Category: Christian

I have had countless, disappointing moments in my life that would occur after praying so hard for burdens to be lifted, for problems and conflicts to dissipate, only to find them still circling around me. I have prayed to have a life full of blue skies and then wake up to find that the dark clouds still remain. How could I continue to have a prayerful  response to Jesus’ call to come to Him when we are heavy with burdens, and yet find that the burdens would still remain? There was something I was clearly missing.

I didn’t understand that handing my burdens over to Jesus didn’t mean that the burden would no longer be present in my life, and suddenly disappear. Instead, it meant that I would no longer be the one carrying them. It meant that I could now regain the strength and energy I had lost by allowing the burden, although still present, to be handled and carried by Jesus.

Handing our burdens over to Jesus doesn’t mean that the burden will no longer be present in our lives…

If the burden remains present in your life once you have prayerfully given it over to the Lord, take peace in knowing that it does not equate to unanswered prayer or that it’s not being handled by Jesus. Instead, in this process, there is a greater faith that can be gained, as well as a first-hand experience with watching God handle what was too heavy for us in the first place.

If faith as small as a mustard seed can cause mountains to move, remember, that there is a process in which this mountain has to move, and not just merely disappear. My dear friends, join me in learning to trust the process and rest in knowing that Jesus is at work and will faithfully finish what He has started!

I woke up eager to get ready to attend the drive in service at our church on Sunday. It had been weeks since we had gathered together due to the quarantine, and I was so excited and full of joy to see people in person, even if it was just from my car. We sat in the full parking lot, with our car windows down, listening to our pastor share a message from Luke 19. It was such a great word of encouragement, and a perfect reminder to reflect on the fact that Jesus came to seek and to save the lost-and the lost being everyone. We have all sinned and we all fall short of the glory of God, therefore we are all in fact lost, and Jesus come to seek and save you and me.

As I sat listening to these words spoken by our pastor, there were some verses further along in the chapter that caught my eye, gripped my heart, and has taken hold of my mind ever since I read them.

Luke 19:41-44
“As he (Jesus) approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.”

There are very few recorded accounts of Jesus weeping, and this happens to be one of them. In the beginning of this chapter, we read that Jesus came to seek and save the lost, and now we find that He is weeping over the city of Jerusalem. Jesus was there in the flesh seeking them, with the very purpose to save them, and yet they did not recognize the true peace He was offering, nor the presence of God that had been with them, and therefore, the heart of our Savior was grieved.

During a time when things seem very difficult for us today, and many find themselves hard pressed, it’s encouraging to know that Jesus is still seeking to save the lost! Jesus longs for us to recognize His presence and that He has come to us and for us! He longs for us to recognize Him as the true giver of the peace that surpasses all understanding! He longs for these truths to no longer be hidden from our eyes. He longs for us to see!

So many things have been removed from our lives right now, and maybe it was those very things that have been blocking our view? Maybe there have been things in our lives that have served to be a distraction for those of us who are already in Christ, causing us to lose sight of our true mission in life? Maybe those who are still lost and being sought after by Jesus are having things removed from their lives so they can finally have a clear view to actually see what would bring them true peace, and recognize God’s coming to them?

Maybe this time of so many cutbacks is actually a time of great gain…

Jesus came with the clear purpose of seeking to save the lost, and that’s why we call Him Savior! I pray that there doesn’t comes a day when Jesus looks upon our cities with weeping because the working He is striving to do in the here and now remains hidden from our eyes!

“For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.” 

Philippians 1:21

When we do not fully know someone, it’s easy to take what they say or do out of context. In order to aquire authentic understanding of someone’s words and actions, it requires the expenditure of time to gain knowledge of context, history, and as well as the forgoing of second hand information in exchange for first hand experience with this person to know their true character. Eliminate any one of these, and your perspective and understanding becomes skewed.

Likewise with God, if we forgo a first hand experience and relationship with Him, overlook context or history surrounding what He has said or done, we will gain a very skewed perspective of His character, and therefore lack true understanding of what He is trying  to say and do today.

With out all of these elements in place, we will certainly fall prey to confusion. I have personally experienced this when I have lacked having the whole picture of who God is or when I have failed to seek Him wholeheartedly.

When we seek Him, we will find Him when we seek Him with all of our hearts- meaning God longs for us to know Him. God is worthy of our efforts to know Him rightly, especially during times of uncertainty and difficulty, but inorder to have this authentic understanding, we must have all the pieces in place, and it must be gained from first hand experience with our true, and living God!

