from one to the other. With a little shaving cream and a razor God made good on His promise that we had been rehearsing day in and day out: ‘I will help you’. It was in this way, taking the basis for her fear away, that God came through for her. And in so doing, she gained confidence in Him and experienced firsthand that she has access to His power over the enemy, which was a goal of this opportunity all along.

We rejoiced and squealed and recounted the victory the whole way home. And this past weekend Jayla completed her recital piece that included the former hairy man...without a hitch. :)

And when the next fear does pop up we will now have some God-evidence to fall back on. We will get to say, “Jayla, remember when God….”

Have Godly Sexuality

Awesome sermon yesterday at my church on what the Bible says about sex. Whether you are a tween, teen, or adult, or in a relationship or not, you will find this discussion straightforward, clear, very candid and applicable. If you don’t look into the truth of God’s view on topics like these, you will easily be swayed by our culture which bombards you with the opposite message all day long. This will renew your mind. To watch the sermon online click on this link: http://www.cornerstonelife.com/mediaplayer#  Then if your computer is like mine you will have to wait a good 30 seconds until the recent sermons load up and are listed. Then click on ‘Have Godly Sexuality’, Proverbs, May 26, 2013.

Through Whom

If you are trusting in your own good works, your religious traditions, or going to church to give you right standing with God you are believing a lie. There is no other way to be made right with God than to receive and continue trusting in the perfect, blameless record of His Son, Jesus.

 

Romans 5:8-11

 

Pep Talk: Fear Doesn't Suit You Anymore

As you entertain fearful thoughts you are picturing/envisioning the future without God in the mix. You’ve taken His power and His grace out of the equation. When He calls us to do something ‘hard’ He doesn’t just lead us there and then leave. If you are going to entertain thoughts of the future then you MUST include God’s presence and the promise of His power in those thoughts of future situations. He will equip you and you will learn to rely on Him, but it will be AFTER you take the step of faith. If He told you how He was going to do it and showed you everything ahead of time then that takes absolutely no faith. Your trust and reliance on Him wouldn’t grow. Knowing it all ahead of time takes no dependence on God. Rather, God wants us to trust Him with abandon – and that place of trust is not going to feel comfortable. It will feel like the farthest thing from it. Yet, what He can accomplish in and through you is going to be directly related to how much you depend and rely on Him.

Second thing to consider about fear is this: Fear is not from God! So, if not from Him, then guess who it is from? Our enemy just loves it when we get in a swirl of fear because then he’s done his job – he’s gotten us to a state of believing that God can’t be trusted (the enemy’s ultimate goal). Satan wants to capitalize on your fears and PARALYZE you to inaction. Watch out! Fear can lead you into sin! Fear can freeze you, causing you to disobey God by not moving forward with what He’s asking you to do, which is sin. In order to follow Jesus wholeheartedly, you are going to have to give up your desire to play it safe! The many ‘what ifs’ circling around in your head are from the devil, and many of them are straight lies. Even feelings are liars. You cannot trust your feelings. God is NOT the author of fear and confusion. He is the author of peace and clarity. That peace will only come by trusting Him with your worries and anxiety (handing them over to Him - which also entails letting go of control over the details of your life). This may be something you will have to wrestle with every 5 minutes, maybe even with the same fear that comes to the surface again and again. When the fears creep in, you need to combat them with truth.

For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” ~ Romans 8:15

For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline. ~ 2 Timothy 1:7

You belong to God. You are His child. His Spirit is living inside of you. This should bring you tremendous peace that He will care for you, He will come through for you, He will empower and equip you to carry out His will. (But He won’t tell you ahead of time how He is going to do it - remember, that takes no faith.) As His child, fear doesn’t suit you anymore because…

There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. ~ 1 John 4:18

If you don’t have this this testimony of peace in your heart, then ask God for it - again and again if you must - until you are in a state of full trust in your Father.

The truth is that the Spirit of the living God is guaranteed to ask you to go somewhere or do something you wouldn’t normally choose to do. The Spirit will lead you to the way of the cross, as He led Jesus to the cross, and that is definitely not a safe or pretty or comfortable place to be. But, the Holy Spirit of God will mold you into the person you were made to be... ~Francis Chan, Forgotten God~

Don't You Know Who You Are?

