Why Your Failure Isn’t Final

By Leave a Comment

people-2589566_1280

In my life, trust of God has been the most difficult lesson for me to learn, and I’ve had many big failures in this area — times when I succumbed to fear and doubt in a crucial moment when I needed to have faith instead. In fact, I can count some major times in the last few years where God arranged something on my behalf or wanted me to simply rest in Him, but instead, I trusted my own understanding or that of others in a situation.

But here’s what I’m learning now: God gives us a second chance (or maybe a 20th chance, if that is what is needed) to learn what we failed to learn before. Recently, I’ve found myself in a circumstance that feels all too familiar: It’s been the overriding refrain of my life the last few years. God has been leading me through challenging circumstances, and yet, He has been telling me to trust what He will do on my behalf.

The “practical” voice of reason in my head screams that this can’t be right, it can’t be the way. I’ve prayed about a step I can take to “fix” this situation or proactively step forward, but God has told me to wait. And this waiting is that which I have been instructed to before and failed at. So this time feels extra hard because my go-to response in times like this has always been to try to work my way out, make something happen, avoid the pain by taking the escape (even if it’s not God’s will). And I know I can’t do that this time.

Curbing that “do-it-myself, I want it my way” fleshly attitude is one that is taking painful discipline and work with the Holy Spirit. Maybe as you are reading this, you can think of a lesson God is teaching you — about trust — or maybe in a different area. Whatever the lesson is, no matter how not-fun, we should be encouraged that scores of individuals in the Bible had to be given multiple opportunities to learn a lesson.

Peter: A Disciple Who Was Given a Second Chance

Peter is perhaps the best all-time example of a disciple who needed more than one chance to learn a lesson. In John 21, Peter has failed big-time. Just as Jesus predicted, Peter denies he knows Jesus on the night of Jesus’ arrest and betrays his Lord. And yet, Jesus doesn’t reject Peter in his failure.

After Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection, Mary Magdalene and other women find an angel in the empty tomb, and he gives them a message from Jesus, saying, “But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you’ ” (Mark 16: 6, 7). Did you get that? Jesus asks for the guy who had failed him miserably just a few days earlier by especially singling him out by saying “the disciples and Peter.” Peter responds to the Lord’s call, and Jesus initiates a conversation with him, as recorded in John 21:15-18:

When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?’ ‘Yes, Lord,’ he said, ‘you know that I love you.’ Jesus said, ‘Feed my lambs.’ Again Jesus said, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me?’ He answered, ‘Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.’ Jesus said, ‘Take care of my sheep.’ The third time he said to him, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me?’ Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, ‘Do you love me?’ He said, ‘Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.’ Jesus said, ‘Feed my sheep.’ Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.

It seems a little surprising that Jesus would seek out Peter and spend time with him after Peter had so obviously failed him. But there are two important lessons we can learn from Jesus’ actions:

1. Our failure is an opportunity for us to grow.

So many of us view failure as a final end that we can never recover from. However, we see from this passage that God never wastes an opportunity. He uses everything in our life — even our failures — for our ultimate good (Romans 8:28).

As described in these lines, Jesus uses Peter’s failure to teach him and help him grow. However, Peter’s growth doesn’t come without some personal angst. The second chance Jesus offers Peter has eery parallels to the time he failed. Peter denied Jesus three times. Jesus asks him if he loves him three times. As the IVP New Testament Commentary illuminates, Jesus’ questions are probing, and most likely, make Peter uncomfortable. Each time Jesus poses the same question, he is reminded of his failure, and that is painful.

Similarly, for us, as much as the second chance God offers may be one we’re relieved to see in front of us, it may also be painful as we enter circumstances that resemble those we left. We have to face what we did wrong and change. Yet, here, we can see Peter is already changing. When Jesus inquires of him as to his love, Peter doesn’t brag as he has in times past (IVP). Before the crucifixion, Peter had insisted he would never fall away, even if others did (Matthew 26:33). Here, he simply answers, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you” (vv. 15, 16).

In addition, the third time Jesus asks, Peter answers with a variation saying, “Lord you know all things; you know that I love you” (v. 17, emphasis mine). By his acknowledgement of Jesus as all-knowing, Peter further shows a new humility that points to God’s sovereignty and knowledge, rather than his own (IVP). Jesus further explains how Peter will have to continue to deny himself by being a disciple, saying, “When you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go” (v. 18). Jesus loves and forgives Peter, but spells out clearly to Peter that being a disciple with entail continued humility and dependence on God.

2. God wants us in our failure.

God’s love is a concept that many of us struggle with. I remember years ago struggling to feel God’s love, and He told me I couldn’t feel it fully because of my unbelief. As I’ve begun to believe in God’s love, I’ve begun to recognize the ways God is intimately involved in my life — how recklessly He loves each of us, and how He’s willing to pursue us when we get it wrong and stray (Matthew 18:12).

Though God loves us so much that He comes after us when we fail, we have to accept His love and pursuit of us. Jesus includes Peter’s name with his instructions because he wants it to be clear to Peter that he is included. But Peter still had to make the choice to return and accept the forgiveness and acceptance of His Savior. He had to allow himself to go through the uncomfortable heart surgery Jesus performed on him when it would have been much easier just to cut off ties and go his own way. But despite how uncomfortable it must have been for Peter to face Jesus when he had just denied him and submit to Jesus’ discipline, Peter returns and became stronger and better equipped for his role as a disciple because of his willingness to learn from Jesus.

As I discussed in a previous post, not everyone who is offered that love chooses to return when they fail. But how amazing that God offers us unconditional love knowing that some will reject Him. When we “love” as the world loves, we love with a conditional love. This type of love loves until the person fails and then casts out so that there is no hope of restoration. But God teaches a different way, a way that says, “I want you no matter how bad you mess it up, no matter how you get it wrong.”

Truly, this knowledge shouldn’t give us a nonchalant attitude where we take advantage of the grace offered and knowingly make bad choices with the excuse of, “It’s OK, God will forgive me.” God does forgive us when we repent, but the Bible warns us to be sincere in our repentance (Romans 6:1, 2; 14, 15). And we should know that while God’s grace is lavish, earthly consequences can come as a result of our choices and should help deter us from not doing what is right.

But how wonderful that God never leaves us in our failure. When we’re not strong enough to make the right choices, we can turn to Him, and He sustains us and gives us what we need to do what’s right.

Psalm 54:4: “Surely God is my help; the Lord is the one who sustains me.”

Isaiah 46:4: “Even to your old age and gray hairs I am he. I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you.”

Related Resources:

Want some more posts on Easter? Check out last week’s post on Jesus’ feelings as He went to the cross. We can learn from Him how to handle seasons where we feel lonely in our calling or wonder if God has left us.

Don’t have time to read many posts but want to listen instead? Check out this post in podcast form or past episodes by stopping by our brand new podcast archive.

 

Carol Whitaker

Carol Whitaker is a coach's wife, mom, writer, and singer. She left a career in teaching in 2011 to pursue a different path at God's prompting. While she thought that the path would lead straight to music ministry, God had different plans -- and Carol found herself in a crisis of spirituality and identity. Out of that place, Carol began writing about the lessons God was teaching her in her desert place and how God was teaching her what it meant to be healed from a painful past and find her identity in Him rather than a title, a relationship, a career, or a ministry. These days, Carol spends her time shuttling her little ones back and forth from school, supporting her coach-husband on the sidelines, and writing posts. Carol also continues to love music and hopes to pick up piano playing again. Carol is a self-proclaimed blog junkie and iced-coffee lover. She resides in Georgia with her husband and three children.

More Posts

When You Feel Lonely in Your Calling

By 2 Comments

girl-918706_1280

“I feel so alone,” I told my husband in a hormone-induced crying spell.

We had transitioned to a new house and a new community, and the transition had been fairly smooth, but as I moved into my last weeks of pregnancy, I felt alone.

Alone when I drove my kids to school, and I didn’t know a soul in the building.

Alone when we went to our new church, and I didn’t recognize a single face.

Alone when I went to my new doctor, and I didn’t know any of the medical staff.

Alone when I contemplated the difficult situations that had seemed to pile up the last year as I did what God asked of me.

Alone.

Jesus knew loneliness in his journey to the cross. However, as relayed in Matthew 26-28, although much attention is often given to those that opposed Him and betrayed Him and the suffering He went through (and rightly so), He was also defended and aided by His heavenly Father.

That though Jesus was mocked by those who didn’t believe His words, there were ways that the truth of His words reached the eyes and ears of those in His community. In re-reading His story recently, I was reminded that perhaps if we find ourselves feeling alone in whatever assignment Jesus has given us, we may be tempted to quit or believe God has forgotten us.

But we can see from the Easter story how God’s plan may lead us to what feels like a solitary path — but in the midst of that path, God is there — at work.

A few takeaways we can get from the Easter story:

1. We should stay fixed on God even when we feel forsaken.

When we observe Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, He asked His disciples to be vigilant and pray with Him. But each time that He asked them and went away to pray, they fell asleep. No one stayed awake with Jesus through the intense moments He experienced before His arrest.

But Jesus remained fixed on God and His Father’s will even when others around Him didn’t understand or were not there for Him when He needed them. The third time when He went away, He came back to find them asleep once again, but He simply said, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Look, the hour has come, and the son of Man is delivered into the hands of sinners. Rise! Let us go! Here comes my betrayer!” (Matthew 26:45, 46).

