The Courageous Ones

Practice Silence: Sit quietly, eyes closed and in silence for one minute before reading.

“Since it is so likely that (children) will meet cruel enemies, let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage. Otherwise you are making their destiny not brighter but darker.”

                  
                                                               - CS Lewis

Courage requires risk. Courage requires vulnerability. Courage requires examples.

To watch others live courageously often gives us courage. This courage is based on great trust. This is not to be confused with fearlessness for often courage and fear go hand in hand. Yet for those that choose courage, their faith and trust trump fear.

Who are the courageous ones in your life? Those persons that live with great bravery, risk and vulnerability? How will you live courageously?

Practice Silence: Sit again in silence for as long as is available to you.

When Healing Hurts

**Sit quietly, eyes closed and in silence for one minute before reading.**

    Sometimes healing doesn't feel like healing. Sometimes it feels like things are getting worse.

    Sometimes God needs to go deeper and when He does it hurts.

    Sometimes He needs to make adjustments, set things straight and re-align. That is painful.

    Sometimes he makes us wait. There seems to be no progress in the waiting yet it is all part of healing.

    Is He healing something in you today that doesn't feel or look like healing? How can you trust His great love and sovereignty as He heals?

**Continue to sit in silence for as long as is available to you.**

Game Changers

**Sit quietly, eyes closed and in silence for one minute before reading.**

    "Because what if we believed instead, that those little people we are sacrificing for each day, that they are growing up to be game changers." A Mustard Seed Journey Blog

    These words convicted me and resonated with me. So much of my energy is spent on prevention rather than creation. What is more of my energies were spent on creating rather than preventing, trusting rather than fearing?

    What are the needed boundaries AND needed freedoms?

    Prayer: God help us. Help us to discern needed boundaries and needed freedoms. May our energies be spent on creating, stemming out of faith rather than preventing, stemming out of fear. Amen.

**Sit again in silence for as long as is available to you.**

Holding Back

**Sit quietly, eyes closed and in silence for one minute before reading.**

    Are you afraid of God? Is there something that you are holding back?

    Maybe there is an area of sadness, or maybe there is a sin you are not letting Him touch and heal. Sometimes we are afraid of God. We are afraid of being honest with Him. Sometimes the fear comes because we are not ready to be honest with ourselves.

    Fearing Him this way we draw back. We draw back from relationship with Him. Fortunately He is consistently seeking us out. He wants relationship with us, He wants to heal us. He pursues relationship with us and invites us in.

    If you are holding back, will you consider trusting God? Spend some time talking to God with the greatest honesty possible. He loves you.

**Sit again in silence for as long as is available to you.**

When God Seems Distant: A Prayer

**Sit quietly, eyes closed and in silence for one minute before reading.**

    So many times God feels far away, distant, like He does not see, hear or care.
    A prayer for these times:

    “God, we do not feel your nearness. We cannot see your hands at work. We wonder if you’ve taken a break or whether you care. We cannot feel your love and are overwhelmed by sadness. We cannot recognize the gifts you offer us and it seems as though you have forgotten.
    In these times, help us believe. Help us believe your nearness even though we cannot feel or see you; we cannot touch or hear you. Help us to trust you are near. Help us to keep going.
    When others sense you distant, may we help them to see your love, your hands and your feet working for their good. When others cannot see, help us to see for them and love them well just as you do. Thank you for your great love for us. Amen.”
 
**Sit again in silence for as long as is available to you.**

God's Timing

**Sit quietly, eyes closed and in silence for one minute before reading.**

    God’s timing is perfect. It is not always known or understood, but it is perfect. Is there something you are waiting for? Something you are trusting God for? How is your wait going?

    As you wait, will you trust God? Will you believe He is trustworthy and perfectly timely?

**Sit again in silence for as long as is available to you.**

Choosing Patience

**Sit quietly, eyes closed and in silence for one minute before reading.**

“But true patience is the opposite of a passive waiting in which we let things happen and allow others to make decisions. Patience means to enter actively into the thick of life and to fully bear the suffering within and around us … It is to enter our live with open eyes, ears, and hands so that we really know what is happening. Patience is an extremely difficult discipline precisely because it counteracts our unreflective impulse to flee or to fight.”
                                Compassion by Nouwen, McNeill and Morrison

    Through this rich perspective on patience I am challenged. Patience is not just getting through something; it is choosing to actively engage life. It is not just surviving; it is choosing to live in reality.