You are God's blood-bought child. He trades your filthy rags of shame for glowing white robes of righteousness. He silences the voice of your accuser. He stuns your guilt with His forgiveness. Where there is fear He speaks power to trample it. Where there is mundane and monotony He speaks purpose and expectancy. He replaces your timidity with courage. He overwhelms your questions of self-worth with new identity. "This is the way. Walk in it," He says. He rejoices over you - His sheep once lost but now found. Weep over the deadly peril that once held you in captivity. Consider what you once were: a prisoner of darkness. The enemy prowled around you promising condemnation and judgment. He chained you, enslaved you, wanting to devour you as his own. But God. BUT GOD pulled you from the grave. Mourn over the cost of your salvation. And then rejoice. Rejoice in your death row pardon. He remembers your sins no more. He quiets your doubts with His Spirit that testifies deep in your soul - that place where His cross and your repentance meet. He is your King. His inheritance for you awaits. You will retire on His riches. Dance now in your freedom. For you have crossed over from death to life. Once estranged, now reconciled. Once fatherless, now a child of the Most High. His heartbeat resonates in your bones. His anthem sings over your soul, “I’ll call nobodies and make them somebodies. I’ll call the unloved and make them beloved.” You who were once far away have been brought to His throne of grace by the blood of Christ. With confidence you may approach. For through Him, you have gained access to the Father. Blessed assurance dear child. You are spoken for.

Death Row Pardon

Saw this movie quote on the Facebook wall of my friend from high school who is now a cop…

I am the police, and I'm here to arrest you. You've broken the law. I did not write the law. I may disagree with the law but I will enforce it. No matter how you plead, cajole, beg or attempt to stir my sympathy. Nothing you do will stop me from placing you in a steel cage with gray bars. If you run away I will chase you. If you fight me I will fight back. If you shoot at me I will shoot back. By law I am unable to walk away. I am a consequence. I am the unpaid bill. I am fate with a badge and a gun. Behind my badge is a heart like yours. I bleed, I think, I love, and yes I can be killed. And although I am but one man, I have thousands of brothers and sisters who are the same as me. They will lay down their lives for me and I them. We stand watch together. The thin-blue-line, protecting the prey from the predators, the good from the bad. We are the police. ~From movie ‘End of Watch’~

I think this is pretty clear. If you break the law and are caught, justice will be served often via a police officer and your imminent arrest. So aim to be a law-abiding citizen to avoid that.

I used to apply this same train of thought to my relationship with God. As long as I am a good person, and obey God’s rules, I will be in right standing with Him and will avoid punishment. That’s the belief I held to. Now let me blow your mind a little bit. The belief that I could achieve right standing with God by my obedience to His rules was never God’s intent for giving His laws. In fact, He already knew that I would fail miserably at keeping them.

Before I illuminate that, let me zoom in on a few of God’s laws. Here’s one:

You must not misuse the name of the Lord your God. The Lord will not let you go unpunished if you misuse His name (Exodus 20:7).

Have you ever treated the name of the Lord flippantly as a verbal punctuation mark? Have you ever used God’s name as a swear word? If yes, then you’ve broken God’s law.

Here’s another one:

You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart (Matthew 5:27,28).

Oh boy. Now God isn’t even allowing us to merely entertain thoughts about breaking His law. Have you ever looked at someone who you are not married to with the desire to have sex? If yes, then you are guilty. You’ve broken God’s law.

Want one more just for fun? You have heard that our ancestors were told, ‘You must not murder. If you commit murder, you are subject to judgment.’ But I say, if you are even angry with someone, you are subject to judgment! If you call someone an idiot, you are in danger of being brought before the court. And if you curse someone, you are in danger of the fires of hell (Matthew 5:21-22).

Because God is concerned with our hearts, He even considers certain types of anger as murder.

By now you may be thinking what I am thinking. Wow. God is pretty strict. Even the secret thoughts and attitudes of our heart cannot escape the judgment of God. Yikes. There is a huge gap between God’s standard of holiness and perfection (outlined in His rules) and the reality of how we live. Gulp. And therein lies God’s intent for giving us the law in the first place. It’s the gulping, yikes factor…

The law applies to those to whom it was given, for its purpose is to keep people from having excuses, and to show that the entire world is guilty before God. For no one can ever be made right with God by doing what the law commands. The law simply shows us how sinful we are (Romans 3:19-20).

God gave us His laws in order to point out our sin. John Cross, author of ‘Stranger on the Road to Emmaus’ explains it like this:

In many ways, the Ten Commandments are to us as a mirror is to a dirty face. If you are alone, you can’t tell whether or not your face is clean. Someone could point at you and say, “Your face is dirty,” but you could deny it outright and say, “My face isn’t dirty – I don’t see anything!” and you might truly believe that. But if given a mirror, you could see that your face was indeed grimy and you would no longer be able to deny the fact. Your mouth would be silenced. You would realize you were guilty of having a dirty face.

