Trust, Trustworthy – Live the Crazy Life

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The difficult ones

December 17, 2024 1 Comment

It’s the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas. The time when things either slow down as you are wrapping up your year, or speed way up and you are preparing for Christmas and trying to wrap up your year. Either way, it is a weird few weeks of time. So many parties, so much to do, snow and icy roads, the list of things you thought you’d get done this year and didn’t. Ahh the Holiday Season. I am a fickle holiday person. I am either all in and loving it, or I am not into much at all. This year I fall to the latter of those. It’s almost the middle of December and I just have my tree up, no ornaments, no tree skirt, no other decorations other than a few snowmen. I don’t really know why some years I could just skip November and December and jump right into the New Year in January. Sometimes it has to do with relationships. You know the ones that are awkward, or hard, or non-existent that this time of year just somehow seems to highlight.

I was preparing for my Advent study, and we were told to read Romans 15:4-13. This week’s word is Hope. This isn’t the traditional Advent where you look at Love, Hope, Peace, and Joy, but we do have a focus word each week. So, like I said, this week’s word is Hope. And at Christmas time, hope makes me think of the line from Joy to the World that says, “The thrill of hope the weary world rejoices.” Something about that wording gets me every time I hear it. This year, I feel weary for many reasons, mostly because I have been going warp speed, with no slowing down in sight. It’s not been a bad year, but it’s a busy one. And when I am weary, I am not at my best people-wise. I bet you feel the same way. It’s hard to deal with someone who isn’t the easiest person for you to get along with when you’re tired.

We all have people in our lives who, shall we say, test our patience. It might be a family member, a co-worker, a neighbor, your kid’s teacher, or whoever it is, we all have them. When I was reading Romans 4 for my Advent study a portion of that chapter hit me as the key to dealing with the person in your life that needs a little extra grace. Romans 4:5-7 reads, “Now may the God who gives endurance and encouragement grant you to live in harmony with one another, according to Christ Jesus, so that you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ with one mind and one voice. Therefore, accept one another just as Christ has accepted you, to the glory of God.”

That verse has a whole lot going on. When I read it I thought of the person in my life that I have a difficult time with. God has convicted me many times over my negative thinking and judgmental thoughts of this person. I know that it’s ok to not be best friends with everyone, but when it is someone you are around alot, it’s always best if there is peace and not tension. Ok, so the truth is it isn’t about the other person, the one that makes me crazy, it’s about me. There is always going to be people who just rub you the wrong way, but God has a plan to help you get through and it is spelled out in Romans 15:4-7.

I looked into the meaning of a few words from these verses. It says, “Now may the God who gives….” The first thing to do when dealing with someone difficult is to stop doing it on your own. For me, that means praying when I know I am going to be around this person. The next part of the verse tells us what to pray for. Romans 4:5 says it’s God who gives you endurance and encouragement, and He grants you the ability to live in harmony with others. Why does He do this? So God will be glorified. It takes the pressure off to know that it is God’s job to give me endurance and encouragement to live in harmony with others. That is where we start, leaning in to God, trusting Him for endurance and encouragement.

Endurance in this verse means steadfastness, to remain under, to wait, to hope, to expect. It means steadfast endurance, particularly in the face of trials and difficulties, remaining faithful and patient under pressure. Encouragement means calling someone to your side for the purpose of offering comfort. It comes from the same word used in John 14:26 when the Holy Spirit is named the Comforter. Lastly the word harmony means being of the same mind. It often implies a deliberate choice of thought or attitude.

Here is the takeaway. It’s not the person who makes us nuts. It is how we deal with the person that matters. Do we stew over how frustrating they can be? Do we agonize and stress when we know we have to see them? No, we pray and ask God to give us hope that we will find common ground with this person. That the relationship won’t always be strained, awkward, or difficult. We ask God to comfort us when this person hurts our feelings for the thousandth time. We can’t change other people, but we can allow God to change us. So this holiday season, or whenever you are going to be around those people who are difficult for you for whatever reason, remember Romans 15:5-7. Write it down. Keep it somewhere where you can read it, and pray before you are around them.

