Spiritual Life

How to Worship in the Waiting

October 16, 2015 By Suzy Lolley 1 Comment

I remember going on trips with my family as a little girl. I was always in the middle seat in the back, with one brother asleep on my lap and one on my shoulder. Even today, it’s hard for me to fall asleep when someone else is driving, in case my lack of vigilance is the cause of our plunging down a ravine. (Or maybe I’m just a control freak?)

Anyway, when you can’t sleep and have two people lying on you, all there is to do, besides play the alphabet billboard game with yourself, is wonder that quintessential childhood question: “Are we there yet?” Such a question drives every parent to drink (sweet tea) as the answer is clearly that if we were there, we would have already stopped. Obvious enough?

Not to a child, apparently.

Not to us adults either. God makes us so many promises, and He is always so faithful, but all we seem to want is the fulfillment of the next promise — and now. We ask our Heavenly Father the same question I used to ask my earthly one so many times: “Are we there yet?” And with that question, we show that doubt has taken root in our hearts.

I ask Him if we’re there yet on our finances. Our bills are paid, but that beautiful budget that my husband and I never seem to actually implement stares us in the face.

I ask Him if we’re there yet on this fix-Suzy’s-personality-thing. I remind Him that I called a whole blog “The Beam in My Eye” and have drawn attention to every flaw I can think of about myself, but yet, my issues are still there.

I ask Him if we’re there yet on Dusty’s and my future. Kids or no kids? Leadership or no leadership? World change or television-channel-change? Is this it for us?

In all of my searching and asking and nagging and are-we-there-yetting, I forget that God is the King of all this “stuff,” and He wants my worship even if my proverbial car in the game of life stops right where it is and I never get the answer to anything I’ve asked.

Because I don’t deserve these answers. What I deserved, Jesus took on the cross, and thank God for that. However, I know that because God is gracious, all the important wonders of my life are going to be resolved by a loving Father. I just have to embrace His time and remember to worship in the waiting.

I feel like God has made some huge promises to me in my lifetime, and He will fulfill everything He’s said. However, in the day-to-day, I often struggle to actively believe the promises, thinking instead that maybe I conjured them up or misunderstood God. Even so, I am comforted that I’m not the only one who has ever felt this way. Two Bible men, David and Elijah, had incredible lives and ministries; however, they both also went so far as to shrink from God’s promises by hiding in caves.

In 1 Samuel 22, David has already been anointed king, as I shared in another post on this blog. However, he finds himself in the Cave of Adullum, a fortified cavern usually populated by a different clientele — criminals. God proved His love to David when He allowed the young shepherd boy to kill a lion, a bear, and an inhuman giant. He proved it again when He had Samuel choose David from out of a stock of what the world would consider superior brothers.

Most recently, he had proven it when he allowed David to form a covenant with his enemy king’s son. Didn’t David believe that God would provide victory for him over that same king, Saul, whom God had rejected? Why, then, was he hiding in a cave? Because he found that to trust while he waited on a promise he considered unlikely just was too risky. David was so very human that he doubted the fulfillment of God’s promise.

And what of Elijah’s doubt in the downtime? He is truly one of the biblical greats, a prophet whose amazing life is recorded in 2 Kings. A man who would later perform more than double Elijah’s miracles, young Elisha thought so much of his hero that he followed him around even to his catching away by the Lord in a chariot of fire.

Elijah was known for stopping the rain, raising the dead, multiplying food in a famine, and even calling fire from Heaven, just to name a few. Did you catch those? Despite all these displays of God’s power, though, Elijah succumbed to depression and found his own cave. Wanting to rest from his seemingly solo task of taking on evil personified in King Ahab, Elijah came to a point where he was ready to give up and even die.

But God appeared to Elijah in that cave in 1 Kings 19:12: “And after the earthquake a fire; but the LORD was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice” (KJV).

At that moment, He showed up to prove a point to Elijah that He also proves to us today. God is very faithful and very present. He has not said one thing He will not do. When He said David would be king, king he was, and no Saul could stop him. No adultery could stop him. Not even the death and rebellion of his children could deter him.

Psalm 119:89 assures us that God’s word, whatever it is, is “forever … settled in heaven” (KJV). Doubting God’s promises may not falsify them, but doubting will certainly delay the sure word’s fulfillment and discourage us too. Had King David known what an example he would be of knowing the Father’s heart to us living in the new covenant, he would have come out of the cave of hiding to wait confidently on the Lord’s provision for his kingdom.

And had Elijah only realized that God’s promise for him was more than death by the way of other prophets, maybe he could have seen that chariot of fire in his mind before it came in reality to translate him straight from this world to the next.

I have many unfulfilled promises in my life, but I don’t want to just hide in a cave and wait for them to come to pass. I want to believe God in the waiting stage. I want those who see the fulfillment of the promises to know that they were birthed out of seasons of trust and hope from a woman of faith who chose to embrace God in her weakness and seek Him until her strength came.

And as I ask God many more times in my life, “Are we there yet?” I want to trust that for each and every promise, we will reach there just in time.

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.

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Why God Considers You a Refugee

October 9, 2015 By Adriana Howard Leave a Comment

Throughout the Bible, there are numerous names given to followers of Jesus.

We are God’s children. We are brothers and sisters. We are bond-servants and co-heirs. We are His priests. We are a peculiar people and vessels. We are witnesses and temples. All of those titles provide us with encouragement as, over and over, the Bible reassures us that our identity as God’s people is a position of stability and peace. We are sons and daughters of the King of all things, and that is a place of honor. But there is another word to describe Christians that the narrative of the Bible infers — a different side of the coin. And given current world events, that word is becoming increasingly more relevant and meaningful.

That word is “refugee.”

Webster’s Dictionary defines a “refugee” as a person who flees his or her home to avoid and to escape persecution or danger. In my lifetime, there hasn’t been such a clearly demonstrated illustration of this word as there is right now. The millions of Syrian citizens who are quite literally running for their lives has been called the biggest mass exodus of refugee people since the Holocaust. Similarly, the Syrian exodus is a stark reminder of the darkness in man’s heart.

And as we watch our news stations and keep up with the headlines, we see more and more visual proof that the life of a refugee isn’t an easy one. Yet, while this label in reference to Christ-followers is more implied than directly stated in Scripture, natural theology leads us towards a clear understanding that God, in all of His abundant understanding and knowledge, says that is exactly what we as Christians are. And while it’s hard for most of us to relate to it, there is a reason why God chose to attach that particular characteristic to us.

I have never been in a position where I have had to cross country lines and rely on the hospitality of others in order to survive. I have never had to run to escape persecution or death. But I do know what it’s like to be on the outside. I do know what it’s like to feel other and strange and looked down on.

Now, please don’t misinterpret what I’m saying. I am in no way suggesting that my experiences of being excluded on account of my religious beliefs are in any way similar to what millions of displaced Syrians are experiencing at the moment. I am not naïve enough to suggest that. But according to the Bible, we are sojourners. We are exiles. We are refugees. So there must be something to that idea.

