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Do you ever feel like you’re drowning? Like somehow while the world around you is basking in the beauty of a perfectly sunny day, you’re simply trying to find your way to the surface of the pool of water you seem to be suffocated in?  Like somehow fog, hail, rain and wind have joined forces and you are trapped underneath them all?  Thoughts scrambled, fears elevated, blood pressure heightened, faith shaking while you stare through the fog hoping it will end.  With your mind running in a million directions – you gasp for breath.

You and I may be quite alike.  As I sit here tapping on my keyboard, I am thinking of situations in life where there seems to be no answer, no firm resolve, just more questions.  The other day I was in such a moment. My mind was spinning and fearful “what if” thoughts were my company.  It was as though fear were my companion and his arms were draped around my shoulders daring me to dispute his convincing arguments.   Being the domestic goddess that I am after 3 months of marital bliss,  I was cleaning.  So, I put down my dusting rag and sat on my bedroom floor, looked to the heavens and begged God to make my mind stop.  Quietly as I sat there, I found myself asking to know what is True.  Slowly God began to give me some direction… and I’m finding what He is showing me to be an incredibly liberating act of spiritual warfare.  Because all good steps come in three, I do believe there are (at least) three steps that I am finding to be very effective in keeping the lateral noise (fear due to circumstances in life) from crippling my faith, weakening my joy, and making me walk in fear.

Pursue Confession – Sprinting to the loved one you trust most and confessing the fear, disbelief or obsessive questions seems to quickly disarm the torment.  It’s amazing what can happen the minute the real, God-honest thoughts come to light… They seem a little less true.

Get Out – Declaration is powerful.  A previous colleague of mine told me one time that declaration is different that stating.  When you state something, you’re talking about the natural. When you declare it you’re speaking into the supernatural. Declaration is active. Stating is passive. I’d advise you get out of the storm.  Find something you know is True and declare it.  Declare it like you’d declare your first, middle and last name to the judge.  If fear is your enemy and it’s been knocking on your door— Declare Truth. God is bigger than Fear.  God is bigger than the unknown. Declare it until you believe it. Declare it until it feels like you are looking at the fog, rain, hail and wind beneath you and no longer around you.  Once again, declaring Truth has a way of disarming lies.

Love Being Above – Storms are cyclical. One leaves, another one comes.  We’d all like to believe that we can have perfection on this earth, but it just isn’t going to happen. However, if we can learn to operate and live above the storm, then the joy and hope we will have in this life will exponentially increase.  Once you’ve gotten out you can get above. With the understanding that I may start sounding crazy spiritual I really believe that learning how to look at circumstances, declare Truth and stay above the storm is to stay in the Word.  Love having Godly perspective. Spend time uncovering new Truths from the Bible that you can stand on. Staying in the Word is so important to living a life of victory. And when you love being above the stormy circumstances in life, you’ll put forth the effort and will quickly find it to be effortless.  With an arsenal of God-breathed declarations, it’ll be easier to hold fast to joy and hope as you run to the Bible for solace.

Hebrews 10:23 (NIV)
Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.

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Hebrews 11 (The Message)

Faith in What We Don’t See

 ^1-2The fundamental fact of existence is that this trust in God, this faith, is the firm foundation under everything that makes life worth living. It’s our handle on what we can’t see. The act of faith is what distinguished our ancestors, set them above the crowd.

 ³By faith, we see the world called into existence by God’s word, what we see created by what we don’t see.

 ⁴By an act of faith, Abel brought a better sacrifice to God than Cain. It was what he believed, not what he brought, that made the difference. That’s what God noticed and approved as righteous. After all these centuries, that belief continues to catch our notice.

 ^5-6By an act of faith, Enoch skipped death completely. “They looked all over and couldn’t find him because God had taken him.” We know on the basis of reliable testimony that before he was taken “he pleased God.” It’s impossible to please God apart from faith. And why? Because anyone who wants to approach God must believe both that he exists and that he cares enough to respond to those who seek him.

 ⁷By faith, Noah built a ship in the middle of dry land. He was warned about something he couldn’t see, and acted on what he was told. The result? His family was saved. His act of faith drew a sharp line between the evil of the unbelieving world and the rightness of the believing world. As a result, Noah became intimate with God.

 ^8-10By an act of faith, Abraham said yes to God’s call to travel to an unknown place that would become his home. When he left he had no idea where he was going. By an act of faith he lived in the country promised him, lived as a stranger camping in tents. Isaac and Jacob did the same, living under the same promise. Abraham did it by keeping his eye on an unseen city with real, eternal foundations—the City designed and built by God.

 ^11-12By faith, barren Sarah was able to become pregnant, old woman as she was at the time, because she believed the One who made a promise would do what he said. That’s how it happened that from one man’s dead and shriveled loins there are now people numbering into the millions.

