Fully Loved and Always Invited by God

Fully Loved and Always Invited by God

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Here we are two months into the second half of 2020. In January, none of us could have possibly expected all that we would go through or all that we would feel over these past several months. I don’t know about you, but I’m exhausted from all of the conversations and the endless arguing online.

Honestly, my soul has been crying out for a bit of quiet and fellowship with intimate community. In some ways I have experienced that fellowship, but in other ways it keeps alluding me. For me, friendship is one of my greatest joys and one of my greatest frustrations, and I keep waiting for the day when they will magically get easier.

These past few weeks have very much felt like the same mountain I’ve seen from every angle. You know the story. You make friends, and you have these expectations. But then you find out or see the group photo of the celebration or girls trip that you weren’t invited to, and there it is again — uninvited. No one wants to feel left out or unwanted, but I’ve spent much of my life just outside of belonging, never feeling good enough.

I’ve been trying my best to navigate these hurt feelings without them turning into anger or offense, but my anxiety has kicked into overdrive. Overwhelm has set in. And shame has sent me spiraling. My instinct is to pull away, build walls, and numb out to avoid pain and confrontation, but as I’ve done my fair share of sitting in the Father’s arms and crying my heart out, I’m praying that my instincts are changing by God’s grace and mercy.

Too often I seek the approval of people. I seek their love and attention. When it doesn’t happen, I’m left feeling empty and alone. But recently, my sweet friend Wendy shared this on a Facebook video: “My security is found in Him alone, in His love, and in nothing else.” Her words have been circling my mind for days, and it has helped me understand these three truths again:

1. God always sees us.

 She gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her: “You are the God who sees me,” for she said, “I have now seen the One who sees me.
Genesis 16:13 (NIV)

In Hagar’s lowest moment when she had been overlooked, abused, rejected, and abandoned, God met her. In a very real way He showed up, looked her in the eye, and saw her. That is what I have needed more than anything — to see the One who sees me. Maybe you need to know that too. I love that He is more than willing to look right into our eyes. He never shies away from our mess or hard-to-love places. He sees us.

2. God always loves us.

. . . God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. We love because he first loved us.
1 John 4:16, 19 (NIV)

Super basic, right? But that’s exactly what I need. God is love and love is what He gives to us. The only reason that we can love Him and others is because He loved us first and planted His love within us. Whenever I don’t feel loved by others for whatever reason, I remember He loves me. He loves us because He couldn’t imagine a world without us in it. He loves us so much so that He created us in His image. He loves us so much that He sent His Son to die a death that we deserved. His love is EVERYTHING for us.

3. God always invites us.

Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.
Hebrews 4:16 (NIV)

We can always have confidence that the Lord will welcome us into His love and presence. He stands with arms wide open waiting for us to come to Him. We can bring our joys and sorrows, our successes and failures, our anger and contentment. He meets us with no condemnation and every bit of His grace. He even pursues us with the invitation to intimacy with Himself, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Jesus is our refuge and safe place, where we are fully known and fully loved. He is our anchor and firm foundation, and our hope is found in Him alone. May we constantly find ourselves running to and gazing on the One who sees us.

In the comments below, share about a time where you felt uninvited
by others but invited by God.

 

[bctt tweet=”God is more than willing to look right into our eyes. He never shies away from our mess or hard-to-love places. He sees us. -@karina268:” username=”incourage”]

I Don’t Know What Tomorrow Will Bring, But . . .

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My hands hover over the keyboard. I don’t want to write this post.

I don’t really want to write any post at all, actually, even though my mind is constantly writing sentences and storylines throughout the day.

Part of me wants to blame it on the pandemic, and while it’s true that I have much less creative energy now than I did back in “precedented times,” I hesitate to put words down today because I know you won’t see them for another few weeks . . . and I don’t know what the world will look like then.

What will fill our newsfeeds? Will we be closer to a vaccine? What worries will weigh on our shoulders? What words of truth will we need to hear?

I don’t know.

I’m pulled back to the present moment as a splash in the background interrupts my thoughts. The sound of children screaming with delight and adults laughing at their joy echos off the buildings surrounding the pool.

Twenty-five summers ago, I wore floaties in that very pool.

Fifteen summers ago, I played games with my cousins, diving to the bottom to retrieve toys and seeing who could hold their breath the longest underwater.

Ten summers ago, I stood on the deck by the pool, took a picture with my family, gave hugs and said goodbyes, and then drove home to pack a hospital bag for brain surgery the next morning.

We come back every year and I say the same words all over again. “Will you take my picture on the deck?” Sometimes I squint from the sun or stand there soaked from a summer storm, but there’s a time lapse of sorts on my camera roll, each photo telling a story summed up in just a few words:

I’m still here.

And so I add another picture, pause to remember, and give thanks.⁣⁣

Ten years later, with criss-crossed legs beneath me and hands slowly writing out these words to the soundtrack of squeals and splashes, it’s remembering that slows my heartbeat. My fingers still with gratitude instead of uncertainty.

Not knowing the future isn’t anything new. I’ve never known exactly what the next day would bring. Control has never been mine to have or to hold.

20/20 vision, it turns out, brings into focus the truth that I don’t know . . . and maybe that’s a gift.

Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.
Matthew 6:34 (MSG)

The little girl in the floaties had no idea what was coming fifteen years later, let alone the next day. And if you told the girl holding her breath that five years later she’d have to remember to breathe during her first MRI scan, she wouldn’t fully understand.

The seventeen-year-old standing on the deck didn’t need to know in that moment that over the next decade, mixed in with so many wonderful things, she would have three more surgeries, grieve friendships falling apart, experience spiritual warfare, watch multiple dreams die, and eventually find herself writing these words in the middle of something called a “global pandemic.”

Not knowing the future was a kindness, a gift from the One who knows it all and knew it would be too much.

That day’s trouble was enough. But the most beautiful of truths is this: so was God.

Like manna in the wilderness and new mercies every morning, He was enough for every single day.

Remembering God’s past faithfulness helps us hold tightly to joy in the present and hope for the future.

That doesn’t eliminate our questions, but it guides us to the true Answer.

In Even If Not, I wrote,

God is not staring down at us from heaven and tapping His foot, checking His watch to see just how long it’ll take us to figure this whole ‘life’ thing out. Instead, He is patiently waiting and quietly longing to be the safe place we run to in the dark, the quiet we enter into when the noise of the world is blaring in our ears, the balm to our scars and the healing for our hurts. He never promised to answer all our questions, but He promised to be the Answer to every question we’ll ever face.

Sometimes we get so caught up in figuring out the future that we can’t focus in the present. There’s a time and a place for planning, but if we miss today then what’s the point in worrying about tomorrow? Time spent worrying today is time taken away from praying for the very things that cause us to worry.

