Learning to Walk in Freedom: Free Today Only for Kindle!

Learning to Walk in Freedom is free today for Kindle!

Front Cover

It's my and Roy's 11th wedding anniversary! So I'm celebrating by giving you the opportunity to download my book for Free!

Back cover

Read some new reviews of Learning to Walk in Freedom:

"Brenna has written a wonderful gem and a terrific resource. In almost 15 years of college ministry, I have witnessed students' struggles with addiction, sexual brokenness, and controlling habits. This book provides an inspiring and holistic approach to helping us find freedom. She aptly encourages the reader towards intimacy with the Father, study of the Word, authenticity in community, and practical changes in behavior. I'm excited to use this as a resource with students on my campus." Joseph Gavin, Chi Alpha Vermont

"I am privileged to have known the author since her college days and have seen the growth and maturity that freedom in Christ has developed in Brenna. This is a story of inspiration, rescue, and hope, but not just for the author. Like the traveler in Pilgrim's Progress or Hinds Feet for High Places, Brenna leads the reader on a journey to meet the One who can help anyone learn to walk in freedom. Join her on the journey and find out for yourself."
Mike Olejarz, National Chi Alpha Training Team

"This is a tremendous book, with so much depth and strength. It thrills the heart to read Brenna Kate's testimony in the back of the book. Her journey in five steps is an easy read. God is so good to His children. We just haven't truly let Him give us the freedom in our walk with Him, that He desires for us. This book will help the one seeking to walk in God's freedom. Thank you, Brenna Kate. I will reread the book and will be sharing thoughts from the book at a local support group. Thank you for your obedience in writing this for the rest of us. For those who have not yet read the book, you're in for a very special blessing. Again, THANKS."
Nora S.

This excerpt is a continuation from yesterday:

Later that week, as I continued to cry out to God, He spoke clearly to me concerning some of my questions and struggles. Most of all, He called me to choose to trust Him, to rest in Him, and to allow Him to teach me. He beckoned me to go on a journey with Him, a journey to further whole- ness and freedom, choosing to believe He is who He says He is.

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. (Matthew 11:28–30) 

Thus began this journey into my current understanding of true freedom. (You can read a full testimony in the back of this book.) I’m sure it’s not over. I invite you to join me where I am now.

Wherever you are on this journey, there is something to be learned from Him. Even if you’re not generally a praying person, I encourage you to pause. Pray the following for yourself as inspired by the Scripture above and prepare to dive into a new level of freedom in your life:

God, I come to You. I am weary, burdened, and I need Your rest. God, I lay down my heavy burden and take Your yoke upon my shoulders, whatever that means, because You say I can learn from You, in Your gentleness and humility of heart. Your yoke is easy and Your burden is light. God, help me to receive that, and prepare me to really hear from You as I read this book. I surrender to all that You have for me as I learn to walk in freedom. Amen.

Get your free copy of Learning to Walk in Freedom today!

Cover and interior design done by Rusty and Ingrid Creative

Freedom Friday: Get Learning to Walk in Freedom for Free Tomorrow!

Learning to Walk in Freedom is free tomorrow for Kindle!

Front Cover

It will be my and Roy's 11th wedding anniversary! So I'm celebrating by giving you the opportunity to download my book for Free!

Back cover

I'll remind you again tomorrow! Help me spread the word :)

Here's an excerpt from Learning to Walk in Freedom:

Freedom is my anthem—it has been my life’s theme. The questions that come with the word freedom are questions I continually ponder. The answers did not come easily.

I became a Christian at age 23. I came to Jesus with a lot of problems: an eating disorder, same-sex attraction, emotional dependency, self-injury, self-loathing, and chronic low self-esteem. My life was controlled by and revolved around my issues and trying to get rid of them.

I felt like I was drowning.

Why, if I had become a new creation in Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:17), did my life not feel all that changed? Why was I still dealing with the same issues? I had a crowd of people continually praying for me. I fasted for long periods of time. I devoured the Word of God and prayed my heart out, including interceding for complete strangers whose prayer requests I found on the Internet! I went to church, led Bible studies, and sang on the worship team. I was writing songs for God and serving Him every way I knew how.

And I was still drowning.

I remember the moment vividly. It was May of 2004 at a campus ministry conference. I was one of the leaders, the teachers, the ones with the knowledge—the answers. Still, I was gasping for air.

Drowning.

Is this it, God? 

I was walking around the old campus. There was a castle, and in the castle was a piano. I sat down at the piano to sing, to write, to think. (I sometimes think best while sitting at a piano.) I began to play, and this is what came out:

There must be more than this 

Over and over, I sang this to my Lord. Deep down in my soul, I expe- rienced God’s fingerprint. I knew He was real. And because I had already seen Him working in so many ways, I had to believe that there was more. I desperately needed to hear His voice tell me that all this striving, all this seeking wasn’t for nothing.

Freedom Friday: A Place for Obedience, Part 2

This is a continuation of a post from last week, A Place for Obedience, part 1.

Let me share another analogy. Imagine that a person who has walked with a limp his whole life finds out there is a procedure available to correct that limp. Because he has walked with a limp for so long, his muscles have actually conformed and adjusted to accommodate his limp. He has the procedure but still needs to undergo physical therapy to strengthen his weakened muscles.

He needs to relearn how to walk.

We as believers should not be surprised that we walk with a limp. All of humanity walks with the same limp. Yet, as believers, we have the opportunity to learn to walk in freedom through Christ's work on the cross and the power of the Holy Spirit.

We can proactively make choices to act like the free person that we already are.

Here is the issue. This is what many of us might think it looks like to act like a free person.

We believe that God wants us to behave better than we are. We know God wants us to do certain things and doesn't want us to do others. Thus, we gather knowledge, and with that knowledge, we try really hard to behave how we think God wants us to behave.

How does this pattern play itself out in our lives? Say you have a struggle with pornography. You know you shouldn't view it. In fact, you get even further convicted when, after having an all-night Saturday porn marathon, you go to church on Sunday and the pastor preaches on the dangers of pornography. You go to the altar, you repent as best you know how, you might even ask someone to pray for you with some vague sharing like, “I just feel God speaking to me and need prayer.”

Then you go home and try harder. Maybe you even read some books on why pornography is bad, how the industry treats the workers, how the struggle enslaves a person, and maybe even some tips on overcoming. And you keep trying harder.

Then you likely fall again.

This is basically what I did, as described in Freedom Step Three. I would feel genuinely convicted about something. I would be truly grieved by my sin and exhausted by the insanity the cycle of sin produced in my life. I would gather materials to help me understand the struggles, and I would try and use that knowledge to inspire myself to better behavior.

I had sincere intentions, but I was going about it the wrong way.

How then would a free person act?

A free person actively overcomes life-controlling issues by becoming plugged in to the power source and remaining plugged in.

In doing a search in the New Testament for the word power, I noticed that Luke, in the gospel he wrote, talks about power more than the other three gospels combined. He talks about Jesus doing what He did under the power of the Holy Spirit.

Luke also wrote the book of Acts, often referred to as the Acts of the Apostles, or sometimes even the Acts of the Holy Spirit. In the beginning of the book of Acts, it is recorded that Jesus told the apostles to wait in Jerusalem because “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you.” (Acts 1:8) Luke had seen this power, the power of the Holy Spirit, up close and had experienced it intimately. He saw its importance. He observed the difference it made in the lives of the disciples, including Peter, who, on the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came upon them in Jerusalem, shared the hope of Jesus Christ with the crowds, and 3,000 people believed and were baptized.

God is meant to be our source of power.

Through His Holy Spirit given to us as believers, we can be empowered to make better choices. Rather, what we often do is take our knowledge and will power and try to make these things our source of power for overcoming our struggles.

