The Fruit of Humility

I’ve been thinking and pondering about the great value of humility. Having humility certainly describes Jesus! He is always our go-to example for anything worthy in character development. And, oh my, did He ever bring forth fruit by His humility! He humbled Himself all the way to the cross in order to reconcile man to Himself. Because of His humility, we can live with God forever, now and in eternity and be forgiven of our sins. THAT is fruit!

Was it easy for Him? Far from it. But, His love for His Father and His obedience caused Him to do the unthinkable, to die a horrific death for sinners. And because of that, we get to enjoy the fruit of His humility!

According to the dictionary, humility means “freedom from pride or arrogance; the quality or state of being humble.”

Some synonyms of humility are: down-to-earthness, lowliness, meekness, modesty, submissive, deference.

Some antonyms for humility are: arrogance, conceit, egotism, presumptuousness, pride, superiority, haughtiness.

Such opposites in the synonyms and the antonyms!

The truth that I want to express in this devotional is that God is in the business of honoring humility everyday of the week! All throughout scripture we find examples of how God honored someone because they chose to take the humble path; the submissive path; the lowly path. And all throughout scripture we find examples of how God dishonored those who walked in pride. The humble bore fruit; the prideful did not.

What is the main fruit that God wants us to produce? Yes, the fruit of HIS SPIRIT. Humility is the underlying position/posture we have to take if we are going to bear His kind of love( loving the unlovable; loving with no expectation of love in return), His kind of joy (joy even in midst of trials and disappointments), His kind of peace (peace even when things seem out of control), His kind of patience (patience even when circumstances are so hard) etc…

Humility is the KEY to bearing and experiencing the fruit of the Holy Spirit. Humility says, “not my will but Thine be done” (Luke 22:42) Humility submits to the sovereignty of God. (Ps. 115:3) Humility waits on God to answer prayers, trusting that He is for us and not against us. (Rom. 8:31) Humility enables us to rest, knowing that God acts on behalf of those who wait for Him (Is. 64:4) Humility puts us in a position of being lifted up. (James 4:10)

Humility truly, truly is the common denominator of experiencing the life of Jesus that lies within all believers. Galatians 2:20 says, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” Humility of heart and mind will allow Christ to live His life out through us. Pride will stifle His life being lived out through us any day of the week.

So, in closing, I know for myself, I must be continually asking myself, what does humility look like in this moment? If my peace (His peace) is missing, what do I need to submit to Him? If things aren’t moving along at my preferred pace, what do I need to trust unto God? Essentially, when any of the fruit of the Spirit are lacking, where/how do I need to humble myself? These kinds of questions will definitely help me!

Humility brings freedom to the soul! I want that. I know ya’ll do too! (remember, I live in TX. now!)

Yielding to the Lord

The Lord has put on my heart the word, yield, in a fresh, new way. On our kitchen blackboard, I have had this for over a week: Yield to the Lord in all things. As I pass by it throughout the day, it strikes me as a very good mantra to filter the Christian life through.

All day long we make ‘yielding‘ choices. As Christians, we yield to either pleasing God, pleasing self or pleasing people. I know I truly want to please God, but these others can sneak in, much to my regret.

Matthew 6:13 says, “And don’t let us yield to temptation but rescue us from the evil one.” NLT

I like this scripture because it states so perfectly what we are doing when we yield to anything or anyone other than God. We are yielding to a temptation. We are faced with temptations all day long to temp us to please self or people-please!

Pleasing self has temptations such as putting our comfort, our pleasure, our schedule, our likes, our wants, our enjoyment, first and foremost. People-pleasing has temptations such as doing things with impure motivations; wanting to get ahead, wanting to be held in higher esteem, wanting to be liked, wanting to be praised.

The difference between yielding to pleasing the Lord and yielding to pleasing self or pleasing people is tremendous. Yielding to the Lord brings peace, joy, comfort, encouragement to the soul and a sense of the fruit of the Spirit flowing. Yielding to self brings anxiety, shame, discouragement, hopelessness, and no real sense of the fruit of the Spirit flowing in and through us. Yielding to people pleasing yields discouragement due to unmet expectations, frustration, discontentment and a lack of peace and joy.

