The Cave Doesn’t Cancel Your Calling: King David’s Cave Before the Crown (vid 5)

1. “BEAUTY for ASHES” is a promise for those willing to be consumed, willing to go through the fire and accept His exchange.

Other TAKEAWAYS: 2. In some seasons of your life, your comfort and your calling will part ways, and that doesn’t mean you’ve lost your way.

3. Don’t wait on a bigger platform. Lead from the cave! Faithfulness means faithfulness WHERE YOU ARE and with what you have.

You can get the #10ThousandStanding Companion Devo at the link under the 3-min FB video below:

Companion Devotional (click book cover pic):

David and Goliath: King David’s Cave Before the Crown (video 4)

T H E R E ARE NO small things in the Kingdom. Faithfulness, where you are, will help you slay goliaths where you’re going.
TAKEAWAYS: 1. Don’t give your problems a pedestal! Magnify God. “Have you seen the giant?” Should be met with “Have you seen my God?”
2. A confident Christian is a threat to the kingdom of darkness
3. It’s not enough to read the bible and not put any of it into action. Goliath was EQUIPPED; he had armor. But DAVID was empowered; he had authority. #CaveBeforeTheCrown #10ThousandStanding

You can get the #10ThousandStanding Companion Devo at the link under the 3-min FB video below:

Companion Devotional (click book cover pic):

Obedience = Adoration: King David’s Cave Before the Crown 3

GOD WASTES NOTHING! What you’re going through prepares you for what He’s calling you to. NONE of your pain has been trivial, and none of your efforts are in vain!

TAKEAWAYS:

1. There are NO small things in the Kingdom. EVERYTHING you’re doing now has significance, even if your current circumstances don’t seem to fit your calling.

2. The quickest way for God to get you where He wants you is to use you where He has you! (h/t to Pastor Tony Evans)

3. If God is worthy of your adoration, He’s worthy of your obedience. Worship Him with your faithfulness and obedience in the middle, in the small things, when you’re promised a crown but are in a cave.

You can get the #10ThousandStanding Companion Devo at the link under the 3-min FB video below:

Companion Devotional (click book cover pic):

King David’s Cave Before the Crown 2

God reminded Samuel that pushback and rejection are expected in leadership and when following Him.
TAKEAWAYS: 1. There are no vacant thrones. If God is not on the throne, someone or something else will be.
2. You can have great conquests & charisma but lack character. Pray that as God increases your influence He improves your character.
3. Don’t hang your purpose on someone else’s potential. Begin to envision where God is taking YOU!
4. Just because God’s used something to bless you before or used you to bless someone, doesn’t mean it/they must have permanence in your life. Keep God on the throne of your heart, not the somethings/someones.
You can get the #10ThousandStanding Companion Devo at the link below the 4-minute FB video below:

Companion Devotional (click book cover pic):

King David’s Cave Before the Crown

The degree to which you are willing to be interrupted by God is the degree to which God can use you fully! I say this because I know God will interrupt your plans with His purpose! We’ll start the #CaveBeforeTheCrown Bible Study (weekly brief videos this time) to challenge and nurture your personal study time. You can get the #10ThousandStanding Companion Devo at the link below the 1-minute intro video:

Companion Devotional (click book cover pic):

Boundaries: Avoiding Pain Is NOT the Endgame

B O U N D A R I E S are important, but avoiding pain is NOT the endgame of a Christian. Restoration requires sacrifice. It’ll cost you something to love others well. Sometimes, the biggest thing it’ll cost you is your pride. The children of Israel exalted the things God sent to bless them above God Himself (worshiping Gideon’s ephod to celebrate God’s victory, honoring Moses’ bronze serpent God sent for their healing, etc.). You can exalt the fences so high that what should bless you (boundaries) becomes an idol – something you trust MORE than you trust God’s design of restoration. Boundaries are good, but only if governed by God.