Bob Hamp gives this analogy. It's like taking the ethernet cable (which connects your computer to the internet) and plugging it into the spot for the power cord. We try to take data, the knowledge we have gathered, and use that to fuel us into obedience in hopes that we will derive power from that data.

I quoted 2 Peter 1:3 earlier, that “His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness.” Imagine that we, as believers in Jesus, are like a lamp. That lamp has everything in it that it needs in order to function as it was created to: electrical wires, functioning light bulbs, and a switch to turn it on, but if I do not plug in the lamp to the electrical outlet, it won't work.

In the Garden of Eden, not only did we become disconnected from our source of life, we became disconnected from our source of power. That power enters back into us when we become believers, as every believer receives the Holy Spirit, but we need to continually reconnect.

That doesn't mean the Holy Spirit comes and goes completely as it often did in the Old Testament stories, where we read about the Holy Spirit coming upon people so they can prophesy or be empowered for leadership or an event. The Holy Spirit always dwells in believers. Yet Paul commands the Ephesus church to be “filled with the Holy Spirit.” (Ephesians 5:18) Why would Paul be telling believers to be filled with the Spirit? They already had the Holy Spirit in them. We can gather from the passage, then, that we are implored to “keep being filled.” The passage shows us that the filling of the Spirit is something we need to continually seek and ask for.

We need to continually be reconnected with our power source.

continued next week

Freedom Friday: Responding to God's Discipline

God is doing a work in me
He's walking through my rooms and hails
Checking every corner
Tearing down the unsafe walls
And letting in the light

Sara Groves "Help Me Be New"

I've been practicing living a lifestyle of hearing (mentioned last week). A lifestyle of waiting on God.

"My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning." Psalm 130:6 (NIV1984)

I was hoping through all this waiting and listening to hear some sort of massive revelation about what's next in our lives. Or to catch a glimpse of some grand plan that God has for me.

Instead, what I'm receiving is correction.

I wish I could say my response to correction is always thankfulness and receptive humility. Not usually. Instead, I respond as my children often do to discipline: I alternate between wanting to lash out in anger or denial and trying to hide in shame.

I mostly just mope. It's not fun to have your imperfection revealed to you. Isaiah knows what this feels like.

"It’s all over! I am doomed, for I am a sinful man. I have filthy lips, and I live among a people with filthy lips. Yet I have seen the King, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.”

It's easy to write, speak and sing about how I desire to be all God wants be to be, how the cry of my heart is to be more like Him, how I want to learn to walk in the fullness of all He created me to be. But the reality of correction is that it's painful and challenging.

When God puts His finger on something in our hearts or lives that needs to be changed, how should we react?

1. Gratitude. God is speaking to us and doing what a good father does: discipline His children. Discipline is not a dirty word. It simply means to disciple or correct. Discipline is how we grow. So we can thank God for caring enough about us to speak to us about things that are keeping us from living in the fullness of who He created us to be.

"If you reject discipline, you only harm yourself;
but if you listen to correction, you grow in understanding."
Proverbs 15:32 (NLT)

2. Humility. False humility, overwhelming grief, self-punishment: these are all forms of pride. Pride declares that the cross is not enough. Pride says I must hide in shame, just as in the garden. Pride says I mist somehow punish myself or make up for the fact that I'm not perfect. To punish myself is to deny the cross.

"The punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
and by his wounds we are healed." Isaiah 53:5b (NIV1984)

We can choose to accept God's correction without moping or denial, but rather with true humility and thankfulness. True humility exercises our surrendering muscles and declares to God, "You are able to take care of me, to shape me, and I trust You to do just that."

"Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time." 1 Peter 5:6

3. Prayer. We can go to prayer with the thing God has shown us. Sometimes, we need more guidance and direction. Other times, we need His peace to confirm what we've heard. Mainly, I think we just need to experience His love & acceptance in that moment and gather the strength and grace we need in order to accomplish whatever He has asked of us.

"But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint." Isaiah 40:31 (KJV)

4. Action. Whether the thing God speaks to us requires a simply tweaking or a complete overhaul, we need to act on what He has said. Write it down. Tell a friend. Pray with someone. And act. Hearing and responding to God takes practice. You may not always get it exactly right. Remember that God is a good father. Good, healthy parents never expect their children to be perfect. Their kids are not mocked or shunned for trying to be obedient, but making a mistake. As we try to be obedient to what we thought we heard, God will give us grace and rejoice over our effort.

"No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it." Hebrews 12:11 (NIV1984)

Sarah Groves puts it well in her song:

I am working hard
To clean my house and set it straight
To not let pride get in the way
To catch an eternal vision of
What I am to become

True freedom is learning to walk in the fullness of all God created you to be. We can accept the Lord's discipline with gratitude, humility, prayer and action because He is a good father.

How has the Lord been disciplining you lately? How have you chosen to respond?

Freedom Friday: Jealous God

When it's time for Freedom Friday, I will be out of town for the death of a family member. I will be 20 country miles from the closest Starbucks, with no access to WiFi.

So I'm going to leave you with a few classic posts that are on my heart.

He is Jealous for me
This theme is so heavy on my heart. This used to make me feel as if I needed to shape up and behave better. Now I recognize all His jealousy requires of me is that I open my heart fully to Him and allow His fire to consume all of me.

Do You Really Know God?
This was the top viewed post of 2011. I ask this question: how do you envision God? Who do you imagine Him to be?

“Talitha koum!" Expelling the Laughers
Is anyone discouraging you in your journey of freedom, telling you that your goals are not possible? This post is for you.

I'll be back next week :)

Freedom Friday: Are Your Dreams Asleep?

"Once upon a time there was a funny dog named Crispin's Crispian. He was named Crispin's Crispian because - he belonged to himself."


This is the beginning of one of our favorite children's stories, Mister Dog: The Dog Who Belonged to Himself.

My husband discovered this book at the grocery store when my oldest was just a toddler. My kids loves this book. Love it. Ideally, they would like for me to read it 15 times a day.

In the book, Crispin's Crispian meets a little boy in his travels. They cook dinner together and the boy moves into Crispian's little house.

The final pages of the book describe them cleaning up after dinner and heading to bed. "He [Mr. Dog] curled up in a warm little heap and went to sleep. And he dreamed his own dreams."

I couldn't help but think of Mr. Dog as I watched Bob Hamp's "A Kingdom Parable" teaching this week. He tells the story of how a young man discovers who God created him to be (he's an acrobat). At the end of the parable, Bob describes how people react to seeing this young man's acrobatic feat.

He describes the audience as people whose hearts have gone to sleep, and are coming alive as they witness someone who is stepping into exactly who they were made to be. The people go home, and tie ropes to trees. They pick up those music lessons that have been forgotten for too long. Others simply go back to what they used to do when their dreams were still alive.

Has this ever happened to you?

Sometimes, I go to a show, I hear good music, and it inspires me to write. I've written some of my most honest and powerful songs this way. Other times, I hear an inspirational speaker talk about something that exhilarates me, and I go home and write a blog post.

I walked away from this Bob Hamp teaching and felt God put a question on my heart.

Are your dreams asleep? Is your heart asleep?

In the acrobat parable, the young man's father says to him something that struck me as a profound truth. There are some things hidden in your heart that you will never discover if you don't push yourself enough to find it.

I've written elsewhere on how to keep your dreams alive. I've also written about how God refines us and gives us the desires of our hearts. Those posts might be helpful resources.

Part of learning to walk in freedom, part of learning to become the person God created you to be is fanning those dreams that He has given you. It's infusing hope into them when there is no visible reason to hope.