Similarly, when Jesus hung on the cross, before He breathed His last breath, He cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). Although many disagree on what happened on the cross and after Jesus died, Jesus felt a separation from the presence of His heavenly Father as He took on the sin of the world.

I find it amazingly comforting that Jesus, the most perfect human being, felt deserted. That whether Jesus was abandoned by His Father or just felt abandoned, the truth was that He experienced this right when He was in the center of God’s plan!

And, if indeed Jesus did endure this separation, one benefit that we have that Jesus did not is that although we may feel that God is not with us, Jesus was forsaken so that God would never leave or forsake us (Hebrews 13:5, Romans 8:31-39). Jesus became the ultimate sacrifice so that we would never have to be completely alone.

Therefore, if we find ourselves feeling isolated in following Jesus’ plan for us, we may be tempted to give up or assume God has deserted us. We may feel that others have fallen asleep on us — are not near when we have needed them most — but that does not mean that we should fall away from what God wants us to do or assume that God has done the same.

2. God provides for us and is present in our process.

We can see in Jesus’ story how even though God allowed Jesus’ suffering and allowed Jesus to be betrayed and abandoned by those closest to Him, He also provided for Him. Yes, undoubtedly there may have been a momentary separation as Jesus became a propitiation for our sin, but we see that God cared for Jesus’ needs and was very present in the process.

Earlier, before Jesus was arrested, a woman came and washed Jesus’ feet with a jar of expensive alabaster perfume. The disciples objected to this lavish display, saying that the money could be used for the poor. However, Jesus responded by asking, “Why are you bothering this woman? She has done a beautiful thing to me. The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me. When she poured this perfume on my body, she did it to prepare me for burial” (Matthew 26:7-10).

Later in the passage, a man whom apparently none of the disciples even knew provided a place for Jesus and His disciples to eat the last supper. The Luke account says that an angel came down in the Garden of Gethsemane to strengthen Jesus when his disciples could not be counted on (22:43). After Jesus’ death, a rich man named Joseph, who had become a follower of Jesus, asked Pilate for Jesus’ body, wrapped it in a linen cloth, and placed the body in his own tomb that he had just cut out of rock.

Clearly, even as Jesus felt deserted by His closest friends and even God Himself at one point, God provided those who were available to minister and care for Jesus in the midst of carrying out His will.

Likewise, if we look around during the times we feel the most alone or afraid, we will most likely be able to trace God’s hand and see how He gives us supernatural aid or the help of kind people in our journey — people we not know or necessarily solicit help from. But people who step up and offer us the support we need even as we’re facing our darkest hours.

3. If we face opposition doing what God has told us to, He will defend us.

There are times when we should give an answer to those that question us, but there are other times when we don’t need to say anything. God will do it for us.

When Jesus was brought before Pilate, Scriptures tell us that He was silent when accused, and they were amazed that He did not respond to any of the charges they brought against Him. He was mocked by the soldiers, the crowd, and the religious priests. Later, when He hung on the cross, they told Him that He should save Himself and prove He was the Son of God.

But Jesus did not speak in response to their insults at the trial or on the cross. However, what we can observe is that God’s defense was all around for the observant one taking note. When Pilate questioned Jesus, he received a message from his wife imploring Pilate to let Jesus go as she had had a dream about him that day. Pilate himself knew the religious leaders had a personal agenda. After the message from his wife, he washed his hands in front of the crowd to let them know that he had reservations about their accusations and didn’t want Jesus’ blood on his hands.

Not only was evidence of Jesus’ innocence given through the words and actions of people, the natural world gave further witness. The afternoon that Jesus died, darkness came over the land from noon to three; “the curtain from the temple was torn from top to bottom”; and an earthquake shook the earth so that tombs opened, and “the bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life” (Matthew 27:45, 51, 52).

As if that were not enough evidence for the unbelieving that Jesus’ had spoken the truth, after Jesus was placed in a tomb, an angel rolled the stone of his tomb away, and Jesus rose from the dead! He then appeared to some women that had come to his tomb, later to His disciples. Clearly, as a worship song by Elevation Music says: “The evidence is [or in this case, was] all around.”

If people don’t believe us or listen when we do or say what God asks, we needn’t worry or waste our effort trying to convince them. God, in His own way and timing, will make His message abundantly clear to all who are listening. The truth will prevail without unneeded energy wasted on our part.

4. God’s power cannot be contained or minimized.

Despite the overwhelming evidence that Jesus was the Son of God as He claimed, the chief priests and elders in the Jewish community were so threatened by Jesus that they didn’t want to know the truth. They just wanted Him out of the picture. However, they had to do quite a bit of manipulating on their end to have Jesus crucified. They convinced the crowd to ask for Barabbas rather than Jesus when Pilate asked which prisoner they wanted released.

Later, the chief priests and Pharisees went to Pilate and asked that Jesus’ tomb be made secure until the third day so that the disciples couldn’t come and steal the body and claim that he was raised from the dead. Pilate agreed to have the tomb sealed and even gave them guards to protect the tomb.

Clearly, the religious leaders were doing all they could to make sure that the people did not believe that Jesus was the Son of God — but what they didn’t realize is that they were trying to minimize God’s plan and power. As is apparent in the passage, no man is able to contain His power.

As I touched on in my previous point, just as Jesus had said, three days after He died, He rose again. After a violent earthquake, an angel of the Lord came down and rolled back the stone on the tomb and sat on it. Mary Magdalene and another Mary found the tomb empty and the stone rolled away. The guards that Pilate had sent were afraid at what they saw and went and told the chief priests what they had seen (yes, the very priests who had mocked Jesus’ claim that He was the Son of God).

The chief priests made the decision to give the guards money to lie about what happened, and a false story was circulated in the Jewish community. But for those paying attention, it was obvious that Jesus was the Son of God and God’s plan was being accomplished despite the resistance of the religious leaders.

We can know that we may be persecuted and opposed as we do what God asks of us, but God is not derailed by human schemes. His plan will be accomplished whether people believe us or not.

If You Feel Alone

Perhaps this Easter, you feel some of the same emotions our Lord did when He was crucified. Perhaps you feel marginalized, misunderstood, or mocked. Perhaps as you have attempted to give the message God wanted you to or walk in the path He has laid out for you, you have faced loneliness, rejection, and scorn.

Remember this: His resurrection power cannot be contained. Whatever assignment you are on, however difficult, is one that cannot be thwarted. God’s purposes will be accomplished no matter how bleak the circumstances or how daunting the opposition.

Though we may not hear an immediate response when we cry out “My God, why have you forsaken me?” — we can rest assured that although God may not take away our suffering, there will be victory in the storm.

Hopefully, in reading this, you will be encouraged to keep plugging away at the task God has given you! Leave a comment in the box below if you would like to share what you are going through or you would like us to pray for you.

*Updated version of a post originally posted May 26, 2016.

Related Resources:

Want to read more posts on Easter? Check out last week’s post on a scene that happened before Jesus’ death where Mary anointed the feet of Jesus and prepared His body for burial, and Judas rebuked her. We can learn much from Judas and Mary about the cost of following Jesus and how giving up what we want for Jesus enables us to have something even better.

Don’t have time to read the post or others but want to listen instead? Check out the post from last week in podcast form or past episodes by stopping by our brand new podcast archive.

 

 

Carol Whitaker

Carol Whitaker is a coach's wife, mom, writer, and singer. She left a career in teaching in 2011 to pursue a different path at God's prompting. While she thought that the path would lead straight to music ministry, God had different plans -- and Carol found herself in a crisis of spirituality and identity. Out of that place, Carol began writing about the lessons God was teaching her in her desert place and how God was teaching her what it meant to be healed from a painful past and find her identity in Him rather than a title, a relationship, a career, or a ministry. These days, Carol spends her time shuttling her little ones back and forth from school, supporting her coach-husband on the sidelines, and writing posts. Carol also continues to love music and hopes to pick up piano playing again. Carol is a self-proclaimed blog junkie and iced-coffee lover. She resides in Georgia with her husband and three children.

More Posts

Is Jesus Worth the Cost?

By 2 Comments

is-jesus-worth-the-cost

“I like the design on your shirt.”

I snapped out of my daydream at the teenage bagger’s words. “Oh, thank you!” I replied. Standing at the checkout line at the grocery store waiting for my groceries to be bagged, I hadn’t expected a comment to come in my direction. In fact, I hadn’t even given much thought as to the outfit I had on that day, but had thrown on an Old Navy tank top with a printed floral pattern and a zip-up sweatshirt. In an effort to engage him in conversation, I noticed the pattern on his necklace he was wearing and complimented him.

“Yeah, I like designs,” he admitted, as he bagged the last of my groceries. He then asked me if I had ever been to a particular medieval festival. I told him I had but I wasn’t really a fan of that festival. I debated whether or not I should tell him I was a bit wary of the festival because of the prevalence of art and trinkets that were relics of Wicca and other pagan religions. However, I decided against continuing the conversation as I was sure my comments would lead to controversial and uncomfortable spiritual territory. Instead, I thanked him and walked out. But all the while that I traversed the distance to my car, I thought about how I had left the conversation hanging and walked out on a perfectly good opportunity to witness.

After loading my groceries in the car, I pushed my car back into the store with a resolve to finish our conversation. I found him near the carts, putting a few away. He seemed a little surprised when I approached him and said, “Hey, I wanted to explain to you why I don’t like the festival you mentioned. I wasn’t trying to be rude.” I then explained that I was a Christian — and much of the focus of the artwork at the festival went against what I believed. Though I didn’t think it was wrong for people to go there, I wasn’t able to embrace much of the art being sold because the trinkets spoke of worship to other gods other than my own.