As it says at the end of the verse in Matt. 6:13, “rescue us from the evil one.” Yes, the evil one LOVES to temp us to yield to self and to yield to people pleasing. We need to remember we are in a battle all day long, full of temptations from the evil one, but we also battle our own hearts desires. Our own “disordered loves”, as St. Augustine has correctly stated.

We desperately need the Holy Spirit to transform our hearts desires so that we choose pleasing God over pleasing self or others. It’s a spiritual work. It’s a God-thing, as they say. We simply won’t choose God without our great Helper, the Holy Spirit’s, enabling power.

Perhaps this devotional brought to your mind something you really need to YIELD to Jesus Christ. Something that has been a temptation or thorn in your life for way too long. Something that steals your peace and joy and the enemy is getting too many victories. I just want to encourage you to do whatever it takes to yield to Jesus in that thing that is on your mind. Pray fervently, seek an accountability partner, ask others to pray for you, get involved in serving Jesus Christ in a fresh new way, keep a prayer journal, start a new Bible Study…..do whatever it takes to successfully YIELD to Jesus, the One who loves you more than words can describe!

Yes, when we yield to the Lord, we experience the true life that Jesus died to give us. It’s a life of freedom, and who doesn’t want that!

Where to Find True Satisfaction and True Joy

Today I am led to write about two key scriptures regarding satisfaction and joy.

Psalm 90:14 “O satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.

Psalm 16:11 “You make known to me the path of life; in Your presence is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”

These two scriptures shout to us as to where we can find true satisfaction and true joy! O dear readers, why do we/I look for these precious graces in counterfeit places?

We think satisfaction and joy will come if I could just have ________. We think satisfaction and joy will come when ______. We think satisfaction and joy will come if God would just _________. We think satisfaction and joy will come if I could just be _________.

Ugh! As long as we are living with any of these mindsets, we totally miss the satisfaction and joys that God has ordained for this very moment! Life is, as they say (whoever ‘they’ are), DAILY. And God is ever so daily because He owns the days! He desperately wants us to be present in the present, because He is in the present! And because He is in the present, He has complete ability to provide exactly what He says He will provide in these two scriptures; satisfaction by His love and fullness of joy!

If we want to experience these two marvelous graces in our lives, we have to make every effort to press into the Source of true satisfaction and true joy; Jesus Christ! And if our ‘wanter’ is not wanting to do this, we need to ask God to resurrect our ‘wanter’! He is the only one who can change our heart to want Him and all that He has for us in Christ.

Our flesh gets hung up on relational things, material things, job things, money things, church things, travel things etc. We can find ourselves so easily looking for true satisfaction and joy through any of those avenues. They will always leave us searching for the real thing.

As long as we are living with the mindsets stated in the second paragraph, we say goodbye to satisfaction of soul and joy. We say hello to anxiety and discontentment. These things are not at all what God has in His heart for us in any present moment, on any given day.

I just want to encourage us all to pray and see if there is any place in your heart where you are not allowing Jesus’ presence and love to satisfy your heart; is there any counterfeit way that you may be seeking to be satisfied or joyful?

He will meet us with all of who He is if we allow Him to! He is so personal, so daily personal, sitting on ready to “satisfy us in the morning with His steadfast love so we can rejoice and be glad!” It’s “in His presence where we will find fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore!

Bless you!

Peace

Peace. Who doesn’t want peace? Peace that overrides and sustains us in troubles. Peace that overrides and sustains us in disappointments. Peace that overrides and sustains us in a difficult diagnosis. Peace that overrides and sustains us as we wait for salvation to come to those we love. Peace that overrides and sustains us as we wait for God to answer our most heartfelt prayer. Peace that overrides and sustains us in concerns about ________. You fill in the blank.

This kind of peace will not be found in this world because this kind of peace is supernatural, not natural. This kind of peace can only be found in the Creator of peace; the Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ. (Isaiah 9:6) It’s only by Him, through Him and in Him that we will ever find genuine peace; the peace that passes all understanding (Phil. 4:7).

Colossians 3:15 says, “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful.”