” If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me.” Jeremiah 29:13

What’s God doing during troubled times???

He’s saving!
He’s restoring!
He’s mending!
He’s healing!
He’s present!
He’s watching!
He’s guiding!
He’s shaping!
He’s pruning!
He’s teaching!
And most of He’s still loving!

What’s God doing during troubled times?? A LOT of great and mighty things!

Over the years there have been many Bible studies that I have sought to be a part of and many great books that I have purchased to read. I began each study and each book with a desire and a determination to finish each one having one  goal in mind- to grow closer to God by knowing more about Him. I have been able to complete some of these, while there have been others that I laid to the side incomplete and never picked up again.
There have times in my life when the season I was in prevented me from achieving what I longed for. The inability to complete the Bible study I had attempted or the book that was left unfinished was not due to the lack of its quality or a sudden drop in my desire to grow in my relationship with God, but rather life’s circumstances began mounting up, making it difficult to near impossible.  Maybe you can relate?
During those times when I felt very limited in my study time, I  began to battle guilt. I was still seeking God and I was still reading verses in small doses, just not in amounts that I thought was acceptable. The small amounts of God’s word that I was taking in didn’t seem to be enough. When I began to give in to the guilt I was feeling, I  realized that I was missing God’s grace. In fact, during these times of “shortage,” there was in increased grace that was applied to me when I was unable to offer up more.

My time with God that labeled as “small” and “not enough”, were still doses of the living and active word of God that were being taking in, and as a result from these small encounters, I began to experience God multiply my understanding of His truths in my heart and mind, helping me realize that these small amounts were a great treasure.
Sometimes the doses of God’s word we are able to take in are larger than others, but the main thing is that a dosage is still being taken in. The small doses still provided me with great encouragement and timely healing that I needed. I offered all that I could, and in return, God faithfully multiplied it, and continued to draw me closer to Him.
In fact, in a season when I could only take in small doses of God’s word, He began to unfold the vision for Highlighting Hope as He faithfully revealed messages of hope. Although these messages of hope have always been present in scripture, and I didn’t discover something new,  God revealed them to me in a time when I felt very limited. God opened my eyes to see in His word what I had not seen before, making it very new and exciting.
If you find yourself in a season where all you can take in right now is a small dosage of God’s word, I pray that Highlighting Hope would be a  source of encouragement that would ultimately lead you to HIS word. Even in small doses, God’s word is still alive, active, and powerful in the lives of those who take it in!

I pulled apart the curtains and flipped open the blinds. The light from morning sun quickly invaded the space that I was standing and it felt as if my face were being bathed in the warm sunlight. As refreshing as it was to have the light that broke the night come barreling through, my eyes quickly clinched shut, in efforts to protect them from the sudden change. This morning light, the light that was new for the day, was beautiful, yet painful.

Paul tells us that we use to live among “them”- those in the darkness. (Ephesians 2) All of us in Christ have a “before Christ” portion to our timelines; a portion of our lives that was lived in spiritual darkness. As we bask in God’s glorious light, we can look back and remember that moment when the curtain was suddenly torn in two, allowing the light to shine in for the very first time. Its’ beautiful, refreshing, rays swarmed all around, and although beautiful, refreshing and suddenly longed for, it was accompanied by pain. Just as when our eyes see the morning light for the first time that day, there is a brief pain that is felt as we adjust to seeing new light.

The light suddenly reveals all the dark places in our lives and we are finally able to see ourselves as we really are. Although, our brokenness was laid bare before us, a new hope also emerged upon this new horizon, this new day. This is where the timelines for those of us in Christ began to change. It’s a change in our timelines that can now be seen only because there is a new light shining. It is a change that can be seen because of the veil that was torn the day Christ Jesus offered Himself up on our behalf for the sins of the world.

As I stand to pull apart those curtains, flip open the blinds, and feel the sudden burst of sunlight on my face each morning, I will close my eyes in worship as I remember the veil that was torn as the great atonement was made for me and my sin. As I feel the sting of pain in my eyes as the morning light meets them for the very first time each day, I will remember the moment my timeline changed and I felt the sting of brokenness that was quickly accompanied by a bundle of love, forgiveness, and joy, and therefore hope!

