There’s this rumor that God won’t give us more than we can handle.
We use the line as a comfort when our friends encounter hard times. We console ourselves with it when life becomes overwhelming. But the scary thing about this rumor is that it’s quite simply untrue.
I knew love as a choice. Even when falling in love with my husband, it was the product of a planned, discerned choice for a man who shared my values and life goals. Love was not an impulse, sometimes not even an emotion. It was an action. It was resolve.
It goes against my nature to not schedule something. But I’ve found that God can’t be scheduled in every season. I have learned to arrange my life to be reminded of Him throughout the day: fifteen minutes at the kitchen table, ten minutes while nursing, five minutes on a walk, fifteen minutes at midnight. God isn’t looking for a consecutive minutes spent on Him. He’s looking for hearts that seek Him wholly.
If you are seeking God and His approval, you will walk in such a way that you need not fear offending those around you. You will walk in the fruits of the Spirit – love, kindness, self-control – that make us more ‘likeable’ in general. But you will not be bound to people-pleasing because you will have pleased the One whose opinion truly matters.
Years ago it was Pastor Bob Coy of Fort Lauderdale’s Calvary Chapel; more recently Willow Creek, John Crist. Each time what I feel is not surprise, not shock, but a deep disappointment – not because I expected the failure – but because I’ve seen this same event every few months for years. More than anything, I’m saddened.
And I’m also scared.
Early in our marriage Josh traveled often for work and it was tempting to use the time we had together selfishly, at the expense of our mutual walk with the Lord. So in our dating and engaged season, and now our married life of six years, we have implemented some methods to keep us in the Word in the midst of busy times.
I am on board with striving for holiness. I will dedicate to holiness, read about it, pray about it… but to take the title Holy? To stand before a perfect God and claim worthiness like this? Not me.
What is a vision in terms of life as a woman? The Dictionary defines it as the “the act or power of anticipating that which will or may come to be”. Synonyms are perception and discernment. But being a visionary does not mean becoming a professional worrywart. To understand what it means to have vision and thus, how to keep it, we must see how it directly impacts our lives.
I flipped open my notebook and read over scribbled notes dated April 24th. Matthew 5:38-42 38 “The law of Moses says, ‘If a man gouges out another’s eye, he must pay with his own eye. If a tooth gets knocked out, knock out the tooth of the one who did it.’ 39 But I...
She might not remember it, but a lot of times she laughed when she replied ‘yes, they’re all mine’ (though she probably wished she could send a few of us back). She didn’t say it was easy and she didn’t say it was hard; she didn’t condemn their one-childness and she didn’t complain about us. She laughed.