There must be a reason that God chose to describe us that way. And I believe the reason is that being a refugee, a noncitizen, a sojourner, and an outsider is as much a part of our identity as Christians as being children and priests and co-heirs are. When we accept God’s call on our lives, when we exchange our will for His grace, we become all of those wonderful things. We become God’s children.

We become heirs of His inheritance. We become the righteousness of God. But as we draw nearer to Him, all of those things pull us further and further away from our own sinful nature. As we become more like Christ, we become less like the world. And the less we look like the world, the more we will be hated by it. The plain and simple truth is that we are refugees.

We are foreigners and aliens. And we have a responsibility to recognize our citizenship and to remember that where we were is no longer who we are. I am God’s. You are His. He is ours. And this world is not our home.

Hebrews 13:14 says, “For this world is not our permanent home; we are looking forward to a home yet to come.”

So, in that regard, while I have been fortunate enough to never have had to suffer the hardships of a physical refugee, the Bible is clear in that I do have to live the life of a spiritual one. And just like the Syrians are having to flee their homeland and are having to make do in a land that isn’t theirs, we have had to adjust to life in a broken world — a world that is not for us. Our citizenship is somewhere else. We will never fully fit in. The day that we do fit in is the day that we have lost our sense of identity and purpose.

The word “refugee” isn’t a positive one. However, it wasn’t meant as a death sentence when God inspired Bible authors to write it about Christians in general. Yes, we are outsiders, but we are not without hope. Unlike the Syrian refugees, the life that God offers us shouldn’t look like displacement. It shouldn’t feel like running and hiding. We shouldn’t come across as a people with nowhere to call home. Just because our home isn’t in this world doesn’t make it any less real. And that is the light that we have to extend to this world.

This world is full of people without a home because without Jesus, that is what we are — homeless. God is our place of safety. And that is the truth that we ourselves must be convinced of. Because our hearts belong to Him, while we are exiles in a foreign land and strangers in a world that isn’t ours and foreigners who will never truly belong, we are not without a safe place. The Bible may say that we are refugees, but it also calls God our refuge. And there is no way to separate those two words.

“LORD, you are my fortress, my refuge in the day of trouble” (Jeremiah 16:19).

“This I declare about the LORD: He alone is my refuge, my place of safety” (Psalm 91:2).

“Those who fear the LORD are secure; He will be a refuge for their children” (Proverbs 14:26).

“But you are a tower of refuge to the poor, O LORD, a tower of refuge to the needy in distress. You are a refuge from the storm and a shelter from the heat” (Isaiah 25:4).

Over and over, God assures us that He is our safe place, our hiding place. Whatever you are going through, wherever you are, however hard life is raging against you, God is your shelter from the storm. You may be a refugee in this world because of your faith in the Lord. You may be an outsider and foreigner. You may be hated because of who you are. But you are not hopeless. You are not at the mercy of this world. You are not storm tossed like the millions of Syrian refugees currently without a home. You have a refuge. His name is Jesus.

In Him, we have hope. If the life of Jesus taught us anything, it is that a life consecrated to God isn’t one that follows worldly convention. It isn’t one that is accepted by man. It isn’t one that is rewarded in the typical sense. In fact, a consecrated life is increasingly looked down on and hated. And in so many countries, a consecrated life even leads to harsh persecution and death.

But Jesus was hated. He was rejected. He was even put to death.

So we are in the very best of company. A Christian life is a contradiction. We are refugees with a home. We are simultaneously rejected and accepted. We are hated by the world, but we are also envied by angels. That is the price we must pay to be His children. Actually, I take that back. That is the price that we are blessed to even have the chance to pay.

If you aren’t praying for the Syrian refugees, I encourage you to do so. The majority of them are Muslims which means that they don’t know the grace of God. They have been deceived. But He loves them. Salvation is for them as much as it was for us.

Whatever you think about the current situation, they need Jesus. On that, we should all agree. They are in a desperate situation, and I pray that God intercepts them as they wander. And I encourage you to relate to them in their wandering. They are refugees. And so are we. We are outcasts, foreigners who don’t belong. But, we can remember, every day, every breath, every beat of our hearts brings us closer and closer to home.

Adriana Howard

Adriana Howard describes herself as "sort of a mess in pursuit of a great story." Adriana spent a year teaching high school English, and currently, she is teaching theater after school at a local elementary school. She also serves with her husband as a youth pastor at her church. One day, Adriana hopes to be a published author. For the time being, she wants to travel the world, adopt children, learn how to really love people, maintain a garden, go back to India, and work alongside her husband in ministry. Other passions of Adriana's include love war films, cooking, bulky typewriters, crowded airports, winter’s first snow, Elizabeth I, and books of all shapes and sizes. Last but certainly not least, Adriana has a passionate love for Jesus. You can connect with Adriana on her blog where she dabbles in fiction, nonfiction and poetry.

Why I Am Letting Go of Bitterness

October 2, 2015 By Carol Whitaker Leave a Comment

My former senior pastor gave a story once of his young daughter refusing to jump from the diving board into the pool. Only a few years old at the time, she was taking swimming lessons at the local pool and part of her final exam for the swim class was to jump from the diving board.

She was never able to do it until the last day of swim class. On that final day, her parents prepped her, and her dad took her to the pool. To his amazement, he watched his once petrified little girl jump off into the deep end and swim to the side.

“How did you do it?” He asked. “How did you overcome your fear?”

“Oh, that’s easy, Daddy,” she replied. “I just imagined Jesus was in the water, and I was jumping into His arms.”

When Jesus Wants You to Jump

Lately, I have been feeling like a little girl on a diving board. The problem with me is that I am not sure I can trust if Jesus is there to catch me. Sure, I have a history of walking with Him where I know He is faithful.

But somehow, this time, with a move my family is making to a new place, I am slightly suspicious that when I jump, He’s not going to be there. As ridiculous as this sounds, it feels like He isn’t going to go with us.

But instead of staying behind, maybe He’s already ahead to where I am going, waiting for me. Maybe He’s already in the water, and all I have to do is trust.

I’m pretty sure the disciples felt like me after the death of Jesus. They had followed Him around for a few years, eaten with Him, talked with Him. And then He died. Everything they thought would happen didn’t happen. And they looked around and probably didn’t know what to do, so they went back to doing what they had always done. But Jesus appeared to them — a third time while they were fishing.

Jesus said to them, ‘Come and have breakfast.’ None of the disciples dared to ask him, ‘Who are you?’ They knew it was the Lord. (John 21:12)

While they thought they had been left behind, Jesus had actually gone before them and was waiting for them on the shore.

A New Season in My Life

At a wedding of some friends, I find the nearest bathroom stall and hunch down in it. I tell God I am bitter. I don’t want to be but I am. I tell Him that there are relationships that I have to let go of that I am not ready to release. There are things that I had wanted to happen that didn’t. There is a dream dying that I can’t let go of. I don’t want to feel so disappointed, but I can’t get seem to get rid of these feelings.

I feel Him standing near me. His hands are out. There have only been a handful of times when I have felt Him physically near me — and this is one of them.