As this truth embeds itself deeply into my heart, mind, and soul I will gladly sing:

“Turn your eyes upon Jesus
Look full in His wonderful face
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim
In the light of His glory and grace

Oh soul are you weary and troubled?
No light in the darkness you see?
There’s light for a look at the Savior
And life more abundant and free

Oh, turn your eyes upon Jesus
Look full in His wonderful face
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim
In the light of His glory and grace”

How persecution spreads the gospel and strengthens the church is a concept that blows my mind, and honestly, it has always been kind of hard for me to understand. When things for believers get harder, and their faith is challenged, it actually makes the church stronger and grow? That seems pretty backwards to me, but it happens to be true. There is a purification that takes place when the pressures are applied, and in doing so, those who want to play church and those who are the church become quickly distinguishable.
The disciples of Jesus were persecuted for their faith and many other believers for the past 2,000 years up to our present day have been as well. How is this possible? How do attacks on believers produce strength? How do those believers who face these horrors continue to remain faithful to the very end and share the gospel anyway? Although my mind has struggled to understand this, I have come to realize that this struggle is due to the fact that it is humanly impossible to understand this type of faithfulness and obedience. The type of obedience required to follow Christ is not one that is gained by a simple snap of our fingers, but instead it’s an obedience that is given ; it’s an obedience that must be received.

In light of this great inability, now is a perfect time to insert Philippians 4:13, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” This verse gets quoted quite a bit, especially when we are working towards a great, personal achievement, but I think the greatest application for this verse is when it is applied to our lives as we run our race for Christ, and to our striving to finish faithful to the very end.
In Romans 1, Paul was calling the Gentiles “to the obedience that comes from faith.” (Romans 1:5) I believe within us all is a measure of understanding and a desire for obedience, and as well as a striving to live morally, all of which is a result of God’s common grace. In times of persecution, we begin to see the difference in having a common, moral obedience, verses an obedience that is a result of faith. In these times,  we begin to see that there is an obedience that arises that is only obtained by having faith in Jesus. This obedience that is a result of faith is what allowed Paul to say in Romans 1:16-17, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes… For in the gospel a righteousness of God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written, “The righteous will live by faith.”
How does persecution spread the gospel? How does purification of the church arise out this mistreatment? How are those in Christ able to stay faithful to the end? All of this is possible because there is an obedience that we are gifted with that comes from faith, allowing the true church to arise and stand firm. This supernatural gift of obedience is what gives us the strength and the desire to remain faithful, and the righteous, those in Christ, will live by faith, and this faith will produce the obedience needed to carry us through to the end!

I think that embedded in all of our hearts is a desire for certainty. It may seem in vain to have this desire because what aspects of life are certain? Although uncertainty is true for this life, it is not true for God, and a having a misplaced source to fill this desire for certainty will only cause us to experience heightened insecurities, doubts, fears, and emptiness. The control over our lives that we seek to have results only in an increased deficit of control, which is the opposite of what we are seeking. I know this to be true because I have been there and will admit to being a first-hand witness.
I sought after this control over my life. I thought I was grabbing a good dose of certainty and direction when I went off to college for the first time. I went as far from home as I could go without leaving the state. I was going to fix my life and things were about to get better for me, so I thought. I was going to make a big turnaround and finally do things the right way, but the, “do things right” part was short lived- if ever lived at all.
This pursuit only left me empty and lost. My insecurities continued to grow with each passing day. There were moments when I attempted to pray that God would intervene and change my heart and life. I knew that I was stuck in a life and rhythm of doing things my way, and even though its results only offered more emptiness, I struggled with wanting to leave it. Months later, God did answer those halfhearted prayers. He flooded my heart with conviction and brokenness. I experienced His presence for the first time in a way that is truly indescribable. It’s what happened next though that really surprised me. That day, God called me to leave that college and go back home. Upon that call, so many questions filled my mind. How could I quit college in the middle of spring semester? What would my parents say? What would people think? Is this really the right thing to do? As God’s heavy urge to simply “go home” grew louder, the questions began to fade away. That day I withdrew from that school and took my first step towards true certainty even though I didn’t know what would lie ahead of me and so many of my questions were still left unanswered.
Our insecurities and uncertainties about life and all that it beholds will always be trumped and silenced by God’s call; but this is only true if we choose to obey His call. Obedience to God, whether or not we understand all the aspects of the “where and why” He is leading us a certain way, solves a lot of our problems.
Honestly, it was gut-wrenching to go from “my way” to “His way”. In the end, the control I thought I had, and the ability to self-fix only served to keep me enslaved to emptiness, disappointment, and heart ache. Sometimes we seek out this grand formula to follow and if we can’t find one, we create our own.
The plan for us to follow though is simple- it’s simply surrender. Surrendering to God’s call and walking in obedience to Him was the first plan He had in place, and abandoning it the Garden of Eden is where all the trouble began. Obedience to God solves the true root of our problems, and it will always provide us with the certainty we long for.