So, we can tell from this scripture, we are instructed to let the peace of Christ rule in our hearts. This is the will of God. He wants us living in peace, His peace. Jesus said in John 14:27, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do no let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”

So, the million dollar question is, how do we get this peace that Jesus has left for us?

The bridge from anxiety to peace, the bridge from fear to peace, the bridge from worry to peace, the bridge from anything to peace, is PRAYER. Jesus is the only one who has the peace we are all searching for so we must go to the Source. We are the ones who allow peace to lose it’s position in our lives, so we are the ones who must turn to Jesus by prayer to restore peace to it’s rightful place in our hearts. This may need to be done a few times a day or every hour or every few minutes, depending on what we are allowing to steal our peace.

It is so easy to lose our peace. Everything from people, circumstances, words spoken or not spoken, closed doors, loss of job, unanswered prayers, unmet expectations, being over committed, health issues, problems in church etc. have the potential to rule over our hearts instead of the peace of Christ.

Two things that go hand in hand are the peace of God and our faith level. We are in a daily fight for faith. Faith that God knows what He’s doing. Faith that God has allowed such and such and is sovereign over all. Faith that God is our Provider. Faith that God is our Defender. Faith that God is faithful to His children. Faith that God knows all things and is always available to His children. Faith that God is our FATHER and has our backs! Faith that God is exactly who He says He is!

When our hearts are full of faith, we are full of peace. Romans 15:13 says, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and PEACE as you trust in Him so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” Again, when our hearts are full of faith, we are full of peace!

In 2 Tim. 4:7, the apostle Paul is nearing his death and he says, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” I love this. It so clearly reveals that it is a fight to keep living in faith. It is a fight that we have every single day of our lives. And only God’s grace can help us to fight the good fight and keep living in faith and have the peace of God reigning in our hearts. It’s all a GIFT out of His enormous love for His children.

So, if we want to have the peace of God reigning in our hearts like we are instructed to do, we have got to do whatever it takes to keep our faith level UP and fight the fight. Remember the bridge? Prayer is always the bridge from lack of peace to having peace. God’s peace is a fruit of the Spirit so we have to pray and ask God to help us to see what we are doing or not doing that is disrupting His peace in our lives. God will show us if we ask! Maybe we need to surrender something. Maybe we need to repent of something. Maybe we need to forgive someone. Maybe we need to follow through on something that the Spirit has been nudging us about for too long. Maybe we need to reach out to that person who is hard to love. Maybe we need to just accept something that cannot be changed. Maybe we need to start being thankful for what we DO have and not always looking at what we do not have. God will show us where we left His peace!

God is faithful. He wants us to press into Him for His peace through prayer and a stronger level of faith in Him and His ways. He will grant the peace because He is faithful to His Word and cannot lie!

Bless you!

The Joy of the Lord is Your Strength

“The joy of the Lord is your strength”. This verse is from Nehemiah 8:10. Nehemiah was a Jewish leader who supervised the rebuilding of Jerusalem in the mid 5th century. He was trying to encourage the Israelites as they were overwhelmed by the reading and understanding of the Law.

This verse is powerful. And the enemy of our soul, Satan, knows it too. He knows that if he can steal our JOY, then our strength, our motivation, our oomph, is zapped.

We Christians have the Holy Spirit living within us. JOY is a fruit of the Holy Spirit. Most of us know this truth. But, what many of us don’t realize is that we are in a spiritual battle everyday of our lives. And in this battle, Satan is actively trying to steal our JOY one way or another. And this leaves us without strength, somehow, someway.

Satan knows what areas of vulnerability we have. He knows how to push our buttons. He knows how to dismantle us. He is always looking to see whom he can devour (1st Pet. 5:8)

Here are just a few of the titles he has in scripture:

The tempter (Matt. 4:3) The evil one (Matt. 13:19) The accuser (Rev. 12:10) The devil (which literally means slanderer; Matt.4:1) The enemy (Matt. 13:39) The father of lies (Jn. 8:44) Prince of the power of the air (Eph.2:2) The adversary (1st Pet. 5:8) And so many more……

All of these titles reveal to us just how powerful and evil the enemy of our soul is. And everyday he is using his evil schemes and character to attempt to dismantle our JOY so that we loose our strength.