"He is so rich in kindness and grace that he purchased our freedom with the blood of his Son and forgave our sins. He has showered his kindness on us, along with all wisdom and understanding." Ephesians 1:7-8 (NLT)

Ask yourself today: are my dreams asleep? What dreams are hidden in my heart, things I've seen glimpses of, but have been afraid to dig deeper and discover their fullness? Have I, or the enemy, squelched and buried the dreams and hopes God had conceived in us? Is it because they seem too big, too wild, too unrealistic?

"Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think." Ephesians 3:20 (NLT)

Do I believe that God is able? Do I believe that God is not only able, but willing? Not just willing, but that He has a deep desire to bless me and love on me and see my dreams come true?

Unlike Mr. Dog, we do not belong to ourselves. We belong to God. And we find out who we are by staring into His eyes and seeing ourselves reflected in Him. We discern who He created us to be by diving into His heart and resting in Him. We discover the power to keep our dreams alive in His presence.

Wake up your dreams today. Get out your journal and remind yourself of what they are. Position yourself in a warm little heap in God's lap and allow Him to redeposit those dreams into your heart (I envision this involving hot cocoa with marshmallows for some reason).

"Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you your heart’s desires." Psalm 37:4 (NLT)

Two resources that might be helpful in assisting you in this exercise: The Kiss of Heaven by Darlene Zschech and Holy Discontent by Bill Hybels.

Dream your own dreams, the ones God has given you. You are dear to God, and your dreams are His gift to you. Nurture those dreams as you would care for delicate gift from a dear loved one.

Freedom Friday: Take It To The Next Level

I've been "a serious runner" since about June. I decided I could call myself "a serious runner" after I had run 25 miles in a week and ran over 8 miles at once.

Since then, I've run a 5K race (3.1 miles), 2 10K's races (6.2 miles) and a half marathon (13.1).

My longest run has been 17.3 miles.

I recently decided to find out if there were any running clubs in my area. I found one local to me that has early morning runs twice a week.

Honestly, the thought of joining with them made me nervous. Would I be able to keep up? This fear was warranted, as I already knew they ran faster than me. Would I even like running with other people (something I've only done once since I took up running again)? What if I looked goofy? What if they weren't nice to me? Yes, even I have these thoughts :)

I went, despite my fears and insecurities. We ran. We ran fast (by my standards). In fact, we ran the 5.26 mile route at a pace that was an entire minute per mile faster than I had previously run on a really good day.

I made it through. I even talked during the run without gasping. It was challenging.

For the rest of that week, I decided I would continue to push myself on my personal runs. I ended up running about a minute per mile faster for all of my shorter runs (5 miles or less).

The next week came. I was nervous again. I went anyway (even though the run starts at 5:30 AM). The person I ran with last week, who runs a bit slower than the others, wasn't there. I ran anyway. We ran a whole minute faster than the week before. And it was cold.

My running had been going well. I was happy with my race times and the completion of a half marathon. I had been doing what was comfortable (well, as comfortable as running is for someone who is not a natural). Then something came along to shake me up from my comfortable place, challenging me to take it to the next level.

As I pondered this, I came across this blog post, Why You Should Embrace Discomfort by Michael Hyatt, Chairman of Thomas Nelson Publishers, the largest Christian publishing (and a fantastically challenging blogger!). Ironically, the two examples used are running examples.

Michael Hyatt references a Wired magazine article about Dean Karnazes, a long distance runner. It describes an experience where he put on his shoes and started running one night, after coming to the realization one night that this was not the life he'd imagined for himself. At the end of his run:

He had covered 30 miles. In the process, he'd had a blinding realization: There were untapped reservoirs within him. It was like a religious conversion. He had been born again as a long-distance runner. More than anything else now, he wanted to find out how far he could go.

When I started running, I hoped to be able to finish a 10K someday. I certainly never even considered running a half marathon. This was only made possible because I made a choice to push past what was comfortable and take it to the next level. Now I'm looking forward to the next one, as I hope to improve my time significantly.

I have begun to relate this concept to my spiritual life. Have I become too comfortable in my spiritual habits? Are there reservoirs within me, or within God, that I have yet to tap into?

I read the Bible most days. Being that I'm the director of a faith-based ministry, rarely a day goes by that I don't read the Bible for ministry purposes. But most days, I read 1-2 chapters of Scripture for my enrichment. Sometimes, I journal. Sometimes, I read a devotional. I take a chunk of time to pray, though this is something I often do while I run.

This has become a fairly comfortable routine for me. None of these things are bad, and nothing in particular jumps out as needing to be changed. But the question I've been asking in prayer is this: God, is there something You want me to do to take it to the next level?

As I refine my running schedule, I have decided to also refine my devotional schedule. I am aiming to run 5 days a week. The other 2 days a week, I will try to get up extra early to read the Bible, pray, listen, and read from some books and devotionals (I did this on Monday and today). I have already been doing this about 1 day a week, except I usually sleep in. I've decided to stop that. If I can get up at 5:30 to run, shouldn't I also be able to get up at 5:30 to spend purposeful time with God?

I have a goal to finish several books that I'm in the middle of, as well as finish editing the booklet I've written, by February.

I also set some running goals for this winter:

1. Run in the freezing cold. I have never been a consistent runner, and I have not yet run through a winter. I decided to make that a priority this year. The coldest weather in which I've run had been 20 degrees F, feels like 8 degrees. I ran 14 miles on Sunday in this weather. See my attire below.

2. Run at least 100 miles a month. In the months of August through October, I ran 124 miles, 132 miles and 148 miles. November, due to illness and 2 races, I dropped down to 90 miles. I'd like to keep it above 100.

3. Find another half marathon to run and shave at least 30 seconds off my pace.

What about you? Is God challenging you to take it to the next level? Are you feeling too comfortable? Or possibly feeling stuck? This is the perfect time to evaluate any goals you had set for 2011 and reassess for 2012 (this post might help).

"Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus." Philippians 3:12-14, emphasis mine

Press on. Embrace the discomfort. Ask God what it means for you to take it to the next level.

If you're disappointed that I didn't talk about Christmas, you can read last year's post :)

Freedom Friday: Dealing with Disillusionment

DISILLUSION
transitive verb

: to free from illusion; also : to cause to lose naive faith and trust

Disillusionment: the state of being disillusioned.

Have you ever experienced disillusionment?

I have. I went through an extremely painful time in the early years of my faith. I've mentioned it here in bits and pieces.

I doubted everything. I questioned everything. And my doubts and my questions tore me to shreds.

Recently, I heard Alicia Britt Chole speak at a conference. I had been looking forward to it for quite some time. Her DVD series Choices was one of the first things we studied in Bible study after I became a Christian, and it was eye-opening and heart-changing.

She spoke about disillusionment, particularly as it relates to the disciples and Jesus. The disciples were incredibly disillusioned with Jesus at times, despite the fact that they walked with Him. They were disillusioned with His timing, disillusioned with His ways, and disillusioned with His words.

One example of this disillusionment is in John 6. Jesus had just done a miracle with a young boy's lunch, and the crowds were following Him around to see what else He could do, as well as to see if He might feed them again.

In the midst of this, Jesus shared this:

“I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you cannot have eternal life within you. But anyone who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise that person at the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Anyone who eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him."

Imagine how you would have replied to this, had you been one of Jesus' disciples. I think I would have stood there, thinking, "Huh? Jesus, that doesn't even make sense!" Let's read further to see what the response was.

Many of his disciples said, “This is very hard to understand. How can anyone accept it?” Jesus was aware that his disciples were complaining........At this point many of his disciples turned away and deserted him.

They complained. They were disillusioned. This isn't what they were expecting from Jesus. They wanted a meal, and maybe a miraculous sign. They wanted a concrete explanation of what on earth Jesus was talking about. When they didn't get any of those things, they left. Not everyone, but the passage says "many".