God was there at the beginning, is with us in the in between, and will be with us in our tomorrows too. We’re invited to be “careless in the care of God” (Matthew 6), trusting that the One who knows and holds the future also knows and holds us.

I don’t have the answers, and I imagine I’ll still be saying “I don’t know” next time I watch the cursor blink against a blank page.

But I won’t end the sentence there.

I don’t know what tomorrow will bring, but He does.

I don’t know what tomorrow will bring, but He’ll be there.

I don’t know what tomorrow will bring, but He is enough.

And that’s enough.

If you’ve purchased a copy of Even If Not, send me a message . . . I’d love to connect and, if you’d like, mail a print or two your way. (Every chapter begins with an art print, and while they’re all available as free downloads on my website, if you’re anything like me, it sure does help to see Truth framed on a desk or taped to the bathroom mirror.)

[bctt tweet=”Remembering God’s past faithfulness helps us hold tightly to joy in the present and hope for the future. – @kaitlyn_bouch” username=”incourage”]

Holding the Tension of Joy, Grief, and Worry

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My weekend encapsulated one of those magical moments that little girls dream about their whole lives – their wedding day. With months of uncertainty and questions about gatherings due to the COVID-19, the celebration was sweetened by the intense way my niece and her fiancé pushed through struggles and challenges, tears and fears. It was finally their day!

With her faithful father by her side, my niece floated down the venue stairs. Robed in white, her shimmering eyes sparkled with a kind of innocent joy that’s rare these days. She glanced at her daddy and then stepped toward her future groom, clutching his hand with a little excited squeal thrown in for good measure. Long before he knew the name of his daughter’s future spouse, my brother had been praying about the possibility of this day. From start to finish, it was the glorious affirmation of all they’d prayed for — the good and the beautiful that is at the heart of all covenantal wedding days. It was pure joy.

But my weekend also included one of life’s greatest sorrows — the sudden loss of my dear friend’s child. I was at the rehearsal dinner when I received her text. My gasp was audible, so I quickly walked away so as not to dampen the celebratory mood. As I was doubled over with grief, music and dancing, laughter and giggles echoed all around me. But on the other end of the phone, my friend’s heart was splayed open from the devastation over her loss. Her daughter was gone too soon, never to have a rehearsal dinner. We have no guarantees.

Laughter and lamenting. Toasts and tears. All the “firsts” amidst such finality.

How could such emotions co-exist? How was I to function? With fourteen people staying at our home for the wedding, followed by a Sunday worship service (held in our backyard) for young families we mentor, I spent the wee hours of the weekend flushing out Ecclesiastes 3 in my heart. As I begged the Lord for wisdom on how to hold the grief and the joy, I was granted a gift.

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens . . . a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance.
Ecclesiastes 3:1, 4 (NIV)

As I texted my grieving friend on the morning of the wedding, I shared that while I’d have to compartmentalize my feelings in order to celebrate, my heart wouldn’t be far from hers.

Her response came from someone who has spent decades deeply rooted in a biblical worldview that laid a solid foundation for her theology of suffering. She was understandably angry, completely devastated and living a parent’s worst nightmare, yet she also desired that through her darkest hour her Savior would be glorified.

She texted back, Jen, go rejoice with those who are rejoicing. We will have plenty of time for mourning later.

My memories of that wedding week are so complex, but they’ve taken me to a deeper level with the Lord than I’ve experienced in a long time. We want happy fairy tale days, and though our Lord does graciously give good gifts to His children, we are not guaranteed a life without grief and loss.

We’re all walking through such varied seasons right now, but one thing is certain: God is intricately involved in both our suffering and celebrating. 

I’m reminded that we must ask tough questions in our faith now so that we can have a strong foundation when we face impossible situations, including death and loss. Then, He can comfort us in our most challenging times when we cry out, “Why have you forsaken me?”

I’m sitting in that tension on a more personal level as well. Prior to my niece’s wedding, I had received some scary medical results. I’d wrestled with pain under my left breast throughout the shelter-at-home quarantine, but since all non-essential appointments had been canceled for months, I decided not to worry my family unnecessarily. Once I finally got my appointment, the results of my mammogram showed a small mass where the pain was located.

It could be just a fatty tumor, but honestly, life holds such a perspective shift with what this mass could mean. It’s a gift to process all this even as I write now.

And as I wait for results*, I wonder what’s to come. In complete transparency, I’m worried. Yet, I’m not allowing worry to be used as a weapon to harm me. Satan is trying his best, but instead, I’m taking every single worry for myself, my dear friend and her family, for our future, and wielding it as worship with my eyes fixed on the only Waymaker.

He is here amidst our laughter and lament, amidst our worry and our worship. I know this to be true and choose to continue anchor my heart in His Word. There, I find grace for myself, and there is grace for you too.

*Edited to add: To everyone’s shock and relief, I got my mammogram results, and they were benign. Thanking God for His grace!

 

[bctt tweet=”He is here amidst our laughter and lament, amidst our worry and our worship. -Jen Schmidt (@beautyandbedlam):” username=”incourage”]

Trusting God Even When Our Plans Change

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I had heard about the Saharan dust storm making the long journey from Africa and sweeping across our land here in Nebraska. Although I didn’t understand how dust could travel that far, I thought it was interesting that it would cause our sunsets and sunrises to be more vivid here, and I knew it was something I had to see for myself.

We live in a bit of a valley and are surrounded by huge, thick trees to the west. Unless we venture out, it’s impossible to see sunsets out our door, so I did a quick Google search to see when it would be best to see its effects near us and started to make plans on catching its full beauty.

I looked up ideal sunset times, put it on my calendar, and got my camera ready. My husband would drive me up the hills to get a great view, and when nine o’clock rolled around, we headed out. I had seen some social media postings from other nights by people in surrounding areas that were amazing, so I couldn’t wait to witness it myself!

We waited for the dust to do its thing, but all we could see was the haze it was causing and only pale blue skies. It wasn’t colorful at all — not a drop of the pinks, purples, and oranges I had been expecting. I thought maybe something could possibly change last minute, so we stayed on the hill with camera in hand. But we watched the sun fade and were left with no spectacular show, no vivid colors, no photos to catch the rare moment. Nothing.

Our plans failed and turned into disappointment — much like life for most people this year.

Things are not unfolding as we had planned. The high hopes we may have had going into 2020 have certainly not played out as we had expected. Things that were years in the making have been postponed or canceled altogether. Months of our “normal” lives, of regular routines have all been interrupted by a global pandemic. Who could have predicted or planned that a pandemic would sweep the world and instantly change so much in our daily lives?