To my surprise, he opened up after that and told me that he had grown up in a Christian home (was still living at home as a college student), but that he had developed questions about Christianity and was looking into other religions. I asked him what some of his questions were and he explained them. They were easy ones to address — so I told him what the Bible said about those and encouraged him to investigate further. He said he would, and I walked back to my car.

Since then, I have seen him on occasion at the store. He has bagged my groceries a few more times, and we haven’t talked about religion since then, but he has been on friendly terms with me. Though he hasn’t abandoned his search for other religions, I am glad that we talked as I had no idea that he was searching when it came to what he believed.

Choosing Jesus or Choosing Comfort and Our Own Self-Interests

Our encounter reminded me that we will have moments throughout our day when we are presented with a choice: to choose Jesus or choose our comfort or what will appear to benefit us the most. Though my conversation with the bagger wasn’t as costly as other conversations I have had (where I have been sweating out more profusely what I will have to say), it did cost me in that I wasn’t sure how my comments would be received, and I had to linger around a little longer than I originally intended when I just wanted to go home.

Perhaps no other story highlights this idea of sacrificial giving as poignantly as John 12:3-8. This account is also given in Mark and Matthew but tells the story of Mary anointing the feet of Jesus with a costly nard. However, in John’s account, the story takes on an angle that veers slightly from the other Gospel accounts.

Where the Mark and Matthew accounts highlight the beauty of Mary’s generous act, the account in John contrasts her action with that of another person — Judas. Let’s take a look at the passage:

Then Mary took a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But one of the disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray him, objected, ‘Why wasn’t this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year’s wages.’ He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it. ‘Leave her alone,’ Jesus replied. ‘It was intended that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial. You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me.’

While Mary gave all she had out of sheer devotion to her Lord and gratitude for what He had done for her (in his most recent act of raising Lazarus, her brother, from the dead), Judas was concerned only with how such a large sum would be “wasted” in her service an ministry to Jesus.

However, as John explains, Judas’ “concern” was merely a pretense, saying: “He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief” (v. 6 ). Judas was the treasurer of the group and frequently helped himself to the money. As scholars say, Judas was most likely eyeing Mary’s costly gift and wishing he could get his hands on it.

Jesus quickly set him straight, however, and said to all in hearing that Mary’s gift would prepare his body for burial. In the Matthew account, he called Mary’s act “beautiful” (26:10). The word in the Greek is one that refers to that which is honorable — an outward expression of an inner good. Both Judas and Mary’s actions revealed to us what was in their hearts. Mary was willing to give away her most precious possession, as well as humiliate herself and endure ridicule for the sake of His name, whereas Judas was clearly only interested in that which would require no sacrifice and would serve his own interests.

Sadly, just a few passages later, we see Judas’ greed reach new levels. After the last supper with Jesus, he went to the chief priests to negotiate the terms to hand over Jesus. As some commentaries note, Judas leave of Jesus wasn’t a split-second decision he made during the last supper. Most likely, Judas had been planning to desert Jesus for some time — as hinted at earlier in his rebuke of Mary. As commentator Warren Wiersbe notes, perhaps Judas made plans to leave Jesus because he was disappointed Jesus wasn’t going to conquer Rome. Or perhaps he didn’t expect the road with Jesus to look like it had. Whatever the reasons, they were ones he had been cherishing for some time.

Repentance Helps Us Turn When We Don’t Choose Jesus

Unfortunately, don’t all of us have a little Judas in us? At different junctures, when our walk with Jesus leads us to moments like I had in the grocery store where we will have to engage in an uncomfortable conversation, give up some of our time, or look different, we might say, Should I really give away this much for Jesus? Is He really worth the cost? We may be tempted to forego talking with others or standing up for what we know to be right because such actions in the moment may require an extreme sacrifice of time and effort. But that’s the upside down aspect about Christianity. We give up what we want to gain everything and lose everything we think we want when we try to keep it (Matthew 16:25).

What we see with Mary and Judas is that Mary’s gift, while initially very expensive both in terms of financial and social cost, was absolutely worth the cost — and a gift that she actually received a return from. Her act brought honor to her Lord and has been a story told for generations to highlight her goodness. Judas’ story, on the other hand, has also been one told for generations for the worst kind of reasons — to show us what we shouldn’t do.

Judas, filled with guilt over betraying a close friend and an innocent man, returned and pleaded with the chief priests to take back the money and release Jesus. But they had what they wanted, so they had no use for the money. When they didn’t accept it back, Judas threw the coins on the temple floor and then went and hung himself.

Judas’ life didn’t have to end this way — in ruin and misery. So, what could he have done differently? He could have responded to Jesus’ call to restoration. When Jesus instructed him firmly, saying, “Leave her alone … You will always have the poor among me, but you will not always have me” (vv. 7, 8), Judas could have agreed with the Lord’s words and repented — allowing Jesus to do needed heart surgery. But instead he simply kept going where his own heart desired.

When we realize that we’ve made poor decisions or haven’t lived the way we should as Christians, we can heed Jesus’ call and return. We don’t have to keep going down a path that leads to ruin. Jesus knew all along what Judas was doing — in pilfering from the money bag, in criticizing the service of others — and yet, he kept Judas close, even sitting right next to Judas at the last supper, to give Judas every opportunity to make a change and go the right way. And yet, Judas persisted in his own way — and each action led him further and further away until he left Jesus completely.

The world’s temptations call for us to get off track, to go the easy road that has no resistance, persecutions, or pain, but we can follow a higher call. The road is hard and twisted with thorns, but it leads to life. We won’t be perfect in our Christian walk. We’ll make mistakes and act more like Judas than Mary sometimes. But when Jesus confronts us with our own wrongdoing, we can accept His correction and choose to change .

If we don’t, our wrongdoing will simply lead to more wrongdoing until we find ourselves in a place, like Judas, where we never meant to be. The Bible tells us that it is the Lord’s “kindness” that leads to repentance (Romans 2:4), so let’s not harden our hearts today but accept whatever discipline God sends our way (Hebrews 12:6).

“The lesson of faith once learned, is an everlasting application and an eternal fortune made; and without faith even riches will leave us poor.” — Days of Heaven upon Earth, Streams in the Desert

Related Bible Verses:

1 John 1:9: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”

Related Resources:

The chronology of events described in Jesus’ last days leading up to his death differs slightly in John from the other Gospels. For instance, John places the date of the Passover meal of the Jews after the last supper, whereas the other Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) identify the last supper as the Passover meal. Read more about this here.

Would you like to hear the song mentioned in the podcast? Check out Crowder’s “Come as You Are” for more encouragement.

Like the podcast episode that accompanies this article? Check out past episodes in our brand new podcast archive.

 

 

 

 

Carol Whitaker

Carol Whitaker is a coach's wife, mom, writer, and singer. She left a career in teaching in 2011 to pursue a different path at God's prompting. While she thought that the path would lead straight to music ministry, God had different plans -- and Carol found herself in a crisis of spirituality and identity. Out of that place, Carol began writing about the lessons God was teaching her in her desert place and how God was teaching her what it meant to be healed from a painful past and find her identity in Him rather than a title, a relationship, a career, or a ministry. These days, Carol spends her time shuttling her little ones back and forth from school, supporting her coach-husband on the sidelines, and writing posts. Carol also continues to love music and hopes to pick up piano playing again. Carol is a self-proclaimed blog junkie and iced-coffee lover. She resides in Georgia with her husband and three children.

More Posts

Believing God Knows and Loves You

By Leave a Comment

known and loved by God

God’s calling you out.

I jumped when I saw the words in front of me from the Lysa Terkeurst devotional. They echoed the words I had heard from my pastor that Sunday. He announced he was doing a study on the book of Exodus. And he had used a few variations of the same phrase, God’s calling you out, at least a dozen times during the course of his sermon.

It was one of those sermons that had pulled at every fiber of my being. I knew God was speaking to me through it, but there was a little question deep inside that was small and tentative: He is?

I knew the dangers of falling into doubt and unbelief, but the events of the last few years had been so challenging, I was beginning to fear what God had said to me would ever come to pass. And yet, the words all around me, even before this sermon, were those that indicated in every way that I was about to walk out of my current season and into the promise He had given me.

And thus, that Sunday, I soaked in every word, marveled at it, took notes, thanked God for speaking to me, and went home.

Yet here again, right in front of me, in my morning devotional was the same phrase: God’s calling you out. He surprised me. Again. And the way God orchestrated for me to encounter the exact right words I needed at the exact right moment boggled my mind.

How did He know what precise thoughts I would have this week? How did He know what words to say? How did the pastor decide to put together this particular series and choose this book of the Bible to study for this particular week? Similarly, how did Lysa Terkeurst, not at all in connection with me or my pastor, choose to put together that devotion and her team publish it the week they did?

If you consider the logistics, it’s pretty much impossible how God supernaturally gets our attention — and yet He speaks to and guides all of His followers who rely on and pray to Him. He communicates what words we need at just the right time. Millions of people — intimately connected and involved with us on a level that will at times take our breath away.