Let’s choose to accept people for who they are while praying for God to give us endurance, encouragement and the ability to live in harmony with one another. Let’s glorify God in all of relationships – even the difficult ones.

Friendship, Jesus, overwhelmed, Prayer, Trust, Trustworthy

Overwhelmed – When the enemy tried to knock me out and God spoke

May 27, 2022 1 Comment

man near carton boxes with many different words about stress

I am sure if you have been a believer for longer than a day you have experienced a season where the enemy seems to hit you out of the blue with spiritual warfare, and then the hits just keep coming from every direction. I don’t like battles. I am not confrontational by nature. I am a people pleaser who easily can put making others happy above my own happiness. I am not a cryer, but lately you’d think I was pregnant the way I cry at EVERYTHING. You get it if you have walked through a season like this in your own life.

It started a little more than 2 weeks ago. An event that shouldn’t have had that much effect on me did. It caught me off guard and sent me into a tale spin. While I was still trying to figure out why I was angry and hurt but this situation, the attacks piled up and took me by complete surprise. After 2 weeks of stress, funerals (yes that is plural), hurt feelings, mental self esteem negative thoughts, PT for a torn ligament in my arm, and fighting with those close to me, I found myself feeling like I was drowning by it all. I began to feel spiritually bi-polar – excitedly “preaching” to my husband one moment, then tearfully exclaiming to him I give up, I throw in the towel, I am done the next. The highs and emotional lows were crazy The tears come easier than I thought was possible.

I read a devotional book personally just for me every morning and every evening. Starting my day with God and ending with God has become a new habit in life this year. On one of the hard days, I was feeling so overwhelmed by, well, everything. Then God stepped in. I cried more but this time not tears of overwhelming hurt and frustration but overwhelming tears of how God was there speaking and loving me. That night I opened my night time devotional book and the title for that day was PERSEVERE. The verse 2 Timothy 4:5 – “Be sober in all things, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.”

The first sentence from that day’s devotional reads, “Today, persevere. Do not give up, no matter what happens.” I laughed out loud. At my church we are in a series on 2 Timothy. I had been crying out for God to show up, and He did. Just not how I thought He would. I should know by now He never moves how I think He should or will. He didn’t show up and fix the problems although I am believing He will. He came and spoke to my broken heart. He came being more worried about me and the condition of my heart than the chaos around me.

I looked up a few key words from 2 Timothy 4:5. Sober means free from illusions, being tempered and self-controlled, the opposite of irrational. I had been staring at the illusions of the enemy. I had been irrational and definitely wasn’t exercising self-control.

Hardship means enduring painful hardships that SEEM to be a set back but are not. Lastly fulfill your ministry means the use of God’s power bringing the believer to maximum potential, matching their true knowledge of Him.

I finished reading the one page devotional and my spirit shifted. I cried again, but not out of fear; out of knowing God knew how I felt and had been there with me over the last few weeks. I fell asleep in a better frame of mind than I had started the day.

God didn’t stop there. My morning devotional — The same power that resurrected Christ from the dead lives in me. The verse. Romans 8:11. In the devotional she referenced Mark 12:18. The Sadducees were a group of religious leaders during the life of Jesus who were convinced that Jesus’s life ended in a dark tomb and that there was no resurrection. The author says “As I thought how sad it is to see life this way, I sensed the Holy Spirit whisper ‘You have areas in your life where you don’t believe in the resurrection either.” BAM God was opening my eyes and heart to see where my faith was lacking. Again tears of God’s overwhelming love for me.

As if the two devotions were not enough God moved further. Two bloggers I follow posted last night and early this morning, one on don’t give up. The verse “And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.” (Galatians 6:9, ESV). God was moving telling me He is here. He knows. He cares. He’s not done, so I shouldn’t be either.