This causes me to examine and maybe it will you as well, to examine what am I really banking on for my JOY? What is supporting and propping up my JOY level? What is my “street – level” god that I am depending on for JOY. When I say, ‘street level”, I mean, what am I honestly dependent on for JOY to reign in my soul?

Here are some samples that I believe we can all call our street-level god on occasion:

Good health, praises from others, shopping, lots of ‘likes’/’followers’ on social media, drink, our plans to succeed, bank account, material stuff, climbing the ladder, successful children, being in control, spouse living up to all that you envision, a good response, a thank-you, expectations and on and on it goes.

All of the above can ebb and flow in a nano-second. All of the above are on shaky ground. And if we are dependent on any of those things for our JOY, the enemy knows it and is out to zoom in to wreck havoc on us, forthwith! And boom, our JOY has left the building and we are without strength!

Truly, unless our JOY is grounded on the Rock, the Lord God Almighty, our JOY is upon shaky ground. Even if it is on the solid Rock, the enemy will temp us to waver away from Him, just like he did Jesus in the wilderness.

I just know I need to make sure, daily, that I am doing all I can to be filled with Jesus and if I am, I am filled with the fruit of the Spirit and JOY has the best chance of ruling over my heart. The evil one has less of a chance to rattle me with his schemes and ploys. We have to be alert though, just as it says in 1st Peter 5:8, “Be sober-minded, be watchful, your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.”

We must remember 1st John 4:4, “Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he (Jesus) who is in you is greater than he (Satan) who is in the world!”

The JOY of the Lord is your strength!

God bless!

God or Me?

Today I heard one of my favorite Pastors, Dr. Timothy Keller, say this: “It’s a melancholy burden to believe we know what’s best for us.” In other words, it’s a melancholy burden to our souls to try to be in control over things and people.

I had never conceived the thought, before today, that my thinking I know what’s best is a ‘melancholy burden’. Melancholy is a word for the gloomiest of spirits; sorrowful.

My oh my…..this causes me to take pause and to consider how many times I may have felt melancholy due to the fact that I am not in control or not getting what I think is best for myself (or for others for that matter).

A melancholy burden. Who wants THAT!? NOBODY.

So, the truth is, God is already in control! And in His control, He orchestrates in these ways:

He is orchestrating all things for my good and His glory.(Rom. 8:28) Things that people do to us or that circumstances do to us, God means for good and not for evil. (Gen. 20:20) God has only good plans for us; plans for welfare and not for evil, to give us a future and a hope. (Jer. 29:11) God does not withhold any good thing from us if we walk uprightly.(Ps. 84:11) God’s steadfast love extends to the heavens and His faithfulness to the clouds.(Ps. 36:5)

The question is, do I/we believe these truths? Does our heart carry around a melancholy burden because we simply disbelieve the above truths? Are we fighting a downcast spirit because we think we know what’s best? I truly do believe that this is a common dilemma for a lot of Christians and hence, a lack of freedom. A lack of joy. A lack of peace. A lack of comfort. In other words, a lack of the fruit of the Spirit showing up in our lives.

We just don’t want to give up control! We get caught up in our own thinking of, why this? Why now? When, God? Really, God? How long, God? And in this kind of thinking, we are trying to be in control. It’s about ME, not GOD.

I’ve heard author and bible teacher, Beth Moore, say, “Unless we submit all things to the AUTHORITY of GOD, we will have no peace. Without authority, there is no peace.” So true. And without God’s peace ruling, we are probably going to have a melancholy burden in our lives.

So, we have to ask ourselves, where am I trying to control life’s circumstances? Who am I trying to control? Is there an area of flat out disobedience in my life? (another huge reason for a melancholy burden)

If we belong to Jesus, if we have given Him our hearts and call ourselves Christians, then our life does not belong to us any longer! 1st Cor. 6:19-20 says, “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are NOT YOUR OWN, you were bought at a price……” We’ve been bought with the precious blood of Jesus. His love pursued us and rescued us from sin and eternal separation from Him. So, if He went to such tremendous lengths to buy us, why do we think He doesn’t have what’s BEST FOR US, His sons and daughters!

