Confessions from a former list maker

~Finding freedom from achievement-based love~

I used to pride myself on the lists I could make and accomplish. Did you see that “pride myself” part? Yea… how many times have we all said that phrase? I’ll give you little insight into my prideful list making, consider if this hits a nerve with you.

In the morning, I’d get my handy little note pad, with lines of course, and make my list of duties for the day. These were things I wanted to accomplish and would feel good if everything was crossed off, especially if I could do it by 3pm because then I could enter into the super-mom realm.  I would list them, sometimes alphabetically, in order of importance and by category…..control-freak anyone?

In case you are wondering, my grocery lists were in categories, by isle of the store. I had a separate list of dinners for the week.

Here’s the kicker though, when I crossed things off the list, my “worthy meter” would go up a little. My worthy meter determined my worthiness of love, acceptance and ability to contribute to life.  Achievement based, conditional love.

So the major issue and fear I faced at the end of the day was if there were things I could not accomplish, I felt like the day was a failure…. actually that I was, in fact, a failure. If my list was completed I’d wave it around like an Olympian gold medal, shaking my little imaginary empty cup for others to fill it full of love and worthiness. If I didn’t finish the whole list, no one saw the list, even the things I’d done. I’d sulk and be surly to my family, which was an expression of how I felt worthless inside.

My worthy-meter determined my worthiness of love, acceptance,  and ability to contribute to life.

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A Review of the Military Families Bible

What a privilege to be able to review a beautiful bible such as this! 

I was given the Military Families Bible- Holman Christian Standard Bible version by Lifeway B&H publishers to provide a review.

The editors first include a page about God’s plan for Salvation. This is a great piece to include in the first few pages, as many pick up a bible to read without knowing exactly what being a Christian is or how to find the verses about it. 

Without this knowledge and faith, we cannot read scripture and have the Holy Spirit’s power in us to interpret and teach us what we are reading, according to John 14:26 and 1 John 2:27.

I enjoy the Holman Christian Standard Bible version.  The first few pages of this bible have a description of how to use their references and footnotes and also why they made another English translation of the Bible.

They site reasons such as the changing English language, new biblical research available through the internet, and advanced technology in translating more accurately. It also includes the differences in translation techniques and which style they used. There is a great explanation of traditional features and special formatting features they have used. It is helpful to the reader to check out these sections so as to get the most understanding and knowledge out of the format.

The theme, however, of this particular bible is for Military families. Toward the back they have 2 wonderful attributes. The first is a 2-page reference tool for where to look in scripture for situations in life and emotions you may be experiencing. 

This truly points to the fact that there is no situation you are in that is not addressed by God in some way. This speaks to the timelessness and absolute Truth of God’s inspired Word to you and I in this very age. 

2 Timothy 3:16 "All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, 

for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness"

The second is a section with 30 devotions and prayer guides for Military families, written by several authors who have walked the road of military life. It is such a blessing to read through their advice and encouragement!

They have topics such as: Life on the Move, Living Away from Family, Dealing with PTSD, How to Keep from Growing Apart, Releasing our Loved Ones to God and so many more inspiring and comforting topics.

I highly recommend this version to everyone and also in particular for Military families.

You can find this bible online through Lifeway Publishers at Holman Christian Standard Bible- Military Families or on Amazon at Military Families Bible

Do you notice the Lovely in life?

Looking for Lovely By Annie F. Downs ~ Book Review

“My story is like many other women I know – 

the mirror has lied, and the enemy has 

whispered for years, and now we can’t look at ourselves and find anything lovely…”

I have been so moved by reading this book! It wasn’t my first pick because the description made me feel like it was too fuzzy feeling.

I was wrong.

This book is raw, hard emotion and hardcore honesty about Annie Downs’ life experiences and how she made it through to a healthier version of herself.

Annie references Romans 5:3-5 often throughout the book. She talks about being in different stages of each part of the passage.  It reads “Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character, and character, hope. And Hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit Whom He has given us.”

There were many chapters she talked about the hard things she was going through that I resonated with, and the hard job of first realizing it about yourself and then choosing to do something about it!

The doing something about it was someone was to keep showing up, keep doing what is the right thing and allow God to do the work in you. To persevere while He’s working on you.

Just like a sculptor with a chisel and a large piece of stone, God is chipping and carving away to reveal the beautiful creation He knows us to be. We’ve built up the ugly walls that He has to break away. Our choices in relationships, what we spend time doing, watching or consuming have created a hard outer shell around our vulnerable hearts. We’ve sinned – a lot. It has affected and shaped how we see life and deal with people.

In order to take away the mess, or walls and roadblocks, we have to submit ourselves to some construction. It hurts. Sometimes more than we think we can bear and we want to quit.

 Annie talks about this in her chapter titled “Quitter”. She says, 

“In fact, a little more than a year ago, 

I wrote in my journal, 

‘why can’t I quit hating myself?’…. 

which is almost funny 

considering I can quit everything else. 

And that question, the question I can’t quit 

about the hate I can’t quit is the one 

I’ve been trying to answer ever since”.

If you leave the process in the middle before the finished product, 1) you’ll never be fully healed, 2) You won’t experience all of what God has for you and 3) you’ll remain in some state of “broken crazy” as Annie calls it.

Looking for Lovely is the pointed act of looking for lovely things in and around you while going through the ugly. It is a motivator and also a balm. At the end of the chapters she gives a looking for lovely challenge of sorts. To get up and watch a sunrise, go to see a theater production or concert in a historic music hall, picking up a phone to call a friend and tell them the reality of your situation, buy a watermelon with black seeds and the list goes on. Read it and you’ll understand.