It’s the same way with sin. We did not really know what sin was until God gave us the Law. Just as the mirror exposed the dirt, so the ten rules made us aware of sin.  

The ten commands were not given as a list of rules to keep in order to make us right with God. That wasn’t the Law’s purpose. It would be like trying to rub the dirt off your face with a mirror! Mirrors are designed for reflecting, not cleaning. In fact, there’s a good chance that, in the process of trying to clean yourself with the mirror, you would smudge the glass, thus hampering its ability to give a clear reflection. People who try to be accepted by God by keeping the Ten Commandments usually modify or minimize the commands so that they will not look so bad.

This ‘mirror’ concept is completely foreign to most of us who all our lives have been taught that if we follow the rules we will make the rule givers happy and we will avoid trouble and punishment. This time it’s different. God’s rules have been given to show us that we actually can’t measure up to His perfect standard. You could say in effect, that because of our human nature, these rules are impossible to keep.

Perhaps you are thinking, well that’s not fair! God gave us a bunch of rules to follow, already knowing that we wouldn’t be able to keep them, in order to point out to us that we aren’t as good as we thought we were. That’s bad news. But there’s good news a comin’.

Pointing out our sin wasn’t the only purpose of the law.

The law was put in charge to lead us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith (Galatians 3:24).

Meeting God’s standard of righteousness is unattainable by our own human effort because we are rule breakers. Instead of making us feel like good, achieved, obedient people, the law does the opposite – it showcases our yuck and points out our depravity. But God is loving. And kind. And merciful. And compassionate. He does not arrest us and place us in a steel cage with gray bars like a policeman the minute we are caught breaking His law. No, in seeing us in our depravity what does God do? He looks at us through His filter of grace and He decides to bless us with His favor. WHAT?!?!? Yeah, I never saw it coming either. Let me explain. His favor does NOT come by Him covering His eyes from our sin, pretending not to see it, letting it slide while winking at us and telling us not to do it again. That would not be just. For justice to be served in the courts of God, sin must result in punishment. To God, sin is so destructive and offensive and appalling that the punishment He assigns for sin is the death penalty (Romans 6:23). Yet, in His mercy, He has made a way of escape. A death row pardon...

For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. Yet God, with undeserved kindness, declares that we are righteous. He did this through Christ Jesus when He freed us from the penalty for our sins. For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed His life, shedding His blood (Romans 3:23-25).

Jesus already kept the law perfectly in our place. Since He had no sin to die for Himself, Jesus was able to die for the sin of others (2 Corinthians 5:21). He died in our place. When we believe in Him, we receive His payment for our sin on our behalf. And we also receive His unblemished record...righteousness. It’s as if we never sinned. It’s as if we never, ever broke God’s law. Through Jesus’ sacrifice, we can come into right standing with God, apart from our own ability to ‘be good’.

People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed His life, shedding His blood.

It’s so simple that people stumble over it. It’s hard to believe that we don’t have to earn God’s pardon by our own efforts, by keeping His rules. But if we were able to do this then….

I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing! (Galatians 2:21)

 

I will NOT set aside my death row pardon.

God sent His Son to die a hideous, bloody death on a tree to adopt me – a disobedient, ungodly, rebel who didn’t even care to give Him the time of day, let alone regard His majesty and power. God looked down at me, a sinner - who broke all the rules and laws He ever gave - and said, “I love her. I am going to hunt her down with My love.” I was heading down the path of destruction but God, in His mercy, stuck a big, bloody cross in my way and whispered two simple words: Repent and Believe. And that is the message of faith that I proclaim. God is reconciling rebels to Himself through the blood of His Son, not counting men’s sins against them. That message - which unfolds on the pages of my Bible, has since unfolded in my heart and completely changed my life. Jesus proved His love for me while I was sinning in His face. That’s good news. That’s the kind of God I want to give my heart to and trust. And now that I have, I’ll never be the same.

One day we will all stand before the judgment seat of God. And I’m telling you, Jesus’ sacrifice is the way that you can have your sins NOT counted against you.  They have already been counted against Him in your place.  But this payment made by Jesus is only effective if one believes.