Melancholy burdens….…may we be set free from carrying these because we choose to believe God is FOR us and NOT against us!(Rom. 8:31) Remember, Jesus said, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matt. 11:30). If we give Jesus authority over all things and all people, we can eliminate the melancholy burdens and have lighter ones because Jesus is carrying them for our good! Let’s try to allow God to wrap His loving arms around us and deliver us from ourselves!

Blessings to you!

How Can I Serve the Person in Front of Me?

Lock-down from the virus continues in so many ways. It’s a period in time of history that hasn’t happened in a VERY long time. It’s hard sometimes to get a sense of what normal really is. We’re all adjusting to it or …..not so much.

Whether we are adjusting or not adjusting, God is still on His throne and His sovereignty rules over all! He is still with us and for us! He still has plans for us and not just for the future, but for today! He still wants His children to be a light to those around us. He still wants us to be His instruments of love and encouragement to those around us.

We may not be around nearly as many people as we used to be before Covid hit, but we definitely see the people in our family, in our home or nearby, or people in our neighborhoods, or the people at the doctor’s office, or the people at the grocery store etc. Running into folks in these places seems to be the prominent way we see other people these days.

The title of this post is, “How Can I Serve the Person in Front of Me?” Phil.2:7 says, “Jesus emptied Himself and took on the form of a servant.” I believe that if we take on the attitude of Jesus Christ, we will experience all kinds of opportunities to serve folks right in front of us and bring joy to them. Let me give you two examples that just happened this week.

1. I was talking to my dear sister who lives near Seattle and she told me about talking to a receptionist at the doctor’s office. She could not believe how helpful, kind, considerate and gracious she sounded over the phone. (this can be unusual but even more unusual in Covid days). My sister hung up the phone and almost cried. She could not believe how this lady sounded (I told her maybe she was from Texas-ha!) She couldn’t believe her experience in talking with this lady. This lady truly ministered to my sister in a very needed way that morning and I am sure my sister told her thank you so much etc.

2) Yesterday I was on my walk around the lake near our home and came upon a gentleman with two golden retrievers. Because I love dogs and we had a golden retriever for fourteen years, I told him what a great breed these dogs are and that kicked off a minute of conversation about dogs. As I was moving on and said to him, “Have a great day!”, he replied, “You too and thank you for talking!” Wow. Thank you for talking. It was pretty clear that my taking time to chat with him for a minute, served him in some way. I have felt that way too when others take a minute to engage in conversation but I don’t think I have told them thank you for talking. He blessed me just by saying that.

That experience really spoke to me about the ministry of just serving the person in front of me. We tend to think that we need to serve in some major way in order to feel like we’re making a difference for the kingdom of God. Not true at all. God is looking for our availability and our faithfulness. He’s looking for our attitude of serving whomever He puts in front of us.

The very word, Christian, means ‘little Christ’. Well, I need to (and perhaps you do too) continually think, “how am I being Christ to this person in front of me?”

Yesterday I set a reminder on my phone that comes up every morning at 8:00 am. It says, “Choose this day whom you will serve.” Joshua 24:15 I want that continued reminder every morning because it will help my focus on serving others and not self. I am asking God to help me to be aware of how He would have me to serve people right in front of me.

In Acts 20:35 Jesus said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” So true! This is how God designed us! He knows that if we give of ourselves in any way, we are the ones who feel so blessed! Encouraging others, brings blessing to our souls. Just imagine the joy in the heart of God as he gives and gives and gives and gives all day and all night long!

If we are feeling stuck due to Covid or due to any other issue, we should try giving of ourselves to the person in front of us and just see what that does to our own soul!

Bless you!

Christianity is a Power!

Yes indeed, Christianity is a power according to well known pastor and author, Timothy Keller, and confirmed by the Word of God. 1st Cor. 4:13 says it so clearly: “For the kingdom of God does not consist in words, but in POWER.” Let that penetrate.

Christianity is the faith in which it’s followers are called Christians. They have turned their lives over to the Lord Jesus Christ and follow His ways that are described in the Bible. Most likely, all who are reading this understand that!