Then Jesus turned to the Twelve and asked, “Are you also going to leave?” Simon Peter replied, “Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words that give eternal life. We believe, and we know you are the Holy One of God.”

What is the difference between the two groups of disciples in this story? Why did some turn away? Why did some stay?

Some responded to this difficult command by grumbling among themselves. They turned to each other for wisdom, and complained about this strange leader of theirs.

But others react to this statement of Jesus' quite differently. They chose to look to Jesus. They knew enough about Him to chose to believe that there was nowhere else to go. They chose to take their questions to Him.

They asked their questions while looking into the safety of their Savior's face.

So often when we start asking questions or having doubts in our faith, our tendency is to take our questions elsewhere. We turn away from God - out of fear, anger, hurt, or general disillusionment.

I did this. I did not take my questions to Jesus. I stopped reading the Bible. I stopped praying. The questions felt overwhelming, suffocating.

There is nothing wrong with questions and doubts. That's something I love about the disciples' example. They weren't afraid to ask questions, even questions to which the answers seem obvious to us today. Jesus wasn't afraid of or offended by their questions. He just wanted the disciples to bring their questions to Him.

Sometimes, Jesus would answer them right away; other times, He shared that His words would make sense eventually.

He says the same thing to us.

I've heard disillusionment described as gaining a reality. Through this period of questioning, I gained a new reality. A reality that trust is a choice. A reality that not everything is going to make sense in the moment. A reality that God is good, He is on my side, and that His plans are for my prosperity and hope.

Now I take my questions to my Savior. Not always in a timely manner, but my doubts no longer cause me to run. My questions no longer feel like abandonment. They no longer send me spiraling to my default setting. I am able to simply take them to Jesus and trust He will show me the answers, with time.

If you'd like to hear more about disillusionment, I highly recommend the CD "Real Life, Real Pain, and a Real God" from Alicia Britt Chole's resources. You can also find many of her books on Amazon.com (I'm loving the book anonymous right now!).

Your questions are OK with God. Just remember to ask them to Him, to His face, and in the safety of His arms.

Freedom Friday: Fear of the Unknown

I became a Christian halfway through my 3 years at Second College (I went to college elsewhere for 2 years, took 2 years off, and transferred to a new school to finish).

Initially, I was amazed. God revealed Himself to me, daily, in big ways and little ways.

He came through.

He showed Himself strong.

He was faithful.

Then life happened. I made some bad choices. I didn't ask God for His help in certain areas. And I found myself in a destructive, and yet familiar, relationship with a woman who "needed my help."

It's no secret that I was gay-identified for almost a decade. By the time I came to know Jesus, my identity was firmly planted in being gay. It was who I was, and it was what I knew. It was familiar. It was comfortable in its discomfort (as I talked about last week).

I didn't know anything else but being gay. So when this relationship began, it simply stood to reinforce my fear: the fear of the unknown.

The fear of the unknown is a powerful force. It keeps us in unhealth because the unhealth we know is familiar. It's a known pain, a known chaos.

It also keeps us in situations that aren't necessarily unhealthy, but are not God's best for us. They are not the next step in God's plan.

Fear of the unknown keeps us chained.

It keeps us from moving forward.

It keeps us from our Promised Land.

Exodus 14 begins with the Israelites camped by the Red Sea. Pharaoh decided he made a mistake in letting the Israelites go and began to follow them.

We pick up the story in verse 10:

As Pharaoh drew near, the sons of Israel looked, and behold, the Egyptians were marching after them, and they became very frightened; so the sons of Israel cried out to the LORD. Then they said to Moses, “Is it because there were no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? Why have you dealt with us in this way, bringing us out of Egypt? Is this not the word that we spoke to you in Egypt, saying, ‘Leave us alone that we may serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.”

People stay in or run back to miserable situations because of the fear of the unknown. The above quote from the Israelites is a perfect example of that.

I was a perfect example of this. The woman I was in a relationship with had a lot of problems. I had a lot of problems. Even in the best of circumstances, we would have made a horrible match! Underneath that rebellious choice to enter into a relationship that I knew to be wrong was a broken child crying out to her heavenly father, "Are You really enough for me? Can I leave behind everything I've known and built my life upon for the unknown that is a relationship with You?"

I have to remember, as I read the above passage, that the Israelites were just beginning to walk out of generations of slavery. It was all they had ever experienced. It was all they knew. They had no context for the Promised Land.

Continuing on in Exodus:

But Moses said to the people, “Do not fear! Stand by and see the salvation of the LORD which He will accomplish for you today; for the Egyptians whom you have seen today, you will never see them again forever. The LORD will fight for you while you keep silent.” Then the LORD said to Moses, “Why are you crying out to Me? Tell the sons of Israel to go forward."

Moses raised his hand over the sea, and God opened a path through the water for the Israelites. In my case, my girlfriend dumped me, and I decided, painstakingly, one-step-at-a-time, to choose to trust God, not only in the area of my sexuality, but also with my whole life.

When God calls us to something new, it's not surprising that we will experience fear. Like the Israelites, we have no context for this new journey; all we have is context for the old one. The "what if's", the questions, the obstacles - they overwhelm us. They keep us standing still.



But in those moments, you have a choice: stick with the pain you know, or choose to trust God and forge ahead into the pain you don't know. The latter is a choice to trust that God is who He says He is and He will do what He has said He will do. It's a choice to believe that He must have something better for you, that this can't be all there is, that if He's asking you to move forward, then He will carry us through.

If you are overcome by a fear of the unknown today, surrender it to God. Give Him your questions and hesitations; He's not afraid of them. Then, stand by. Wait and see how God will fight for you and what He wants to accomplish for you. And "do it afraid", as Joyce Meyer says. As God commanded the Israelites, go forward, despite the fear. Do not let fear of the unknown paralyze you or keep you from living in the fullness of all God has for you.

I'm praying Romans 15:13 for you today: "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit."

Freedom Friday: The God Who Bends

Every once in a while, I stumble across a characteristic of God, an attribute of His, a behavior, a response, that catches my breath.

I wrote a few months ago about the God who sustains, the God who stoops to make us great.

I'm still reading the books of 1 Chronicles and Psalms, and yesterday's psalm was Psalm 86 (a prayer of David).

The Psalm begins:

Bend down, O Lord, and hear my prayer.

The God who bends.

I had to pause as I was overcome with this image. Our Heavenly Father, all-powerful and all-knowing, able to speak just one word and entire universes are created - this awesome God. Was He really the God who would bend down to hear our prayer?

First, I wanted to learn more about this word that is translated "bend".

The transliterated Hebrew word is "natah". Here are some other ways it's translated:

to bow
to bend, turn, incline, to bend down
to stretch out, to spread out
to incline, influence, hold out, extend

I then went to the Word to see if there were other mentions of God bending (using my Life Recovery Bible, which is the New Living Translation).

"Bend down, O Lord, and listen! Open your eyes, O Lord, and see!" 2 Kings 19:16

"Lord, hear my prayer! Listen to my plea! Don’t turn away from me in my time of distress. Bend down to listen, and answer me quickly when I call to you." Psalm 102:1-2

"I am praying to you because I know you will answer, O God. Bend down and listen as I pray." Psalm 17:6

"Bend down, O Lord, and listen! Open your eyes, O Lord, and see!" Isaiah 37:17

Thus far, these are all declarations from people, requests that God bend down and hear their prayers. These are desperate cries from people desperate for God to show up. Psalm 102 even contains the description: "A prayer of one overwhelmed with trouble, pouring out problems before the Lord."

And then I read Psalm 116:1-2:

I love the Lord because he hears my voice and my prayer for mercy. Because he bends down to listen, I will pray as long as I have breath!