'The Bible' on the History Channel

In case you haven’t heard, I wanted to share that the History channel is airing a new 10-week mini series production of some of the most significant stories out of the Bible! New episodes are aired every Sunday night from 7-9pm Central time.  So far, two of the ten episodes have been shown.  I know what you are thinking…..these productions sometimes turn out cheesy, cheesy, cheesy……I must say, NOT SO with this one! This is right up there with the Passion of the Christ movie in my book. We sat the entire fam down tonight and made a ‘movie night’ out of it. We missed the first episode last Sunday, so we were able to catch up on that one and watch the new one. We were CAPTURED! Well, all of us except Jasara that is! She was busy serving us beverages. :)

 

Episode 1 featured Noah’s ark and crossing the Red Sea…..I felt like I was there. Got totally pumped up crossing the Sea. I can’t wait to see the New Testament stories brought to life. 

You can check all the details out here: http://www.history.com/shows/the-bible

In case you don’t get the History channel, you can order the series on DVD….they start shipping in April.
 

It's Not Blind Faith

 

[Romans 10:17]

You aren’t going to just wake up some day and have faith in God. Think of it like this: you wouldn’t have decided to marry your husband or wife after one date. It would be foolish to give your heart to someone that you barely know. Before you can fully trust someone with your heart, you want to have a good idea of their character and who they are. Can they be trusted? Well, you won’t know until you spend time with them and get to know them. It is the same way with God. Faith comes by spending time with God and getting to know Him – His character, His plan of salvation, His love. God wants us to come to know Him, so He has made it quite simple to do so. Everything He ever wanted to tell you about Himself is in the Bible. To get to know Him, you have to read it. At first, you might not understand everything you read – which is why it is important to find a church that teaches through the Bible and holds high not the rituals of faith, but a relationship with God – getting to your heart. As you continue to wholeheartedly try and find out about God, the more and more and more He will reveal to you.

Email From a Reader

Some time ago I received the below email from a blog reader. With her consent, I am sharing pieces of our dialogue in the hopes that through it, someone else who may be going through something similar can be encouraged. Life is messy. This story is messy. But messiness often affords the Lord the opportunity of glorifying Himself and acquaints us with His mercy, His power, and His character in ways that we’ve never known before…

Hi Janel,

I don't usually send emails to strangers, but I have known for at least the past month that I needed to send you an email….

….so you understand I'm not some crazy person (well, not completely crazy) I'm a 39 year old mom to two boys ages 9 and 10. Without going into details this has been the hardest emotional year of my life. I would define myself as healing right now, but I have had some dark moments. In the midst of this I found your blog. It has been so joyful for me to see you adopt two more children into your home. As the daughter of an interracial couple I love the fact you have created an interracial family….I love seeing your two daughters adjusting to life in their new family, and my heart is literally filled with joy that these girls have the blessing of being part of your family and in our country...

…as you can probably guess, this year has also called me to trying to figure out my own spirituality. I was raised catholic, but haven't been practicing in the last two years. I have known throughout this year that I NEEDED to find a way to get closer to God, and that my children also needed to know His love. That said - I was scared. Scared to find another church. Scared that the only reason I was trying to find him was because I was in emotional turmoil. It feels almost dishonest – “Hey God, I'm here now, but only because I am a hot mess.”

My point (yes, I really do have one) is that the other thing you have done for me is shown me, through your faith, that this is something that is okay for me to do. To work on this aspect of my life - no matter what the catalyst is, because I NEED it.

So, thank you. I will continue to read your blog, and know that your story has impacted someone you probably never intended for it to impact. I wish you and your family well.

Sincerely,
‘Diana’ (named changed for privacy)

***

Hi Diana!

After reading your email the Lord put it on my heart to send you this little daily devotional, ‘Jesus Calling’. The author writes as if Jesus were speaking to you face to face. The imagery and conversational style speak to my heart in a piercing way that literally seems to lift the burdens off my shoulders. This book has taught me how to practically rely on the Lord, and has completely changed the way I think about trials, hardships, and outcomes. I love to read each day’s segment and then look up the verses that the author wrote off of which she puts at the bottom of each page. These writings have given me such a fresh perspective on how I understand scripture. I hope this book is a blessing to you, and that it speaks to you with just the right words, at just the right time. God is known to do that! :)

I also wanted to share some truths with you about a part of your email. You had mentioned this: ….scared that the only reason I was trying to find Him was because I was in emotional turmoil. It feels almost dishonest - Hey God, I'm here now, but only because I am a hot mess.

Oh please let me tell you that this is THE MOST HONEST position that your heart can be in! In your brokenness the devil is trying to smother you in guilt and shame over your past decisions, failures, broken roads, or whatever the case may be. You need to hear the truth found in James 4:6-10 ~

6God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. 7Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.