What I want to share about today is the POWER part of Christianity. I truly believe that we are just so used to handling things on our own that we tend to forget that we have God living in us by the Holy Spirit who is just waiting to be glorified because we called on Him to take care of ___________. He is just waiting to be asked to ________.

He is living in us as the Divine Helper. He is living in us to provide whatever we need to handle what is before us. Are we missing out on experiencing God because we are not asking Him into every detail of our lives and experiencing His POWER?

Timothy Keller says, “If you never admit your weakness, you’ll never experience His strength.” I love that. It’s all about God’s POWER being released when we admit our weakness/need and pray for His strength. We are such weak creatures and we need His strength to do anything! John 15:5 says, “…..apart from Me you can do nothing.”

Our Father is a gentleman, so to speak. He waits for us to come to Him and ask Him for _________. He loves to answer our petitions and He loves for us to be continually grateful, giving Him honor and glory because of His power in provisions for us. Will God always give us exactly what we want, exactly when we want it? No. He is not a genie in a bottle. But, His answers will always be for our best interest because our Father only has what’s best in His heart for us. God wants relationship with us more than anything and as we come to our Father and see His power at work, that develops our relationship with Him and our dependency on Him and He is glorified. In our weakness, He is strong!

Our God is a God of details. All you have to do is stare at the sky at night for a while, stare at a flower for 30 seconds, look at snowflakes up close, look at a cell under a microscope, look at a newborn baby and on and on I could go. Our God is a God of details and He knows all the details of our lives too.

Just this week in my own life………

1. I had an afternoon and evening where I felt so sad and oppressed. I knew some different things that were causing it. But as I went to bed that night I got on my knees and prayed for God to pour out His comfort and peace and soothe my soul. I got up the next morning knowing God released His power upon me because I felt great and totally comforted and well. Yay God!
2. I had a problem with my phone when I upgraded it to the next level. Ugh. After my husband tried to google what to do with no real answers, I just said, “Ok, let me pray.” I prayed. Within 30 seconds God reminded me of what to do and it worked! Yay God!
3. I needed to call my Dad in CA. I prayed over the conversation because I really didn’t want the conversation to go in a certain direction. God was merciful and provided many other things to talk about and handled my concern. Yay God!

I share these samplings of God’s power at work just to give you an idea of inviting God into every detail of your life. The God of Christianity is ALIVE and longs to be invited into all the details of our lives. And once we pray, we need to release the prayer and the need into His ALMIGHTY hands and watch for His provision and His presence in our life.

Christianity is a POWER because the Christ of Christianity was resurrected from the dead and now lives in His children. Oh, may we bring more and more glory to Him because we depend on His power and not on our own!

Having the Mindset of “I Get To” instead of “I Have To”

This morning I read about a woman who was raised by a godly Father who instilled this mindset into her as a child, youth and teenager. It was something her Father would always say to her when it was time to do a chore or do something he needed her to do. When she was disgruntled or not cooperating, he would say, “this is something you GET to do, not HAVE to do”. She was very grateful that he did this because it has given her such a right perspective on God’s grace as well as having a grateful heart.

This is so rich! How many times do I do things with a heart that is just doing it because of duty, because I HAVE To or it won’t get done. I need to continually remember that I GET TO because of God’s enabling power on me. I GET TO because God is enabling my eyes, mind, arms, legs, hands and feet to be able to do it. I GET TO because God has given me “things” of which I need to be a good steward. I GET TO because God wants me to be a servant to the people He has put into my life and do things as unto Him. (Col. 3:23)

This really does make life all about Jesus Christ. It’s all a privilege! I take, and maybe you do too, the ability to do things that we think we simply HAVE TO, for granted. At times, I have been so ill that I think, “I will never take being able to _________for granted again!” And then life goes on and I forget that thought. Well, I don’t want to have to get sick in order to have a GET TO heart and mindset! I want to hold onto this heart attitude. It’s a paradigm that is easy to forget, but I really want to make it a part of this new year’s sanctification in my life.

The Holy Spirit is in the business of causing and helping with our sanctification process and I am going to be asking Him to help me in maintaining this focus.