The interruptions are frustrating and seem unfair. Life isn’t looking like we had planned in the little and big things. We’re uncertain of the future and don’t have answers. The plans we had changed, and it is uncomfortable, disappointing, and hard. But that isn’t the end of the story. There is still good news!

We can take comfort in knowing that God knows the future. He has the answers. He is not surprised by any of this. Our plans may have changed in unexpected ways, but God does not change.

That comfort we strive for, that peace we long for? There is a way — trust. We can choose to trust even when life isn’t going as we had planned. We can trust there is a bigger, greater plan than anything we could orchestrate or predict. Believing His plan for us is good.

We have to exchange our plans for His plans and remember that in all things there is a purpose.

When my best thought out plans aren’t going as planned, I think of Proverbs 16:9: “In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps.” I can plan all I want, but He may have other plans for me. He determines the steps, so I need to live with an open heart and mind. I need to learn to be flexible and deal with disappointments even when I can’t see His purpose or His glory.

God has a plan for how this year is turning out to be, and we can trust Him with it.

With so many plans changed, have you seen some good in it yet?
Share in the comments below so we can all be encouraged!

 

[bctt tweet=”We can take comfort in knowing that God knows the future. He has the answers. He is not surprised by any of this. -Jennifer Ueckert:” username=”incourage”]

For When You’re Wilting

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The righteous thrive like a palm tree and grow like a cedar tree in Lebanon.
Planted in the house of the Lord, they thrive in the courts of our God.
Psalm 92:12-13 (CSB)

These past few weeks I haven’t been praying. I’ve wanted to, but still, I haven’t. “I’m so busy right now,” I told myself. “I’ll talk to Jesus soon. God will understand.” I wasn’t reading my Bible either. I saw it, sitting there on my nightstand, but it had been covered up by other things — glasses of water, notebooks, textbooks, and my laptop.

I had a list of reasons the length of my arm for why I wasn’t praying or spending time with Jesus: I had surgery, my second art show was quickly approaching, and the amount of work college assigns one person is shocking. All those reasons are legitimate, but without any time spent with Jesus, all those reasons were emptying me.

One day while sitting on my bed, I started crying. “I can’t do this anymore, Jesus,” I told Him. “I’m too tired. I’m too overwhelmed. I said yes to too many things. I’m going to have to pull all-nighters for the next month to finish everything I need to do. I’m drowning. No, not even drowning. I’m withering, like I’m shriveling right up.”

If I was a flower, I was a wilted one. Because I’m a verbal processor, I was trying to fill up on people. I would talk to people about how I was feeling: overwhelmed, worried, and anxious about all the things I felt I needed to do. Unfortunately, no human conversation was satisfying me.

Jesus — the real source, the One who takes me and my shriveled-up self and breathes life into me, allowing me to slowly, slowly begin to work my way from a wilted flower to one that can flourish — is necessary for me to survive.

Without Him, I am empty.

Only when I lay myself down, when I give Him my worries and fears and anxieties, including the things that I think must appear so petty to Him, can I finally be full. I want my roots to sink deep into who Jesus Christ is so that I can stand strong and firm, not on my own accord but on His.

I started to pray again. I began writing my prayers down and asking certain people in my life how I could pray for them. I began reading Hebrews, and I focused on how God keeps giving us grace. And slowly (because these things are always a slow, thoughtful process), I have begun filling up again.

I’m no longer wilting. My circumstances have remained the same, but my roots have vastly changed. May I never again be rooted in my own self, but instead ground myself in Jesus: the rock, the One who will forever sustain me.

This excerpt is by Aliza Latta, as published in the (in)courage Devotional Bible and the Summer (in) the Psalms Devotional Journal.

We’re journeying through the book of Psalms this summer, and we hope you are too! In addition to reading a Psalm a day this summer, Becky Keife, our community manager, is hosting a video conversation with other (in)courage writers about what they’re learning from Psalms every Thursday. These conversations are so good for our souls and just plain fun! Listen in below as Becky, Aliza, and Anna discuss what they’re learning from Psalm 92 — and Aliza’s accompanying devotion.

Isn’t it good to study and learn and laugh together? A few of our favorite things right there! Are you journeying through the Psalms with us? It’s definitely not too late! There’s plenty of summer left, and so many wonderful truths waiting in the Psalms. We hope you’ll join us.

Click here to purchase the printed Summer (in) the Psalms 40-Day Devotional Journal for just $7.99! This beautiful printed journal, only available on Amazon, includes forty days of reading selections from Psalms, twenty full devotions from the (in)courage Devotional Bible, and daily reflection questions with lined pages for journaling your answers. This journal is an all-inclusive, one stop shop for your Summer (in) the Psalms journey!

We loving our Summer (in) the Psalms with you.

Get your Summer (in) the Psalms Devotional Journal today!

 

[bctt tweet=”Jesus — the real source, the One who takes me and my shriveled-up self and breathes life into me — is necessary for me to survive. – @AlizaLatta:” username=”incourage”]

When Nothing Changes but God Still Provides

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In the week after my husband lost his job, I remember the feeling of desperation that crept in at night. I would lie awake in bed, wondering how we were going to make it, financially and practically.

My husband was sending out his resume and applying for positions; he was making calls and networking. But as the weeks piled up, he still had no job offers. I felt overwhelmed every time I thought about our future and how we wanted — and needed — to provide for our children. Emotions in our home ran high.

Nothing changed.

After three months of the same, I felt helpless. I tried to insist that Michael apply more places and send out more copies of his resume. But as the options for job opportunities narrowed down to almost nothing, my husband became clear in his conviction that it was time for us to wait on the Lord rather than pushing ahead with anything we could manufacture on our own.

So we waited. And we prayed. And we prayed more and more. I felt anxious and scared, but we continued to ask God to open a door for us when it seemed like everything was firmly shut. Because while we were truly helpless to make our own way, we clung to the truth that God could do a “new thing” — that He could make “a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland” for our family (Isaiah 43:19 NIV).

I read the Bible with a heart hungry to see God provide for His people. I was stunned afresh by the parting of the Red Sea, and how the Lord tangibly provided a new path for His people to freedom — a path where there had never been one before (see Exodus 14). I was comforted by the beautiful provision of Jesus’ multiplication of the few loaves and fish — and how, in His hands, the little that was brought to Him became enough. Time and again, I marveled at how Jesus offered healing and wholeness and hope for those who came to Him, and how those who looked to Him for provision and grace were given just what they needed.

My faith in God began to grow stronger than my fear, and I started to truly believe that the same God who made a way for the Israelites through the Red Sea would make a way for us. The same Lord who gave food to the hungry and healing for the broken would provide for us.