A couple of things. First, the key to ‘get closer to God’ is to humble yourself before Him. And from the sound of your note, that is the exact place you are in right now! It feels ugly and painful and raw, but rejoice that you’ve come to this place!!!! You are admitting to God that you can’t do this on your own! That each time you’ve tried to go your own way, you’ve failed and made a hot mess of things. Humbling yourself before the Lord means recognizing that you need His power, His guidance, His favor in your life. That by your independent, prideful effort you come up short and empty. God cannot work in a prideful heart that stiff-arms Him. Rather the brokenness and dark, questioning moments that you have had are the stomping grounds where God’s work begins. The devil also knows this, which is why he is whispering to you to fight it and making you feel like a liar. Really he is the liar and the deceiver (John 8:44). Which is why it is so important to guard your mind and your heart with truth – God’s word – the Bible. Commit yourself to reading, studying, and understanding scripture. This is your defense against Satan, and it is also your offense in coming near to God. One aspect of this is finding a church – one that teaches straight out of the Bible – to help you to glean understanding from scripture. You need to hear, receive, and renew your mind with God’s truth. This will change the way you think, and eventually it will change the way you live. It all starts with learning the hope of God’s promises, finding out about His character, and receiving daily reminders not to put your trust or hope or faith in the things of this world or the people of this world. You will find that once you do this whole-heartedly AKA ‘all in’, the Lord will reward you by giving you additional information about Himself (Hebrews 11:6). It’s just the coolest thing, and it’s how your relationship with Him will mature.

I always found verse 9 interesting. Why would God tell us to grieve, mourn, cry, and be gloomy? I’ve come to learn that in these verses He’s speaking to those who have hit bottom. Those who have thrown up their hands in defeat and are facing surrender. God is saying to grieve over the ugliness of our sin. The way we lived without Him, the choices we made without Him when we aligned ourselves with the world and its value system (read James 4:4). Our sinful past should sicken us to the point that we are so sorry for the mess we’ve made. We want to change. We are ready to change. Ready to submit/surrender to God and to do things His way.

And to speak on purifying our hearts (verse 8), some notes I have explain it this way: ‘In the process of refining metals, the raw metal is heated with fire until it melts. The impurities separate from it and rise to the surface. They are then skimmed off, leaving the pure metal. Without this heating and melting, there could be no purifying.’ Well, it’s the same way with our hearts – spiritually speaking. God has to expose and root out all the ugly (impurities = deliberate sin) to make way for Him to work in our hearts. Often He does ‘give us over’ to our sin and empty choices because He knows that when we go our own way, we will eventually see that it doesn’t work out so well. This is some of the emotional turmoil that you are feeling and have felt. All the junk is rising to the surface, and you find yourself, well, in a hot melted mess! From here, it is our choice as to whether we will turn to God (repent) or not. You are so choosing the right path!

With all this, I am trying to say that scripture shows that you are really in the perfect place to begin a whole-hearted pursuit of the Lord. You’ve clearly already come to that conclusion, but I just wanted to encourage you that you don’t have to clean up your act before coming near to God. You don’t have to comb your hair and straighten up your dress in order to receive His love. He’d rather you come to him a mess, and allow Him to do the work of setting you on your feet, and giving you a firm place to stand. It’s so hard to fathom – that His love is UNCONDITIONAL. No matter what we do, or what we’ve done, He lavishes us with His love and forgiveness. He doesn’t treat us as our sins deserve. It’s so unheard of. We’ve never known a love like this. But then, God goes further. He imparts to us Jesus’ clean record. Jesus’ blood speaks on our behalf. “Once God’s enemy, now His beloved child.” All our junk and records of sin…..gone…..in a precious moment on the cross. As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us (Psalm 103:12). And in that same precious moment on the cross, the WORK of salvation is done. Finished. Nothing further is needed from us except a humble, receptive, open heart, ready to embrace this undeserved GRACE. One hand stretched out on the cross to the other….that is our definition of love. A love that we’ve never known, but so need. Who would not want to live, pursue, and commune with a loving Father who has done this all for us? Your heart is ready to know God – no more going through the motions! You go girl!

***

It was a few months until I heard from Diana again, and her next email blew me away. God had begun to reveal His love for her, in very intimate, personal, and timely ways. To understand the depth of this next dialogue, you will need to know this detail about Diana’s situation: After 43 years of marriage, her father had been found to be having an extra-marital affair on her mother. Diana’s family was completely blindsided by this hidden affair. She had since been walking through layers of hurt, grief, and that ugly feeling of being deceived. But just wait and see how God spoke His love into her life! More excerpts from Diana…

***

…words cannot convey the evil that has come into my family. My father is no longer the moral, loving, and Christian man that I have always known him to be. He no longer goes to church. He lies without remorse. He has treated my mother, and his children, as though we were disposable.