The God who bends. He bends down to listen. He inclines His ear. He stoops, and then He sustains. He rescues. He comforts, and He answers.

He is the God who bends.

The ultimate picture of God bending is when He sent His Son, Jesus, to carry the cross in order to correct the problem of sin and disconnection from our Source. The perfect picture of Jesus, literally bending under the weight of the cross, so that we would be freed to become the people God created us to be, His flawless sacrifice of love, so that we would walk in the freedom and abundant life that only became possible through Jesus' death and resurrection.

Verse 5 of Psalm 86 says, "O Lord, you are so good, so ready to forgive, so full of unfailing love for all who ask for your help." Verse 15 says "You, O Lord, are a God of compassion and mercy, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love and faithfulness."

That is a picture of the God who bends.

Good.
Ready to forgive.
Full of unfailing love.
Compassionate.
Merciful.
Slow to anger.
Again, full of unfailing love.

The God who spared no expense, who gives, and gives, and gives some more.

Today, the God who bends is calling you to call to Him. Stop trying to become "good enough" to come to Him. There is no such thing! As the song "I will arise and go to Jesus" states, "If we tarry till we're better, we will never come to all."

Come. As you are. It sounds trite, almost too simple. That's the beauty of grace, the beauty of God's character.

We serve the God who bends.

Freedom Friday: Who is Your Strength?

This is going to be short today! It's been a crazy week, and my desktop computer is being temperamental. Today, it won't turn on, so I'm typing to you from my super-slow, barely functional little netbook.

An exercise in patience, for sure!

I am still reading through 2 Samuel and the Psalms, and earlier this week, I read through Psalm 59.

"You are my strength; I wait for You to rescue me, for You, O God, are my place of safety." Psalm 59:9 (NLT)

God is our strength.

The Hebrew word translated as "strength" here is also translated as fortress, loud, might, mighty, power, stern, strength, strong, or stronghold.

Stop & think of a moment this week when you needed strength. What source did you draw on? Friends? Coffee? Food? Untapped energy reserves?

I wrote in "The Freedom Found in Brokenness" about Paul's realization concerning God needing to be the source of His strength. When we're doing well, feeling pretty free, experiencing some victory, we can slowly forget who our source is, who the giver of strength should be.

Verse 16 says, "But as for me, I will sing about Your power. I will shout with joy each morning because of Your unfailing love, for You have been my refuge, a place of safety in the day of distress."

This verse struck me on this particular morning because I had not gone running, but had attempted to sleep in (and failed). Instead, I was sitting on my chilly porch, shivering in the early morning hours, hoping to get some quiet time in before the kids awoke. I decided I should stop, read that verse aloud, and (quietly) shout for joy!

That word "power" is the same word translated in verse 9 as "strength". We are encouraged to sing about God's power, His strength, and His might.

If we are going to learn to walk in freedom, if we are going to become who God created us to be, we will need to learn to continually rely on God, to draw from Him as our source of strength. It comes much more naturally to me, as a sleep-deprived mom, to rely on coffee! But Gods' strength is much more effective than caffeine :)

The Psalm ends with this declaration: "O my Strength, to You I sing praises, for You, O God, are my refuge, the God who shows me unfailing love."

Say that with me today. Stop for a minute, take a deep breath, open your heart and allow God to be your strength.

Make Paul's declaration your own: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

Freedom Friday: How Did We Get Here?

Lots of exciting things going on over here at Living Unveiled :)

I'm not sure if I shared that I'm turning my "Learning to Walk in Freedom" series into a booklet that we will hand out at the ministry I direct. I hope after that to convert it to an eBook for sale.

I did the "final" edits about a month ago and was quite excited to be done. Then I got into some discussions with two of my unofficial mentors/really cool guys who have eye-opening things to say about recovery, addiction, and how to become free. Those 2 guys are Bob Hamp and Russell Willingham. Yes, I talk about them a lot. Yes, you should really, really go check them out if you haven't already. Like, right now. I even provided links for you.

I decided after those discussions I should do one more read-through.

Something (or some "things") was missing. Something big.

After hearing Bob Hamp speak at the Exodus Freedom Conference, I felt I needed some clarification of my freedom step #4: Think like a free person. Bob's take on 2 Corinthians 10:3-5 intrigues me (he uses the NASB translation, whereas I've always used the NIV), so I asked him to further discuss this with me.

Herein lies the moment where I crack myself up.

So....my short 21-page document has now become 24 pages. I still have 3 more sections to re-read. And I haven't even rewritten the original section that spurred many of these questions!

The reason I'm telling you all this is because I want you to read the information I added to the intro of my booklet.

For those who have read the "Learning to Walk in Freedom" series, the following excerpt now comes after "What is Freedom? Part 2".

How Did We Get Here?
It's important if we want to walk in freedom that we understand why we don't walk in freedom now. In order to understand how to get free, we need to know how we got bound.

I don't mean we need to dig deep into our past and find out the root causes of our struggles. That can help, of course.

What I mean is we need to have a foundational understanding of how we all got to be the way we are, and how to get back to how God created us to be.

As believers, we can get hyper-focused on the “eternal life” aspect of our faith. Before you dismiss me as a heretic, hear me out.

Jesus did in fact come so that we may have eternal life. Most of us know the oft-quoted verse, John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

I believe this is only half of the equation. Too often we see in the church people who have eternal life but are not walking in freedom. I was one of these people.

There is another very important reason Jesus came. He states it clearly in John 10:10 (NASB): “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” The Amplified Bible states it this way: "I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance (to the full, till it overflows)."

Is that the current state of your life?

Jesus was not talking about eternity there; He was talking about our life here on earth.

Let me explain this more fully by going back to the Garden of Eden.

In Genesis 1:26-27, the Bible talks about the creation of mankind: “Then God said, 'Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.' So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”

God created Adam & Eve in His image and likeness. His characteristics, His attributes, His image were within Adam & Eve. As if this wasn't amazing enough, we read this in Genesis 2:7: “The LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.”

God not only gave them life through shaping and creating them and giving them His image and likeness; He went a step further and breathed His very breath into them.



He was, quite literally, their source of life.

In the Garden, God walked with man. He spent time with man. But that all changed when Adam & Eve ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. When they ate from this tree, not only did they pass down the bondage of sin to generations to come, even more significantly is the fact that they became disconnected with their source of life.

Remember John 10:10: “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.” This is exactly what the serpent did in the Garden. He stole their freedom from sin, he killed them in the sense that they would now age & die, and he destroyed the deep connection they had with their source of life.

Jesus certainly came to give us eternal life. This is important. But I believe we don't fully understand the ramifications of what Jesus accomplished on that cross.

He came rectify the problem of slavery to sin in our lives, by becoming the perfect sacrifice on the cross, and by being resurrected – brought back to life. He does this, rectifies the killing, stealing and destroying of Satan, by reconciling us to Christ (2 Corinthians 5:19) – in other words, reconnecting us with the ultimate source of life.

“I [Jesus] have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” John 10:10 (NIV1984)

Eternal life is one piece of the puzzle. It's the first piece, and it's an important piece. But so is learning to live an abundant life here on earth.

God is thus our source of life and ultimately the source and the giver of our freedom through Jesus Christ.

If you want to hear more about the more practical side of learning to walk in the fullness of the freedom that is available to all of us as adopted children of God, start here.

Freedom Friday: Who Is Your Source?

I am tired.

I don't know why.

This morning, after my usual 5 AM wake-up (thanks to our wonderful dog), I did something unusual: I went back to bed.

When our dog started rising earlier & earlier, I realized after letting him out I rarely fell back to sleep. Rather than lie in bed & stare at the ceiling, I decided to go running at that early hour.