Still, nothing changed.

But when we were nearly five months out from Michael’s job loss, I had a moment where I looked around at our life. I had been assuming that God’s breakthrough in our lives would look like a new job for my husband. But as I took an account of the months we had been walking through, I realized that we were already living in His care and provision. By His grace alone, we were still standing. We had been able to pay our bills every month. We had food in the fridge and gas in the car. Our kids were thriving and growing. We were in the middle of living out a miracle, and it had happened right under my nose.

Everything had changed — not in our circumstances, but in me.

I saw my life with a new perspective — not through the lens of loss (as real as it was), but through the lens of God’s provision. The unexpected check in the mail — a miracle. The discount on groceries that week — a miracle. Help paying for school supplies — a miracle. The phone call that led to an unexpected job interview — a miracle.

We had what we needed every day. It wasn’t what we would have chosen, and it wasn’t what we wanted. But the Lord provided for us. And in God’s way and timing — nearly seven months after that first week where I couldn’t sleep for fear of the future — He moved us to a new state and gave my husband a new job. He made a way for us. He changed our circumstances.

But first, He changed me.

 

[bctt tweet=”In His hands, the little that is brought to Him is enough. -@annswindell:” username=”incourage”]

Prayer in the Era of Self-Help

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I am not proud to admit that when things go wrong in my life – or in the lives of the people I love – my first instinct isn’t always a posture of prayer.

Instead, I too often adopt a posture of self-help. I act as if my theology is something along the lines of “I’ve got this,” instead of “God’s got this.” Or weirder still: “If I worry about this enough, it will resolve itself.”

I suppose this attitude is a byproduct of the culture in which I was born and bred. The concept of the “self-made man” is so pervasive we buy into the notion that our fates are in our own hands. We believe that with enough hard work, we can get what we want – a bigger house, a better job, a more fit physique, an idealized social status.

If you’ve lived long enough under that sort of ethic, you can begin to think that prayer is no more than a beautiful expression of faith. You might not say it out loud, but deep within you, you might be thinking, “God is great and all, but if I want something done, I’ll have to do it myself.” And let’s face it, so many of us have poured out our hearts to God, begging Him to move urgently, only to feel like our prayers were just an echo in the darkness, especially when we show up at the graveside service.

I found myself falling into this way of thinking recently when one of my children was facing a particularly difficult challenge that had us all in tears. I sat awake many nights in a row devising plans to “fix the problem.” I thought about ways to confront, correct, or control what was happening.

One morning, after a particularly long night, I was studying a verse in John. “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33 NIV).

I kept looking at the tiny, three-word exclamation in the middle of that verse: “But take heart!” Jesus didn’t say, “Take matters into your own hands.” He didn’t say, “Take control.” He said, “Take heart.”

Taking heart is not a posture of self-help. It’s the posture of humility. Indeed, it’s the posture of prayer. Prayer is the acknowledgement that we’re not running the show — God is. It is a way of saying, “I trust Your ways more than mine, Lord.”

I think now about the dozens of biblical heroes whose very lives illustrate the power of prayer. Here are just a few:

Hannah prayed — and birthed a son (1 Samuel 1:1-20).
Esther prayed — and a nation was delivered (Esther 4:15-17).
Daniel prayed — and the mouths of lions were snapped shut (Daniel 6).
Moses prayed to see God’s glory — and he got the greatest show on earth (Exodus 33:12-23).

It wasn’t their muscle or intelligence or strategic planning that worked. It was their willingness to fall to their knees.

One prayer really can change everything, so don’t underestimate the power of your prayers. Don’t fall for the lie that your prayers have to be said a certain way to count. Don’t give up asking. Not now! God hears you, and no prayer is ever, ever wasted. Ask and ask again because even when our prayers don’t change our circumstances, those prayers are changing us.

What are you praying for today? Maybe you’re like Hannah, praying for a child to hold. Or maybe you’re praying for a child to come home, to be healed, to turn back around from where he’s headed.

Maybe you’re like Esther, praying for a nation.

Maybe you’re like Daniel, and that lion you’re praying against is the one who’s been preying on your family.

Maybe you are like Moses, and you just want to see God.

Ask. Pray. It changes things. And then keep your eyes open because His answer might just blow you away.

Remember Peter? He was in prison, and the church kept praying for him. One night, an angel appeared in Peter’s cell. Chains fell, and Peter walked out the door. Even Peter couldn’t believe what was happening! He went to Mary’s house, where the church had been praying. A servant named Rhoda answered the door, and she was so shocked, she forgot to let him in!

Keep your eyes open for a Rhoda-styled surprise. Don’t give up now. You are never as powerful as that moment when you fall to your knees in prayer.

How can I pray for you today?

 

[bctt tweet=”One prayer really can change everything, so don’t underestimate the power of your prayers. -@dukeslee:” username=”incourage”]

Joy Comes from Being His

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Let the whole earth shout triumphantly to the Lord!
Serve the Lord with gladness;
come before him with joyful songs.
Acknowledge that the Lord is God.
He made us, and we are his —
his people, the sheep of his pasture.
Enter his gates with thanksgiving
and his courts with praise.
Give thanks to him and bless his name.
For the Lord is good, and his faithful love endures forever;
his faithfulness, through all generations.
Psalm 100 CSB

When stress and anxiety don’t let up, how do we shout triumphantly to the Lord? How do we come before Him with joyful songs? Joy isn’t easy to embrace when we’re overwhelmed and when grief and loss are closer companions on this journey than we’d like.

But verses 3 and 5 of Psalm 100 guide us toward joy. We acknowledge that the Lord is God, the One who made us and to whom we belong. We are in His care, shepherded by His strong hand, and His faithful love for us endures forever. His constancy is reason for praise. With our hands and hearts open before Him, let’s enter into His presence singing songs of His faithfulness.

God, help us to remember the times You’ve walked with us and how You haven’t changed in the midst of all the changes happening around us. Fill us with Your joy. Amen.

This summer, we’re journeying through the book of Psalms. Join us! 

Click here to purchase the Summer (in) the Psalms 40-Day Devotional Journal for just $7.99! This beautiful journal, only available on Amazon, includes forty days of reading selections from Psalms, twenty full devotions from the (in)courage Devotional Bible, and daily reflection questions with lined pages for journaling your answers. This journal is an all-inclusive, one stop shop for your summer studying!

We’re loving this summer spent (in) the Psalms with you.

Get your Summer (in) the Psalms Devotional Journal today!