On my part, I couldn’t physically work for my father after all of this came out. I hung in until April, 2012 when my husband looked at me one day and said no amount of money is worth the pain this is causing you, and we will just have to find a way to get through this financially without you working for your father. I was always SO CLOSE to my dad, talked and worked with him daily, and suddenly I was without a father. Throughout it all I have struggled, as you know, with my faith. I have struggled with still being a good mother to my children while my entire world has crumbled down. The hardest part of all of this, by far, is that this has DEVASTATED my mother. The toughest woman I have ever known, the woman who has always put her children and grandchildren ahead of herself, was completely wiped out by this. She is in so much pain that it makes me sick…

….the night before I got your gift I was lying in bed and heard the words “Psalm 68”. Um, okay, I think to myself. Not one to have actually studied the Bible before, I didn’t have a clue what was in Psalm 68. But I heard the words and figured I’d look at it in the morning. Which I did. And became breathless when I read: “A father of the fatherless”. An hour later I got my mail, and received “Jesus Calling” from you. This was on a Monday. That Saturday we left for a cruise in the Caribbean. After all the pain and suffering we had all endured as a family, my mom decided to take the family on the cruise. I had started using the daily devotionals in Jesus Calling the night that I received the book, but the timing of this vacation could not have worked out better.

Each night I would sit out on the balcony and read the devotional. The second night, as I was praying with God and focusing on how I could repair my relationship with Him, I could hear the following:

“I am right here with you. I’ve been here the entire time. I haven’t left or forsaken you, and I won’t ever. My love for you is everlasting.”

As I sit here typing my hands are shaking at the remembrance of that moment. I began to cry. I could feel His love. I could feel calm. I felt loved and cared for. After months of feeling abandoned by my biological father, months of feeling like I had to be the one to keep it together, to be strong for my Mom, my sisters, my brother and my children, I felt like I could just be weak. Be weak, yet cradled in love. It was a beautiful moment for me. This feeling has continued ever since. Each night I would sit on the balcony, in such a place of physical stillness and warmth, with the Caribbean air – not too hot, nor cool, with minimal noise, just the light of the stars reflecting off of the waves, and I would read that days devotional and pray. I continued to hear Him – "I’ve been here the whole time. I am here for you now." Over and over, each night. 

This knowledge that I was loved changed everything for me. When I look back on that week, it was one of healing. My frame of reference had changed. I just felt calm. I loved every moment of being with my siblings, whom I don’t get to see as a group nearly often enough. I loved being with my boys and my husband. I loved watching my mom jetski, and go ziplining, and just LIVING again. We were away from all the distractions, all the hate and anger and hurt and we just enjoyed ourselves to an extent I wouldn’t have thought possible given the turmoil of the past year. For me though, this ability to just let go stemmed from the knowledge of His love. Of knowing that He hadn’t abandoned me. That He welcomed me into His loving arms.

After the trip my brother sent me an email. He told me that he knew I had taken a lot of the emotional burden of caring for Mom during the year, but that he was so happy to see me being silly and laughing like I had before all of this. Since returning home I won’t say that every day is perfect, and that I don’t still have “down” moments, but I have to say they are so quickly resolved because I know I am loved by Him. I have been able to change my perspective on my father. Instead of being angry with him, I feel badly for him and pray for him daily. Rather than focusing on all the hurt he has caused, I think about how lost he is, and I ask God to help him find his way back to Him. While the loss of our relationship will always sadden me, it no longer hurts me as it did before. I have literally given it to God. I cannot control my dad’s actions. I cannot control his mistakes. All I can do is pray for him, and continue to allow God to help me heal. In doing so I am a better wife, mother, sister, and daughter. This new knowledge has permeated its way into other areas of my life. There were aspects of being a CPA that I liked, but I never had any great passion for my job. I have always been jealous of people who knew what they wanted to do with their lives, when I never had any real career passion. The only thing I knew I wanted was to be a Mom. I cannot tell you how much this has bothered me throughout my life.

Now, because of what’s happened, I found myself able to walk away from being a CPA (I always had a lot of pressure from my father to pursue that field). An opportunity to work on financial planning came to me last month. Suddenly it was the perfect marriage of what I liked about being a CPA (working with clients, getting to know them) and actually being able to help them financially. I thought to myself ‘now why didn’t I think of this earlier’. God’s response: if you had discovered that career path earlier you never would have stayed home with your children and fulfilled your real passion with them. If I’d presented you with a career you were passionate about when they were 2 and 3, who would have mothered them? I didn’t want to give you that temptation. They are ready now, and you are ready now.

