Somebody Hit the PAUSE Button

Guess what?! This month is at the halfway point. Maybe you're like me and you look up and go, "Wait! Did I hit snooze?? How am I already here?!" 

I have goals yet to write, lists yet to check off, intentions to unshelve! 

And so I get into a ridiculous panic and scurry to feel busy about something because busy means accomplished, right?? 

Wrong.

Step away from that busy button. 

Now is a great time to hit the PAUSE button. 

It's time to take time. 

Time to really reflect on where you are, where you want to go, and how to get there..but also, really check and see if what you are choosing each day will actually get you where you want to be.

 

So WHY is it a good time to PAUSE? 

Because you still have the whole last half of this month to make the choices that will put you were you want to be! 

Whether you are focusing on your personal spiritual health, physical health, family issues, health goals, or business goals or ALL THE THINGS this month, know that there is POWER in the PAUSE. 

And when you add PRAYER? It's a triple threat!!

PAUSE+PRAYER=POWER! 

These are the 3 P's that will take you places. 

But instead of running ahead distracted, disgruntled, disheartened, deafened by the realities around you...

1. Pause to open your eyes to see where you are and what you are doing in that place.

2. Pray for the Lord to show you HIS desire for those things, those goals you're running after...and LISTEN to His response.

3. Power up! in His presence and find the strength to make the choices that you weren't able to on your own.

I am praying for each of you!

Hit that PAUSE button today!!

"Be still and know that I am God..."

Psalm 46:10

Perfect Peace in my Pieces

I was scrambling in my living room to have my time with the Lord, while my mind was scrambling a thousand other places, a thousand miles an hour. 

I was thinking about everything ahead in this coming season...all I knew and didn't even know-  and it had me in a dead panic in my mind. 

And then, before I even sat down to get in the Word, the Holy Spirit brought this verse up in my spirit:

“You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, all whose thoughts are fixed on you!”

Isaiah 26:3 NLT

Perfect peace. Not some version of peace- but perfect.

Perfect is defined as: "having all the required or desirable elements, qualities, or characteristics; as good as it is possible to be. Absolute. Complete."

In other words, it is exactly what we need when we need it. 

Perfect peace.

Calm. 

From the inside out. 

It's learning to trust IN Him, rather than trusting things around and about Him.

 

Where you trust FROM determines the kind of peace you live IN. 

As we trust in Him, He secures us with the unwavering assurance that abundant life is His promise(John 10:10); therefore every battle we are facing is to bring about that very purpose.

He is the anchor for my thoughts in the raging sea of worry, doubt, and condemnation in my mind. When I fix my eyes on Him, I am no longer dizzied by the whirlwind of the world. I am locked into His gaze and I see what He sees, I can know what He knows: that every bit of it is for my good because He is Good. He is a good Father, giving me every good and perfect gift. 

(James 1:17, Romans 8:28)

Maybe not always the ones I want...but it's always the ones that I need. 

I have to live my life with open eyes and open hands:

Eyes open, fixed on Him.

Hands open, filled by Him. 

I have to stop looking in every direction hoping to see some answer for my questions- because HE IS THE ANSWER. 

I have to stop reaching in every direction to grab what feels and fills like I want it, when I want it- because HE IS MY PROVIDER. 

When I scurry around and try to piece together peace in my life, it only results in stress, failure, frustration, anger.

I am playing a game I will never win.  

It's time for me to stop worrying about the win and start focusing on the One.

What are you fixed on today? 

Believe me- I know it is hard to see past all that is screaming for your attention. 

But only One focal point will bring perfect peace. 

He doesn't promise to remove whatever is raging in your life, but He promises to love, grow, and be with you through it. 

That is perfect peace. 

#SimpleTruth 

“Now may the Lord of peace himself give you his peace at all times and in every situation. The Lord be with you all.”

2 Thessalonians 3:16 NLT

Time for New Perspectacles

Some days I just want to close my eyes.

Just close my eyes and escape back to the comfort of my bed, covers pulled overhead.

The view of my life seems safer there.

I can shout at circumstances to go away, without ever looking them in the eye.

I can even pretend they aren’t there.

But that doesn’t mean they go away…or that they get smaller or untangled.

Worst of all, it usually makes them bigger than ever in my mind.

My perspective has been whittled down to the sliver of light piercing into the spot of darkness I have chosen to lie down in.

Comfortably miserable in the familiar.

Maybe you have been there.

Maybe you are there.

Maybe you, like me, know what it’s like to live life from behind the covers in your life.

Maybe you, too, have had all the feelings about all the things.

Maybe you feel like you are losing the ability to truly see.

We are in need of new perspectacles.

God given perspectacles that open my eyes to the purpose, the plan, the power for the moments I am blindly stumbling through.