Music drifts from the welcome hall where people mingle, talking and laughing. Above that sound is another sound — like a blur of voices singing. The sound is not in dissonance with the music — but I can make out no recognizable tune. Perhaps the sound is nothing more than a reverberation of the music playing in the other room, but I feel like for these moments there is another layer of sound. And then a few lyrics from a Colton Dixon song pop up in my mind. The song is not actually playing anywhere near me, but the words are so clear in my mind, it’s almost as if I can hear them:

I let go of your hand

To help you understand

With you all along

Yeah, I was never gone.

Like He is saying to me, Carol, I am here. I was never gone. Nor will I ever be.

I get up from the stall and walk out to join my husband. That tight knot in my stomach. Gone.

That desire to hold on to my old community and a life God is telling me to let go of. Gone.

Just a sense that, yes, I can jump and move on.

An Inspiration From an Unexpected Source

Around the same time I attend the wedding, I read a CNN article about a girl who was photographed while she was on fire. Just a young 9-year-old girl, Kim Phuc was running from a napalm attack — her flesh burning — during the Vietnam War. A photographer captured the moment and then ran to her aid. The article is about the woman now — she is 52 and living in Toronto.

After the awful moment was captured in a photograph, Phuc was embarrassed by the picture. She didn’t like looking at herself in torment — such a horrible moment for her and others to have to remember.

But then she started to realize what the photograph meant to people. The photograph had helped people see the terror of the war — even, some say, help to end the war itself.

As the article notes, “She began to think about what the photograph could give, rather than what it could take away.”

Obviously, I am not a war victim, and a move to another county is not a traumatic event, but after reading the article, a little thought bubbles up and it is this: What if I focus not on what this move is taking away but what it can give?

The phrase “something better” keeps coming to mind when I ask God why He wants me to go. He keeps telling me that there are promises that are going to be fulfilled. But they feel so far away. And it feels painful because there are so many opportunities He has asked me to give up these past few years. Whatever awaits for me in the future feels unreal. But maybe giving up my bitterness over leaving means believing in the promise of something better.

Right now, in this season of transition and confusion, it just feels like God is taking and taking. I want to say, “God, haven’t you taken enough? I got nothing left.” But that’s just the paradox of the Christian life: it is in the giving up that I find it.

For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. (Matthew 16:25)

Do I want to move? No! Am I believing God has good things in store for me even though it doesn’t feel like it? Do I believe in obeying when God calls? Yes!

And so, I’ll go.

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.

Should Christians Enjoy Life?

September 25, 2015 By Carol Whitaker Leave a Comment

We’ve been house hunting. And up until last weekend, I found the process very depressing.

In an effort to be sensible, we had decided to look in a slightly lower price range than our current house, but the drop in quality was so shocking, I was having a hard time envisioning myself in any of the scuffed, peeling, old-feeling homes that we walked through. I couldn’t see us living in any of the homes we looked at.

I am an intuitive person. I buy things because of how the things make me feel. (I know, probably not the best buyer plan.) And none of the houses we looked at felt like home.

On our second outing with the realtor, we walking into a darling 2-story Craftsman style. From the moment we drove into the neighborhood and drove up to the house, I felt like I was home. I wanted to be there. The scenario just kept getting better as we walked in the house: dark wood floors gleamed in the great room, dark cherry cabinets twinkled in the kitchen, and clean, well-chosen gray tile beckoned in the master bathroom.

The house was move-in ready. I was ready to make an offer. I felt excited about the house.

Except on the way home, I started thinking about what other people would think of us getting that house. It was in a nice neighborhood. What would God think? It wasn’t luxurious or fancy, but maybe we weren’t sacrificing enough. After all, God wants us to cast aside our worldly wants to follow Him. Doesn’t He?

I texted my mom to let her know that we had found a viable contender at last in our home search. She immediately responded with a text telling me that where I live is important to the Lord, and He delights in blessing His children.

I looked at her words for a second. Really? God blessing me?

I struggle with that sometimes. I remember bare particle floors as a kid. Lumber stacked in our family room. A pink banana seat bike that broke down and never got fixed. The 100 times I had to tell my friends I couldn’t go bike riding because I didn’t have a bike that worked. The 1,000 times I was embarrassed to invite people over and say, “Yeah, we live here.”

That’s just want you did as a Christian, right? Accept all the broken stuff. Give the shirt off your back. Sell all of your possessions.

Not necessarily. God loves to bless us. He may ask us to give away some material possessions. He may ask us to live below our means or give up a high-salary job to start a non-profit. I think we can go too far in extremes, though, living in a legalistic way that doesn’t allow for blessing or fun in our lives. This version of life is lived not really to please God but to make others think that we are spiritual.

In Kristen Strong’s “When a Minivan Mama Steps into a Sporty Convertible,” she struggles with this very dilemma when she discovers her husband has rented a (gasp!) convertible for an anniversary getaway. She is ashamed of driving around in a vehicle that is so nice.

And then she comes to this conclusion:

“Jesus came so you may have life to the full — for His glory and your benefit.”

She decides to embrace that moment of luxury — for five days — because she knew that they weren’t blowing their budget or putting all on the line for a trip they couldn’t afford. They were constantly making wise money choices — and she decides to say “thank you” to God for a fun trip with her husband (that included a great car) instead of feel shame for enjoying the blessings that came with the trip.

I came across Ecclesiastes 7:16-18 the other day and was struck by these words:

Do not be overrighteous,

Neither be overwise –

Why destroy yourself?

Do not be overwicked,

and do not be a fool –

why die before your time?

It is good to grasp the one

and not let go of the other

The man who fears God will avoid all extremes.

As this verse explains, a Christian should avoid being too legalistic or too worldly — and find moderation between the two. In regards to material possessions, too legalistic says you can’t ever have anything nice because Jesus wouldn’t like it. Too worldly says you should have and do whatever you want without consulting God about it first. Both positions are extreme and neither one right.

As far as the house goes, I really want it. But I am not letting that dictate my actions. I told God I’d really like that house, but I told Him to sell it if it wasn’t the right one for us.

I felt this little whisper come to me: Carol, it would be wrong if that house was dictating your every move. If it was owning you. But it’s not. That’s when wealth is a problem.

I thought of the young rich man story in the Bible. I remember reading some commentary on the story on an atheist site. The site used the story as one more convincing reason why Christianity was impossible to practice and foolish to believe: How can God expect Christians to sell everything they have?

I wanted to leave a comment for the writer of the site because he obviously didn’t get the message of the story, but the site didn’t have a space for responses.

I would have said something to this effect: In the story, Jesus wasn’t really concerned with the young rich man having possessions — Jesus was concerned about the rich man’s heart. And the place those possessions had in that man’s heart.

I think it is the same with me. When things get too big in my life — and they crowd out Him — that’s when He begins to tell me to loosen my grip. Because holding onto anything too tightly — relationships, money, houses, dreams — isn’t good for me.

We didn’t buy that house. Ours hasn’t sold, and we’re still looking. But we are in a position to do so when we have an offer on ours. When we decide on the one, I am going to say yes. Yes to blessing — and yes to letting go of legalistic extremes that say Christians shouldn’t ever enjoy life.

Because at times, they should.