 

[bctt tweet=”We are in God’s care, shepherded by His strong hand, and His faithful love for us endures forever. #inpsalms2020″ username=”incourage”]

Lord, Make Us Tenacious

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Grief lies like a foot of flood water in our home. I’m not wading through it all the time, but when I hear of another death — because of COVID, because of police brutality, because of depression, because of chronic illness, because of old age — the waters rise, and it feels as though I can’t tread water long enough to keep myself afloat.

It’s not only loss of life that keeps me trudging through grief. It’s the daily reminders that Black bodies are not safe, that anti-Asian racism is still alive, that people feel stripped of their rights for having to wear masks while others don’t have access to the same kind of privileges or resources or freedom. Grief mingles with wrath and lament and hopelessness, and I don’t have the energy to envision what it could be like in the future.

Twice last week, I cried myself to sleep. I couldn’t pinpoint exactly what was wrong, which only added frustration to the restlessness I already felt. Every night, I try to push anxiety to the edges of my mind, but it shows up center stage when my body finally relents and lets me sleep. But instead of rest, anxiety turns sleep into hours of vivid dreams that keep my mind unsettled.

But morning comes anyway, unfazed by the world burning. The sun shines through the slats of the window blinds, telling me it’s time to start the day whether I want to or not. It’s true — the day must be lived. Breakfast must be made, work must get done, fights between children must be managed. Decisions about the future must be weighed even though everything may change again in a day’s time.

News and important conversations are happening, but I’ve become slow at processing information. I hear and read words, but my mind only seems to catch half of it — if that. I feel the pressure to catch up to everyone else, but I know the learning and unlearning process when it comes to anti-racism work, deconstructing our faith from white supremacy, and allyship is a never-arriving road.

People say things won’t go back to normal, and I really hope they don’t. History tends to repeat itself, but I want what needs to be burned to be burned away. I want the broken systems of our country to be fully exposed, so we can no longer look away and say it’s not our problem. I want the Church to get a good look at herself so we can see that so many things are not right and well just because we say it in Jesus’ name. I want the prejudices and biases I’ve learned and lived with to fall off like scales from my eyes.

So even though I wish all the chaos and pain would end already, I think we’re just in the middle of it. We can cross our fingers and shut our eyes tight, hoping for things to calm down or be in denial of what’s really happening around the world. We can even cry out for revival and renewal, but as I’ve written before, is resurrection even possible when what needs to die hasn’t finished dying yet?

I don’t think we’ll get through this by gritting our teeth. It will require more from us than we’re comfortable with, and for me, I don’t know if I have the tenacity to keep going or if I’m brave enough to face what will come.

When I think about what else might happen in the months ahead, what sacrifices will need to be made, what lives will still be lost, my chest tightens with anxiety. I feel helpless, so I close my eyes, take deep breaths, and remember those who came before me.

I remember my grandfather-in-law who recently died at the age of ninety-one. He had lived and fought through war times, eventually immigrating from Korea to the United States to give his children and future generations a chance at opportunities he didn’t have. I remember my own grandmother, who was widowed at a young age and raised her three children as a single mother. I think about Black men and women who marched and fought during the Civil Rights Movement and how their protests, their blood, their words, their lives paved the way for equal rights — not just for the Black community but also for many others, including Asian Americans like myself.

I wonder how they did it — how they lived through and survived trauma, how they kept going when it felt hopeless. I wish for the kind of grit they had, and then it dawns on me: Everyone who came before us gained tenacity because they endured the difficulties they had to live through. They didn’t have a choice but to go through the fire, wade through the waters, and now they are our cloud of witnesses, as Romans 12:1 says. They’ve run this race, and now it’s our turn to endure hard things, fight for the right things, and persevere.

I imagine their hands behind our backs, supporting us, anointing us, and Jesus in front of us. He endured trauma and death at the hands of religious leaders and law enforcement. Jesus was abused and beaten, hung on a cross to die slowly until He couldn’t breathe anymore. When we are weary, when we can’t see what’s ahead, when we grieve and lament in anger and sadness, we can look to Him who endured it all and trust that He will help us persevere.

Lord, make us tenacious. Help us to endure. We look to You. Amen.

 

[bctt tweet=”Those who came before us have run this race, and now it’s our turn to endure hard things, fight for the right things, and persevere. -@gracepcho:” username=”incourage”]

Love Is Still Stronger Than Fear

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Loving other people can feel like stepping across a field of land mines sometimes. Perhaps this is truest of all online. So many angry words, sharp-pointed opinions, destructive assumptions. Why do we do this to each other?

I’ve come to believe this: We are most angry when we are most afraid. It’s the old flight-or-fight response built into our bodies from the beginning. Some of us flee, but others of us pick up our guns and load them with words. We think we are saving ourselves, maybe even saving the world, but we are destroyers in disguise.

I recently talked about this with two friends and fellow writers. During our conversation, this verse came to mind: “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear” (1 John 4:18). We, as humans, tend to think if we can have things our way, then the world will be better. So we fight our fear aggressively and forcefully. We post and shout. We raise our fists and our voices.

But what if instead of spewing those angry words and that tirade online, we simply go to the person who is standing in our kitchen today and say, “I love you and I am for you”? Or we reach out to someone who is different from us because we also fear what we don’t understand? And if we’re spending all our time saying, “Here’s my opinion,” then we’re not listening, not understanding. Fear wins.

One of my friends asked, “What would it be like if we made a commitment to fight for each other instead of with each other?” It’s a question worth considering if we want to defeat fear. Because if we live with swords drawn in defense, then we are always on guard, looking for the next fight, seeing threatening shadows in every corner.

When (in)courage first started over a decade ago, I created a Commitment of Words and we all agreed to it. I find myself thinking of it again with everything that’s going on in our world today.

A Commitment of Words

We commit to using our words to defend and heal, not to harm.

We will not gossip. We will not belittle.

We will guard our sisters by always speaking the best about them, encouraging them into all God would have them to be and offering grace instead of condemnation.

We will be loyal and loving, remembering that even if we disagree, we still fight on the same side — never against each other.

We will use our words to build up and not tear down, to bring hope and not hurt.

We offer our words as powerful weapons to fight for each other on the side of all that is good, right, and true.

We have a Protector. He is good. He is wise. He is kind. And here’s what we need to know: God hasn’t asked us to be right all the time. He has called us to love. This is the harder, braver choice because it requires opening our hearts instead of our mouths. It’s about seeing each other not as threats but as people made in the image of God. It means we lay down our weapons and go, with arms wide open, down a path that could very well lead to a cross.

At first we might be scared. This is not the easy option, after all. But it is the fiercehearted one. And it’s the only way back to grace and peace, mercy and hope, humility and kindness.

I still believe this: love is stronger than fear.

