As the school year begins, many of us church-going-folks are signing up for small groups, Sunday School classes, and Bible studies. How are you feeling about all that? Excited? Ready to dig in and learn? Or are you feeling overwhelmed? Discouraged? Maybe even disinterested? I’ve been there. If that’s how you feel, this episode of Expect Something Beautiful is *just* … Read More
Praying the Psalms Will Steady Your Emotions and Awaken Your Soul
My emotions have been all over the spectrum – from highs to lows to feeling numb. Praying the Psalms has been a life-saver to me during this challenging time. The Psalms teaches us how to feel and what to do with our emotions, whether we are thinkers, feelers, stuffers, venters, whether we are steady or we are volatile. Praying the Psalms keeps my … Read More
Are you valuable without accomplishments, appointments, and activities?
What do you do when your activities, appointments, and commitments suddenly disappear? In this episode of Grounded (a daily videocast by Revive Our Hearts), I share one life-changing thing that God is teaching me during this season of home quarantine. It starts like this… Imagine a father bringing his children to the playground. The kids dart off to play on … Read More
Your Suffering Is Not the End of the Story
Our pastor was dying of cancer. On weekdays, we’d receive updates about his treatments and his suffering. We’d beg God to heal and sustain him. Of course, we trusted God’s sovereignty and knew that He would do everything in love, but we also lamented that things were not as they should be. In the dark days leading up to our … Read More
YOUR SEASON OF LIFE DOES NOT DISQUALIFY YOU TO SERVE THE BODY
Three years ago, I felt called to start a Women’s Ministry at our local church. I dog-eared a stack of Susan Hunt’s books and studied the material on the Committee on Discipleship Ministries website. I prayed and talked with other women about it. I presented a thoughtful proposal to our elders: they were enthused and supportive. Everything was moving forward… … Read More
What if You Were the One to Forgive First?
Sometimes, the greatest thing holding people together is a common enemy. Amongst friends, it usually works like this: someone hurts us and we gather our friends for support. What starts as love and support can quickly get overtaken by our mutual hatred for the person who hurt us. Sharing hatred gives us a sense of power over our enemy and … Read More
Getting Your Hands on the Good Life: with Instructions for a Hilarious Party Game and the Most Important Daily Discipline of Your Life.
Have you ever played the Cooking Mitt Game at a party? The gist is that each person takes a turn unwrapping a gift that is hidden under layers and layers of wrapping paper. To make things interesting, when it is your turn, you don cooking mitts. Each contestant clumsily gropes at the wrapping paper through the thick mitts – sometimes … Read More
Are you Content to Be Small?
“Then the prophecies of the old songs have turned out to be true, after a fashion!” said Bilbo. “Of course!” said Gandalf. “And why should not they prove true? Surely you don’t disbelieve the prophecies, because you had a hand in bringing them about yourself? You don’t really suppose, do you, that all your adventures and escapes were managed by … Read More
We Can Change Our Husbands, After all! (What Happens When a Wife Believes the Gospel)
“An excellent wife is the crown of her husband, but she who brings shame is like rottenness in his bones.” Proverbs 12:4. A friend asked me to tackle this question on my blog, “How can I be a “crown” to my husband?” She’s been thinking about Proverbs 12:4 and wants to figure this wife-thing out. (This is the essence of a … Read More
As We Empty Ourselves for God, He Will Fill Us
I can finally relate to a “good guy” in the Bible. (Don’t you find that we usually end up relating to the “bad guy” . . . the older brother in the story of the prodigal son, the younger brother in the prodigal son, the self-protecting priest in the story of the Good Samaritan, and the haughty Pharisees?) It comes … Read More
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