    Patience is a choice that goes against what is natural within us. Naturally we want to scream, to yell, to control, to assert physical power. Naturally we want to ignore, pretend, just get through the day. Patience requires trust. Patience requires discomfort. Patience requires supernatural help because in and of myself I do not trust and I want to be comfortable.

    Patience requires help from the God of greatest patience and the God who choose to enter actively into the thick of life and fully bear the suffering within and around us. Patience requires Jesus and our great Helper – the Holy Spirit.

    How will you choose to enter into live fully, trusting and depending on our God who entered fully into our lives?

 
**Sit again in silence for as long as is available to you.**

New Names

**Sit quietly, eyes closed and in silence for one minute before reading.**
 
“Often we cling to our old names because our new names, our new identities, may point us in directions we would rather not go.”
                         Compassion by Nouwen, McNeill, Morrison

    New names come at various times and new names can be both expected and unexpected. Living into a new name and identity requires great faith, trust and dependence.

    Faith is involved as we step forward in our new names because we have no idea what we are doing. God has called us into a new identity yet we have no idea what it feels like or who we are to be. We are used to our old name and the old name seems safer, predictable, we are familiar with it. This new name is unknown and we are not quite sure we are up for the task of living up to this new name.

    Trust is also involved in accepting and moving forward with our new name. To accept an identity requires that we trust God. We trust that through this new name is not a mistake. We trust that this new name is a greater reflection of who we are and a part of who God is calling us to be.

    Dependence is also required as we step into this new name. Dependence on the Holy Spirit to direct us in our new identity and trust the He knows what He is doing.

    What new name is pointing you in a direction you would rather not know? What old name are you clinging to? How will you step into your new name in faith, trust and dependence?
 
**Sit again in silence for as long as is available to you.**

Making Sense of It All

**Sit quietly, eyes closed and in silence for one minute before reading.**

    So many times I want to ask God, “What in the world is going on?” I read stories in Scripture and I am led to ask God, “What the (fill in expletive)? I see stories pop up on my newsfeed, in the news. I live the stories with friends, family and personally. I can make no sense out of what is happening. No logic is good enough and no reasons make it worthy. There is no sense to be made.

    I want to make sense of it all because for some reason I believe answers will satisfy. If only I could know why then everything would be okay. But that’s the thing, even if we knew why I do not think that pain, suffering and death would be okay. Even if I knew the specifics of full redemption coming in ALL things, would I be okay with sin, destruction and evil. These things are not okay and there is no “sense” that will satisfy.

    So I am left to trust. I am left to trust God our merciful and just Father, Jesus who suffered, died and was resurrected and the Holy Spirit who is far more powerful than I give any credit for. This trust is not based on answers but on relationship. Trust is based on relationship with God and as my relationship grows my trust grows.

    How will you trust God when nothing makes sense? How can you grow in relationship with Him?

**Sit again in silence for as long as is available to you.**

Silence and Trust

**Sit quietly, eyes closed and in silence for one minute before reading.**

“One reason we can hardly bear to remain silent is that it makes us feel so helpless. We are so accustomed to relying upon words to manage and control others … we will never let Him (God) take control until we trust him. Silence is intimately related to trust.”

                                    The Celebration of Discipline, Richard Foster

    How can you be silent before God today? How will you trust Him?

**Sit again in silence for as long as is available to you.**

A Greater Trust

**Sit quietly, eyes closed and in silence for one minute before reading.**

    As we live life with God He calls us to greater trust. Something erupts in our lives or the lives of someone we love and He calls us to trust. Someone is taken away and He calls us to trust. The future is unpredictable and He calls us to trust.

    God continues to call us to greater levels of trust and we follow Him. There are times we would love to plateau and we say, “God, don’t I trust you enough?”

    How are you being called to greater trust?

    In times of weariness to trust ask God to help. Ask Him to be your strength, your strength for faith and trust. Allow Him to meet you and you step into the unknown. He is there.

**Sit again in silence for as long as is available to you.**

No (Good) Answers

**Sit quietly, eyes closed and in silence for one minute before reading.**

    The older (and hopefully wiser) we get the more we realize how few answers we have … at least to the really important and difficult questions. Life becomes less black and white and the shades of gray increase. We realize we have limitations and our capacity is sometimes stops short of what we would hope to get accomplished.

    As I grow in faith I realize that I do not have many answers, well, good answers. I may be able to answer a question but it is not necessarily a good one. As I grow in faith I realize more and more how mysterious God is and how much faith He calls for; the call to trust. I read about God and the lives of those He loves in the Bible and sometimes have no clue what to do with a foreign culture, story and actions that overwhelm me.