I think back to the man I was engaged to in my early 20’s who cheated on me. I realize that all of that pain and suffering has allowed me to be empathetic to my mother in her situation (although obviously hers is far, far worse). I look at every “negative” experience now in my life and can generally see now why I had to endure it. In other words, I trust in Him. I know that everything I am enduring will somehow, somewhere, benefit either myself or allow me to help someone else. I know that He isn’t going to leave me no matter what. I know that when I am in pain I need to hand my troubles to Him.

Clearly this is going to be a process for me for the rest of my life. I am trying a new church that will hopefully allow me to continue to develop and grow my relationship with Him. I am working on developing my children’s relationship with Jesus.  Your gift helped me start on the journey. So, from the bottom of my heart, I thank you for taking the time to listen to Him when he asked you to send me “Jesus Calling”.

Dianna :)

***

WOW, eh?! I’ll end this post with this thought: What a living, breathing example Diana’s situation is of Romans 8:28 ~ And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.

My Bible ‘life application notes’ explain: God works in “all things” – not just isolated incidents – for our good. This does not mean that all that happens to us is good. Evil is prevalent in our fallen world, but God is able to turn every circumstance around for our long-range good. Note that God is not working to make us happy, but to fulfill His purpose. Note also that this promise is not for everybody. It can be claimed only by those who love God and are called according to his purpose. Those who are “called” are those the Holy Spirit convinces and enables to receive Christ. Such people have a new perspective, a new mind-set on life. They trust in God, not life’s treasures; they look for their security in heaven, not on earth; they learn to accept, not resent, pain and persecution because God is with them.

What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight; what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the roofs.

The gospel is offensive because it points out sin. How, Lord, will we know that we need you if our need is not exposed? So, when I stand for You, I will not be surprised when they hate me. When they are offended by the testimony of light shining on the darkest parts of their hearts. I will keep in mind that the world hated you first. If I belonged to the world it would love me as its own. But I do not belong to the world. You have chosen me out of the world. Jesus, I am Yours. I will never stop freaking out about what You have done for me. I did not get pulled out of the darkness into Your marvelous light to be quiet about it. So let them persecute me. Let them falsely say all kinds of evil against me. Let them throw me out on account of Your Name. I will rejoice and be glad. For when I am insulted in Your Name, I am blessed to be counted worthy of participating in your sufferings. You who were stricken, despised and rejected by men. Hated without reason. A man of sorrows, well-acquainted with sufferings. When I bear Your Name, so too will be my portion. And for it, I will praise God that His Spirit of glory rests on Me, that His testimony is on my lips and in my heart.

I am tempted towards holding unforgiveness in my heart.  I must take battle with the roots of bitterness that desire to entangle me in thoughts of satisfaction that they get what they deserve - what they've wanted all along - a life without You.  An eternity of that is their future unless You intervene.  But You, Oh Lord, are patient. You are not slow in keeping your promise, rather you give second chances. You want none to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. You cause the sun to rise on the evil and the good. You send rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. Give me a heart like Yours. Give me righteous anger. And give me compassion for the lost and perishing, for once was I. Flood my heart with Your goodness so that grace and mercy overflow and extend to even my enemies. For they know not what they do.

God, because you are my refuge, I can dare to be bold. It is the godless who are on shaky ground. I will proclaim Your Name, with the full knowledge that doing so will bring division. I will not suppose that You have come to bring peace that glosses over the truth for the sake of superficial harmony. The line will be drawn between those who choose to follow you and those who don’t. There is no neutrality, for he who is not with You is against you, and he who does not gather with You scatters. You have sent me out like a sheep among wolves. I will not be afraid of them. I will acknowledge You before men because I am not ashamed of the Gospel; for it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes. If anyone will not welcome me or listen to my words, I will shake the dust off my feet when I leave. For if I say, ‘I will not mention You or speak any more in Your Name,’ Your word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot.

"Why would God allow something like this to happen?"

 

That is the question that seems to float around social media whenever our nation faces such horrific tragedy that it seems, in all our right minds, could have been prevented. The recent Sandy Hook shooting. 9/11. The shooting in Aurora, CO earlier this year. The local kidnapping and murders of two Iowa cousins. And if we zoom out to include the global headlines, the unbearable reads stack a mile high. Syria and South Sudan just to name a few. And on and on it goes.