What Psalm 139 Tells Us About God’s Love

In Psalm 139, David is struck with the same awe over the knowledge of how much God truly knows him and chooses to interact with him. In verse 1-6, he says:

You have searched me, LORD, and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all of my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you, Lord, know it completely. You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. (emphasis mine)

Did you catch that? In just 6 lines, David uses the word “know” three times. Not only that, he uses other words that mean similar things like “perceive,” “discern,” and “familiar with.” The word “know” in Hebrew in these instances is “yada” — and means an “intimate knowledge” of someone. As the passage indicates, God knows everything about us: what we do during the day, our thoughts, every word we speak (even before we speak it), and our motives. The psalmist says this knowledge is “too wonderful” and “lofty” for him to grasp (v. 6).

Later in the psalm, if we skip down to verses 13 and 14, we see that David continues on along the same theme, saying, “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” While I had previously read these lines in isolation from the vantage point of these words expressing God’s amazing power as evident in His creation of us — and it certainly tells us that — there is another message embedded in these words.

While David is celebrating God’s power as Creator, He is also celebrating, as I mentioned before, how much God knows us. “Fearfully” in the verse means to “cause astonishment and awe” or “make afraid”; and “wonderfully” means to be “separated or distinct.” David highlights the idea here as he did in verse 6 that he is literally shocked by the level on which he is truly known by God. And this is a knowledge that will catch all of us by surprise as we walk with Him and discover how much God is aware of every detail that affects us.

A God Who Not Only Knows Us, But Loves Us

The other piece that we need to take away from Psalm 139 is that not only are we known by God — we are loved by Him. The reality that God has taken the pains He has to know you in such an in-depth way points to His love for you. If you think about the people in your life that care about you the most, those are the people that know the most about you — and are around you the most. Conversely, the people who don’t care about you don’t know that much about you or what you do on a daily basis.

When faced with the truth of how much we are both known and loved by God — as David is here in the psalm — we have no choice, as commentator Warren Wiersbe observes, but to exuberantly respond in praise and thanksgiving to God.

In addition, as Wiersbe continues, not only should our natural response be one of gratefulness, we should also be encouraged to submit to God in all things because He knows everything about us and what is best for us. David ends the psalm by saying, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (vv. 23, 24). In these lines, he gives God full reign to keep searching and leading him. Because a God who knows and loves this much is a God that can be trusted with his life.

So many of us struggle to feel that God knows or loves us, but Psalm 139 gives us a look at the truth of how much God does both. Though many a time we encounter a situation where God’s love shows up for us in a tangible way — like I had the other morning in reading the same phrase in my devotional as I had heard in the sermon — we don’t always take a moment to thank God or acknowledge His lordship in our life. Let’s do that today!

Let’s pray: Lord, thank you that you both know and love me. Help me, like David, to not rush past those moments where you show up and reveal how intimately aware of and involved you are in my life, but choose to pause and express my gratitude. In addition, help me, like David, continue to open myself up to you and trust you even when the way is hard and doesn’t make sense. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Related Resources:

Check out the podcast episode (located above this post) that ties in with this post. In it, co-host Suzy Lolley and contributor Rachel Howard join me for a conversation about this passage where we further explore how God involves himself in our daily lives. Suzy shares about how God is with her currently on her journey with infertility and Rachel talks about how God is with her in her struggles as a full-time working mom.

Want to read more from Suzy and Rachel? Check out Suzy’s “How to Worship in the Waiting,” where she explores the tension of worshipping God while waiting on His promises; and Rachel’s “What Does God Expect of Me?,” where she talks about laying down her expectations of herself to embrace God’s.

Not yet a believer and want to learn more about salvation and how to enter into a relationship with Jesus Christ? Stop by our Know God page and learn more about what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ.

 

Carol Whitaker

Carol Whitaker is a coach's wife, mom, writer, and singer. She left a career in teaching in 2011 to pursue a different path at God's prompting. While she thought that the path would lead straight to music ministry, God had different plans -- and Carol found herself in a crisis of spirituality and identity. Out of that place, Carol began writing about the lessons God was teaching her in her desert place and how God was teaching her what it meant to be healed from a painful past and find her identity in Him rather than a title, a relationship, a career, or a ministry. These days, Carol spends her time shuttling her little ones back and forth from school, supporting her coach-husband on the sidelines, and writing posts. Carol also continues to love music and hopes to pick up piano playing again. Carol is a self-proclaimed blog junkie and iced-coffee lover. She resides in Georgia with her husband and three children.

More Posts

When We Fear God’s Promises for Us Won’t Come True

By 6 Comments

music-2617181_1280

Years ago, when I served with my husband as volunteers on a church launch team, I heard about another church in the area that had made a call to the church office to make an inquiry about our new launch. Unlike the other churches in the area calling to congratulate us, this particular church asked questions with a competitive agenda. Clearly, they felt threatened by another church joining the community and drawing possible new members.

A sad but true reality is that competition and envy abound even in ministry settings. I can personally give many stories from my years serving in music ministry where ugly feelings of jealousy invaded my own heart. Times I watched other people get the solo I wanted or watched other people get promoted to places I wanted to go. I wondered in those moments if God had forgotten me. How could I celebrate with others when I felt jealous that God hadn’t elevated me in the same way?

In particular, recently I have been feeling some anxiety over the fact that I am waiting on a promise that hasn’t yet been fulfilled in my life. As I was reflecting on this, I opened up Facebook to a ministry site with a few words on believing God concerning His promises.

I don’t even follow this person’s ministry, but read this message on a sponsored post. Obviously, I know we must exercise caution in just opening up whatever it is — a blog post or Facebook feed — and attributing that to the Lord. However, I am quite sure this was from the Lord for me. I burst into tears and felt my heart buoyed up for the first time that day. You see, the antidote for competitiveness and jealousy is trust. Trust that God is going to do what He said. When we feel anxious about where God has us in relation to where He has others, we can repeat this over and over to ourselves: The plans God has for me will come to pass.

Abraham and Sarah: A Lesson in Trusting in Impossible Circumstances

A couple that tells us much about waiting on the promises of God is Abraham and Sarah. They had to wait so long for their miracle child. Sarah had already gone through menopause. Abraham was an old man. However, God had promised a child to them and not even Abraham’s age or the fact that Sarah’s body had already undergone changes that made it impossible for her to carry a child prevented God from giving them what He had promised.

One of my favorite passages of Scripture is when the Lord and two angels visit them and give them the heads-up that the promise is about to happen. Abraham runs to greet them and bring them a meal made from His finest flour and meat.

As they sit and eat, one of the men tells him that in a year’s time his wife will bear a child. Abraham listens quietly, but Sarah overhears from the tent, laughing to herself, saying, “After I am worn out and my lord is old, will I now have this pleasure [of a child]?” (Genesis 18:12). The Lord, hearing this, says: “Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Will I really bear a child, now that I am old?’ Is anything too hard for the Lord? I will return to you at the appointed time next year, and Sarah will have a son” (Genesis 18:13, 14).

While Abraham calmly accepts God’s words and claim that the child will come within the year, Sarah thinks about the fact that she is old and laughs in disbelief at the men’s words. The difference between Abraham and Sarah’s response is that Sarah looks at their impossible circumstances and Abraham just focuses on God.

But despite her unbelief, in one year’s time, she gives birth to a son and the promise comes true just as God had said. Can you imagine the incredible temptation that presented itself over those long stretch of years to give up, turn back, lose faith, or take offense at those in their lives that had been blessed with children when they had not?

How to Trust When We Fear the Promise Won’t Come True

Perhaps as you are reading this, you can think of a promise that hasn’t come true for you. Around 20 years ago, I received a prophetic word at a youth group meeting that God was going to use me in music. A man who had spoken to our youth group and had a strong prophetic gifting prayed for young people after his message. He walked up to me and asked me if I liked music. When he posed that query, the presence of God came on me so strong that I felt a burning sensation in my throat, and I could not speak in response. I simply nodded.

The man told me I had a craving for the stage, and that I had been given that desire by God. I accepted the word with joy, but life happened. I didn’t forget the word, but I felt led to go to college and get a degree in teaching. I went through a period where I began to doubt I would ever be used in music. Then, six years into my teaching career, God called me away to pursue that music dream He had given me so long before. Except, after I left, He led me on an unusual route to start a women’s ministry and tested me with painful hardships and trials – the most painful of all being is that He asked me to give up music for a season during that period.

The journey has been difficult and long. I have been out of music for more than three years. I have looked into a few opportunities, but each time God has said no. Though I have often found myself fretting about how God is going to open up an avenue, I have the assurance of what God told me before I left teaching and long before that at the youth group meeting. In addition, I can look to Abraham here in his impossible situation and note that “against all hope” Abraham believed and God “credited to him as righteousness” (Romans 4:18).

It’s in the wait when it’s far too easy to look at someone else and want what they have and let wrong attitudes fester that eventually become wrong actions. Remember how I mentioned earlier that trust is the antidote for envy — and we should speak God’s promises over ourselves? These statements actually have a biblical basis. James 4:1-3, 7 says:

What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures … Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

In this passage, James gives a practical look at what it means to fight against the desires that war inside us and trust God instead: we submit to God’s plan and resist the devil’s schemes. The word “submit” in the passage in the Greek is “hupotassó” and means to be “under God’s arrangement” (HELPS Word-studies). Essentially, there can be no submission without trust. When we submit to God’s plan, we don’t have to make up our own plan and resort to fleshly strategies (like turning on others) to try to get even or make happen what God has said.