God, You are the Maker of all human beings, those who are most dear to us and those with whom we disagree. Give us eyes to see others as You do, a heart that has compassion like Yours, and the strength to keep on loving. Amen.

Will you join me in this Commitment of Words today?

 

Are you a writer called to use your words to bring hope and encouragement to the hearts of others? Holley created a course to help you! Find out more now.

[bctt tweet=”Love is about seeing each other not as threats but as people made in the image of God. #loveoverfear -@HolleyGerth:” username=”incourage”]

When Roses Preach About Healing from Trauma

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I’m not very good at keeping plants alive. I forget to water them. I leave them in the sun, and sometimes they become parched. I even have a penchant for killing succulents.

That said, I love flowers. Watching them grow and bloom makes my heart swell.

In this time of COVID-19 and sheltering at home for months, I’ve been longing to see more things grow. My heart needs light and color when the world is swirling with disappointment, cancellations, sickness, and racial tension.

A few months ago, I went to a local nursery and picked out two new rosebushes to plant at my house. I walked the aisles and finally chose from among the dozens of varieties.

I’m always drawn like a magnet to the two-toned roses. I picked out two tea rose varieties – one called the “Dark Night,” which promised roses with crimson petals and yellow centers, and the other named “Double Delight,” with velvety white petals that gave way to bright magenta at the edges.

We planted my rosebushes on an overcast day before the heat hit hard. We packed fresh, organic soil around the base of each rosebush and watered them generously. I started a new routine of going out every evening to check on my rose bushes. I felt maternal and nurturing, watering them nightly.

The first week all their leaves and blooms shriveled up and fell to the ground. The second week the stems turned brown as well.

Was I doing something wrong? Watering too much or too little?

I enlisted the help of my mother-in-law, who is the “plant doctor.” She has a knack for reviving any little haggard plant and propagating even the smallest cuttings. She assured me that the rosebushes were okay.

“They’ve just been through trauma,” she said. “Keep watering them. You can’t water roses too much.”

So, I kept watering and wondering.

A week later, my mother-in-law came over again and declared, “We need to prune the rose bushes.” I delivered a set of garden clippers and some gloves and watched her carefully clean off all the dead leaves and trim back all of the branches.

She showed me how the stems were turning green again and the places where new shoots were emerging. I breathed a sigh of relief.

“Keep watering them every day,” she reminded me.

So I did.

The stems looked bare. Thorns poked out in all directions like bad morning hair. There were no blooms in sight. But I held onto hope. I knew my babies had been through shock after being transplanted to a new place with different soil.

Like all of us in this strange season, they needed to be watered. They needed to root in the new soil. They needed extra grace when it came to producing. They needed extra attention until they could be brought back to health and blooming again.

I recently hosted a workshop for women leaders where a few of my friends who are experts spoke about trauma. My friend, Dr. Deshunna Ricks, taught me that we experience trauma in a variety of ways, including direct experience, witnessing an event, hearing about something that’s happened to someone close or a member of one’s race. We can even be harmed by repeated exposure to a traumatic event on social media.

Friend, we all have experienced trauma of some kind in our lives. Even this time of COVID-19 and racial unrest in our country has been traumatic for many of us. As women, many of us are leading, parenting, and ministering to people who also have endured trauma in their lives. Trauma affects the brain and our ability to function. We need to speak life and love to ourselves and others affected by trauma.

My friend Whitney inspired me to look at the story in John 4 of the Samaritan woman, who met Jesus at the well through a new lens. This woman had endured trauma. She had five husbands in a time when women were not allowed to divorce men. She carried the burden of relational trauma and perhaps other kinds of abuse. She was an outsider in her community. Even the disciples questioned Jesus for having a conversation with this Samaritan woman. Men did not talk to women, and Jews did not talk to Samaritans, a people group considered unclean by the Jews.

Jesus went to the well with the purpose of healing this woman and revealing Himself as the Messiah.

He tells the woman, “Anyone who drinks this water will soon become thirsty again.  But those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life”
John 4:13 (NLT)

Jesus spoke to her about a living water that runs like a spring and nourishes, heals, and brings eternal life. This water differed from the water that came from a well. Jesus declared that He was the Messiah who brings new life.

The woman was transformed by her encounter with Jesus. She was used by God in her healing and granted the privilege of declaring her testimony to her community. Like the Samaritan woman, we need to be nourished by God’s Living Water, which brings us to flourishing.

Last week, I stepped outside and squealed with wonder when I saw a flash of crimson. Layers upon layers of velvet petals cupped that one glorious bloom. My first “Dark Night” rose embraced the daylight and declared that she, too, had been transformed by the Master Gardener.

Like my rosebush, we need nourishment after trauma. We need to be patient with the healing process. We need to speak love to ourselves and others. We need to trust the Master Gardener is rooting us anew and shaping His roses for the future.

Dorina has written more on how God has designed each of us to flourish for His glory in her Bible study, Flourishing Together: Cultivating a Fruitful Life in Christ. Details here.

 

[bctt tweet=”As we deal with the trauma in our lives, we need to be nourished by God’s Living Water, which brings us to flourishing. -@DorinaGilmore:” username=”incourage”]

From Our Pain We Hold the Power to Help Others

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Holley Gerth recently wrote about how she sent these words in an email to the first (in)courage contributors: “Be courageous and write in a way that scares you a little.” As one of the early contributors, I remember when the email containing those words dropped into my inbox and how it affected me.

I was equal parts frightened and invigorated.

You see, in my early blogging days, I ran every post through a four-part internal filter before I hit publish: What would my dad/pastor/neighbors/family think of this? Would they think less of me? Would I be embarrassed? Would they be embarrassed?

I allowed this internal filter to prevent me from sending words into the world that might have helped other women, women who needed to know they weren’t alone or that someone else felt or thought the same as they did. Insecurity blinded me. It kept me from seeing that I had something to offer if I could get out of my own way and let God use me for His purposes instead of worrying about my own.

Holley’s prompt to write courageously prodded me to lean into my fears. When I did, I discovered something fascinating: the people whose reactions I feared most were the ones who reacted the most positively, as if they knew I had more to give and were pleased when I did. If I was afraid of what my dad might think, invariably he’d liked my Facebook status linking to the post. If I was afraid of what my children would think, I would find they’d left a positive comment.

I let fear quiet my voice. The desire to be a people-pleaser still silences me sometimes, but I rest in the knowledge that the people in my corner support me are are not looking for opportunities to tear me down. The world needs my voice, and it needs yours too.

We find our voice in various ways, but one way to pinpoint it is to identity our most difficult life experiences. The strength we can gain from enduring hardships can become our superpower to help others. When we can harness what we’ve learned from the pain, we can turn it around and use it to help others in similar pain.