3-minute message:

Gideon Was Fearful, But He Was Faithful!

 

Declare This (ALOUD): Fear will NOT overtake me; it will NOT keep me from doing great things.

Gideon’s story is marked by monumental fear — hiding from the Midianites while gathering food, sneaking under the cover of night to destroy the idol in God’s temple. But fearful or not, Gideon was a man of ACTION, to the point that the author of Hebrews (in 11:32) had to marvel that there isn’t enough time to even talk about how much Gideon accomplished by faith. I wonder if Gideon could’ve lived with slightly less fear, though, if he only knew Hebrews ch. 11, vs. 32 was coming. How would you live differently if you knew that EVEN in the midst of your fears, you can put our faith into action in such a way that the “Hebrews 11” chapter of your life will boast of the great exploits God did through you?

Declare This (ALOUD): I WILL be all I’m called to be and do ALL I am purposed to do, even if I have to do it afraid! I can be faithful, even if fearful.

Register for Conference Here: http://10thousandstanding.eventbrite.com/

Dealing with a Divergent God

I finally watched the 2014 film, Divergent, which was based on a science-fiction book of the same name. The story is set in a post-apocalyptic, dystopian society where everyone is expected to choose one of five subcultures to live and work with. Each subculture, or faction, requires strength in and conformity to specific attributes, such as bravery, selflessness, intelligence, etc. The faction system is designed for control and predictability. However, as with all systems, there are flaws, one being when a person doesn’t neatly fit into any one category because they have strengths in all five areas. A person who doesn’t fit just one faction, but instead could fit many, is called “divergent.” Divergents, like the main characters, are a threat to the system because they can’t be pigeonholed into others’ preconceived notions, and they can’t be controlled. They are freethinkers who approach problems and solutions in ways others don’t, and quite frankly, can’t. Their thoughts and abilities far exceed the parameters of the five factions.

If you’re human, like me, you rather enjoy some measure of control and predictability in your environment; you rather enjoy your compartmentalized systems. The flaw in your system, though, is that God is divergent. He doesn’t think or act like you do. He doesn’t conform to your system. Deep within us, we want a God who isn’t sovereign over us, but is subject to us, a God who is predictable or at least fully understandable by some stretch of our imaginations. Instead, we have a God who is wild, uncontrollable, incomprehensible, paradoxical — in short, He’s divergent. In fact, His ways diverge so much from ours that He’s said higher than the heavens are above the earth are His thoughts than our thoughts and His ways than our ways {Is. 55:9; Ps. 103:11}. The farthest object observed from planet earth is more than 13 billion light years away. God is saying His thoughts and ways are more than 13 billion light years above ours.

While we can only see a few options for solving our most difficult problems, our Divergent God, who towers more than 13 billion light years above our circumstances, sees our end from our beginning, and God foresaw our darkest days before we ever took a breath is the same God who orchestrates our brightest moments, loved us from before time began, and has promised to work all things together for our good. If we have committed to being submitted to such a God whose thoughts and ways are so above, then we’re choosing to give up any semblance of control. We’re choosing to give up what we thought our stories would be so we can fully embrace what He’s still writing out in our lives. When we follow the calling of a Divergent God with complete obedience, we relinquish the option for things to make complete sense. We have a God who is both full of wrath and full of mercy, a Man of War and Prince of Peace, a Lion, a Lamb, and a Shepherd. He’s above. HEART CHECK: Will you trust God is divergent when He seems silent? Will you obey His commands, even if they seem to counter human logic? Does a Divergent God have to make sense to your five senses, the five factions you believe His thoughts and ways should fit into?