Carol Whitaker

When Things Don’t Go According to Plan

September 18, 2015 By Sharon Early 1 Comment

I always have the best plans.

Seriously. The best. I lay everything out in my mind. I prepare. I dream. I anticipate. I map it all out.

You would think I would have given up planning by now.

When I was growing up, I “made the decision” that I would never have children. I proudly proclaimed that motherhood wasn’t in my plan, never stopping to think that perhaps the creation of life wasn’t up to me. After I was married and decided it was time to give this area of my life to God to do what He would with it, I lost three precious babies to miscarriage.

Our twins came and went five months into our marriage, and we lost another the next year. Nothing had ever humbled me faster. Nothing brought me lower. I spent so long believing I could choose whether or not to have children, that I could plan to do what I wanted with my fertility. I never considered that this would be decided for me.

I didn’t stop planning, though. Immediately after my second miscarriage, I became pregnant with my daughter. I was going to do everything perfectly this time. I would continue my practice of running and compete in 5Ks once a month, even while pregnant. I would eat healthily and stay active in order to give my daughter the very best home for precisely 40 weeks.

My plans, naturally, were derailed immediately. I threw up all day, every day, throughout my entire pregnancy. I had rare breaks between puking sessions, but I was so weak I could barely walk, let alone run. We had to make a few trips to the hospital for fluids because nothing I ate would stay down. I ate whatever wouldn’t come straight back up, which meant my diet consisted largely of chicken noodle soup and sour candy.

Despite all this, I was still going to have the perfect birth. With the best of intentions, I created a playlist of worship music that would provide the perfect backdrop to my daughter’s entrance into the world. I studied natural childbirth, got a birthing ball, and planned to labor at home for as long as I could before we drove to the hospital. There, I would deliver my daughter without any pain relief, allowing my body to work as God intended. You know where this is going, right?

My sister drove me to the emergency room on a Monday. I was 32 weeks along and my husband was painting the nursery that night with my father. “Stay home,” I told him. “My blood pressure is a little high, but it’s nothing. I’ll be home in a couple of hours.” He came anyway, and I didn’t get to go home.

I had suddenly developed severe preeclampsia. I stayed in the hospital that night with the intention (yes, there’s that word again) of going home the next day on bed rest. As we were packing up our things to leave on Tuesday evening, the nurse came in with my test results. I wasn’t going home.

We sat, bewildered, in the hospital room until the doctor called my husband’s cell and asked to be put on speaker. I remember words like “shocked” and “sick” and then he got to the point: “We’re going to have to deliver your baby first thing in the morning.” We cried and prayed and lay awake all night, trying to come to terms with the news that our baby girl was coming 8 weeks early and wouldn’t be going home with us for a very long time.

She was 3 pounds, 7 ounces, so small she could be held in one hand. But I didn’t get to hold her. She was whisked away into the NICU, and when I did get to meet her the next day, I saw more of the wires and monitors than I did of her. I sobbed, overcome with love and fear and the feeling that I had failed her.

My body had failed to protect her, had failed to be the stable, secure home she needed. This wasn’t what I had planned. None of this was what I had planned. A few days later, we left the hospital without her. I will never have words to describe that feeling. I just pray I never have to feel it again.

Every day we made the journey to the hospital to visit our baby. We held her delicate frame and read to her about Jesus and prayed over her. And every night we went home to an empty nursery, where I would lie on my face and pray through anguished tears. I swore I was done planning.

Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, ‘If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.’ As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil. (James 4:14-16)

I have learned more, since my daughter was born, about God’s perfect plan than I ever thought possible. You see, my plans, however well-intentioned, are nothing more than arrogant schemes in the shadow of God’s perfect will. I believe, without a doubt, that He planned her birthday for February 11, 2015. Her arrival was eight weeks early to us, but right on time to Him. He was neither surprised nor shaken.

We were drawn closer to our Sovereign Creator as we watched her being formed before our very eyes. We were forced to be trained in complete dependence on our Jehovah to provide our strength as we left her in the care of strangers (who eventually became family) every day and night. And as we felt the pain of separation from her, we knew for the first time the depth of our Father’s love for us and the great lengths He went to in order to bring us home.

Oh, I wouldn’t change a thing. My plan for Mellie’s arrival sounded perfect to me, but it more than paled in comparison to the glorious, miraculous way in which God escorted her into the world. How He loves us.

I still plan things. I haven’t learned. And God still shows me how wrong I am. After all we went through with our sweet Mellie Christine, I said we were going to wait a while before our next baby. We needed a break, of course.

I suppose I was simply asking for a positive pregnancy test. Mellie is due to become a big sister in a few short months. And while we may hope this new little baby comes on our schedule this time, we know from experience that He has a plan “to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine,” according to His power at work within us. To Him be the glory, forever and ever. Amen (Ephesians 3:20).

Sharon Early

With a bachelor’s degree in English, Sharon Early did not actually put her English background to use right away. She began a job as an animal trainer out of college and then moved on to become a marketing writer. Her latest role is now stay-at-home mom to her infant daughter, Mellie Christine. Married for almost 3 years to her pilot-husband, Sharon has lost 3 babies to miscarriage and is currently pregnant with a brother or sister for Mellie. A Lord of the Rings fan, Sharon once tried to learn Elvish, and dreams of visiting New Zealand where the movies were filmed. She also loves musicals, particularly Phantom of the Opera. Over the course of her life, Sharon has struggled with depression, anxiety, self-harm, suicidal tendencies, and promiscuity before coming to Jesus at the age of 23. Because she still struggles with many of these things, Sharon believes that the worst thing she can do as a Christian woman is pretend like these issues do not exist. Because she has been the recipient of judgment and criticism from other Christians for battling these demons, Sharon is passionate about letting other Christian women know it’s okay to not be okay, and that it’s only when we admit we are not okay that we can begin to fully rely on God’s grace. Sharon firmly believes that we defeat the lies of the enemy by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony (Revelation 12:11).

What Women Find in Jesus

August 21, 2015 By Adriana Howard 4 Comments

Recently, my husband and I were fortunate enough to visit Israel. It came about in a roundabout way after a mission trip that we were hoping to go on to India was canceled. And while we completely understood why canceling was necessary, we were understandably disappointed.

After all, we had crisp newly printed passports. We had our hiking backpacks. We had wanderlust twinkles in our eyes. We had the time off and finances set aside. But now we had no destination.

So in a last minute decision that was bordering on nonsensical, we looked at the map and said, “Israel.” And then we laughed like crazy people. And then we got quiet and thought, “Why not?” We were well aware of the current situation in that region — politically and religiously.

But it was an open door, and we especially love those. So we laughed again, bought our plane tickets, and two weeks later, we were off.

While I was anxious, I wasn’t afraid. I was excited. I was eagerly anticipating everything that God would teach me and reveal to me and speak to my heart. Then I arrived in Israel, and everything that I expected to see and learn and feel was turned on its head.

Needless to say, my eyes were opened in regards to so many things, and I walked away with unexpected lessons learned. Adventuring through Israel didn’t make Jesus more real to me. He was real to me well before this trip. But aspects of His Word and His heart became more real to me, and it’s from that place that I’m writing this post today.