Running, rather than trying to go back to sleep, became my pattern. I've been slowly increasing my weekly mileage to the point that last week, I ran 35.5 miles & competed in a 10K on Monday.

I've gotten to the point where the benefits of running first thing were worth more than trying to go back to sleep.

That's what made this morning so unusual. I was so exhausted I let the dog out & crawled back into bed. Unfortunately for me, my 2 children did not stay asleep and after an hour, I got up & went running anyway.

I have now spent the entire day, completely exhausted. This is generally not a good set-up for writing Freedom Friday; add whiny kids to the equation (they are likely as tired as I am!), and forget it.

I needed to pause. Stop grabbing food & coffee (my go-to when completely spent). And rest in God for a minute.

I need to ask myself (yes, I ask myself these questions in 2nd person):

Who is your source?

What or who breathes life into you?

Who sustains you?

What gets you out of bed in the morning? (For me, the answer is clearly my dog!)

Who is the first person/thing you check in with in the morning? Facebook, email, the Bible?

To whom or what do you run when you are drained, wiped, out of energy, or just plain done?

We all know what the answer to these questions should be. But what is it really?

Today, I'm struggling to believe that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me (Phil. 4:13), but in the midst of my struggle, I'm choosing to believe that it's true.

This word that is translated "strengthens" seems to imply that it's a process. It is also translated in the New Testament "grew strong" or "increased in strength".

When I started running, I would run 2 miles, max., and it would take me 24 minutes (a 12 minute mile). I ran my 10K this week in 58:10 (that's just under a 9 minute & 23 second mile, but the course was really flat). I could only do that time, and my 3 mile run of 31 minutes this morning, because my muscles have grown stronger with extended use.

Here I am, getting a congrats smooch from my grandmother-in-law!


Muscles grow through exercise. Use of muscles creates small tears. Your body reacts to this damage by repairing the muscles and growing stronger in the process.

If I keep running to other sources, those muscles will never grow, and I will never learn to respond differently.

So today, I imagine my patience & endurance muscles tearing in small ways (hence the pain & exhaustion). I picture God knitting them back together, even stronger, so that the next time I face a similar situation, I will be all that more equipped to deal with it.

"I can do all things through Him who strengthens me." Philippians 4:13

Amen.

Freedom Friday, Choosing to Trust, Part 2

Hi, Freedom Friday readers!

We have a lot going on right now. I feel as if I say that a lot in this blog. Well, that's because it's true :) But this week, we had several more issues added to the mix. Some of these had been brewing for quite some time, so they weren't completely unexpected.

My reaction, on the other hand, was something I didn't expect.

Over the years, I have learned to go with the flow, to not react, to not try & predict, over-plan, over-calculate. I have learned, in many respects, to really actively choose to trust God. Mostly.

Mostly.

When the stuff hit the fan this week, I didn't choose to trust God. I chose to freak out. Just a little. But freak out nonetheless.

It's actually quite amusing to be me. I am, generally, fairly confident in who God is, who I am in Christ, and who God created me to be. I write what I've experienced and what I know deep within my soul. I don't write about it if it hasn't already begun to pulsate in my blood.

There are some exceptions. At times, I write about concepts I am grappling with or aspects of God & myself that I'm struggling with. But most of the time, I simply write what I've learned through reading the Bible, living amongst other believers, and through my recovery and ever-increasing walk of freedom.

It becomes amusing when I am stubborn and refuse to take my own advice.

About 6-8 hours into my freak out, I started telling myself I needed to go read my own blog. Did I? Of course not. Because a part of me wanted to keep freaking out rather than tell myself the truth.

Eventually, I snapped myself out of it. As I was running the next morning, the phrase "look up" kept coming to me. And I couldn't help but preach to myself a mini-sermon based on this blog post about seeing with God's eyes.

Since then, I've been back to my usual self, relying on God when the doubts come, resting in the knowledge of His character, diving deep into Him, and allowing His peace to fill me. Mostly :)

Peace, rest, reliance: none of these things are dependent on my circumstances. They are dependent solely on the character of God, who He says He is, and all that He has offered to us as believers.

God either is who He says He is, or He isn't. It's that simple. God is either the source of my peace, or my planning and my provision and my best guess are the source of my peace. I did the latter long enough to know where that gets me! The part that is more challenging is to believe all that God is & trust that all He has is available to us.

God did not jump off the throne, my pastor used to say, just because your circumstances have thrown you for a loop. He is still in control. He still has a plan.

I have come a long way in this area. It wasn't all that long ago that I was writing this article, Opportunities for Joy, about practicing acceptance. Contentment, resting in God, trusting in Him comes a lot easier these days.

I hope that's encouraging to you, readers. Progress is possible. Change is possible. Freedom from unhelpful & unhealthy patterns can be a reality.

Practice does not make perfect, but it can make progress.

Cling to Jesus. Learn about whom He really is. Show Him your heart. Open your heart to His. Rest in Him. When you find yourself striving, run to Him.

Freedom Friday: The God Who Sustains

We are back from the conference! It was an amazing time, refreshing and yet tiring (I'm sure being in the car 24 hours over the course of 3 days added to that!). There is a lot to think about & reflect on. In addition to that, there are several situations within my circles of family & friends that require lots of prayer & attention.

Yesterday, as I leaned against our chest freezer, wondering what to make for dinner, I became keenly aware that God alone is my Sustainer. I went to a Bible search tool to remind myself of Scriptures that speak to this.

I came across a gem:

"You give me your shield of victory, and your right hand sustains me; you stoop down to make me great." Psalm 18:35

Since returning home, Holland Davis's words on the last night of the conference have been at the forefront of my mind (he lead worship). He reminded us that the devil comes to kill, steal & destroy, and prayed that we would not allow him to take away from us what God did in us at the conference.

So I've been praying for myself and others, that whatever God spoke and/or called us to at the conference, that we would stand firm and tell Satan he has no power in our lives. That we would obey what God has called us to & the areas He may have challenged us in.

But I was missing an important piece.

I am now also praying that God the Sustainer would fulfill His Word, being confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in us will perfect it (also translating "carry it on to completion") until the day of Christ Jesus (Phil. 1:6).

The God who leaned down to earth, who stooped down, to rescue us & make us great.

God is our Sustainer. But we need to accept His gift of sustenance. We need to allow Him to maintain and nurture those things He's deposited into our hearts.

"For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline." 2 Timothy 1:6-7

I need to be reminded that Satan wants to steal God's best out from under me, just like he did in the Garden of Eden. Satan's power is limited; God's power is unlimited.

So my prayer for all of us today is that we would continue to cling to Jesus, that we would allow God to sustain and preserve the good work He has begun in us, that we would be aware of the work of Satan, but not intimidated by him.

God is Sustainer.

Read these Scriptures. Pray through them. Memorize them. Devour them. Soak them in.

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

Psalm 55:22
Cast your cares on the LORD and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous fall.

Psalm 89:21
My hand will sustain him; surely my arm will strengthen him.

Psalm 119:116
Sustain me according to your promise, and I will live; do not let my hopes be dashed.

Psalm 119:175
Let me live that I may praise you, and may your laws sustain me.

Psalm 146:9
The LORD watches over the alien and sustains the fatherless and the widow, but he frustrates the ways of the wicked.

Psalm 147:6
The LORD sustains the humble but casts the wicked to the ground.

Good Friday: The Original Freedom Friday

It's Freedom Friday. It also happens to be the day many in the church celebrate Good Friday.

I wrote this on Good Friday of 2009 in my paper journal:

It's Good Friday & I'm 8 weeks pregnant.