God’s thoughts and ways are paradoxical to human logic and expected experiences. When a Divergent God wants to set us free, He makes us His bondservants. When He wants us to see Him, He causes blindness. Ask Paul. When a Divergent God wants us to follow Him, He chases after us. Ask Jonah. When a Divergent God wants someone to speak for Him, He chooses a stutterer, and to showcase His power, He’ll send you with a dried up stick! Ask Moses. When a Divergent God sets out to exalt your position, He takes the pathway through a pit and wrongful imprisonment. Ask Joseph. When a Divergent God wants to save His children, He does so by sending His Only Son to die!

As long as we are in control, God can’t be. In the film, the divergents make others uncomfortable, so they try to purge their society of divergents altogether. The divergents threaten the system of control, but in so doing, they save countless lives. Living in submission to a Divergent God is uncomfortable, and sometimes we want to get rid of HIS way, altogether. He threatens our systems of control, but but in so doing, He saves countless lives.

God Wants to Break Your Heart

Once God breaks your heart, nobody else can!

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. ~(Psalm 51:17)

If you’re a Christian and you’ve ever suffered loss, ever felt vulnerable and unprotected, ever felt you were sinking, drowning, crumbling at your core, then you’ve probably also wondered what I have, “Where are You, God?” or simply asked God, “Why?” If you’ve prayed to feel His presence and instead felt absence, prayed to hear His voice and heard deafening silence, prayed for a restored marriage then numbly watched the divorce finalized, prayed for healing and watched loved ones die, if you’ve placed your trust in Him and still felt that burning sting of disappointment, then you’ve encountered the God of which I speak, the God who wants to break your heart.

Of course I’m not suggesting God is some aloof, or worse, sadistic being, deriving pleasure from our pain. However, I am saying that if we’ll ever fulfill our God-ordained purpose, we’ll have to be broken to fit the God-shaped mold for our lives. In “Finding My Way Home,” Henri Nouwen asserts that when Christ cried out, “It is finished,” He didn’t only mean what He’d done, but also what others had done to Him – that He stayed on the cross until all that needed to be done to Him could be done in order to fulfill His purpose. If we’re committed to God and truly passionate about adopting His desires, His thoughts, His ways, then we’ll welcome His process, His breaking, His remaking. We’ll allow His breaking to fulfill our life’s purpose.

I believe God breathes on us in a gentle way to bend our will into submission to His, but much like Jacob, we wrestle. In our striving, though, we encounter the God who loves us enough to break what will not bend. Pastor Howard-John Wesley said, “God knows that life outside of His will is not in your best interest, and He loves you too much not to use everything in His sovereign omnipotence to get you to surrender to His will…we serve a God who, if blessing you doesn’t change your life, [He] has enough love to break you in the right place.” I believe the “right place” for God to break us is our hearts, the wellspring of our inconsistent desires and stubborn wills.

The admonishment in Joel 2:12-13 is to “rend your hearts, not your garments” and return to the Lord with your whole hearts. The message is that the outward appearance of repentance, contrition, and obedience mean nothing if our sinful hearts remain unbroken and turned away from God. The good news is that God waits on us. He waits to be gracious toward us and show us mercy (Isaiah 30:18). My mentor shared her belief that God sometimes withholds His provision until we seek His presence. Perhaps what we’ve thought was God’s silence was His megaphone to help us diligently seek Him. Perhaps what felt like God’s absence was His patience. Perhaps God knows that only desperate, broken hearts can receive His transforming love.

Shannon Alder said, “Blessed are those with cracks in their broken heart because that is how the light gets in.” God wants in, and a broken heart provides a blessed route.I believe God is determined to do a new thing in and through us, and the old places won’t facilitate new growth. In a recent sermon, Pastor MyRon Edmonds said that unless we learn to get vulnerable with God and get broken, our old ways will keep taking us down the same road. But the blessing of God’s breaking is that “once GOD breaks you, nobody else can!” Heart Check: Do you trust God to break those parts of you that won’t bend in submission to His sovereignty? Do you believe the breaking He’s sending is better than the blessing you’re seeking? God wants to break your heart. Will you let Him?

I originally posted this on The Haystack.