The crack of brokenness continued to grow far and wide, much like a spider web, as continued pressures were applied to the surface. I looked at my clay vase with great disappointment after I had dropped it and saw the long crack that was left behind. I learned the degree of frailty that was inflicted upon my cracked vase after dusting one day. I sat it down on the carpeted floor, in order to clear off a surface to dust, and it toppled over. As I lifted the fallen vase, I saw that the crack had grown, only increasing its frailty.
Surprisingly, more than ten years later, I still have that broken vase, and it now sits on our mantle. When I see its cracks, I don’t see an eye sore, but rather a story. The story I see begins with brokenness, a brokenness that seemed to continue to grow, but the story doesn’t stop there. Instead, I look at the vase with a grateful smile because I am reminded of a story that was rerouted due to God’s great intervention and answered prayers. These stories, these moments in life that God gives us, are the ones that I refer to as “Red Sea Moments.”
When I met my husband more than 15 years ago, I looked much like that broken vase, whose cracks seemed to grow with any and every applied pressure. I was so guarded when I met him, and I didn’t want to let someone else into my life that would add to my pain. Much to my surprise, the opposite would be true of letting him in. All the prayers that I had prayed for much of my life- for an unbroken family, for a place of wholeness, for a place where I would be free from choosing between my parents, and for a place where each choice I made wouldn’t cause the broken places in my life to grow and spread- these pleas were suddenly being answered and tremendous mending was beginning to take place. I was experiencing a true Red Sea moment, a moment where a way that only God could provide was being opened up before me.
The more time my husband and I spent together, I realized that I wasn’t the only one who was broken and needed healing. While we were still dating, I finally opened up and shared with him how I had prayed fervently from a very young age to have a family of my own that was whole and complete, free from the harm of brokenness. At that moment of me sharing that with him, his eyes met mine, and he then revealed that he too had been praying for the exact same thing from a very young age. Our broken places were so similar and God had graciously brought our hearts together. Our longings were the same and, therefore, what we would cherish would be the same as well.
The roads that we had both traveled were very broken, but as the song goes, “God blessed the broken road that led me straight to you.” My husband and I did not meet each other by chance or coincidence. No, it was an intentional answered prayer for both of us that we had both been uttering before the Lord long before we even knew one another. It was a pathway, a Red Sea moment that had been opened up by God for us both.
Although the vase bares the marks of brokenness, it is still held together for a couple of reasons. The first being that we knew that its strength was already compromised so we have had to continue to handle it with extreme, intentional care. Next, we didn’t leave the cracks as they were. We bought a clear bonding to put in the cracks to help hold what was broken together. And so it was with God as He was seeking to handle and heal both of our lives, bonding all those broken places.
As I look into the faces of those who make up the family I have now, and I look up at the mantle and see the broken vase that has now been mended, I reminded of how I am living each day in an answered prayer. God intervened and rerouted our life story by providing us with a Red Sea moment!
I haven’t always felt this way about my life story though. For a long time I battled with having resentment, bitterness, and feeling short changed over the reality of the first half of my life not being what I wanted it to be. As time has gone on, God has allowed me to see His grand work in my life on a magnified level. I have learned to be thankful for the perspective of my past, while also being thankful that it is not today’s reality. I have learned to be thankful for both sides of my story because without both parts, I would not cherish the grand entrance of God’s miraculous work in my life.
The fact that the Israelites were standing with their toes to a vast body of water as a powerful army was moving in with no place of escape, only makes the splitting of the Red Sea much more powerful and purposeful. You see God intervene in a mighty way, providing a way where there was no way, and changed their life story.

God intervenes in mighty ways, providing a way where there is no way, and changes our life story! 

These stories are powerful testimonies of God’s present day work in our lives, but the greatest Red Sea moment that God has provided for us all is the empty tomb! Jesus dying and coming to life again is the greatest Red Sea moment that any of us can experience. It’s an experience that allows us to be thankful for both sides of the story- before Jesus and after Jesus- because knowing both sides of the story allows us to know, understand, and cherish God making the one, true way for us!