Years ago, we visited our family out of state. My husband’s aunt had recently miscarried a baby, and I didn’t know what to say to her. I felt guilty holding my healthy baby boy, and because I didn’t know how to comfort her, I didn’t say anything.

A few months later, I ended up miscarrying our third child, and though I couldn’t relate to my husband’s aunt at that time, I now could understand what it felt like to experience that kind of loss. From that painful experience, I’ve been able to walk with other women who have miscarried, and I advise them not to bottle up their tears and how normal it is to feel sudden anger over advertisements for diapers and baby lotion.

So often we believe we have to have it all together in order to help someone, but it simply isn’t true. Perfection isn’t relatable. We relate to Jesus — and He to us — because He endured betrayal, temptation, and not only the pain but also the shame of the cross.

For in that He Himself has suffered, being tempted, He is able to aid those who are tempted.
Hebrews 2:18 (NKJV)

Think about the experiences of pain you had, and take a moment to write them down. For example, have you suffered a job loss or a financial crisis? Are you a victim of abuse? Have you experienced the loss of a spouse, a child, or a parent? Has your heart been broken by the dissolution of a marriage or a friendship? Have you miscarried a baby? Do you live with physical pain or health issues that impact your daily life?

As you reflect on those experiences, what truths have you learned as a result of your afflictions? Write down what you learned about God and about yourself, and as you hold these testimonies in your heart, know that your pain isn’t wasted. One day, it may bring comfort to someone.

 

[bctt tweet=”So often we believe we have to have it all together in order to help someone, but it simply isn’t true. Perfection isn’t relatable. -@DawnMHSH:” username=”incourage”]

When You Wonder If You’ll Ever Measure Up (+ a HUGE book sale!)

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It is not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything as coming from ourselves,
but our adequacy is from God.
2 Corinthians 3:5 (CSB)
I don’t remember the first time I felt it. It could have been in the third grade when I was the last one picked for the kickball team. Or maybe when I opened my mouth to sing like my musically talented brother and sister only to discover I was tone deaf. Not being enough has sort of been a faithful companion in my life . . . always there, reminding me of ways I didn’t fit in or belong.

I don’t remember the first time I didn’t measure up. But I do remember the first time I stopped measuring. I was a freshman in college, rooming with my twin sister. I called my mom on the phone and said, “Mom, did you know I’m petite?”

She laughed at my crazy question and said, “Of course, honey. You’re 5’2”. That’s petite by most standards. Why are you asking?”

I replied, “But Mom, I’m the big twin. I had no idea I was petite!”

This new realization was remarkable to me. I had spent my entire childhood being compared to my twin sister. We were born five minutes apart, and I towered over her 4’10” frame. I was shocked when someone referred to me as petite. But that’s because I was measuring myself by the wrong perspective. And that’s what comparison does: it skews our view of ourselves and we begin to believe the lie that says we aren’t pretty enough or smart enough or stylish enough or skinny enough or tall enough or young enough or whatever enough.

We can never be all those things and certainly not at the same time. But that’s okay. We don’t have to be enough. Because Jesus is. All the time. And even better, through Christ, we are enough. He takes our inadequacies and unrighteousness and exchanges it for His perfection. When we don’t measure up, He does. And that is enough for all of us.

Whisper a prayer of thanks — that Jesus takes all our “not enough-ness” and He makes up for everything.

Written by (in)courage alum Kristen Welch for A Moment to Breathe: a 365-Day (in)courage Devotional 

This is an excerpt from A Moment to Breathe: a 365-Day (in)courage Devotional Journal, which is available at DaySpring for only $10 right now! Such a great deal!

DaySpring is having a huge book sale, with titles for just $5 and $10! It’s a perfect time to stock up for birthdays, Christmas gifts, or yourself. There are holiday books, family devotionals, and more. Shop now — the sale only goes through the end of this month (it ends July 31)!

Find all the $5 and $10 sale titles right here!

Being Unraveled by a Knitting God

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My grandma taught me to knit when I was eight years old at our annual family Christmas. Somewhere between dinner and dessert, my cousins and I crowded around her with shiny knitting needles too big for our hands and trained our eyes on her fingers. I clumsily made my way through one, two, three rows, but it wasn’t long before my finger snagged on a hole, right smack in the middle of my scarf-to-be. Despairing at the thought of starting again, I presented the problem to my grandma. With just a quiet “must’ve lost a stitch,” she unraveled my work up to the problem and restored the scarf to its former potential. Her movements were incongruously quick compared to my own and it looked like magic, this unraveling and restoring. To this day, the feeling of grace is accompanied by the sound of clacking knitting needles nestled in my grandma’s hands.

But sin? Sin feels like that stitch dropped unbeknownst to me, the kind that you don’t see until five rows later. Or perhaps, it is like a hole burned straight through the knitted meshwork that makes up you and me and us. All around the edges of that hole, where there used to be woven yarn are fraying loose ends. With every pull, every snag, the unraveling continues, and the hole grows bigger.

The deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and the countless other Black lives lost are some of the loose threads surrounding the smoky hole of systemic racism. Floyd’s words “I can’t breathe” overflowed into streets and toppled statues. The shouts of protests snaking through city streets have defiantly pulled on these threads and exposed the sin of racism more profoundly than ever.

This racism that has existed much too long — in me, maybe in you, in the church, in the very fabric of our society. The unraveling threads reveal how deeply woven racism is from one generation to the next. 

I was raised in Richmond, Virginia, a city that has gained quite a standing in national news recently for the protests surrounding the Confederate statues on Monument Avenue. Every year for as long as I could remember, Richmond hosted the Monument Avenue 10k and when I was thirteen, I ran the race with my mom. There were bands lined up around the medians and thousands of people running alongside me. It was exhilarating and fun, and I did not think twice about the Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson statues that stood as idols to white supremacy.

Just recently, I went back to Monument Ave and saw the very same statues I ran past at thirteen. They were covered in profanity, awaiting their removal. I saw them, and something began to unravel. The profanity that covered the statues became the outward manifestation of the desecration that existed all along. The innocence of my childhood experiences unraveled; a trust in my own righteousness unraveled.

The work of unraveling is similar to the work of confessing. It deals a striking blow to one’s own achievements. Just like the five, lumpy rows of knitting my grandma undid to fix my mistake, the economic, academic, and professional successes I’ve claimed come undone in this unraveling work that has begun in me. As a white woman, my environment, my family of origin, and my privilege have brought me far, lifting me up while also pushing others down, and now I cannot unsee the inequity and injustice.