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When I Don’t Want God to Be God

4 a.m. – I still hadn’t gotten any good sleep, a daunting reality when I reminded myself the day’s alarm would be blaring in less than 2 hours.

5 a.m. – I jolted awake, somewhat confused because it’d been more than a year since a wave of panic had washed over me like it did in that one sweeping moment. Yet, also somewhat aware of where those overwhelming anxieties were stemming from.

I realized I didn’t want God to be God in HIS way, I wanted Him to be God in MY way.

Having survived years of abuse and working with a number of trauma survivors, I’m well aware of the brokenness life can bring. What heightened my awareness this week was sending all four of our children off to school where they’re no longer under my watchful care. I whispered, “God, please help me to trust You’ll protect my children.” Then, it hit me: what if God protects them the way He protected me? Tears spilled down my face as I realized I didn’t want God to be God in HIS way, I wanted Him to be God in MY way. I don’t want God to allow a fraction of the pain in their lives that He allowed in mine. I want His protection to look like mine would. I want Him to prevent our pain, but He’s determined to purpose our pain.

When I’m honest with myself, I have to admit there are times that I don’t want God to be God. That’s what the heavy dose of panic coursing through my veins was really about. It was really about whether or not I am willing to embrace God’s allowance of affliction over my preference of protection. Do I desire my Savior to also be sovereign? Anxiety and fear can be normal human reactions to normal human experiences. We can trust God fully, know He loves us, and still be scared. Yet, quite often, our anxiety is intermingled with a difficulty in trusting the sovereignty of God, a difficulty in relinquishing all illusions of control to an all-consuming God who won’t reveal all of His plans to us. Notice I mentioned we seek to retain “illusions of control” because our striving with God says nothing of His enduring omnipotence. He’s still in control. He’s still God.

Sometimes, at the root of our anxiety is a difficulty in trusting the sovereignty of God.

Our enemy uses the truth about our experiences to speak lies about our God. His native language is deceitfulness; he’s the father of lies (John 8:44). And, he is still feeding us the same lie he fed Adam and Eve all those years ago: we’d be better gods than God Himself.

There is nothing inherently wrong with experiencing fear. I used to agree with the saying that “fear is misplaced faith,” until I came to believe that without big fears we wouldn’t need big faith. Anxiety has a neurobiological basis, but it also has a psychological one, and much of what maintains our anxieties, no matter where they begin, is our thought patterns. Sometimes, anxiety is misplaced divinity. Sometimes it exists in its magnitude because we’ve made something or someone else God – usually ourselves. When we allow our emotions to escalate unchecked, when we listen to the lies about God’s goodness, lies about His character, about His steadfast mercy and love somehow not being what’s best for us, we’re choosing to exalt potential problems over the Prince of Peace. God foresaw that we would experience anxiety, but He calls us to repeatedly submit those worries to Him because if we don’t we are essentially making a god of whatever or whomever we trust more (1 Peter 5:7). It won’t happen over night. But keep submitting it. Keep reapeating it. If I trust myself to handle my situation, protect my children, etcetera, more than I trust God, then I’m saying I don’t want God to be God; I want to be God. If God isn’t God, then someone else will be. But even the most terrific person will make a terrible God.

If God isn’t God, then someone else will be.

If you are struggling with anxiety, first, know that you are not alone. Know that the God of the universe looked ahead in time, knew you would be burdened with this struggle, and specifically called you to cast all of those anxieties on Him because He cares for you. Second, know that help is available through Christ-centered counseling and medical interventions. You weren’t meant to bear this cross alone. I’ve already prayed for those reading and wanting more help; I believe God for you. Below is a list of resources for anxiety management and finding a skilled therapist in your area.

Click HERE: Anxiety Relaxation Techniques

Click HERE: Find a Psychotherapist (U.S.A. or Canada)

Click HERE: Therapist Locator (outside U.S. or Canada)

 

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