Life is a gift. Life is a privilege, especially as a child of GOD! Life is not easy, but God knows that if we see everything through the lens of “I GET TO”, it will change our mindset onto Him, which will bring peace, gratefulness and contentment. Most of all, it will bring our God, the giver of ALL things, honor.

Amen

Letting Go in Order to Trust God More

It’s almost the end of 2020! Whew! What a year it has been! Everywhere you look, folks say they are beyond ready for a new year to begin.

I’ve been prompted to write today about something I hope will help us all to have something to hold onto in order to help make 2021 different, spiritually speaking, from 2020. There are some things we can implement in order to make this next year one that can bring us more freedom and one where we get to experience the Living God in ways that perhaps we haven’t in recent days.

I don’t know about you, but I want more supernatural going on in my life, not natural. I want to trust in true Love, Jesus’ love, so that it will cast out my fears. (1st Jn. 4:18) I want to witness the provision of God, not what I can drum up on my own. I want to be emptied of myself so that I can experience more God-sightings and aha moments. Yes, I want all of those kinds of things and more because these kinds of things bring the Christian life ALIVE. And most importantly, they exalt the LIVING God. Indeed, our God is ALIVE and I want to do all I can to foster that relationship! I have no doubt, you do as well!

I recently heard a podcast by Jennifer Rothschild, a great Bible teacher, speaker and writer. In it, she shared three things that can help us to experience the things I just mentioned. They emphasize how to let go and trust God more. They really impacted me and I’d like to share the three things and expound a bit on each one.

#1 Let Go of Expectations

This is huge! The more expectations we have of someone or something or a circumstance, the less we are actually trusting God. The more expectations we have, the less freedom we have in our soul. The more expectations we have, the more fear and anxiety we have. The more expectations we have, the less peace we have. The more expectations we have and grip on everything, the less we get to experience the very hand of God in our lives. The more expectations we have, the more we are attempting to be Lord over our own lives. I have a new motto. Do what I can in the moment or prepare what I can for whatever, and RELEASE IT TO JESUS. ‘Release’ being the key word in my new motto, release and just allow Jesus to do with it what He would like. I have found the more I release to Jesus, the less I live in expectations of my own. The more I release to Jesus, the more I get to experience God showing up and doing the supernatural. The more I release to Jesus, the less angst I have. Sometimes, I just have to verbally say, “I release this to You”, and lift up my palms. Having expectations, especially unrealistic ones, in my opinion, are snares from the evil one. He LOVES it when we are all bound up in our own minds, wondering or fretting how this or that will turn out. He LOVES it when we are trying our best to make something happen and failing to trust God to take care of “it”. Bottom line, He LOVES it when we are not trusting in the Living God. Yes, letting go of expectations definitely helps us to grow our ‘trust muscle’ in God more!

#2 Letting Go of Timing

This is the second thing that we need to let go of in order to trust God more. TIMING! What we have to do is trade our timing for Jesus’. We have to trade our schedule for Jesus’. This is so hard because we want “it” yesterday!! Letting go of timing is a key factor in trusting God. God is sovereign and He knows exactly what He is trying to accomplish in and through us; we just have to submit and let Him have His way! Peace will rule our hearts if we submit to God in this way. We simply must trust that God is who He says He is; He is love, good, faithful, gracious, merciful, kind, and so much more. So, His timing will be filtered through His character and that is for our good and His glory!

#3 Let Go of Plan B

This was Jennifer’s last point on what to let go of in order to trust God more. If we are trying to come up with a Plan B in case Plan A doesn’t work our way, we are really going to have a hard time trusting God! If we are trying to come up with Plan B, we are “in our heads” way too much and that is NEVER a good spot to be. We truly need to allow God to handle the leading and guiding of our lives and allow Him to make the adjustments for us if they are needed.

I am convinced that these three “letting go” points will bring us a really good start and finish to 2021! “Letting go” of things and putting them into the hands of Almighty God is the safest place they can be!

Bottom line, it is never a risk to trust in God, the faithful One. Hebrews 10:23 says, “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.”

Happy New Year to all of you!