In addition, the word “resist” in this passage in the Greek is “anthistémi.” This word was actually a military term used in classical Greek that meant to “strongly resist an opponent” or hold one’s ground (HELPS Word-studies). When the enemy whispers lies in our ear or stirs up fears about the promises God has given us, speaking aloud to others and ourselves the truth that God will do as He said is taking a firm position against the fear and lies of the enemy!

Circumstances and hardship may try to dictate to us what our calling is, but God has the final say in the matter. What He said is eternal. It will happen. He decided it long ago. Our work is simply to trust when envy threatens to steal our hope and joy. We demonstrate our trust in God’s promises when we submit to His plan and resist the enemy, even when the way looks dark. These actions put us back on the right pathway and out of the grip of fear and jealousy.

What promise in your life is as “good as dead” at the moment? Share with us in the comments and let us pray for you!

Related Resources:

Want to listen to co-hosts Carol Whitaker and Suzy Lolley talk through and explain the points in more of our latest posts? Subscribe on Soundcloud and receive all of our latest episodes!

Interested in salvation but want to read more? Check out our Know God page or contact us through the Contact page.

*Updated January 17, 2017

*

Carol Whitaker

Carol Whitaker is a coach's wife, mom, writer, and singer. She left a career in teaching in 2011 to pursue a different path at God's prompting. While she thought that the path would lead straight to music ministry, God had different plans -- and Carol found herself in a crisis of spirituality and identity. Out of that place, Carol began writing about the lessons God was teaching her in her desert place and how God was teaching her what it meant to be healed from a painful past and find her identity in Him rather than a title, a relationship, a career, or a ministry. These days, Carol spends her time shuttling her little ones back and forth from school, supporting her coach-husband on the sidelines, and writing posts. Carol also continues to love music and hopes to pick up piano playing again. Carol is a self-proclaimed blog junkie and iced-coffee lover. She resides in Georgia with her husband and three children.

More Posts

The Benefit of Giving When God Asks

By 1 Comment

christmas-3015798_1280

An almost cliché question we hear this time of year is this: What can I give the King? We hear it in songs and Christmas pageants, but the question is one that we should all take a moment to consider: What does God want from us in terms of giving? Is there a gift we can give to Him?

In my previous post, I told a story of a time when God asked me to give away a sum of money at a consignment sale. It was during a lean season of my life, so I was reluctant to give away the funds because I didn’t have any to spare, but I felt that God wanted me to simply trust Him. So I did as He asked and gave away $20 to the first person I could find, and He taught me an important lesson about the kind of giving He wants.

It was sometime after that that I studied a story of a widow in need in 1 Kings and learned more about giving, God-style.

The Widow in 1 Kings: A Woman in Need Asked to Give

In 1 Kings 17:7-16, a widow is down to her final provisions when she encounters the prophet Elijah. Elijah sees her at the town gate and asks her for some bread and water. She responds by saying: “As surely as the Lord your God lives, I don’t have any bread — only a handful of flour in a jar and a little olive oil in a jug. I am gathering a few sticks to take home and make a meal for myself and my son, that we may eat it — and die” (v. 12).

Elijah tells her to first make him a loaf of bread out of what she has and then make one for herself and her son. And when she does, he promises her that her “jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry” (v. 14).

So she goes away and does what Elijah instructs — and, as a result, has enough for not only the one meal but many more meals after that.

The story is not the first in the Bible where a person is asked to give up what he or she has and trust God. In the story of Abraham, he waits for years for the promised child, and then God does something that must have appeared insane. He asks for Abraham to sacrifice his son. And did Abraham think God asked for too much at this point?

We don’t know because Scripture doesn’t tell us that. What we do know is that Abraham had been walking with God long enough to know that God would come through and that God could be trusted. So he gets up early, packs the necessary supplies, and takes his son with him to build an altar and do as the Lord had said. Except when he goes to bind the son to the altar, he sees a ram tangled in the bush and is told by an angel to sacrifice the ram instead. He is prepared, though, to kill his son because he knows that God has the power to raise his son from the dead.

Similarly, in yet another part of Scripture, the Israelites are put to a test of trust by God. When the Israelites come up against the Red Sea, they grumble, saying, “It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert” (Exodus 14:12). But Moses says, “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today” (Exodus 14:14). Though they have been led by God to a mighty obstacle — straight to a huge expanse of sea — God lifts that obstacle and makes a way through the sea by parting it so that they can escape their enemies and get to dry land.

Abraham and the Israelites are in hard situations, like this widow — and yet, we see how they are delivered by God when they do as He says and let go of whatever is in their hand — whether that be the plan they had, their son, their comfort level.

God’s Idea of Giving: Sacrificial Giving That Requires Trust

With this encouragement to give up what you have, I don’t mean go drain your bank account, stop your savings plan, or harm one of your children. (God had a specific plan for asking Abraham to do what he did, and it’s important to read the passage in context and understand God is not asking us to harm anyone.) Saving and wisely managing our money is biblical, as is treating other people kindly. But I do say that God asks us to give in ways that are sacrificial. It might not be financial — He will ask of to give of ourselves. And we may be dumbfounded when God asks for what we have because it is all we have.

But we must look at what happens to the widow in the story in 1 Kings. Her gift is costly and requires her to act in faith when circumstances would deem it wiser to hoard her final meal. But when she gives, she and her son are saved and have provision after that when the situation could have gone a different way.

Though sacrificial giving seems difficult, we’re not asked to do anything that Jesus hasn’t already done. Jesus came to give himself, and we’re asked to deny ourselves and pick up our own cross in a similar way. Matthew 16:24, 25 says: “Then Jesus said to his disciples: ‘Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.’ ”

Similarly, Luke 6:30 says this: “Give and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured in your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”

God Gives Back to Us When We Give to Him

As these passages suggest, God doesn’t ask for us to give up all we are holding onto so that He can beat us down or leave us destitute. He tests our level of trust and then gives us something better than that which we gave up. (And, please understand, I don’t mean that God necessarily gives us a huge house or a new car when we follow Him — He bestows on us blessings that are many times spiritual and cannot always be found in this world.)

In the case of the consignment sale, God replaced that which I gave away. Let me tell you what happened by sharing with you a passage from my previous post:

 The very next night [the day after the consignment sale], my husband came home with a $25 gift card from one of his drivers. He had picked up an extra job at a driving school when I quit teaching to help cover some of our expenses. One of his students’ parents had given him an unexpected tip.

Not even one day had passed and I got the return for the small bit I had given away. With $5 added to it. Instantly, I felt ashamed of how I had doubted God could supply for me in my want.

My idea of giving is to give out of abundance — when I have something extra to spare. But God’s idea of giving is to give out of my need when it will cost me something.

And when I do – He delights in showing me what an easy thing it is for Him to replace, even surpass the little that I give away.

Our challenge is this — if God is asking us to give something, let’s give it away knowing that when we do, He’ll fill us to a greater measure. Whether it be a job, a title, a relationship — whatever it is, let’s do it gladly knowing that God can bring to life whatever it is we lay down.

Editor’s Note: This post was temporarily suspended (as was the podcast) to edit the accompanying podcast, but due to technical difficulties, the podcast is not uploaded at this time. We’ll keep you posted on the podcast. Thanks and Merry Christmas!

Related Bible Verses:

John 15:13: “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

Luke 21:4: “All these people gave their gifts our of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.”

Related Resources:

Want to listen to co-hosts Carol Whitaker and Suzy Lolley talk through and explain the points in more of our latest posts? Subscribe on Soundcloud and receive all of our latest episodes!

For an in-depth discussion of this passage, a great resource that expands on giving up what we have to be used by Jesus is the book mentioned in the podcast: The Blessings of Brokenness, by Charles Stanley.

Interested in salvation but want to read more? Check out our Know God page or contact us through the Contact page.

 

 

Carol Whitaker

Carol Whitaker is a coach's wife, mom, writer, and singer. She left a career in teaching in 2011 to pursue a different path at God's prompting. While she thought that the path would lead straight to music ministry, God had different plans -- and Carol found herself in a crisis of spirituality and identity. Out of that place, Carol began writing about the lessons God was teaching her in her desert place and how God was teaching her what it meant to be healed from a painful past and find her identity in Him rather than a title, a relationship, a career, or a ministry. These days, Carol spends her time shuttling her little ones back and forth from school, supporting her coach-husband on the sidelines, and writing posts. Carol also continues to love music and hopes to pick up piano playing again. Carol is a self-proclaimed blog junkie and iced-coffee lover. She resides in Georgia with her husband and three children.

More Posts

Giving When You Have Nothing to Give

By Leave a Comment

snow-2594969_1280

Some time ago, I went to a large children’s consignment sale.

Because the consignment only accepted cash or check, I had to withdraw a set amount of money before I entered. Of course, I did not remember this until after I pulled in the parking lot, turned off the car, lifted my son out of his car seat, strapped him in his stroller, and headed towards the building.

When I realized my dilemma, it was a great deal of trouble to retrace my steps, lift my son back out of his stroller, strap his unwilling little body back into his car seat, fold up the stroller, and drive in the direction of an ATM (when the consignment sale was located in an out-of-the-way location).

Therefore, when I retrieved the $60 cash from the ATM and headed back to the sale, I was determined to spend every cent of it. I had a list in my head: My daughter was growing out of the size 5 clothes I had just bought her, and I knew they weren’t going to last the winter.