 ^13-16Each one of these people of faith died not yet having in hand what was promised, but still believing. How did they do it? They saw it way off in the distance, waved their greeting, and accepted the fact that they were transients in this world. People who live this way make it plain that they are looking for their true home. If they were homesick for the old country, they could have gone back any time they wanted. But they were after a far better country than that—heaven country. You can see why God is so proud of them, and has a City waiting for them.

 ^17-19By faith, Abraham, at the time of testing, offered Isaac back to God. Acting in faith, he was as ready to return the promised son, his only son, as he had been to receive him—and this after he had already been told, “Your descendants shall come from Isaac.” Abraham figured that if God wanted to, he could raise the dead. In a sense, that’s what happened when he received Isaac back, alive from off the altar.

 ²⁰By an act of faith, Isaac reached into the future as he blessed Jacob and Esau.

 ²¹By an act of faith, Jacob on his deathbed blessed each of Joseph’s sons in turn, blessing them with God’s blessing, not his own—as he bowed worshipfully upon his staff.

 ²²By an act of faith, Joseph, while dying, prophesied the exodus of Israel, and made arrangements for his own burial.

 ²³By an act of faith, Moses’ parents hid him away for three months after his birth. They saw the child’s beauty, and they braved the king’s decree.

 ^24-28By faith, Moses, when grown, refused the privileges of the Egyptian royal house. He chose a hard life with God’s people rather than an opportunistic soft life of sin with the oppressors. He valued suffering in the Messiah’s camp far greater than Egyptian wealth because he was looking ahead, anticipating the payoff. By an act of faith, he turned his heel on Egypt, indifferent to the king’s blind rage. He had his eye on the One no eye can see, and kept right on going. By an act of faith, he kept the Passover Feast and sprinkled Passover blood on each house so that the destroyer of the firstborn wouldn’t touch them.

 ²⁹By an act of faith, Israel walked through the Red Sea on dry ground. The Egyptians tried it and drowned.

 ³⁰By faith, the Israelites marched around the walls of Jericho for seven days, and the walls fell flat.

 ³¹By an act of faith, Rahab, the Jericho harlot, welcomed the spies and escaped the destruction that came on those who refused to trust God.

 ^32-38I could go on and on, but I’ve run out of time. There are so many more— Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, the prophets….Through acts of faith, they toppled kingdoms, made justice work, took the promises for themselves. They were protected from lions, fires, and sword thrusts, turned disadvantage to advantage, won battles, routed alien armies. Women received their loved ones back from the dead. There were those who, under torture, refused to give in and go free, preferring something better: resurrection. Others braved abuse and whips, and, yes, chains and dungeons. We have stories of those who were stoned, sawed in two, murdered in cold blood; stories of vagrants wandering the earth in animal skins, homeless, friendless, powerless—the world didn’t deserve them!—making their way as best they could on the cruel edges of the world.

 ^39-40Not one of these people, even though their lives of faith were exemplary, got their hands on what was promised. God had a better plan for us: that their faith and our faith would come together to make one completed whole, their lives of faith not complete apart from ours.Tweet

Some know us for who we were.

They leave their view of us in the past, assuming that despite 10-20-30 years of maturity, the “real us” is somehow found in an immature form.

Some know us for who we are.

They see the present, not taking into account the things of our past, both positive and negative.

Some know us for who we are to become.

They see our past. They see our present. And somehow they can see the inner-workings of both to make a future that is fully developed and hopeful.

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I believe in the hope of the future. I believe that although our past shapes us, that God can work anything out for our good. I believe that God works the present circumstances strategically and that nothing goes beyond His sight.

Overall, I believe in the hope of freedom of heart and the sovereignty of a good God.  I believe that despite all the circumstances of life, that God is good and His ultimate goal is to bless us beyond our wildest imaginations.

With a heart and a life surrendered to His will, I choose to embrace the past, enjoy the present, and have faith for the future.Tweet

Innocence just doesn’t seem to get fought for much in today’s cultures.

I was pulling up to a stop light on a residential road where I saw a kid who looked to be about 7 walking with his mom. Having just had his hair cut at the neighborhood barber, he kept rubbing his hand up the back of his head with a smug smirk on his face. He was proud of his hair cut.   But the thing that struck me wasn’t the hair (although the spikes on top were perfectly formed).  It was the look on his face, that was pure and simple… innocent.  I looked at him and his mom and thought… “He has a good mom. You can tell that. He’s a good kid. You can tell that. His face is innocent and he is loved.”

Will that innocence disappear from his face too?  How long until his innocence is gone?  When will the pure naivety leave his face? And when innocence leaves, where does it go?  Who takes it?  How can it be stopped?

