Bible Haikus

My friend Pastor Craig Burns posts haikus based on his Bible reading. I've adopted the idea myself. Here are a few recent haikus:

Joel 1 
4 kinds of locusts.
Food and water disappear.
Joel cries, Lord, help us!

Nehemiah 10
Lots of tricky names
Trying to say them out loud
Kids laugh at Bunni

Philippians 3 
Everything but Christ
Discard it all like garbage
Become one with Him

1 Timothy 1 
Christ Jesus our hope
Jesus came to save sinners
Cling tightly to faith

1 Timothy 6
Run from all evil
Follow what is right and good
Obey His commands

Freedom Friday: A Time For War

"For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven." Ecclesiastes 3:1 (NLT)

Everyone walks through different seasons in life. Even the weather goes through seasons (in most places, at least!). Here in northern Virginia, the last few weeks have been unseasonably cool. There was one day when I headed to a group run at 5:45 AM, and I had to turn on the heat in my car. Now we seem to be back to the hot, humid weather of late summer. But the nights are getting longer. It was still not fully light when I got out of my exercise class this morning (around 6:25). Soon, the leaves will change, and autumn will be upon us.

If you continue reading in Ecclesiastes, you find there are many types of seasons. There is a time to be born and a time to die, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to plant and a time to harvest. There is a time to tear down and a time to build up. Have you considered what type of season you might be in?

Read the first 8 verses of the chapter now.

I shared before about a season I walked through in 2004. I was desperate to know God's plan for me, to know what the future would hold. God did confirm that He had an amazing plan in store for me, but that I wasn't ready to walk out that plan.

Instead, God called me to a season of quiet (v. 7). He called me to rest in Him, to soak up His heart and His Word and all the amazing things He thinks about me as His adopted child. So rest, I did. It was also a time to tear down some faulty ideas I had about God and about my identity in Him, and a time to build up the foundation of His truth that I needed in my life in order to maintain a healthier relationship with Him.

In the past few years, there have been deep seasons of grief. First, my grandmother and my aunt. Then, the baby I miscarried, Bunny Boo (who was due in August of 2009 and would have been 4 this week). Several uncles, my grandfather, and most recently my dad. It has been a time to grieve and cry, as well as laugh, remembering all the amazing moments I shared with these people.

Yet with all the transitions of the past several years, I am tired. I am in a season where everything seems hard. I just want to return to that season in 2004 and beyond, take time to rest in God and let Him tell me all the things He loves about me :) 

But He spoke to me specifically a few weeks ago as I lamented about how tired I am. He said, "Brenna, this is not a time for rest; this is a time for war." It's time to go to war against all those not-God-honoring thoughts that have crept in during this time of uncertainty. It's time to take those self-limiting and God-limiting thoughts and make them obedient to Christ. It's time to think like a free person once again.

What type of season are you in? Is it a season of rest? Or do you need to declare war on some habits and thought patterns that have slowly worked their way into your life?

An Update

Hello, Living Unveiled friends,

I've been missing from this blog for a while. Between grad school, traveling and the finishing touches on the book, my focus has been elsewhere.

The book is now at the copyeditor.

This book has been a labor of love. Especially for such a short book. If you buy it, I pray that it's a blessing to you.

Jesus has been and will be faithful.

Something else that occupied my time for the past few weeks was preparing to preach at my home church. You can watch the video here. I spoke on the power of the mind.

Will you all pray for this book? That it be used according to God's will? I am praying my heart remain pure as it is released and that would be my deepest desire.

Thank you :)

Another the thing I did this summer was travel to Yakima, WA to participate in the Relay For Life to honor my father. This is me, walking in the rain (in his sweatshirt):