“You will silence every voice…” Have you dreamed of the perfect response scenario where everyone is left speechless, everything is set right, and you drop the mic as you walk away? The perfect response scenario would give us great satisfaction, right? Instead, our real-time scenarios often leave us with a megaphone of voices screaming in…
“The Lord will help you understand…” What do a soldier, an athlete, and a farmer have in common? This question sounds like the beginning of a bad joke. Paul was not telling a joke when he wrote his second letter to Timothy and used an analogy, including a soldier, an athlete, and a farmer. How…
….the peace that comes from Christ… Peace. We crave peace. We desire peace within ourselves and harmony with others. We purchase things to save us time to bring us more peace. We pursue activities in hopes of creating peace. We process with our friends about why we don’t have peace. Where does peace come from?…
…giving thanks through him… What does thankfulness have to do with “Dead to Me”? Practicing the “dead to me” philosophy, with the destructive behaviors described in Part 1 of this blog series, creates a domino effect. The “dead to me” domino tips the “knowing your Creator” domino, described in Part 2, when we intentionally replace…
…know your Creator… Total destruction appears to have happened when a forest fire burns through woodlands, leaving charred, barren tree trunks dotting the landscape. Secretly, beneath the surface, remarkable things are happening. Wait, what!? New life is preparing to burst through the ashes with fresh possibilities. “Dead to me” seems harsh and is hurtful when…
“…so put to death whatever…” “She said, ‘You are dead to me,’” my friend sputtered out, barely understandable from her sobs. My friend tried to explain a falling out she and her daughter had and how it ended with her daughter leaving in a rage, with her last words to her mother being, “You are…
“Keep me from lying to myself.” Do you ever lie to yourself? A study from the University of Massachusetts conveyed that 60% of people lie every 10 minutes. The study revealed several interesting statistics about how most of us occasionally tend to be dishonest. What the study did not cover was the amount of lies…
“Open my eyes…” Remember the excitement of receiving an unexpected gift and the anticipation of opening the present to discover whatever could it be? My beach bestie’s love language is gifts. There need be no occasion for her to pull a surprise present out of her beach bag for me. I am always excited because…
“do not let me wander” Are you prone to wander? “Prone to wander” reminds me of the lyrics in an old hymn I sang growing up, Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing. “Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love.” The song captures our heart’s condition as well as…
“I pray my ways become firmly established.” Whom or what grounds you? Family and faith are popular answers to the above question. On a day-to-day basis amidst the crazy, there are other ways to bring our focus back to what matters, like music, a scent, or stepping into nature. God’s Word and prayer also are…