Today is a bittersweet day. This is my 3rd pregnancy. My 1st pregnancy was relatively smooth and resulted in my beautiful son, Bear. We always hoped to have many children. Being that I was 32 at Bear's birth, we only waited just over a year before trying to have another. After less than a month, we found out on our 6th anniversary that I was pregnant again- with a baby we called Bunny Boo.

At 8 weeks pregnant, Bunny boo was lost by miscarriage.

I was pregnant again 2 months later with Monkey. I felt peace about my 3rd pregnancy, but felt bittersweet relief when I arrived at 8 weeks.

If I hadn't lost Bunny Boo, we wouldn't have been celebrating 8 weeks of pregnancy with Monkey this Good Friday.

How appropriate! This weekend, whether you call it Easter, Good Friday, Resurrection Sunday or Pascha, is also bittersweet. On Good Friday, we can celebrate and reflect because we know the end of the story. We can mourn as the disciples mourned as they watched their leader be arrested, led away, flogged, taunted, punished and murdered by crucifixion. We mourn that our sin put Him through all that. Yet we rejoice in knowing that because of God's love, He made it possible for us to have abundant & eternal life.

Thankfully, my 3rd pregnancy has a happy ending as well. I have a cute little Monkey, 17 months old, running around the yard as we speak :)

That doesn't erase the pain of the bittersweet reality of Monkey's pregnancy and Bunny Boo's loss.

We also know the end of the story we are celebrating today. Just like my 3 pregnancies, Easter does not erase the bittersweet reality of Good Friday. So before before we rush on to the Resurrection, let's sit here for a minute.

As I type this, the 100 Portraits song, "Around my Neck", plays on my iTunes. An amazing song. I'll let it speak for itself.

The cross I wear around my neck
What does it mean if it does not mean death.
Please tell me if it doesn't mean blood,
or nails, or crying or loneliness?

The cross I wear around my neck
What is if for, if it is not for breaking
And if it's not for pain, or nakedness, or hammering?

The cross I wear around my neck
is being raised above my head
I think this time it's wearing someone else
I see it drop into the ground and when it falls
I hear the sound, someone crying, "I love you!"

The cross I wear around my neck
What does it mean, if it does not mean love.
Please tell me if it doesn't sing of hope and healing,
and forgiveness?

The cross I wear around my neck
Who is it for if it is not for me, if it's not for sin,
and all my searching for the innocence?

The cross I wear around my neck
is being raised above my head
I think this time it's wearing someone else
I see it drop into the ground and when it falls
I hear the sound, someone crying, "I love you!

The cross I wear around my neck
is being raised above my head
I think this time it¹s wearing someone else
I see it drop into the ground and when it falls
I hear the sound someone screaming, "I love you!"

The cross I wear around my neck
Who is it for, if it is not for us:
the lame, the blind, the ones held captive,
and the fatherless?

What is the message of Good Friday? It's a message of surrender. Imagine if Jesus had chosen to follow His feelings & desires in the Garden that day. Where would we be? It's a message of suffering. And it's a message of hope, abundant life and mercies new every morning.

The message of the cross is the Father God crying out to a broken world, "I love you and I am willing to do whatever it takes to hold you in my arms, love you, heal you. I'm willing to give up everything I have, my Only Son, that you all may have the opportunity to be called my sons & daughters, that You no longer have to live in bondage."

"Yet it was our weaknesses he carried;
it was our sorrows that weighed him down.
And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God,
a punishment for his own sins!
But he was pierced for our rebellion,
crushed for our sins.
He was beaten so we could be whole.
He was whipped so we could be healed.
All of us, like sheep, have strayed away.
We have left God’s paths to follow our own.
Yet the Lord laid on him
the sins of us all." Isaiah 53

We have freedom in Christ because Jesus did not use His own freedom to choose to step outside God's will. He instead chose to step right into His Jordan for you and for me.

How then should we respond? Take a moment to be silent. What would God have you do in response?

I challenge you today to respond with that same level of surrender. My prayer is that you, and I, will make the same declaration of trust, that we will take the next step toward living in the fullness of abundant freedom that is available to all believers.

"It is for freedom that Christ has set us free." Amen.

"But They Did Not Consult The Lord..."

As you know if you've been reading this blog for the past few weeks, I am (too) slowly reading Joshua. I've been trying to read a chapter a day, but as per usual, life is getting in the way.

And by "life", I mean having messed up priorities and a misplaced focus.

Anyway, as God does in His faithfulness, today He has used my slacker-ness and turned it around on me. Despite the fact that I haven't read Joshua since Thursday and should be on chapter 13 at this point, He used chapter 9 to challenge me & bless my socks off.

Take a minute and soak in just how good God is to us. So patient, so loving.

Thanks, God.

Anyway, in my reading today, the Israelites are in the process of claiming the Promised Land as their own. They defeated Ai in the 2nd battle, after Ai originally defeated them due to Achan's sin. After this victory, Joshua takes the time to remind the Israelites of the blessings & curses spelled out in the book of instruction, as well as every word of every command.

Joshua was following through with God's earlier instructions for success:

Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the instructions Moses gave you. Do not deviate from them, turning either to the right or to the left. Then you will be successful in everything you do. Study this Book of Instruction continually. Meditate on it day and night so you will be sure to obey everything written in it. Only then will you prosper and succeed in all you do.

Joshua consulted the Lord in all he did. Until he didn't.

The Gibeonites had heard what the Israelites had done to Ai & Jericho, and verse 4 says "they resorted to deception to save themselves."

They disguised themselves so it appeared they had been on a long journey. When they came and requested for a treaty, Joshua asked, “How do we know you don’t live nearby? For if you do, we cannot make a treaty with you.” When they replied, "we are your servants," Joshua demanded, “But who are you? Where do you come from?”

The Gibeonites said they had come from a very distant country. They had heard of the Israelites' God and of all He did in Egypt, at the Jordan, and Jericho & Ai. “This bread was hot from the ovens when we left our homes. But now, as you can see, it is dry and moldy. These wineskins were new when we filled them, but now they are old and split open. And our clothing and sandals are worn out from our very long journey.”

Here is how Joshua responded: "So the Israelites examined their food, but they did not consult the Lord."

You can likely guess how this ends. Joshua makes a treaty with the Gibeonites, thinking they live far away, only to find out they live in the Promised Land. Joshua keeps his word and upholds the treaty, but loses part of the Promised Land.

The weight of this hit me.

Jesus said, "Apart from me you can do nothing."

Am I missing out on God's promises and His blessings because I forget to stop & ask God to inform my decisions?

Do I say "yes" to opportunities that appear to have God-glorifying potential because it seems like a good thing to do?

Or do I ask for God's input every time I prepare to take a step in any direction?

Lord, forgive me for often acting without asking. Help me to remember You in every step, even every small move I make. Let the weight of "Apart from me you can do nothing" convict me and inform my every decision. You are good.

Freedom Friday Tools for the Journey: Stones of Remembrance

This is a continuation of the last 2 Freedom Friday posts. It falls into the "Tools for the Journey" category, but it's also a continuation of the discussion of Joshua (I recommend going back & reading this if you haven't already).

We pick up the story in Joshua 4. The Israelites have just crossed the Jordan. They've seen God's hand move powerfully and faithfully, as He continues to do what He has promised He would do.

Then God tells Joshua to have one man from each tribe go back into the middle of the river, take a stone from where the priests are standing, and carry it back out of the river.

4 So Joshua called together the twelve men he had chosen—one from each of the tribes of Israel. 5 He told them, “Go into the middle of the Jordan, in front of the Ark of the Lord your God. Each of you must pick up one stone and carry it out on your shoulder—twelve stones in all, one for each of the twelve tribes of Israel. 6 We will use these stones to build a memorial. In the future your children will ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’ 7 Then you can tell them, ‘They remind us that the Jordan River stopped flowing when the Ark of the Lord’s Covenant went across.’ These stones will stand as a memorial among the people of Israel forever.”