Ramadan, which began while we were in Israel, has never been something of consequence to me. But it was hard for it not to be as we walked through the Muslim quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City, our eyes trailing the lines of lights strung from rooftops. It was impossible to ignore during salat (daily prayer times) when speakers surrounding the Dome of the Rock would broadcast Islamic songs of prayer and worship over the entire city.

The reality of the Middle East situation wasn’t lost on us as we strolled down cobblestone streets surrounded by people whose religious beliefs, worldviews, and thought processes were fundamentally different than our own.

This trip to Israel not only opened my eyes to the realities of the Middle East but specifically got me thinking about the women of this region. I didn’t feel that striking “fundamental” difference so severely as when I walked by a Muslim woman dressed in her hijab and burqa, covered from her head to her toes in black robes with only her eyes uncovered for the world to see.

In a singular way, she represented to me the whole of Islam. And as I walked by her, my lips moved with whispered prayers for her heart, her life, her family, her soul. I prayed that God would reveal Himself to her. I prayed that her life would be protected. My heart broke for her and for all of the things that I didn’t know about her.

And while the things that I didn’t know about her life greatly outnumbered the things that I did, I knew, with confidence, that she didn’t know Jesus, and that is cause enough for concern.

And then I attended a young adult service at a church in Jerusalem where the worship portion was led by a young woman. She was unassuming, in her early twenties, with a cute haircut and a great voice. But it was her heart for the Father that made her compelling. It was the abounding freedom that she displayed when she fell to her knees and worshipped.

It was what she said and how she said it as she encouraged us to press in deeper. Her place in God’s kingdom made her strong and free.

It was that mark of freedom that set one woman apart from the other. One woman had her eyes on Jesus. The other woman had her eyes on the ground. One woman leads. The other is led.

One woman walks, with boldness, in the promises of God. One woman doesn’t know the One who died to set her free. But both are lavishly loved by the Father. And that is what makes the reality of their separateness so heartbreaking.

God has a heart for women. It is apparent throughout the Bible. And Jesus’ interactions with women were so out of the norm for His time that it stands as one more piece of evidence of His divinity. He was man, but He was also God. And by virtue of that fact, He exists out of time. He wasn’t confined by the cultural standards of His time.

In 30 A.D., women were still worth little more than property, and yet, Jesus considered them something infinitely more valuable. There are examples all throughout God’s word of Jesus elevating women.

Women and the Heart of Jesus

When Jesus approaches the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4, He crosses the lines of cultural propriety. She has a checkered past — five husbands, and currently living with a sixth man outside of marriage.

She is alone which probably indicates that people know of her sinful reputation and have ostracized her for it. And she is a Samaritan. Her race alone provides Jesus, a Jew, enough reason not to speak to her. Yet, Jesus does speak to her, witnesses to her, and offers salvation to her. He even discloses, for the first time, His own identity as the prophesied Messiah. And He does so because He sees her as valuable in spite of the racial lines and gender lines that divide them.

According to Luke 8, Jesus includes women among the ranks of His disciples. It is one thing to respect the teachings of a teacher. It is another thing to travel with a rabbi and his students. But women like Joanna and Susanna prove to us that Jesus looks beyond conventional lines straight through to the heart.

In spite of the fact that they were women, they had something to offer outside of what convention claimed. They both had lives outside of Jesus’ ministry. Joanna was someone’s wife. And yet, the Bible says that these women contributed to the support of the ministry out of their own means. They weren’t just keeping company with Jesus. He empowered them to work alongside Him.

Mary Magdalene, after being delivered and healed by Jesus, joined His disciples, like Joanna and Susanna. Additionally, she is listed along with Jesus’ own mother among the few women present at the trial and crucifixion of Jesus. And the Gospels tell us that she was the first person He appeared to after His resurrection. His love for Mary inspired her steadfast devotion. And it makes sense.

The Samaritan woman lived with a man. Joanna and Susanna were wives and women of means. But in Mary Magdalene’s case, there is never a mention of family — not a husband, parents, children. So for a woman, with no ties worth mentioning, to find family in Jesus is a supremely beautiful thing. Before Jesus, she was bound. After Him, she was free. Before Him, she was alone. After Him, she was home.

What Does this Mean for Us?

Jesus came that we might have abundant life. With that life comes identity, strength, boldness, purpose, and value. That especially applies to women who, historically speaking, have typically been considered second-class citizens. And the harsh reality is that there are women, all around the world, who are still considered that.

While the women in these biblical passages were limited and excluded because of their gender and actions, Jesus showed them that, with Him, they always had a place. With Jesus came grace and freedom. And that’s as true today as it was then. But if we, who do know Him, aren’t walking in that grace and freedom, then we aren’t experiencing the fullness of who He created us to be. It’s when we do experience that fullness that we can lift our faces like the woman leading worship because we are free, the kind of freedom that comes from being wanted and accepted.

If you are a Christian woman, then you are my sister. And as sisters, we absolutely need to push one another towards that abundant life that Christ offers. We should be praying for one another, shouldering each other’s burdens, seeking out and offering accountability, and doing what we can to make sure that no sister is left behind.

We also need to concern ourselves with the women out there who aren’t walking in that freedom. There are too many women out there who do not know the One who loves them best.

Where the woman in the marketplace is concerned, our paths will never cross again. I don’t know much about her. I don’t know what color her eyes are or if she has laugh lines on her face. I don’t know if she is married or a mother. I don’t know where she was going that day or if she was happy. But I know that she was lost, and that is a condition that we cannot afford to ignore.

We are sisters. If we aren’t walking in the fullness of who God created us to be, if we aren’t fully aware of the fact that we are loved by the Father, then that is where we start. And if we are full and fully free, then let us be prayerful for the women who aren’t. They are our sisters, too — even if they don’t know it yet.

Adriana Howard

How to Follow God’s Will

August 14, 2015 By Suzy Lolley 1 Comment

I remember sitting in Adams Park in Kennesaw, Georgia, with my husband back when we were teenagers and telling him that I knew I would have a hard life. I knew that I would never have the white-picket-fence life or be the soccer mom, because God had another plan for me. Let me stop here and say that I am not criticizing those who do have a comfortable life — I just have always known I wouldn’t.

But that’s about where the life-plan clarity ended. None of the specifics of my life — having children, making ministry decisions, and seeking job direction — have seemed to follow such a defined path. They’ve been hard for sure, and yet I haven’t had that moment where the sky opens up and God gives me clarity on a specific issue.

In all of my recent seeking for the Lord’s will, I’ve come across two schools of thought about finding it. One of them, proposed in the book What Am I Supposed to Do with My Life? by Johnnie Moore, says that we should, when faced with two equally good decisions and no clear word from God, choose what we feel and trust that God will bless it. The other school of thought, which I find myself leaning toward, says that we should hear a clear direction from God before we act. I may not be quite as specific as Gideon was when he laid out the fleece before God in Judges 6, but I am still looking for big and small signs of God’s will in the world around me and wondering if each one is God’s divine voice of direction.