Then God got real personal. I have a friend who has hurt my feelings deeply and the worst part is that she is unaware, and I believe at this point she is incapable of seeing or acknowledging this. The other blogger I mentioned posted “How to love well when a friend hurts you”. More tears. God knows. God is here, God cares, God feels my pain, and will move and do what only He can to heal my hurts.

I am so overwhelmed by the God I serve. The only person ever to cause me tears of joy – God.

It’s a tough world right now. Hurt and pain seem to be the normal. Anxiety and stress, being overwhelmed, is just the way life is. That my friend is the lie I had allowed the enemy to convince me was true. It is an illusion. God’s word – “be sober”. God wants me and you to live free from the illusion the enemy creates. God wants me and you to live in full resurrection power. God wants you and me to not give up. God wants you and me to live in unity with other believers. Stop living the illusion and start living the TRUTH. This is a challenge for you and for me. Are you up for it? I am!!

Bible, Jesus, Prayer, Trust, Trustworthy, Uncategorized

Jedidiah it’s more than a name!

October 6, 2020 No Comments

As is the case with many of my blogs, this one stems from a Bible study I have been doing called Get Out of Your Head by Jennie Allen. I highly recommend this study, in case you were wondering.

I have learned a lot over the last 6 weeks in this study, but the big take aways are these: I have a weird mind and thought life, and I think about myself way too much. Much more than I ever realized I did. That realization led me down a new path of unhealthy thoughts. Our minds are so complex.

Have you ever tried to trace your thoughts – where they come from or what makes you think that way, to where a thought is leading? The Bible actually has a lot to say about what we think on and how we use our minds.

Over the past few weeks I have realized I need to reign in my mind. It goes 100 miles a second and it’s all over the place. I do a good job hiding this for the most part, but ask my close friends and husband. I don’t stay focused on one thing for very long. Something I feel the Lord is wanting me to work on – that good old fruit of the Spirit called self-discipline. But that’s a blog for another day. What I want to focus on in this blog is Philippians 4:8, and believing lies versus truth.

In the study Get out of Your Head, the author points out that most lies we believe stem from 1 of 3 categories. I am helpless. I am worthless. I am unlovable.

I struggle with the last two. I used to struggle with all 3, but God helped me get out of the trap of the first. And I believe He’s helping me get out of the last two, as well. Here’s how. When you start believing a lie for truth, you have to go back to when you first started believing it and deal with what happened there that made your thinking go awry. Sometimes that involves repenting, and sometimes it involves forgiving someone, and sometimes you need to do both. In my situation I needed to do both. The repenting part was easy, but the forgiving part? Well that was harder. It involved forgiving myself as well as a few others. Then once you have done that you need to replace that lie with a truth from God’s word. This part sounds easy, and in theory it is. But if you want to 100% believe that truth in your heart and not just in your head, then it takes a work of God.

I struggle with seeing my self-worth. And for many of you reading this who know me you are thinking, “Why would she struggle with that?” Sometimes others see things you never see about yourself, and we are often harder on ourselves than others are or even then God is.

The other day I was praying honestly not about my self worth but about feeling like there is so much in the world that I was bringing to God to fix, heal, change, un-do; the list goes on. Then I stopped and thought, “I want God to do all of this for me, but what does God want me to do for Him?” So I asked Him. And He said, “Look up who Jedidiah is in the Bible.” That might have been one of the strangest things I have had God tell me. But when I looked it up, it changed me forever.

I am sure you are wondering who this Jedidiah is that you probably have never heard of in the Bible, right? Well the answer to that can be found in 2 Samuel 12:25. “…and because the Lord loved him, he sent word through Nathan the prophet to name him Jedidiah.”

Feeling confused right now? So was I until I looked at who God wanted to call Jedidiah and what Jedidiah means. Jedidiah is Solomon. And verse 25 is the only time he is called Jedidiah. That in and of its self isn’t to jaw dropping, is it? But it means “Loved by God.”