I can't help but wonder why God doesn't tell them to get the stones on their way through the river. Is this again another little faith test, like when He commanded them to step into the Jordan, and only then would the waters part? While crossing the river, the Israelites were specifically instructed to stay a half mile away from the Ark of the Covenant, whereas now they are told to gather rocks from where the priests are standing. The stones needed to be from that very spot where the Ark of the Covenant, a sign of God's presence and His promises, was held. God also instructed Joshua to make another pile of 12 stones in that very spot in the middle of the Jordan.

Notice they weren't celebratory stones. It would have been a fine time to celebrate, but no. The "Stones of Remembrance" served as a memorial. A reminder of God's faithfulness. That His promises were, and still are, true. The end of an era (slavery and wilderness wanderings), and a new beginning in the Promised Land.

The reality of life is that we all get discouraged. "Discouraged" is likely too weak of a word - "disheartened" is better. Proverbs says "Hope deferred makes the heart sick". Our focus gets sidetracked by the wait. We forget all that God is, and all He has done in us & through us.

We get hyper-focused on our vision of how things should be. We even have a picture of how, when and why God will show up and come through.

The Israelites certainly had a preconceived idea of how God's deliverance should look. Imagine the Israelites, enslaved for 400 years. For all those generations, they spent their days, while subject to the whims of Pharaoh, dreaming of how God would show up. In my article "Craving Egypt", I wrote about how quickly the Israelites lost sight of all that God had done to deliver them from slavery in Egypt. The following words were spoken by the Israelites soon after the parting of the Red Sea.

"If only we had died by the Lord's hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death." Exodus 16:3

Even the Pharisees and Jewish leaders had an idea of what the Messiah, their deliverer, would look like. They had built in their minds an image of Him so inaccurate that when Jesus came, they didn't even recognize Him.

The Stones of Remembrance after the crossing of the Jordan served not just as a reminder, but also as a warning. You will forget. You will lose sight. You will get off kilter, lose focus, sink into despair. You will even come up with your own ideas of what freedom looks like and how it should arrive.

It's as if God is saying: I've carried you this far. Trust me. I'm not going to stop caring for you now. It may not look like you think it will. but I'm still here and I'm still working.

The Stones of Remembrance encourage us to focus on the "who" rather than the "how". We love the "how"! We love imagining and conjuring up the grand scheme of how God is going to work in a particular situation. We're not so enthusiastic about simply resting in the knowledge of who God is. We get too caught up in the details of the "how" to remember to fix our eyes on the eternal: Jesus.

This tool is different from the encouragement file in that the encouragement file is a place to keep reminders of thoughtful notes, affirmations, and thanks from people from over the years. Stones of Remembrance are times God came through, often in surprising ways.

So start writing it down. Look back through your journals, your emails, your Facebook status updates, and start a new journal. Write the date, and the way in which God came through. The manner in which He reminded you that He is good. The person through whom He spoke truth. The Scripture you heard three times in the same day, through three different means.

Write it down. You will forget. You will lose sight. We all do.

The Stones of Remembrance are what we reach for when we are disheartened, weighed down by the burden of the problems we were never meant to carry.

In the words of Sara Groves in her song by the same name, "He's always been faithful; He will be again".

That's why we need Stones of Remembrance.

21 Then Joshua said to the Israelites, “In the future your children will ask, ‘What do these stones mean?’ 22 Then you can tell them, ‘This is where the Israelites crossed the Jordan on dry ground.’ 23 For the Lord your God dried up the river right before your eyes, and he kept it dry until you were all across, just as he did at the Red Sea when he dried it up until we had all crossed over. 24 He did this so all the nations of the earth might know that the Lord’s hand is powerful, and so you might fear the Lord your God forever.”

Freedom Friday: Stepping Into Your Jordan

"Into the Wild" is a biographical sketch of the story of Christopher McCandless as written by Jon Krakauer.

In 1990, Christopher McCandless, a young man in his 20's, set out on a cross-country journey to experience life in the wilderness. After 2 years on the road, McCandless crossed a stream in a remote area of Alaska and ended up living in an abandoned bus he came across. He stays there for a few months, but he soon tires of gathering his own food and of the harsh reality of living alone in the wild.

When McCandless seeks to return from the wild to his friends and family, he finds that the stream which he crossed in the snow has become wide, deep, and violent due to the thaw, thus making it impossible to cross. In the film, it seems as if time stands still. McCandless stops there, perfectly silent, staring at the wild river that has now made him a prisoner of his choices.

****

I'm reading through the book of Joshua now. I just finished up Romans and have been working on a post about Joshua 6 (that will come later), and as I backtracked a little for context, I was reminded of the powerful story of faith contained in the book of Joshua.

Right before beginning Joshua, I was listening to a podcast, where a Christian speaker emphasized that sometimes we need to step out. Thus, I looked up the story of Joshua crossing the Jordan in Joshua 3. A detail I never noticed before leapt out at me.

Now the Jordan is at flood stage all during harvest.

You likely know the end of this story. The priests, walking in obedience to God's command, stepped out into the flood waters. They carried the Ark of the Covenant, a sign of God's presence and His promises, with them. The water piled up in a heap beside them, and there the priests stood, in the middle of the river on dry ground, waiting until all of Israel was safely on the other side.

But let's back up a minute for context. Imagine that you are in the shoes of the Israelites. The two spies had just returned from Jericho with a favorable report: “The LORD has surely given the whole land into our hands; all the people are melting in fear because of us.” There was likely much celebration. After 40 years of their ancestors wandering in the wilderness, the Israelites would finally see the promised land.

Then early the next morning, the Israelites were instructed to pack up their things and move their camp to the banks of the Jordan River. For 3 days, they camped near the river's edge. Imagine the spray from the flooded river, the violent water vigorously lapping the banks. They must have been thinking through all the possibilities of how they would get across as they stared at the obstacle that stood between them and their dreams of a better life.

There may have been some who remembered crossing the Red Sea, or at least heard the story from their elders. Could God do that again?

At the end of the third day, Joshua commands them, “Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the LORD will do wonders among you.” The anticipation builds. The next morning, everyone awakes and prepares to move forward. The people are directed to follow the Ark of the Covenant at a distance, while the priests were commanded: "When you reach the edge of the Jordan’s waters, go and stand in the river."

When the Red Sea parted, the waters had already parted prior to the Israelites stepping into the newly-created dry land. Why wasn't God doing that again? Was He examining their hearts, as if to make sure they were really on board? The Israelites wandered in the wilderness because of their disobedience and hard hearts. Why was He requiring an extra act of faith on the part of the priests, that they should step directly into the flood waters they had been watching for 3 days? Was He in essence, saying, "This is it, guys. We're almost there. Are you going to continue to choose to trust me and follow my commands?"

What is your Jordan?

What is the thing that is standing between you & your dreams, your freedom, the Promised Land that God is calling you to step into?

Are you standing on the banks of your Jordan, as Christopher McCandless did on that river's edge in Alaska, overwhelmed by the cold spray on your face and the rushing waters at your feet? Are you staring at the river, your obstacle, positive that you, like him, are destined to be a prisoner of your past choices?

If you are a believer in and follower of Jesus Christ, you are no longer a prisoner of your past choices. The amazing thing about the God we serve is that He sets the captives free, He brings us from darkness into light. And if He is calling you to step out, He will make a way where there is no way.

Are you willing to trudge forward as the Israelites did, choosing to trust that God has gone ahead of you?

Do you need to just step out, trusting that God will make a way?