Lately in our lives, Dusty and I have been trying to make a major decision. I wish I could say more, but then I wouldn’t be the woman of mystique and mystery that I am. It’s not that we haven’t tried to figure out the Lord’s will. Of course we have. We have, in fact, spent thousands of dollars and have taken some special adventures to try to figure out what God’s will is.

We’ve prayed and we’ve fasted, we’ve listened to podcasts and sermons, and we’ve gotten advice from wise and well-meaning friends. However, we both know what it is to hear clearly from the Lord for ourselves. I don’t mean that we are waiting for His audible voice, but we want to feel a down-deep assurance of what we’re supposed to do. In this situation, we don’t feel clear about one way or the other, but we feel like we need to make a decision soon. We don’t want to bang on a closed door, but we don’t feel like it’s totally closed either.

Anytime I don’t know what to do, I feel that there’s only one place to go, and that’s God’s Word. If anyone knew what it was like to have to wait for a really long time, it was Abraham and Sarah, and so their story really inspires me not to give up hope that I will hear from the Lord. Let me share with you three lessons I learn from their waiting story.

Three Lessons on Following God’s Will

1. Sometimes we have to follow without knowing our destination.

We first read Abram’s story in Genesis 12. The very first recorded word from God to him is to leave his country and everything he knows and go to a country that God will show him — as in, show him after Abraham starts walking toward it. That is so scary! I can’t imagine getting up and going without knowing the destination, but maybe that’s exactly what God is asking me to do with my spiritual journey. He is asking all of us to trust Him when we can’t see what He’s gotten us into.

2. God is merciful even when we get sidetracked from His perfect will.

When we read about biblical people, we have the tendency to think of them as characters, and not only that, but we think of them as heroes who always made the right decisions and saw the supernatural. Abram seems like such a hero because he was willing to make a journey into the unknown, guided by only a word from God, and an incomplete word at that.

However, he missed God’s will at times. In a later section of Genesis 12, Abram pretends that Sarah is his sister and almost causes her to be violated by Pharoah, thus bringing disaster upon the people who are offering him refuge during a famine. In chapter 16, he listens to his wife’s poor advice to try to conceive his promised heir through a servant instead of his own wife.

Like the plagues that came because of Abram’s earlier deception, heartbreak came when Abram had to send his son Ishmael away. However, like is always the case with our great God, Abram’s promise of inheritance did come, despite his missteps. I don’t want to miss a step in God’s plan for me, but I am happy to know that we serve a God of mercy who will see our destiny through to completion when we trust Him to get us back on track.

3. We will be blessed when we obey God’s will.

One of my favorite songs to sing in worship a few years ago was Hillsong’s “None but Jesus,” specifically because of the line that says, “When you call, I won’t delay.” It’s one thing to say okay to God’s call, but it’s another to go with it when He asks. Immediately. Without overthinking it. Abram followed God’s call way back in Genesis 12. However, it’s Genesis 17 when God appears to reconfirm his covenant of Abram having children, through renaming him Abraham and asking him to be circumcised.

By this point, Abraham is 99 years old, and to his wife Sarah, having a child is literally a laughing matter. But a year later, as God had promised, Abraham and Sarah give birth to Isaac. God may have seemed to delay the response they were waiting for, but they never delayed their obedience to His will, and for that, they were rewarded with the child of promise in God’s time.

I think I’ve come to this conclusion: some decisions are OK to just go with if God doesn’t speak, but others are such that we need to make sure we hear clearly.

When Abram went, it was because God told him to. He didn’t just have an unction or a feeling; he knew that God had spoken. By using Abram’s story as the template for my upcoming life decisions, I will do this — seek God actively, listen to what He says, obey without delay, and try not to get sidetracked. And because I believe what He says in Galations 6:9, I know that His promises for me and my husband will come to pass in every way.

Even if we have to wait 99 years.

Are you trying to make a difficult decision? Do you feel like you can’t hear God’s voice? Have you been waiting forever? Are you paralyzed with inaction? Please leave a comment below so that we can pray together. God wants us to know His will, and there is wisdom in a multitude of counselors.

Suzy Lolley

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Why Ignoring God’s Word Is Not Smart

August 7, 2015 By Jamie Wills Leave a Comment

What comes to mind when you hear the word “summer”? Do words like “sun” and “sand” and “water” pop into your head? Do you envision lazy days spent outside eating ice cream after grilling lunch or dinner on the back porch? Perhaps you think more broadly and the ideas of family and fun spring to mind?

Well, please allow me to briefly share what comes to mind when I think of summer. (Disclaimer: I’m a high school English teacher.)

The word “time” springs to mind when summer is mentioned. Time to finally do all those things I’ve been pushing aside during the busy school year. Time to clean and organize my house. Time to help my children sharpen their reading and writing skills. Time for doctors’ appointments, and time for the car’s oil change and finishing that Christmas project I started back in December.

Time to put my life back in order before the next school year begins.

And that is what I have focused on since summer began. That to-do list.

All that being said, I have also managed to carve out time for VBS and a trip to see my family, along with squeezing in a couple visits to the pool with the kids. Really, when all is said and done, I’ve been mighty productive. So why do I feel so unaccomplished? So unfinished and incomplete?

Recently, I asked my Jesus those questions, and I instantly received the answer.

I am feeling so broken lately because I have been making time for every other priority in my life EXCEPT for God’s Word.

The moment the Holy Spirit showed me my error, the words of Psalm 51 sprang into my heart: “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.”

Those words were written by King David after the prophet Nathan confronted the king about his sins against Bathsheba and Uriah. David was instantly repentant after hearing Nathan’s condemnation in 2 Samuel 12:9: “Why have you despised the word of the Lord by doing evil in His sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword, have taken his wife to be your wife, and have killed him with the sword of the sons of Ammon.”

David had ignored God’s Word when he took Bathsheba (you shall not commit adultery, the seventh commandment) and killed her husband, Uriah (you shall not murder, the sixth commandment). I imagine David, like me, had not been spending time in God’s Word to have made such grievous errors in judgment.

Ignoring God’s Word can have severe consequences.

We see this truth when the Lord says this to David through Nathan the prophet in 2 Samuel 12:10: “Now therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house because you have despised me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.”

When we don’t make spending time in God’s Word a priority, disaster can and will, eventually, strike. A child of God found not spending time in His Word can be likened to a person driving a car in the pouring rain without the windshield wipers on. If you keep driving like that, you will crash! And David crashed hard.

As for me, I, too, have been ignoring God’s word. Like King David, this summer I have been living life according to my own whims and desires without taking any time to consult God’s Word — to consult God. By ignoring His Word, I have been leaving out a primary way God can speak to me and teach me.

Additionally, not spending time in His Word can lead to spiritual malnourishment. And that’s how I’ve been feeling this summer — starved. The reason I am feeling so fragmented lately is because I have deliberately cut off my spiritual sustenance and have been starving myself. No wonder I have grown weary and feel faint of heart.

Man shall not live by bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God. (Matthew 4:4)

How could I make all this time for temporal things and totally ignore what is lasting and true?

Am I alone in this? Do you also need to make time for the One who created time? Let’s make some mid-year resolutions and resolve to ignore God’s Word no longer.