The funny thing about any glasses that correct my vision, is that they don’t just jump on my face. 

I have to pick them up, and put them on- day in and day out.

That’s why it isn’t enough to simply talk about a new perspective.

It feels elusive and slippery. 

It is something I cannot hold, so I rationalize it is something I cannot have.

You and I?

We have to look at what we are holding on to, feel it and acknowledge it in our hands and set it down. 

We have to take the time, make the effort to exchange our obstacles for perspectacles.

Obstacles of fear, worry, insecurity, pain, jealousy, bitterness- they all blind us to the truth.

This kind of skewed vision leads to a life dictated by circumstance rather than His Promises.

But God will replace your obstacles with perspectacles.

You have to put on your God given perspectacles, not just so can see the way, but so you can see the One.

These perspectacles don’t merely give you sight.
They focus the eyes of your heart on His hope, the way out of this dark you’re sitting in.

He doesn’t always remove those obstacles, but He constantly reminds you that HE remains.

That is the perspective that brings victory into the cover-over-my-head days.

No one can do the seeing for us.

We have to choose to open our eyes, allow our vision to be made new.

There is power in perspective.

Don’t waste another moment staring blindly at all that drains and paralyzes you.

Throw those covers back, friends!

Put on your God given perspectacles today.

“I ask-ask the God of our Master, Jesus Christ, the God of glory- to make you intelligent and discerning in knowing Him personally, your eyes focused and clear, so that you can see exactly what it is He is calling you to do, grasp the immensity of this glorious way of life he has for His followers, oh the utter extravagance of His work in us who trust him- endless energy, boundless strength!”

Ephesians 1:18-19 The Message

It's Official: I Don't Deserve Christmas.

When words you don't expect pour into the mundane moments, you listen. Listen hard. And write fast. 

As "What Child is This?" flooded my ears, the Holy Spirit flooded my heart. 

Fresh Words. 

Fresh perspective. 

Refreshed Spirit.

Maybe it was for you as much as it was for me…wherever you are.

"Wherever You Are"

Come peasant King…and all in-between to own Him.

Enthrone Him with your praise.

All that we are, all that we have, not merely voices, but LIVES we raise!

There is nothing that you have to do to earn this love, this grace.

Simply turn and look. There waiting, you'll see His face.

Breaking into your darkness, there is no need for shame.

Love He pours out over you, Mercy is His name.

He took on our broken form in the most vulnerable way.

The breath of this baby to be sacrificed, in Him all power to save.

Messiah in this tiny form, held in His mother's arms.

And then, He takes on MY wretched sin, allows my humanness to bring Him harm.

He scraped His knees, bumped His head, heart hurt and broken by by life.

He was a baby, a boy, a man- yet still God- allowing all the strife.

So, I cannot see this baby and leave Him in this humble bed.

Because through pain He walked where I should have been and took on death in my stead.

I celebrate His coming, this child breathed of God.

But that night is only the beginning of the story, the path that Grace would trod.

The chubby hands of this baby were the hands pierced for my soul.

The heartbeat felt, skin on a Mother's chest, pumped the blood that was foretold.

Yes, the joy found in those new life moments, made life accessible to me,

Because this baby, 

My Jesus

My Savior

He died to set me free!

Alaska Adventures: The Promise

"Promise me that you will come back."
These were the words of my 9 year old little girl as I kissed her goodbye before we left on our mission trip to Alaska.
Traveling is not something new for our family. Summer often brings weeks of ministry where we are together, but also those where we are apart.
But this was the first time she expressed such a sentiment...an understanding of the uncertainties that lurk amidst the ways of this world.
But she needed me to say it, needed to hear from my lips that I would indeed do everything in my power come back to her.
And so I looked into those big brown eyes and reminded her of my love for her and that it was my full intention to come back.
She soaked up that reassurance and smiled the biggest of smiles, her mind now skipping on to the other frolics of a 9 year old, content.

And isn't this the way we are with Father God?
We come to a season in life where we are so painfully aware of its uncertainties, it's pains and pangs, and we say aloud with our spirits and lives,
"Daddy, promise me you are coming back."
What we are really asking for: hope.
Hope and peace in knowing that where we are is NOT where we will stay.
Oh, that we would trust with the faith of a child
His promise of return in days to come,
His provision of power in our present,
His complete rescue from our past,
and
LIVE those truths out loud.

Soak up the Father's rock solid reassurance of His love for you, His plan for you, His purpose for you and walk forward in the joy and contentment that can only come from Him.

"Every word of God proves true.
He is shield to those who take refuge in Him."
Proverbs 30:5

"'For I know the plans I have for you', declares the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you a hope and a future.'"
Jeremiah 29:11