    The answers I had as a child no longer work or at least I have new questions the old answers do not address. I guess that is all part of growing up.

    It is during these times that God calls me to draw nearer. He calls me to faith and to trust although I do not know. I have no answers, at least good ones, yet God meets me in my questions.

    He may not answer you as you expected but He is faithful to meet you in your questions.

**Sit again in silence for as long as is available to you.**

Upheavals

**Sit quietly, eyes closed in silence for one minute before reading.**

    Have you had an upheaval lately? Has something turned your world upside down? Maybe it is an unexpected location change, an unexpected change to your family, a loss of some kind or even a gain. Maybe it is a word that was spoken that has you thinking or an act that has shifted your perspective.

    Life is full of upheavals, great and small. Sometimes these upheavals are met with frustration – we did not see them coming, we do not like the changes they require. Sometimes these upheavals are a welcome change, truth and light spoken in the dark.

    What upheaval has God allowed or brought into your life? How will you meet it? How will you trust and turn to God as He walks with you into the new normal?

**Sit again in silence for as long as is available to you.**

Trusting a Stranger

**Sit quietly, eyes closed and in silence for one minute before reading.**

    “We need to know Him … To be blunt, life is simply too demanding and overwhelming at times to think I can manage without knowing the one who rules the winds and waves that batter my little vessel. We ask too much of ourselves to try and trust a stranger.” – When Life and Beliefs Collide, Carolyn Custis James

    Do you trust strangers? Do you live each day entrusting strangers to the things you love most dearly? Do you live sharing your deepest self with those whom you do not know? Sounds crazy, right?

    This is why I wanted to share the thought above with you. I love what Carolyn says about needing to know God. We often come to God when life is crazy, painful and we are raw and we wonder why we have trouble trusting Him … often God has been a stranger and we did not even realize it.

    We have not really gotten to know God. We have not gotten to know God when life is good, the sun is shining brightly and our hope is great. It is during these times that we often forget about God and we lose sight of who He is until we need Him. We then come to Him and He seems far off and at a distance. One reason might be because He has become or might still be a stranger.

    How can you get to know Him better today? It what way can you connect with Him? Wherever you are in relationship with Him, continue to get to know Him.

PS A great to begin is reading the Bible and talking with Him. Start at John 1 in the Bible.

**Sit again for as long as is available to you.**

Calling the Shots

**Sit quietly, eyes closed in silence for one minute before reading.**

    Left to my own devices I am tempted to call the shots. Left to my own power I am tempted to believe that I can call the shots. Left without truth and reminders of God’s faithfulness I am tempted to take over and call the shots for my life.

    My heart is prone to wander. It is prone to wander away from God, away from trusting Him and away from relationship. My heart is prone to self-protect and walk away rather than be vulnerable and walk towards God.

    How grateful I am that God is not prone to wander and He has no need to self-protect. He is the most vulnerable and the most intimate. He is also the most loving yet I am tempted to doubt His goodness and faithfulness.

    I am tempted to call the shots because deep down I think that He has abandoned me. I believe that He has forgotten and someone’s gotta take care of things and that someone is me. I am tempted to jump the gun and call the shots while Jesus calls me to wait and trust. Wait. Trust. I’ve got it, Laura.

    When are you tempted to take over and call the shots? Take some time and allow God to show you what is going on beneath the surface, under the desire to call the shots.

**Sit again in silence for as long as is available to you.**

While You Wait

**Sit quietly, eyes closed in silence for one minute before reading.**

“I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living. Wait for the LORD; be strong and let your heart take courage; yes, wait for the LORD.” Psalm 27:13-14

    These verses in Psalm 27 are some of my favorite in all of Scripture. I love them because they speak of hope, of God’s goodness on earth, of the reality that it is difficult to wait and that we need to choose to take courage and stand strong. They are a summation of life as we wait for redemption, for healing and ultimately for the LORD.
    The reason we do not despair is because we believe and trust in God’s goodness. The challenge to be strong, take courage and wait (mentioned twice!) shows that it is difficult to do just those things. To wait for redemption and healing from God has its ups and downs, its moments of despair and moments of great hope. Mostly it is waiting, waiting and trusting.
    May these verses encourage you today as you wait on the Lord.

**Sit again in quiet for as long as is available to you.**

The Wilderness

**Sit quietly, eyes closed in silence for one minute before reading.**

“God is not taking you through the wilderness for you to die.”