Here are two things we can do to foster a growing relationship with the Lord:

1. Start your day in His Word. Even if you only have five minutes to spare, stop and acknowledge the Lord by reading His Word. The world in which we live is dark and scary. It’s a battlefield for the child of God! Philippians 4:7 admonishes us to guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, and it just makes sense that it is best to do this BEFORE the day begins and not after the battle has already begun.

2. Study His Word. It is also important to become intimately acquainted with God’s Word. 2 Timothy 2:15 explains that you should “do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.” We need to make time to really study His truth. Happily, one of the results of having a time like this is establishing a deeper relationship with the giver of life Himself.

Making these resolutions is simple, but putting them into practice can be daunting. I get it! If you are a busy working mom like myself, making the above two suggestions top priority in your life is a huge undertaking. But we must try!

The consequences of failure in this area of our walk with God could create irreversible damage. Just recall the loss of David’s first infant son with Bathsheba (2 Samuel 12) and the adversity he faced in the later years of his life with his son Absalom (2 Samuel 15).

So, if you are feeling as if something is amiss in your life, perhaps you are missing out on time in God’s Word. Resolve with me to ignore it no longer. I plan on ending my summer and starting the new school year moving in the right direction — closer to God’s Word and thus closer to God.

“Just a closer walk with Thee; Grant it, Jesus, is my plea; Daily walking close to Thee; Let it be, dear Lord, let it be.”

Will you resolve with me to spend more time in God’s Word? Post a comment about your plans, and let’s create a dialogue and solidify our intentions before the Lord.

Jamie Wills

Jamie is a high school English teacher, wife and mom. She is a marathon runner and writes regularly in her spare time on miscarriage, running, spirituality and everyday life on her blog -- posting things that God shows her that she doesn't want to forget, or "forget-me-nots." Jamie holds a master's degree in education and sponsors speech and debate at the high school level. Jamie is the mother of three children -- two beautiful daughters, Beth and Hannah; as well as Angel, a baby she lost in August of 2010. She currently resides in Georgia with her family.

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What Does God Expect of Me?

July 17, 2015 By Rachel Howard 1 Comment

Earlier this week, a big Amazon package was sitting on my kitchen table when I got home. I knew exactly what it was. It was a brand new food processor I had just ordered a few days before. My plan was to start making all my own baby food, since my son was almost eight months old, and I was behind in giving him “other foods” (aka anything other than formula).

I decided that making homemade baby food would be a good idea in order to save money, and that I would be an accomplished, above-average mom. As I went to a kitchen drawer for scissors to open the package, I felt like I was supposed to be excited about it, but I wasn’t. I knew I wouldn’t be able to successfully do this. I knew I didn’t have all the time, energy, and drive in me in order to make this homemade baby food thing happen. I was defeated before I had even begun. I felt like a failure.

As I sat down for my quiet time this morning, my heart was heavy. My many perceived failures were piling up on me. I had a picture in my mind of the kind of woman, wife, and mom I was supposed to be.

I was supposed to have a perfectly clean house, a schedule of all of our meals for the next month, and all of our doctors’ appointments lined up for the year. I was supposed to be teacher-of-the-year at my school, go to the gym three times a week, and be up-to-date on all the latest fashions. I was supposed to volunteer in the community, serve in many facets at my church, and even be a leader of a handful of ministries. I was supposed to be an incredibly responsible, respectable, and put-together adult. I was supposed to have an organized purse and be able to create made-from-scratch baby foods.

The list was long and my strength was weak. Why couldn’t I be and do all of those things? Why didn’t God put the ability to accomplish these tasks more readily inside of me? I mean, a woman able to do it all is what would please Him and mean success, right?

With all of my weaknesses glaring, I cried out to God and realized something. I have been pressuring myself to be someone that I may NEVER be. And that is OK. Even better than that, it’s very possible that I have been wasting time and energy trying to be someone that I was NEVER SUPPOSED to be.

You see, as I got caught up in such a long list of to do’s, it was almost as if I was focused on being more like Martha instead of more like Mary. Let’s take a look at the passage to remind ourselves of these two sisters.

Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, ‘Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.’ But the Lord answered her, ‘Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.’ ” (Luke 10:38-42 –ESV)

Martha was focused on many things. She was distracted by them and trying to do, do, do for Jesus. Maybe, in a way, she was trying to be good enough for him. This is the trap that I have found myself in. I long to be a daughter that God is pleased with, and while that is a great thing, I had created all these things in my mind that He must expect from me. Things I thought I must do in order to be worthy of his presence. Like Martha, I was focusing on my to-do list rather than simply enjoying the company of the One in my heart.

There are a couple problems with this works-based mentality. The first is that my works will never make me good enough for him. Ephesians 2:8-9 (ESV) says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”

The second problem with me trying to do more for Jesus is that it takes me away from the real truth and beauty of Christianity — to be in a close and personal relationship with God because of what Christ did for me, not what I do for Him. To simply be in awe of who He is and to rest in and enjoy His presence, hear His teaching, and get to know Him more. And the funny thing is, time spent with Him is where I get the strength to do the things that He has called me to.

The world teaches us to accomplish as much as we possibly can and to earn our worth and acceptance. To be more like Martha. To work hard, and then we might be “good enough.” But that’s not what Jesus tells us to do. Jesus says for us to pause from our busyness and learn from Him. To believe that “in repentance and rest is our salvation” (Isaiah 30:15).

Yes, God has planned things for me to do, and I certainly want to do them. I want to glorify Him with my life, and I don’t want to miss what He has for me. But my hope is that I don’t get caught up in works. That I would not “be anxious and troubled about many things.” That I would be more like Mary and sit at the feet of Jesus.

Because resting in His presence will then allow me to clearly see the difference between the works He has called me to and the ones He hasn’t.

What about you? Have you become so caught up in trying to please others or meet your own impossible expectations that you haven’t been able to listen to Jesus lately? What is one way you can make time for Him today?

Rachel Howard

With a degree in music education, Rachel Howard is a middle grades chorus instructor who has a passion for teaching students about her love for music. In addition to inspiring adolescents in the public school system, Rachel is currently taking piano lessons and also enjoys photography, scrapbooking and Francine Rivers novels. A small-group leader at her church, Rachel also leads worship on occasion. In addition to these roles, Rachel is a wife and mom to two kids, Isaac and Evelyn. Rachel currently resides in Georgia with her husband and kids.

How Forward Motion Faith Overcomes Obstacles

July 3, 2015 By Carol Whitaker Leave a Comment

Have you ever felt that there was a wall blocking your progress?

Yep. I have felt the same way many times the last few years as I have felt walls of every kind impeding my path.

If you’ve read my blog for any length of time, you know that I left my job four years ago. I exited the education field because I felt God wanted me to go a new direction into ministry; however, rather than find open doors, I’ve experienced nothing but closed doors. I have felt many times that maybe I didn’t hear God right — that I’ve been on a wild good chase with no end in sight. I’ve had successes here and there, but overall, I have doubted many times that I even heard God tell me I was going to be used in music and women’s ministry.