Once inside, I zoned in on the girls’ section, size 6 racks — a woman on a quest. I gave my son his first snack (to buy myself a few minutes of browsing time), and I started to pull item after item off of the racks. Everything she needed: pajamas, pants, long-sleeved shirts, jeans, skirts.

A few women came near me, perusing, but I wanted them to go away. I needed to get to the best clothes first. I needed to clothe my rapidly growing daughter. And as I was hurriedly hoarding most of the size 6 rack on my pile, I felt a tugging on my heart.

The worship music playing in the background blared a little louder, like someone had turned up the volume — each word pushing into my spirit. I could hear all the verses about letting others go first, about giving and serving — about trusting. And then I felt it — God’s whisper to me: Carol, I want you to give some of that money away.

What? I didn’t want to. In fact, I was most annoyed at being bothered in the middle of my IMPORTANT SHOPPING MISSION. My arguments:

Me: My daughter needs clothes.

God: I will provide.

Me: I am doing a good thing by shopping at a reduced price establishment — this ain’t Macy’s.

God: She really doesn’t need these items yet.

Me: I’m being a good mom by stocking up and preparing for the months to come. Hello, Proverbs 31 woman, anyone?

God: Do you trust me?

I sighed and surrendered, painfully eliminating a third of the clothes on my stroller, and then I began looking for a target. Everyone near me had moved away.

“Whom do you want me to give the money to, Lord?” I asked.

I felt that it didn’t really matter. The point was to open up my selfish heart.

I got into line behind a woman with her grandchild. As I looked closer, I noticed the stroller was shabby. The woman was dressed in workout clothes — her grandchild in a T-shirt. They only had a handful of items.

I struck up a conversation with her — and when the line neared the cash register, I told her that God had impressed it on my heart to give someone money for her purchases that day. She didn’t want to accept the money, but I insisted, and then there was an awkward silence as we waited for an open cash register.

I don’t know if she really needed financial assistance. Nothing profound happened other than she got a big smile on her face. But it felt good to be obedient and to not ignore God’s nudge. So many times before I have refused.

I was reminded of some words from my Joyce Meyer New Day, New Day devotional:

One time I gave a woman a nice pair of earrings. My flesh wanted to keep them for myself, but my spirit said to be obedient to the Lord and give them away. Later that woman stood up in a meeting and told how she had been given the earrings she was wearing as a ‘free gift.’ The Lord spoke to me and said, ‘Yes, it was a free gift to her, but it cost you, just as salvation is a free gift to you but it cost Jesus His life.’ Love is the greatest gift of all. When you show forth the love of God, do it freely, sacrificially — and aggressively!

The very next night, my husband came home with a $25 gift card from one of his drivers. He had picked up an extra job at a driving school when I quit teaching to help cover some of our expenses. One of his students’ parents had given him an unexpected tip.

Not even one day had passed and I got the return for the small bit I had given away. With $5 added to it. Instantly, I felt ashamed of how I had doubted God could supply for me in my want.

My idea of giving is to give out of abundance — when I have something extra to spare. But God’s idea of giving is to give out of my need when it will cost me something.

And when I do — He delights in showing me what an easy thing it is for Him to replace, even surpass the little that I give away.

Related Bible Verses:

1 Kings 17:13-16: “Elijah said to her, ‘Don’t be afraid. Go home and do as you have said. But first make me a small loaf of bread for me from what you have and bring it to me, and then make something for yourself and your son. For this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘The jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry until the Lord sends rain on the land.’ She went away and did as Elijah had told her. So there was food every day for Elijah and for the woman and her family. For the jar of flour was not used up and jug of oil did not run dry, in keeping with the word of the Lord spoken by Elijah.”

Luke 21:4: “All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.”

Luke 6:38: “Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”

*Adapted from a post originally published December 16, 2014.

Related Resources:

Want to listen to co-hosts Carol Whitaker and Suzy Lolley talk through and explain the points in more of our latest posts? Subscribe on Soundcloud and receive all of our latest episodes!

 

 

Carol Whitaker

Carol Whitaker is a coach's wife, mom, writer, and singer. She left a career in teaching in 2011 to pursue a different path at God's prompting. While she thought that the path would lead straight to music ministry, God had different plans -- and Carol found herself in a crisis of spirituality and identity. Out of that place, Carol began writing about the lessons God was teaching her in her desert place and how God was teaching her what it meant to be healed from a painful past and find her identity in Him rather than a title, a relationship, a career, or a ministry. These days, Carol spends her time shuttling her little ones back and forth from school, supporting her coach-husband on the sidelines, and writing posts. Carol also continues to love music and hopes to pick up piano playing again. Carol is a self-proclaimed blog junkie and iced-coffee lover. She resides in Georgia with her husband and three children.

More Posts

What the Wise Men Teach Us About Following God

By 1 Comment

people-2593421_1280

Years ago, when I was a child, I took a trip with my family each summer to visit my grandmother. Her house was located two states away, so we had to drive for a few days to get to her house. I grew up in the 80s before Internet, email, and GPS. Therefore, we used a paper map to navigate the route.

I laugh when I think of the memory. Now, when I need to find my way to a particular place, I pull out my iphone and type in the destination. Two years ago, when we moved to a new community, I found my way around quite easily because I had the automated voice on my phone’s GPS to tell me the way.

In my spiritual life, I have often wished that God’s voice was always as crystal clear as the guide on my GPS. At times, I have faced a decision and wished it was more obvious what God would have me do or would say to me in that situation. Although the Bible says that He guides those of us who are followers of Jesus Christ (Psalm 32:8,9; John 10:3-4; John 16:13), hearing from God and discerning His will isn’t always so easy. It takes time to develop the ability to recognize His voice and know which way to go.

One story we can look to for guidance in this area is the story of the wise men in Matthew 2:1-12 (ESV). A few lessons we can learn about following Jesus:

1. It doesn’t matter who you are.

What we should note in the passage is the wise men were magicians. They weren’t part of Israel’s elite or Jewish rabbi. They were Gentiles “from the east” (v. 2). And yet, they saw God’s star and followed it to Jesus.

If we have never accepted Jesus as our Savior, we may disqualify ourselves from coming to Him based on our background or the choices we have made in our past, but we must remember that God doesn’t disqualify us from coming to Him based on what we’ve done. He wants all to come and seek Him. John 6:37 says, “All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away.”

Similarly, as believers, we may think that we can’t hear from Him in our Christian walk like other believers. However, we can approach Him not because of our merit but because of His work on the cross (Romans 3:23; Ephesians 2:8,9; Titus 3:5). We may not feel good enough for Jesus, but we must remember that even the most religious looking person — the person with spotless clothes and an even more spotless past — is not good enough to stand on his own righteousness in front of Jesus.

Certainly, there are certain behaviors He will ask us to let go of as we walk with Him; however, he will help us in that endeavor. When we mess up, we can come to Him, confessing our sins knowing that He cleanses us (1 John 1:9). As 2 Timothy 1:9 says, “He has saved us and called us to a holy life — not because of anything we have done but because of His own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time.”

2. The way Jesus leads is often treacherous.

Often, the assignments of Jesus are difficult and those we would rather not do. They may cost us our social standing with a group. They may cost us our job. They may cost us our pride because we have to humble ourselves and take a lower position than we would want for ourselves. They may cost us delays and alterations in our own plans. But all the assignments of Jesus are perfect and lead to goodness in our lives and the lives of others (Psalm 18:30, NLT). But we have to be willing to follow where He leads.

The wise men had planned their own way back to their home, but their plans were interrupted. Instead, they had to go back a different route they had not intended, as they were warned in a dream not to return to Herod. While Jesus’ directives may appear arduous at times, His “burden” is described as “light” in the Bible. Matthew 11:28-30 says:

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

I once had a discussion with God about this passage. In the midst of a season where He put particularly challenging tasks in my own path, I told Him I didn’t think His burdens were light and easy at all. In fact, I told Him His way was hard and His burdens heavy. It was only a moment after I had made this accusation of God where a revelation washed over me that our burdens are not light because we never have to do hard things — the hard things we do in obedience are what make our burden light.

Conversely, when we go our own way, however easier it may be in the moment, is when we collect heavy burdens that we do not have with Jesus (Psalm 84:10). As Thomas á Kempis is quoted as saying in this Transformation Garden devotional:

What can the world offer you without Jesus? To be without Jesus is a hell most grievous, to know Jesus the sweetness of heaven. If Jesus is with you, no enemy can harm you. Whoever finds Jesus, finds a rich treasure, and a good above every good. He who loses Jesus loses much indeed, and more than the whole world. Poorest of all is he who lives without Jesus, and richest of all is he, who stands in favor of Jesus.

3. God maps the course.

What we notice in the story is that the wise men weren’t responsible for the course, they were just responsible for following. If we commit our way to Him and continually seek His counsel, He will show us what path we should take. As Matthew Henry says, “There arises a day star in the hearts of those who seek Him.” Isaiah 30:21 says, “Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, ‘This is the way; walk in it.’ “ (See my previous post on this topic.)

How does God communicate to us which way to go? In a variety of ways — through dreams and visions, directly speaking to us, through others, etc. We hear from God by spending time in His Word every day, praying to Him, and learning about Him in a corporate worship setting with other believers.