    One of my pastors spoke these words to me about a year and a half ago as I was at the very beginnings of a wilderness time. These words came from the story of Scripture, from the book of Exodus and the life of Jesus. These specific words are not in Scripture but are in the stories of Scripture. You will find this truth in the story of the Israelites and the life of Jesus. God does not in fact take us through wilderness for us to die although it FEELS like it.
    Wilderness feels like death. It is full of pain, the unknown, abounding in confusion and sparse in hope. Wilderness causes us to long for past times, to see them greener than they truly were. Wilderness causes us to dream of escape, escape to anything, anywhere but here.
    In the wilderness we long to change our location and God longs to change us. We long to escape and He longs to free us. There is a difference between escaping and being freed. When we are in the places that we most do not want to be God seeks to transform us, shape us and draw us nearer to Himself. He seeks to transform us and as difficult as that is we need to trust Him. Trust that He has not brought us to the wilderness to die but to free us to live.
    Are you in a season of wilderness? What are your struggles?
    Have you had opportunity to speak openly and honestly with God? Please do, He wants to hear your heart. He also wants you to trust Him. In the midst of it all cling onto His goodness – the stories are throughout the Bible, they are throughout your life and the lives of those around you. He is good, He is with you and He has not brought you here to die.
    A special blessing on you as you wander in the wilderness.

**Sit again for as long as is available to you.**

Have more than two minutes? Can you relate to the Israelites in Exodus 17:1-3?

The Weight of Guilt

**Sit quietly, eyes closed, for one minute before reading.**

    How is guilt holding you down? Is there something weighing on your heart that is secret, hidden? I am talking true guilt. Guilt of something you have done ultimately against God, not guilt that someone has made you unnecessarily feel or maybe you have made yourself feel.
    To bring what is dark to the light can have overwhelmingly positive consequences and freedoms yet there is real battle and challenge to move from darkness to light.
    Take time and consider the weighty areas of your heart. Ask God to give you the strength to be honest with yourself and with Him. Let go and let Him graciously work.
    Is there something you need to confess? Talk to God, share this with a good friend and in the right time and seek forgiveness from the one(s) you have offended. Trust God in the midst of it all. Let freedom from the weight of guilt come.

Have more than two minutes?: These thoughts came from reading Genesis 37-45. If you have more than two minutes, go read the story of Joseph and consider what might have been going on in his brothers’ minds in chapter 45.

**Sit again in silence for as long as is available to you.**

Left in the Dark

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“…But He has also placed ignorance (darkness) in the human heart so that people cannot discover the work God has done (ordained), from the beginning to the end of their lives.” Ecclesiastes 3:11b

    We are in the dark ON PURPOSE. God has put us in the dark on purpose. (Does that frustrate anyone else??) So, the word translated “ignorance” can also be understood as “darkness”. He has placed darkness so that we will not know, we will not see. The second portion of this verse speaks to the fact that God actually stops us from knowing. He prevents us from knowing the future and how things will work out. Grrr…
   So often I want a picture of the future. I want to know how something will turn out. I want to know how God will bring good or beauty out of suffering and evil.
    Even if I can’t know it all, how about a little peek? A little peek would help me hope, to trust. This verse says, NO. He instead asks me to trust in HIM, His character and His promises. If He gave me a peek I would trust in the results, I would hope it what is to come rather than Him.
    Is there something that God has kept dark that you are frustrated by? How can the call the trust God draw you closer to Him?
**Sit again in quiet for as long as is available to you.**

"When God, when?"

**Sit quietly, eyes closed, for one minute before reading.**

“God has made everything fit beautifully in its appropriate time, Ecclesiastes 3:11a

    At times it is nearly impossible to see how this verse makes sense, how it is true. We cannot imagine how God can bring together suffering, challenges or even evil to make something beautiful.
    It is often difficult to see how God can take a million puzzle pieces and fit them together into something beautiful. We cannot imagine what beautiful picture He is working towards and why He is taking so long. So, equally as difficult is waiting for the time in which these pieces will come together. “When God, when?”, we ask.
    When will He heal our daughter? When will He return our brother home? When will our parents stop fighting? When will He stop the chaos of abuse, violence, exploitation, war? “When God, when?”, we ask.
    In our heart wrenching request to know when, God works with the final picture in mind. He sees the picture of what is to come and asks us to hope and to trust. Hope for that which we cannot see through trusting Him. Trust. There it is again. Not easy.
    What are the puzzle pieces in your life that you are wondering about? How is your heart in the waiting?
Is there something in your life that you cannot imagine being redeemed into something beautiful? Talk to God, let Him know, ask Him for faith and allow Him to meet you.

**Sit again in quiet for as long as is available to you.**