I’ve felt like the Israelites in the story of Exodus when they leave Egypt, but Pharoah, changing his mind on letting them go, comes chasing after them. The Israelites find themselves in a really tight spot — the Red Sea in front of them and Pharaoh’s army behind them.

Although my obstacles haven’t been Egyptian soldiers wielding weapons and an actual expanse of water in front of me, my obstacles have been the scorn of others who don’t believe me or accept my journey, the doubt of family members who have actively pulled down my dream of singing, and my own unbelief as I have struggled not to allow my own doubt to completely suffocate the small flicker of a dream I have struggled to keep alive. I’ve had doors open in women’s ministry and music — the two areas I have felt called to serve in, but God has told me distinctly not to walk through those doors.

The things I have felt Him tell me to do instead have not yielded (in my estimation) any results, and I have been confused. Just like the Israelites, when I have traveled in the way I believe God has directed me, I have felt surprised to find what has looked like a dead end.

Recently I stumbled into church feeling weighed down by my circumstances, discouraged. Our senior pastor was the speaker that Sunday, and I guessed there was a change of plans in the service when I saw him motion to the campus pastor, whisper in his ear, and then scrawl some notes on a piece of paper in his Bible.

Getting up, he announced that the Holy Spirit had directed him to go a different direction with the service. He instructed the church to open to a passage in Exodus, and, you guessed it — he began to talk about when the Israelites were facing the Red Sea. He then turned to the congregation and said, “God is going to deliver some of you out of the hands of your enemies.”

Of course, after that sermon, I was actively looking for a deliverance of some kind. My next step in my journey. I did get an answer, but it was not in a way that I was expecting.

The Holy Spirit Quickened Me to Act

Some time ago, I started a project to contact many of my former high school classes. After I left teaching and began the path into ministry, I felt God prick my conscience concerning ways I had acted while teaching that weren’t the best. I felt He wanted me to go back to students in my teaching community and tell them the changes He was doing in me. Did I want to do this? Was this a project that made me comfortable? Heck, no! But I felt very strongly that He was leading me in this direction, so I took steps to do this.

I worked on contacting classes on and off for a whole year; except recently, I had been praying God would help me to finish the project or tell me if He wanted me to stop. I didn’t know if I was to continue on with all of my classes (a logistical nightmare) or cease from my efforts at the point I was at.

That was the question I was pondering when I walked into the church service that day and my senior pastor said he felt that some people were at Red Sea points in their lives. I didn’t know why God would lead me into a strait by telling me to refuse promising opportunities without opening up new ones and allow me to be so misunderstood by those around me. I still don’t. But I did know that there was only one who could deliver me from my circumstances. If He brought me in, He could bring me out.

During the course of the particular service I mentioned, I felt that I was to email a former administrator and tell him about the project and ask for help in contacting the rest of my classes. Because I wasn’t entirely sure whether or not this was the right step for me, I prayed and asked God very specifically, “God, do you really want me to contact him?”

That same day, I was driving to a lacrosse game and heard a woman’s story concerning faith on the local radio station. The woman asked these words: Why put off until tomorrow what you can do today?

And I knew God was telling me to send the email. So, I went home and stayed up typing the letter and sent it off.

Obedient Action Unlocks Blessing

Not too long after my desperate day at church and the contact with my former school, my husband texted me with some startling news — he had received a job offer from a school in a neighboring county. He had interviewed for the job, but when the position went to different candidate, we figured that God had sealed off the opportunity. However, not long after that, he received a different offer for another position at the same school. A position he had not applied for.

For whatever reason, something quickened in my spirit when he told me about the opportunity. We discussed the possibility all weekend. We even went down for prayer to make sure it was what God wanted for us — and we both left the altar with the distinct impression that God told him to take the job even though it would mean we would have to move.

However, I have to be honest with you. Just like the answer I felt I got from God in needing to contact my former school, the answer in my husband’s job change wasn’t what I wanted or even what I was looking for. These answers had nothing to do with music or my ministry. I wanted something to happen right where I was, but God seemed to have a different plan.

Though I don’t know for sure if my email and my husband’s job opening were somehow connected, one precipitated the other, I can’t help but think that the urgency I felt to write that email, to get moving on an assignment I would have liked to have put off for another day helped to usher in the start of the parting of the waters for me. What I do know is that obedience brings blessing.

I read once in an excerpt in Streams in the Desert about how our forward motion unlocks the “gates” we are to enter. The writer of the passage, Henry Clay Trumbull, used an example of country gates to illustrate this idea, saying:

Years ago automatic gates were sometimes used on country roads. They would securely block the road as a vehicle approached, and if the traveler stopped before coming to the gate, it would not open. But if the traveler drove straight toward it, the weight of the vehicle would compress the springs below the roadway, and the gate would swing back to let him pass. The vehicle had to keep moving forward, or the gate would remain closed. This illustrates the way to pass through every barrier that blocks the road of service for God. Whether the barrier is a river, a mountain, or a gate, all a child of Jesus must do is head directly toward it.

The Importance of Forward Motion

When you are up against a Red Sea in your life and you can’t figure out why God has brought you to that place, your forward motion may begin to move God’s hand to stir up the waves. However, the motion must be God-instructed motion for it to be forward motion. When the Israelites are up against the Red Sea and have nowhere to go, they are still and wait on God at Moses’ command. They don’t rush off and try to make up a plan that isn’t God’s. They quiet themselves to hear God’s instruction. And it comes when God says to Moses, “ ‘Why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to move on. Raise your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea to divide the water so that the Israelites can go through the sea on dry ground’ ”(Exodus 14:15,16).

God’s words signal them to go. Their signal that God — not Moses, although he was the one who raised His staff — has made a way for them. God sends winds to part the waves when Moses lifts his staff up. Commentator David Guzik observes about this passage:

These were simple instructions connected to a mighty miracle. In the same manner, the greatest miracle of salvation happens with simple actions on our part. As the rod of Moses did not actually perform the miracle, so we do not save ourselves with what we do, but we connect with God’s saving miracle.

Your obedience is all God asks for — it is He who will ultimately move the waters. But your obedience plays a part. Like the country gates that only spring open when triggered by a moving vehicle, our acts of faith move God to act. Notice, Moses is instructed to raise his staff, and God does the rest. Moses doesn’t have to worry about fighting off the whole army or making a bridge to span the waterway — God fights his enemies and takes care of all the hard stuff after Moses obeys.

I still don’t know how my story in ministry turns out. At this point, unless God inspires me to do more with my school project, I feel God has answered the question I had of Him some time ago about whether or not He wanted me to continue with it. My former administration was not willing to help me in finishing my task of contacting my former classes, but I felt before I sent the email that God told me I was to do it so that I could be finished. I went to the lengths I could to complete what I could.

We are working on fixing up our house to put on the market and move out where my husband Keith’s new job is. Our move is another step in the direction of fulfilling the destiny God has promised me.

In response to these small acts of faith, I feel that God is pushing back the waters on my behalf and making a path where none existed before.

What about you? Are you up against a Red Sea in your life? Ask God if there is a step of faith you can take to move forward through your circumstance. Leave a comment here. I would love to pray for you!

Carol Whitaker

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