Oh how Satan howls in accomplishment when he gets our hearts to question God….to doubt His goodness…..to wonder where God was in the midst of such horrendous, heartless, dark acts. Satan was there in the garden with Eve, thousands of years ago, doing the same exact thing. Twisting God’s word ever so subtly, until the doubt was planted in Eve’s mind (Genesis 3:1-6). In the wake of this Sandy Hook tragedy the devil so enjoys it when we ask, “Why didn’t God reach out and stop this? He could have stopped it! Why didn’t He? If God is good, and loving, and all-seeing, and all-knowing, then why did He allow this to happen?”

The answer that has been laid on my heart is this: Because God does not reach in and program our will. We are not His robots, His puppets, that are programmed to say, “I will obey you, Lord,” and do only what we are told. God designed us, created us, with our own free will. We each have the ability to choose whether we will serve the Lord or whether we will serve evil.

The book Stranger on the Road to Emmaus explains the reasoning behind God giving us a free will:

Having the ability to choose is what gives the word obey meaning and depth. Choice makes a relationship genuine. When a son is obedient to his dad, he honors his dad. So it is between man and God. Man was created with a will so that, by the obedient choices he made, he would honor the Lord. The Bible says that when man fits into God’s plan for him, he finds the greatest happiness, fulfillment and reality.

But, there is a flip side. We can choose to say “no” to God’s plan for us and intensifying this choice of free will, is the devil who prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour (1 Peter 5:8). This Sandy Hook tragedy is a glimpse of the intensity of this spiritual battle going on each day for our souls. Sandy Hook is the outward evidence of a man who’s own free will chose to serve and obey evil. We say this is too much. Not the lives of innocent children. This has gone too far. And God would agree. We are grieved. And God is grieved. We are angered. And God is angered. Yet, He’s seen this before. A people who have turned their backs on Him and chosen to go their own way. Genesis 6:5-7. Romans 1:18-32. And it’s going to get worse. Much, much worse. As our fallen world - destroyed by sin - keeps on spinning, and as people choose to say no to seeking God, to say no to choosing righteousness, to say no to passing on the truths of the Bible to their children and their children’s children, then generations are going to be raised up who do not think it worthwhile to know the Lord or obey Him. And it’s going to get ugly, people. Real ugly.

But evil does not win. “Why didn’t God reach out and stop this?” Be assured, the day is coming when He will.
 
God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed (2 Thessalonians 1:5-10).

And this everlasting destruction is not only for Satan’s instruments and followers. It is for Satan, his demons, and his workers themselves.

I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and wages war. His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns. He has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself. He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God. The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean. Coming out of his mouth is a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. “He will rule them with an iron scepter.” He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written:

KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS.

And I saw an angel standing in the sun, who cried in a loud voice to all the birds flying in midair, “Come, gather together for the great supper of God, so that you may eat the flesh of kings, generals, and the mighty, of horses and their riders, and the flesh of all people, free and slave, great and small.”

Then I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies gathered together to wage war against the rider on the horse and his army. But the beast was captured, and with it the false prophet who had performed the signs on its behalf. With these signs he had deluded those who had received the mark of the beast and worshiped its image. The two of them were thrown alive into the fiery lake of burning sulfur. The rest were killed with the sword coming out of the mouth of the rider on the horse, and all the birds gorged themselves on their flesh…

…and the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown. They will be tormented day and night for ever and ever. (Revelation 19:11-21, 20:10)

In just a few days we will be celebrating the first time Jesus came, as a baby, in peace. He lived to die ~ bringing us mercy and forgiveness as He sacrificed His life for ours, making payment for our sins on the cross. For those of us angered by the evil in our world, we can cry out for the day when Jesus will come again. As a warrior, who will slay evil for eternity.

Until then, may evil acts like the Sandy Hook shootings drive us to our knees in acknowledgement that something has gone wrong in our world. People readily choose sin and wickedness over righteousness and goodness. We are in dire need of a Savior. May this brokenness in our world bring to the surface our deep down longing for heaven. As we yearn for things to be made right, for injustices to be swallowed up, for a place where bad things never happen, may we take confidence in Jesus’ word that, yes indeed, a better day is coming. “Behold, I am coming soon! My reward is with me… (Revelation 22:12)” And as we hurt deeply for these families who will not get to wrap their arms around their little loved ones this Christmas, may we hold tightly to the truth that God can take even the worst happenings, and work it together for good (Romans 8:28).