If I am honest, though, I am scared that as I begin the journey to root out the sin of racism in me, to confess it and to act differently, I will discover that it runs deeper than I knew. (It probably does run deeper than I know.) I am scared my inexperienced fingers won’t know what to do with the pile of loose yarn on the ground, that I won’t know how to make anything better or that I’ll make the same mistakes again.

And then, I remember my grandma. I remember her deft knitting hands and I hear the sound of clicking and clacking grace. I remember that yarn is pulled through fingers for creation, not just desecration.

For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
Psalm 139:13 (NRSV)

God is a knitter, too, just like my grandma. God knit us together when we were just beginning in our mothers’ womb, when all we felt was belonging. Better yet, God didn’t stop knitting — not when hurt came, not when sin tore through us. God did not make us stagnant, winding us up like a cheap toy to set us in motion. No, God is still knitting us into being, unraveling and knitting back, creating, reforming, healing, fixing holes, and weaving the frayed ends together again. As we root through privilege and systems of oppression in which we are complicit, God is still knitting. As we confess what we have done and what we have left undone, God is still knitting, row after row of becoming.

My friends, as we confess, as we act, listen, and change, may we cling desperately and courageously to our knitting God, who requires our unraveled lives for the work of justice and mercy.

 

[bctt tweet=”As we root through privilege and systems of oppression in which we are complicit, God is undoing the threads of racism and recreating us. -@karisophia1:” username=”incourage”]

Three Loving Promises: Why You Can Rest in God’s Love For You

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For weeks, I had tried keeping myself productive. Everything will be fine, I told myself. But deep in my heart, where no one could see, I didn’t feel fine. So much of life has changed in such a short period of time. There are no blueprints for what’s ahead, and everyday there are new uncertainties to shield my children from — as well as trying to process things for myself.

Stress and worries have a way of reappearing on our paths, don’t they? As I hiked up a trail one morning, I doubled up my powers of analysis to solve a dilemma I was stuck in. I figured if I circled around my problems long enough, I’d lasso them into submission and think my way out.

But all it did was fill my mind with more troubling thoughts. As I reached the top of the mountain and turned back to walk down, my heart felt paralyzed and torn, weighing the pros and cons of uncertainty.

Do you ever feel this way too — heart disconnected and longing for rest?

I don’t know what to do. Help me, God, I cried silently.

As I made my way down through tall grass growing unruly, I noticed something I didn’t see on my way up. Specks of orange poppies were blossoming, opening up under the sunlight breaking through the clouds.

How did I miss the poppies walking up?

It turns out poppies close tight as buds when it’s cold and windy. They’re so sensitive to the elements, folding in at night in the dark. Yet, when warmed by the sun in daylight, the petals open, releasing seeds to the wind.

Each of us is like that poppy. Our hearts can close up when we isolate ourselves with our worries, carrying our burdens alone. When we hide our hearts from God, we also end up feeling guilty because we don’t know what to do or how to pray.

But when we cast our cares into the warmth of God’s loving arms, the petals of our hearts open, and we can relax. Even when it might seem as though God is silent, He hears our prayers for help — even when they’re unspoken.

Perhaps you need to hear these truths as much as I do today, so here are three promises from God to help you rest and breathe in His love and peace:

1. When you don’t know what to do, God whispers, Cast your cares on Me.

Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.
1 Peter 5:7 (NIV)

Just like flowers opening by sunlight in the field, you can release your worries to God — not by ignoring them but by confiding in Him. He longs to help you.

2. When you don’t have words to pray, know that Jesus is praying for you and holds you close. 

Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus . . . He is also interceding for us.
Romans 8:34 (NIV)

Jesus doesn’t require your prayers to love you. He knows what you need. He is praying for you and wants you to receive the love and peace He offers to you unconditionally. When you feel overwhelmed and alone (we all have these moments that hit us just when we thought we felt fine, right?), rest in this loving promise of God.

3. When you long for someone to hold you, Jesus reaches out His hand to help you.

Don’t be afraid, for I am with you.
Don’t be discouraged, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you and help you.
I will hold you up with my victorious right hand.
Isaiah 41:10 (NLT)

Jesus will never give up on you. He will never grow weary of you or your worries. He whispers, I see you. Rest in me. My love will strengthen you. 

Picture Jesus with you now, standing in the midst of your troubles and anxieties. Ask yourself, What is it that He longs to give me? What does He want me to receive?

Whatever it is, open yourself to His loving care and let His whispers of rest bring peace to your soul.

What are the cares you can cast on Jesus?

Restore God’s peace to your soul: Listen to Bonnie’s uplifting podcast Lift the Burden of Anxiety & Busy, featuring Holley Gerth! Then, sign up for Bonnie’s Beloved Newsletter here  for more reminders of God’s love and soul care tips to encourage your heart! Join Bonnie’s newsletter here.

 

[bctt tweet=”Jesus will never give up on you. He will never grow weary of you or your worries. -@thebonniegray:” username=”incourage”]

Shine Your Face Upon Us, Lord

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May God be gracious to us and bless us;
may he make his face shine upon us Selah
so that your way may be known on earth,
your salvation among all nations.

Let the peoples praise you, God;
let all the peoples praise you.
Let the nations rejoice and shout for joy,
for you judge the peoples with fairness
and lead the nations on earth.
Let the peoples praise you, God,
let all the peoples praise you.

The earth has produced its harvest;
God, our God, blesses us.
God will bless us,
and all the ends of the earth will fear him.
Psalm 67 (CSB)

In Exodus 33:20, God allows Moses to enter into His presence but tells him, “You cannot see my face, for humans cannot see me and live.” In light of that verse, the blessing at the beginning of this psalm is that we not only get to be in the presence of God but we also have the privilege of having His face turned toward us. He doesn’t turn His back on us when things are not right in the world. Instead, He bends low and enters into the mess, and He is gracious.

The word Selah comes after that sentence to indicate a pause. Selah is an invitation to take a breath and soak in what was just read. Today, let’s look to God who guides us in the unknown and who leads us. Pause and rest in that truth.

This summer, we’re journeying through the book of Psalms. Join us! 

Click here to purchase your Summer (in) the Psalms 40-Day Devotional Journal for just $7.99! This beautiful journal, only available on Amazon, includes forty days of reading selections from Psalms, twenty full devotions from the (in)courage Devotional Bible, and daily reflection questions with lined pages for recording your answers. This journal is an all-inclusive, one stop shop for your summer (in) the Psalms journey!

We’re loving our Summer (in) the Psalms with you.

Get your Summer (in) the Psalms Devotional Journal today!

 

[bctt tweet=”Today, let’s look to God who guides us in the unknown and who leads us. Pause and rest in that truth.” username=”incourage”]