Innocence seems to disappear so quickly…

This past week I have become keenly aware of the innocence of children everywhere and have found myself wondering when the exact time is that the innocence from the face of a child begins to fade.

Currently, my man is in Africa.  While there he’s met many orphans and has seen a country laden with beautiful people and also deep sorrow… much like the rest of the world, just manifesting itself differently.  When he talks about children growing up too fast in Uganda, he doesn’t reference wearing makeup too early, but he said that 50% of the children are having sex by the time they are 15 years old.  50%. Shocking.

Children are growing up too fast all over the world.  However, it seems like our culture actually encourages it.  I believe that innocence is beautiful. We should fight for the innocence of our children… always.

I really am curious what your thoughts are on this as my questions are sincere. How do we protect the innocence of our children? How do we keep our children from growing up to fast, and what is too fast?

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I believe in Great love.

I believe Great love is uncommon.

I believe Great love is unnatural.

I believe Great love has to be fought for.

I believe Great love is rarely reciprocated but always rewarded.

I believe Great Love is the one thing that can set a Soul free.

I believe that in order to discover Great love, you have to choose it.

I believe Great love is found through unwarranted sacrifice, uncommon consideration, and unreasonable circumstances.

Great love sees the good that could be, despite what is reality.

Great love will sometimes walk away, but Great love will often embrace.

Great love isn’t afraid to get dirty, broken or hurt.

Those with Great love find their own restoration in the Greatest Love of a God that is always Bigger.

I think many people have love. This is not rare.  But many of us do not have Great love... Great love is worth searching out and fighting to own and to possess.

I choose Great love.  Great Love chose me.

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I lost my dignity once. Somewhere in between the main floor and the basement of a Colorado vacation spot my dignity took a U-turn.  I’ll spare you the details at an attempt to retain some of the feelings of femininity I like to possess.  But to put it simply, my loss of dignity involved three things: Altitude sickness, my forehead… and a toilet seat. No doubt a recipe for disaster.

The Encounter with the Toilet Seat

It went something like this. I felt a bit sick… really sick. I went to the bathroom to take care of that.  Through an unfortunate incident… the toilet seat hit me in the forehead leaving a rather large and very conspicuous gash right in between my eyes… followed by two black eyes.

I lost my dignity that day… and the day after… and the day after that.  War wounds of that nature beckon explanation.  Bye-bye dignity.

What I really think about dignity.

I think it’s overrated.  The loss of dignity provides a chance for a reminder of our humanity and a balanced view of the world around us.  We hold fast to our dignity, but perhaps that is one of the greatest deterrents to doing something great. I’m not saying that random stories that happen during a ski vacation really have much to do with the overall theme of making a difference.  But if one day I get to make a choice to be a bit undignified in order to impact the greater good, then I hope to choose to look like a fool and have a foolish story to tell. I will gladly lose my dignity for those in need.

“I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes. But by these slave girls you spoke of, I will be held in honor.” – 2 Samuel 6:22

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She looked at me and said, “I just need to stay in my lane.”  The moment she said those words, my world kind of had that slow motion movement to it as the words slowly reverberated in my head. “Stay in my lane.”  What does that even mean?

“Staying in My Lane“

There is a place in some of us that holds a hard wired desire to make a difference in the massive problems of justice across the world. Whether it’s the AIDS epidemic, the need for clean water, or the evils of the modern day slave trade, there is certainly no lack for problems.  My friend that said this to me is a lawyer. She’s one of those people that sees the big issue of human trafficking and is working on the legal portion and determining what specific role she is to play.  She was talking about how she has to focus on legal only because that’s what she’s good at… that was her lane. She was most effective there.

What the Old Poet Had to Say

Every time I think of what she said that day, I remember the stanzas of Robert Frost.  He wrote my favorite poem of all time, The Road Not Taken.  The stanza that echos in my head  is this:

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

We all choose a road. Some choose the roads that are less traveled and some choose the roads that many travel. Neither are wrong.  I think when it comes to issues of justice, we just need to make sure we take “our road”.  Whatever road we feel God has put us on. We need to walk that road until it ends. Because in order for God’s awesome strategy to unfold, His strategy that ends in the redemption of his people, we need to simply do what we’ve been called to do.  We need to stay in our lane.

It’s all His work. So let’s just do what we’re good at. Let’s do what we’ve been called to do. Let’s do it well. Let’s do it with passion. Let’s do it with Love. That’s what people need. That’s what God needs. He needs us in our lane. He needs us on our path.  And his strategy of redemption will unfold the way He’s planned.