Often, when God gives us a specific word for our lives, He will confirm it by giving us the same word in different ways more than once. For instance, 2 Corinthians 13:1(NKJV) tells us, “By the mouth of two or three witnesses every word shall be established.” In that passage, the word “word” in Greek is “rhema.” According to Helps Word Studies, “Rhema is a spoken word, made by ‘the living voice’ (J. Thayer). Rhema is commonly used in the NT for the Lord speaking His dynamic, living word in a believer to inbirth faith.”

When we listen to a sermon, read a passage, or talk to a friend, and their words deeply penetrate us and we know that word is for us from the Lord, that is a “rhema” word. If we see the same message more than once, we know God is speaking to us. One thing we must note, however, is that God’s instructions to us will never violate what He says in the Bible. We must be careful to not attribute every passing thought to God and be in His Word so we know the difference.

4. Those who trust His way get to where they need to go.

The wise men followed His star and found Him. In contrast, there were those who did not find him on that night because they weren’t looking. In fact, the wise men had to knock on doors and inquire about the Son of God because no one else was apparently all that interested. Similarly, when Jesus was born, there was no room for Him in the inn (Luke 2:7).

God has given us all promises of what He will do in our lives. Often the path to those promises is confusing and twisted and difficult. It doesn’t tell us how long wise men traveled to get to Jesus, but it was months and possibly more than that — before they found Christ. Surely, in that time they questioned the route, got discouraged, wanted to give up — but they didn’t give up and got to where they were going.

Similarly, in Mark 6:45-53, the disciples encountered a storm when Jesus sent them on a lake to row over to the other side. But though they were met with trials, they still got to where they were going because Jesus was the One who had sent them in the boat across the lake.

If we want the kind of life that is possible only with Jesus — a life where we live out our God given-purpose, we have to let Him have His way and lead us where He wants. We can chart our own path, sure, but we cannot generate the results that come from walking with Jesus. When we try to take matters into our own hands, we won’t get to where we are going. As Charles Stanley notes in The Blessings of Brokenness, “Do your part, and God will do the part only He can do!”

Conclusion:

Learning to hear from God and follow His will for our lives is a process that takes time to learn, but when we put ourselves in a position to hear from Him, He will speak to us. No matter if we like the way He leads, it is in following Him that we encounter blessings that we would not apart from Him.

When we put ourselves in a position to hear from God, He will speak to us.

Click To Tweet

As J.R. Miller is quoted as saying in Streams in the Desert:

Every difficult task that comes across you path — every one that you would rather not do, that will take the most effort, cause the most pain, and be the greatest struggle — brings a blessing with it. And refusing to do it regardless of the personal cost is to miss the blessing.

Every difficult stretch of road on which you see the Master’s footprints along which He calls you to follow Him leads unquestionably to blessings. And they are blessings you will never receive unless you travel the steep and thorny path.

*Updated March 2, 2017.

Related Resources:

Want to listen to co-hosts Carol Whitaker and Suzy Lolley talk through and explain the points in more of our latest posts? Subscribe on Soundcloud and receive all of our latest episodes!

To read the poem by T.S. Eliot I mention in the podcast, click on this link: “Journey of the Magi.”

Interested in salvation but want to read more? Check out our Know God page or contact us through the Contact page.

Carol Whitaker

Carol Whitaker is a coach's wife, mom, writer, and singer. She left a career in teaching in 2011 to pursue a different path at God's prompting. While she thought that the path would lead straight to music ministry, God had different plans -- and Carol found herself in a crisis of spirituality and identity. Out of that place, Carol began writing about the lessons God was teaching her in her desert place and how God was teaching her what it meant to be healed from a painful past and find her identity in Him rather than a title, a relationship, a career, or a ministry. These days, Carol spends her time shuttling her little ones back and forth from school, supporting her coach-husband on the sidelines, and writing posts. Carol also continues to love music and hopes to pick up piano playing again. Carol is a self-proclaimed blog junkie and iced-coffee lover. She resides in Georgia with her husband and three children.

More Posts

How Disobedience Led to My Depression

By Leave a Comment

adult-1869119_1280

Tune into the Beulah Girl Podcast. Co-hosts Carol Whitaker and Suzy Lolley explore finding identity in Christ. Episodes cover topics such as spiritual growth, relationships, emotional health, physical healing, ministry, and more.

When you know something, you can’t unknow it. That earthly law is true for our spiritual lives as well. I was raised by my dad and a strict Pentecostal Holiness grandmother. I was taught how to dress, which included, in the South, always wearing a slip. I was not permitted to spend an inordinate time of with boys. I was in church every time the doors were open and for special events.

I would not trade any of that, because my brothers and I all serve the Lord today. However, because I grew up knowing what it meant not just to profess Jesus but also to serve him, the beginning of my sinful choices in the area of sexual behavior caused a tension between what I knew to do and what I was doing. I guess you might compare me to the apostle Paul in that way: “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do” (Romans 7:15).

Depression as a Result of Choices

For me, when I began to sin sexually, a tremendous condemnation-induced depression set in and would not leave. In fact, it persisted over a five-year period. When you know what you’re supposed to be doing and you don’t do it, you can’t help but be tense and frustrated and angry. And that tension and anger and frustration turned inward is what my unprofessional psychological mind would call depression.

This depression was there when I got up, when I walked into the grocery store, and when I laid my head on my pillow at night. My brother had the room next door, as I was still living at home, and he was probably most aware of what was going on. However, neither he nor anyone else could give me the solution.

Let me pause right here. Depression is a real disease. Some people might have bouts of it that last for a little while and are induced by circumstances, but probably in my case of such frequent and even constant episodes, I would’ve been diagnosed as clinically depressed had I let anyone diagnose me. Instead, I put the record of self-hatred and worthlessness on the turntable and let the needle spin. And that’s an apt metaphor.

Truly the pathways our brain travels down over and over physically become deeper and easier to travel. The more I dwelled on something either good or bad, the more prone I was to feel that way about myself. In fact, when you’re depressed, you sometimes forget whom the thoughts even come from. You feel like God is condemning you. Or at least you feel like you’re condemning yourself. My depression was a result of choices. I’m not here at this moment to talk about what physical or genetic tendencies can lead to clinical depression. I’m certainly not qualified for that. What I want to talk about are my choices, their direct impact on my feelings of hopelessness, and how I found hope again.

What I’m about to discuss may sound juvenile, but I was a juvenile of the time my depression started after all. After high school, my world was opened up in some ways it probably should not have been. I still lived at home and I still worked a local job, but in college, you can go to school if you feel like it and not go if you don’t. Whereas one of my nicknames in middle and high school was “Goody Squared,” even a good girl’s worldviews as a Christian are constantly challenged as close by as in a small-town college.

Remember those days with me: You’re beginning to spread your wings and feel what it is to finally be an adult and be able to make your own choices. At my house, I no longer had a curfew. All of that “looseness” combined to create some bad situations for me to put myself in with my then-boyfriend-now- husband. Although I don’t believe that I need to air our dirty laundry here in the public arena, I think you will get the picture.

Every time we moved physically closer, my heart was in a cataclysm. My spirit knew to do the right thing, but my body and my soul were sinning against God. Like I said, for me that was my depression trigger. The activities in which we were engaged brought continuous attention, but then the pull of doing right caused guilt. The results? Closeness and thrill for the moment, followed by regret, shame, and self-hatred afterward.

And that cycle lasted for five years. You would think that if sexual sin was the cause of my depression, that when I got married and everything was “permitted,” my depression would’ve left. However, that is not the case. And that note gets me to the point of how I found help and how you can too.

Advice from My Journey

There are no tricks or magic beans in this road to wholeness, and you definitely need to get professional help if you have depression that just won’t go away. I was plain stupid for not doing more to get help with mine, especially since it lasted so long. But if you’re like me, and you know the cause of your depression and you know the source of help, here’s some advice that might assist you in your journey.

1. Get help from friends. Don’t stop talking. I have the same two friends I relied for so much help during this time. They drove me around the car, took me out to eat, and let me spend the night with them as I ranted over and over about how much I hated myself and how no one liked me and how I wasn’t good enough. I honestly can’t even remember everything I said because I have always been happy. This new depressed person was honestly really foreign to me. But regardless of what I said, I’m sure it wasn’t pleasant to listen to.

I could’ve stopped talking, but by the grace of God, I didn’t. Not even when I felt suicidal. I’ll talk about that in a later post, but I want to say at this point that you can’t get help if no one knows you need it. The word “mask” is so overused in our society, but whatever it is you are wearing to cover up your depression, make sure to keep talking to somebody, and if that person won’t listen, find somebody else.

It really doesn’t matter if they know what to say even. You just need someone who is willing to listen to you and not let you talk yourself into a decision that will have lasting impact.

2. Resist old thinking patterns. When you’re free, there will still always be a temptation to go back into the old ways. You might think it’s weird that I say temptation, but on the other side of this journey of depression, I realize that for me, it can be an occasional temptation not only to have depressive thoughts and wallow in them, but also to try to use them to manipulate others into feeling sorry for me. There you go. I said it out loud. For me, a few years ago, I had an episode that lasted about thirty minutes in a bookstore parking lot.

For those few minutes, I was captive again to thoughts that I had not had for years. This time, though, was different. I knew what it was like to be free, so I began to talk out loud in my car to my thoughts and to Satan, the originator of anything that’s not godly, and I said I would not believe those thoughts again. I was free and I was going to remain free.

Sometimes you have to say out loud like a lunatic or read from a card if you don’t feel like saying it, that you are free. Our words are weapons against the enemy, and we do not need to be afraid to use them.