Right there in my living room, God told me all He wanted from me was for me to know I am His Jedidiah; that I am loved by the Lord. I just sat there in awe. I had just unloaded a huge list of big issues on the Lord, and all He wanted in return from me was to know He loved me.

I can’t say I am fully over struggling with my self worth. But I have a new truth that no one can take from me. THE LORD HIMSELF TOLD ME I AM LOVED BY HIM!! And if that isn’t enough to stop believing a lie and turn to truth, I found this other little gem in my study today.

We were looking up the original meaning of the words in Philippians 4:8. You know the “think of these things” verse. When I came to lovely, here is what I learned. Lovely in the original language here is “prosphile”, and it means worthy of personal affection, worth the effort to have and to embrace. Once more I heard God whisper, “You were worth the effort to have and to embrace, you are worth my personal affection.” I just sat at my desk stunned, humbled, and feeling special all at the same time.

Will there still be days when I will struggle with my self worth? I am sure of it, but that struggle won’t last but a moment because when the one who is Truthful tells you His truth about you, it changes you into a Jedidiah. And that reality silences any lies about my worth.

So I challenge you. What one of those 3 lies are you stuck in? How did you get stuck there? Once you know that, repent or forgive or do both, and then ask God to whisper His truth to you. Warning. It will change you forever.

Bible, Jesus, Steadfast love, Trust, Trustworthy

The Non-Negotiable

August 16, 2020 1 Comment

My church is doing a series called Non-Negotiable. And a good friend told me she wished the blogger she followed would post more. So Kim, this one is for you!

The Non-Negotiable idea got me thinking about what things in my life are non-negotiable. I came up with a few, and then I started thinking, “What are my non-negotiable with God?” I boiled it down to one big one that I think is very applicable to life right now mid-pandemic (are we in the middle or the end or who knows where we are in this mess?) That aside, here it is – my big non-negotiable: God is always, always good and loving. There you have it. But allow me to explain. How we think about God determines a lot of how we live. If we think He doesn’t really care or that there is no God, we throw caution to the wind and “party like it’s 1999”. If we believe He is judgmental and always looking for us to mess up, we live in fear and strive for perfection. If we believe we have to earn His love, we spend our life trying to find ways to do better, to help more, to give more, never feeling at rest because there is always more to be done.

But if we live believing He is good and loving then we are at ease and feel free to be ourselves. But how do we process a God who is loving and good in the midst of death, financial ruin, chaos, riots, and strange viruses. Again, the answer is simple. Pre-determine that God is good and loving and kind.

I am prepping to do a Bible study on our thought life. Which has led me to read a book on the mind and how our brain works. I am by no stretch of the imagination a girl of much science. I still get amused at baking soda and vinegar volcanos. But science is fact. And according to many super smart scientists, what you think determines your actions and actually changes the chemistry of your brain. For more on this topic, do the study by Jennie Allen, Get Out of Your Head, or read the book by Dr.Caroline Leaf, Switch on Your Brain.

Ok, back to the point. God is good and loving. I said you have to pre-determine this. What I mean is before life takes a turn for the worse, you have to already know in your mind and in your heart this truth. It has to be decided on as a sure thing. If not, when things go bad, or life isn’t what you wanted or expected you will lose your footing and find yourself hopeless.

I have lived this truth out more than once in my life. The year 2015 was one of the harder years of my life. My son was sick and doctors couldn’t tell us why, but they did keep throwing around the C word a lot. We spent a lot of time and money to see every -ologist there is at Children’s Hospital; had surgery, did a biopsy all to find nothing really. On top of all that I had my 3rd foot surgery and was in a walking boot while pushing my 15 year old in a wheelchair into these appointments.

I lived it out again in 2018 when I lost a dear friend to cancer, watched another friend walk through divorce, our church staff changed dramatically, and finally the death of my dad.