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Sometimes I have these moments where I feel like my heart is going to literally beat out of my chest.  Those moments are usually when I can suddenly see clearly.  When the distraction of my own personal world begins to fade and I see the reality of others around me. The moment when the girl at the counter, becomes a person. The moment where what’s happening on the 6 o’clock news causes me to pause in my tracks and feel.  The moment when what another is unjustly facing becomes my issue. Where injustice is intolerable.

I pray that these moments increase and that within each moment God begins to unravel vision for each of us… We can’t do everything, but we can love the girl at the counter. We can be fully engaged in compassion. Yes.  I want to see clearly what is going on around me.  Join me?

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Psalm 12:5

Into the hovels of the poor, into the dark streets where the homeless groan, God speaks: “I’ve had enough; I’m on my way to heal the ache in the heart of the wretched.”

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God is bigger. He’s always been bigger; He’ll always be bigger.
I have to believe it. I have to.

Amy.

I met Amy in 2003 over the phone. She was a speaker for the company that I worked for and was one of the most genuine, lovable Texan beauties I had ever known. Within three fast minutes, we were life-long friends and within three fast months I had only begun to realize the impact she was having in so many lives.

Her Story.

I remember the first time Amy told me her story as we sat in a restaurant overlooking the Boise city streets. A former beauty queen, passionate speaker, heartfelt friend and the biggest giver I’d ever known, I never imagined I’d hear of the tragedy that had colored her life.  From losing her father to losing her husband, pain was not a foreign concept for my dear friend.  Yet, as she told me her story with tears on her cheeks and hope in her eyes, I was once again in awe of the kind of woman that sat before me.

Continuing in her story, she told of her moment of breakthrough when her life began to take shape again. She declared with quiet boldness the verse that had granted her sleep and set her on a firm foundation once again:

“For I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord, plans for good and not for evil, to give you a hope and a future.” – Jeremiah 29:11

With those words Amy moved forward and quickly found herself presenting her message before large audiences.  She shared the stage with Heads of States, but her most treasured moments were in ministry as she spoke to battered and bruised women in shelters.

Shocking.

When I moved to Dallas in August of 2007, Amy was the first to greet me, bubbling with excitement and plans.  Our working friendship was over but our real-life friendship had continued.  Her life was full, her joy overflowing and her lasting touch in the lives of people glimmered with the fruit of a life well lived.

So one can imagine my utter shock when I heard the news.  As I was preparing for a women’s conference at my church one spring day, I ran into the grocery store to grab an apple and unexpectedly ran into my friend Jay who I had also worked with during the time when I met Amy.  We caught up very quickly and then he told me of Amy’s fall on stage the week prior and the tests that produced evidence of kidney cancer.  Stage IV.  Terminal.  Nothing can prepare you for a moment like that.  Amy was 41.

God is Bigger.

I hate cancer. It’s an evil disease that seems to cast its sites on the most unsuspecting, precious people.  Yet, my faith was sure and I had a bold confidence that “God is bigger.”

In the days that followed I spoke with Amy and we began to plan the next time we’d meet and catch up.  I asked her how to pray and she told me to pray as I always had and to pray for healing.  I told that I would and I did. With tears streaming down my cheeks and hope in my eyes, I asked the Lord to heal my friend.

Last year, after a 2-month battle with cancer, Amy went to be with Jesus.  A couple of days before she passed away, while at a fundraising dinner for the ministry she had founded, she sent a message:

“Whether in my life or in my death, God will be glorified.”

I remember her telling me a long time ago how she wasn’t afraid of painful things happening to her anymore, because she had seen what God had done for her out of the most horrible tragedies she could have imagined for herself.  She had given her life to the One who had rescued her so many years before, so to her, there was no fear.

Celebration.

Many tears streamed down many faces in the days that followed, but it became so clear that the ministry she had founded was booming with the radiant faces of lives that had been changed as the girls declared the redemption that they had each experienced in their own lives.

I’ve known a lot of people in my life, but if one day I remotely resemble the radiance of Amy, then I will be honored. She was driven, yet soft, passionate and hopeful. Yet, most of all, she had experienced first hand what it was to be loved by God and rescued by His hand.

Tough theology.

I have more faith in God’s healing power today than I have ever had.  Yet, it’s hard to understand cancer. It’s hard to understand healing. But as my friend Jill said at the funeral, “I can just hear Amy in heaven now… ‘You’re never gonna believe this!’”  If anyone is going to love heaven, it’s Amy.  She just beat us there.

Yes, God is bigger than cancer. I’ve seen him heal many people.  God is also bigger than my theology and my understanding.  I’ll miss Amy. But in her death, my eyes were opened to where God was calling me.  On the day she passed away, I wrote in my journal: “Okay, Lord. I’ll do all that you called me to, everything I’m afraid to do.  I’ll do it because I know that she was afraid too.  But she did it… in half the time.”

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Amy Jones, author of book: Twice As Much In Half the Time.

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