You may be depressed, or you may know someone who is. If you fit one of those categories, please don’t make this post about blaming yourself for your depression. Jesus absolutely adores you, no matter what choices you do or do not make. Hear my heart, though, when I say that personal choices that violate the Word of God can cause painful mental and physical side effects.

What to Do If You’re Depressed

If you are feeling trapped, get help from His Word, from friends, from a counselor, and from processing out loud. But remember that there’s a woman here who has come out on the other side. There is hope for you. As a matter of fact, there’s some Scripture that sustained me through so many of my days. May I end by sharing it with you? Psalm 27:13, 14 says this:

I remain confident of this:

I will see the goodness of the Lord

in the land of the living.

Wait for the Lord;

be strong and take heart

and wait for the Lord.

You will see His goodness, friend. I’m living proof. If you want us to pray for you and hold out hope for you, please leave us a comment below. We’re all in this together.

Related Resources:

Want to listen to co-hosts Carol Whitaker and Suzy Lolley talk through and explain the points in our latest posts? Check out the brand new Beulah Girl podcast on Soundcloud. Subscribe on Soundcloud and receive all of our latest episodes!

If you’d like to read more about depression, check out A Christian Perspective: Overcoming Depression and the related article links on depression below.

 

Suzy Lolley

Suzy Lolley

Suzy Lolley taught both middle school and high English for many years, and is currently an Instructional Technology Specialist for the public school system, a wife, and a workaholic. She loves nothing more than a clean, organized house, but her house is rarely that way. She enjoys being healthy but just can’t resist those mashed potatoes (with gravy) sometimes. When she cooks, she uses every dish in the house, and she adores a good tea party. She loves Jesus and is spending the next year documenting her journey to a less independent, more Jesus-dependent life on her blog.

More Posts - Website - Twitter - Facebook

Learning to Depend on God

By Leave a Comment

wooden-footbridge-2114668_1280

“I can do it myself!” my daughter announced as she raced ahead of me down the sidewalk. My heart did a little sideways flip-flop as I watched her neon shoes hit the pavement, causing her Lalaloopsy backpack to bounce against her narrow frame.

It was the second day of kindergarten. At my oldest daughter’s pleading, I had allowed her to ride the bus home from school. As the bus rumbled to a stop and the kids filed out, I did not catch sight of her. Worried that she had been placed on the wrong bus, I peered in to ask the driver and found my daughter giggling with two new friends on the front seat.

Looking surprised to see me, she jumped out of her seat and bounced down the stairs onto the sidewalk. Her feet had barely hit the pavement before she whirled around and insisted, “I can do it myself!”

Obviously, she had no idea where to exit because this was her first time riding the bus home, but rather than admit her need for my help, she declared that she would have been just fine had I not leaned in and collected her.

Watching that determined little girl skip away down the sidewalk, I felt a rustle in my spirit. Isn’t this what I do to God on a regular basis? How often does He fetch me off the “bus” only to see me claim that it was all my own doing?

Perhaps that heart flutter I felt was because I am often the little girl in this interchange. I am the one telling God, “I can do it myself.”

Independence as a Coping Mechanism

A can-do spirit has always been stitched into my DNA. My parents would most likely corroborate, but in looking back, I also developed self-reliance as a weapon I used to fight back against circumstances I couldn’t control.

Unfortunately, I had some situations in my childhood where I tried to voice my needs, and I was answered with irritation, anger or silence. I soon discovered that it was easier not to assert myself in some situations. Easier not to create a problem.

I became self-sufficient so that I wouldn’t impose on anyone. I built a fortress of one to protect myself. I didn’t realize that whether or not people always have good reactions to me, I need to share my needs. God doesn’t want me to cover up who I am in an unhealthy way to please others. I am not a problem if I speak up or express how I feel.

Giving up Self-Sufficiency for God-Dependency

Self-sufficiency wasn’t the only way that I tried to manage those people around me and make them like me; I also made the decision to be really useful. Not only would I never inconvenience the people in my life by expressing what I wanted, but I would also display how productive I could be — how successful. I would prove to everyone I was worth it.

Particularly in college and the first few years of teaching, I became extremely performance-driven. Although I didn’t recognize it as such, I was relying on my own fleshly attitudes to make it through my life. I believed in God, but I didn’t really know that He could help me with all the finite details of my emotions. I didn’t think He cared about that. My “It’s all up to me. I have to make this happen” attitude in college took a toll on my body.

I developed a nervous stomach and paralyzing fear and anxiety. While other people agonized over the extra pounds they were gaining, I fit easily in size zero jeans. All of my worrying whittled me down to very thin. One particular Sunday, I went forward at church for prayer when stress had brought me to the point of near collapse — and the preacher happened to say something about the cause of anxiety during the prayer time: fear.

A light bulb went off in my head, and I began to see how my terror that I wouldn’t measure up or succeed was paralyzing me and causing me to over-work myself in an effort to succeed. When I realized that the antidote to fear is trust, and I could hand over my worry to God and rest, my schoolwork became a lot more manageable. Because at the bottom of all of my self-reliance was a huge fear: that I would fail. I would fail in relationships. I would fail at being successful.

And when I failed, I had an even bigger fear — I would be rejected.

Acting Out of the Flesh

What I didn’t realize a few years ago is that by trying to change myself to please people, I was attempting to manufacture acceptance from the people around me with my actions. The desire to do things without God is something every person attempts to do whether he or she recognizes it or not. Even Christians can operate in the flesh.

According to a By Divine Design conference I attended, living in the flesh is when we attempt to meet our own needs for love, acceptance, worth and security apart from God. This desire to be independent came into the world when Adam and Eve sinned (Genesis 3:1-21). Our flesh wants control, but we cannot experience abundant life when we live out of our flesh rather than His Spirit (John 6:63).

I’d grown up in church and had only heard flesh defined as our sinful nature that leads us to lie, cheat, steal, lust, etc. However, I didn’t realize that flesh is a little more encompassing. Certainly, we may be tempted in those areas that I just listed, but acting out of our flesh also includes the ways we try to do life in our own strength and the coping skills we use to get what we want out of our environment —  even those skills considered socially acceptable (By Design). I tried to do this with my independence and performance; however, there are other coping strategies that exist as well: criticism of others, workaholism, stoicism, escapism, perfectionism, and the list goes on.

The more I tried to cope by using my own flesh patterns, the more tied up in knots I became. It’s not wrong to have needs or express them, as I learned, or let the people in our lives help us feel loved and cherished; however, it’s a problem when we lean the entire weight of our identity on others’ reactions and our own achievements. God never intended us to generate our own devices to get through our circumstances. Consider what God says about how we are to approach life in Proverbs 3:5,6:

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all of your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.

The New Living Translation actually says that this means “do not depend on your own understanding.” Therefore, the Bible teaches a dependence on God — not on our own flesh. In practical terms, this means seeking out the advice and will of God in our choices, relationships, and actions. In fact, The NIV Application Commentary suggests that not leaning on our own understanding goes beyond just asking for help in daily decisions; depending on God means “not being wise in [our] own eyes” (Prov. 3:7).

We shouldn’t necessarily feel guilty if we go somewhere for lunch before consulting Him; however, this does mean that our attitude is one of acknowledging God’s wisdom as surpassing our own. Trying to bull-doze through life on our own strength is being wise in our own eyes. Being dependent doesn’t mean we don’t have a personality or a brain. Being dependent means giving up our self-made strategies and learning God’s better ones. Being dependent means trusting so that we don’t have to fall for the lie that “it’s all up to me.”

Because the other part of Proverbs 3:5-8 is this: When we choose to depend on God’s ways over our own, He “makes [our] paths straight.” The Hebrew word for “straight” indicates “travel made safe by clearing and leveling the road” (The NIV Application Commentary). That means when we choose to lean on God instead of ourselves, He literally clears the way. It doesn’t mean we won’t be met with obstacles, because we will, but we will be traveling a way leveled in advance for us by the Almighty God.

We can rest because He’s got our back. And I don’t know about you, but that way sounds a whole lot better than trying to “do it myself”!

*Revised from a post originally published February 5, 2015.

Editor’s Note:

Please note that in the articles “Set Apart for God’s Special Purpose” and “Having the Faith to Get Through Your Storm,” changes were made to account for sources that were not included in original draft and/or bring clarification to key concepts. While we make every effort to correctly identify sources in original, at times corrections do have to be made after publication. We apologize for not including those in original draft. Please check out our new publication policy on our About page.

Related Resources:

Want to listen to co-hosts Carol Whitaker and Suzy Lolley talk through and explain the points in our latest posts? Check out the brand new Beulah Girl podcast on Soundcloud. Subscribe on Soundcloud and receive all of our latest episodes!

Carol Whitaker

Carol Whitaker is a coach's wife, mom, writer, and singer. She left a career in teaching in 2011 to pursue a different path at God's prompting. While she thought that the path would lead straight to music ministry, God had different plans -- and Carol found herself in a crisis of spirituality and identity. Out of that place, Carol began writing about the lessons God was teaching her in her desert place and how God was teaching her what it meant to be healed from a painful past and find her identity in Him rather than a title, a relationship, a career, or a ministry. These days, Carol spends her time shuttling her little ones back and forth from school, supporting her coach-husband on the sidelines, and writing posts. Carol also continues to love music and hopes to pick up piano playing again. Carol is a self-proclaimed blog junkie and iced-coffee lover. She resides in Georgia with her husband and three children.

More Posts