And the last one – 2020. It started out rocky for me on a personal note that I’d rather not mention. Then COVID hit, my son missed his graduation, my daughter missed junior prom, SATs and ACTs were canceled making applying to college a little rough. And all the other issues you all have been experiencing right along side me this year.

Isaiah 50:7 says, “Because the Sovereign Lord helps me. I will not be disgraced. Therefore I have set my face like flint and I know I will not be put to shame.” Two things from this verse help us pre-determine God is good and loving. First the Sovereign Lord, meaning the God who is always in control. Nothing in our lives catches God by surprise, and nothing in our lives is waisted time or events. God uses it all. The second is set my face like flint – means set in rock, un-changeable, it also means pre-disposition.

The Bible is full of verses about God’s goodness and love for mankind. In Jeremiah 29:11 it says that He knows the plans He has for us, and those are good plans.

The best part is you can change the way you view God at any point. Changing how you view Him will change your disposition. If you believe He is good regardless of what is happening around you, then you can stand in the middle of a mess and say God is good and someway, somehow He will use this for good, even if I never see how.

Think about Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego from Daniel chapter 3. These men had set their faces and hearts like flint when they said, “O Nebuchadnessar we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and He will rescuce us from your hand, O king. But even if He does not we want you to know Of king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.” Daniel 3:16-18

I don’t know what the rest of this year brings. I don’t know what will happen. I don’t know how God can use this, but I do know He will; and He is good and loving and that is non-negotiable to me. Will you make it non-negotiable to you?

Bible, COVID 19, Memorizing scripture, Prayer, Trust, Trustworthy, Uncategorized, wisdom

Trust God

March 21, 2020 No Comments

Trust God. Simple words to tell a friend or someone you know who is going through something hard in life. Simple to say, especially if things are going well for you at the time.

It seems like right now the whole world is going through a hard time. We are all facing struggles, uncertainty, fear, and probably a host of other emotions depending on how COVID-19 has effected you personally. Even with all of that, my advice to myself, friends, family and my church ladies is to still trust God.

I am preparing to lead a study at my church on Psalm 40. In preparing for it I felt impressed to memorize the whole psalm – all 17 verses. I found myself today stuck on verse 4. Not because I was having trouble memorizing it, but because God was saying “Slow down. Repeat that again. Did you catch what it really said?” Truth was I hadn’t. I had not really let that verse sink into my heart. Verse 4 reads “Blessed is the man who makes the Lord his trust, who does not look to the proud or those who turn to false gods.”

That one little verse says a ton. First, it’s a choice to trust God. You must make yourself trust God. That means that you have to decide if God is always good. Does He always Love me? Is He faithful? Based on those answers, you can decide either “Yes, He is. So I will make myself trust Him,” or “No, I am not so sure.” I believe the answers to those questions is a resounding YES. So I have decided to trust God when things are good and remind myself I trust God when things are not so good. I teach the ladies in my Bible studies that they have to pre-decide in their hearts that God is trustworthy when things are good so that when the rough time hits, you have a firm answer in your heart. Trust God.

The second part of the verse says not to look to the proud. That means not looking to those who put their trust in their own abilities – those who think they can handle anything. And then, not turning to people who put their trust in false gods. People who trust in money, their status, their minds and so on.

You see right now life doesn’t make senses. Things are weird, it seems no one really knows exactly the best things to be doing. So if we look to family, friends, jobs, government, or even doctors we are putting our trust in the wrong thing. The only one who is ever really in charge, the only one who really knows how things will end and what to do, is God. So why wouldn’t we trust Him?

It is simple to say we trust God but mind-bogglingly hard at times. However, it’s the best choice and full of blessings, absolutely.

So as we walk this COVID-19 thing out, decide right now that God is good and ALWAYS trustworthy. Then when you feel uncertain or that sense of panic rising, remind yourself, “I am one who trusts God. I can remain calm, and pray. He is good. He is with me. He will lead me. I trust God.”