Towards the end, Annie talks about what happened on the other side of the “broken crazy”. How her perspective changes. She says:

“I feel like since I gave honest words to the broken crazy 

and started to get healthy around it, 

God has shown up and walked me into more healing 

than I even knew to ask for. 

And in it He is opening my eyes.”

For an eye opening, vulnerably honest, lovely book check out Looking for Lovely by Annie F. Downs.

That time when God chose prostitutes, adulteresses, and liars to be in Christ’s family line

Think of a time when you were totally baffled by God.

 How He used something or you, when He didn’t act how you wanted Him to, when His timing was so far from what you expected.

Everyone has these moments because scripture says that God’s ways are above our ways and His thoughts are not our thoughts. (Isaiah 55:8-9)

I was reading a scripture passage our pastor used in his sermon, and I was confused by it. Why on earth is this in scripture? It’s Genesis 38. It’s like this pause, a weird segue thing in the middle of the story of Joseph being sold into captivity by his brothers.

I prayed and asked God why this was in scripture. I wanted to understand.

As I read and re-read, I saw the little markings for the cross-referencing in the rest of scripture and that’s where I found my answer.

Just to offer a small recap of the story in Genesis 38, Judah, one of Joseph’s brother, has some sons. He gets a wife (Tamar) for the eldest son, and for reasons unspecified other than he was wicked, he dies prematurely before a family has been started. According to their culture, the next available brother was supposed to marry her and give her children on behalf of the deceased brother. Tamar went through 2 of Judah’s sons and they died because of wicked reasons, so Judah wouldn’t give her any other sons, and promised to marry her to one that was yet to grow up. Tamar went to live as a widow with her family until that boy grew up. She was never sought after by Judah as he promised. So Tamar decided to trick Judah into getting her pregnant (yes, her father-in-law) by posing as a prostitute…. clearly she knew he’d come after her because of past behavior. She not only tricked him but gained proof that it was him who impregnated her to protect herself from getting stoned. Later she gives birth to twin boys. Perez and Zerah.

If you are like me, you read stories like these and wonder what God is trying to say. I believe God. I believe what His word says is true. I also believe that everything in it is inspired and meant to be. So with that…. what do we do with this story?

The little cross-reference letters lead me to Ruth 4:12 and Matthew 1:3. Come to find out, Perez is directly in the line of…drum roll please…. Jesus! So this story of crazy deaths, lies, deception, prostitution, even incest… this baby named Perez is born and he’s a name in history that leads to Boaz, then later to King David…. And much later Joseph, the adoptive father of Jesus.

So just to be clear, the incredible acts that God goes to in the story of Jesus, outrageous choices of people to be used in the family line of His Anointed Son who becomes the Savior of the world is meant to teach us something. There’s only one of those things I am going to latch onto today. That thing is God uses anyone and everyone, and whomever He pleases.

YOU are not disqualified.

Here are some characters in Christ’s line:

Abraham- lied about having a wife twice, forced the promise from God about a son by sleeping with wife’s maid because he didn’t believe God’s timing (Genesis chapters 12, 16,20) 

Jacob- received his father’s blessing by trickery, cheating his brother out of his birthright, lied on a regular basis. (Genesis 27)  

Judah- his story is above. (Genesis 38) 

Rahab- prostitute turned spy-hider for the Israelite army, had a baby named Boaz. (Joshua 2)   

David the King-had a baby with Bathsheba (the one he committed adultery with and murdered her husband) named Solomon. (2 Samuel 11-12)  

Solomon- the man who was gifted with supernatural wisdom, disobeyed God and married lots of foreign women (700 to be exact) and they brought their foreign gods and idols with them into the kingdom. He built idols to them. (1 Kings 11)

There continued to be King after King that did not follow the Lord and would lead the whole country in disobedient idol worship and sacrifices. Many ordinary sinners and some very sordid tales. All this leads up to Joseph, to whom Mary is betrothed to. 

Yes, all of the lineage leads to Jesus’ adoptive father.

THAT is how God fulfills the prophecy that Christ would come from the line of King David!

This is why we read the boring genealogies. For these nuggets of amazing grace. These stories are real people like us that had real struggles, incredible disobedience, short spurts of doing the right thing then falling back into the sin pit.

What is the takeaway?

Just this- I know of a God in heaven who loves His wayward people so much and chooses in His sovereign way to use them. He allows us the privilege to get the experience of being used by Him. It’s a gift to us, it’s a grace. He doesn’t have to. He created everything by speaking it into existence in 6 days, why on earth would He need us for anything?

It’s because we are His beloved creation, made in His image, the apple of His eye, each and every one of us! He has been to the beginning of time and all the way to the end of time and back again, He knows all of time and knows our paths. He knows where He wants to use us, how He wants to bless us and exactly the moment that we’ll realize that we got to participate in His amazing story He’s writing. The story of us…mankind, His beloved that He sent Jesus to die for.

• So no matter who you are
• How small you feel
• How damaged you are
• The past actions of your life
• Or current disobedience you find yourself in

It’s not over! It’s not too late! God loves to use us because of the blessing it is for us! He cherishes you so much that He wants to see that moment when you have recognition of His love for you!

The other reason He uses us broken down humans is because it magnifies His glory that much more! We are here to bring Him glory and when He works through the broken clay pots that we are, it’s such a bright light that shines through the cracks in the pot that there is no other answer of what it is, but God!

So go read some genealogies and see if you can find someone that sounds a bit like you…. 

Checkout some inspiring authors today at http://purposefulfaith.com/

After Easter- How Christ's Resurrection Changed Everything!

After Easter ~ A Book Review

“A person’s depth of confidence in the gospel is reflected in how often he shares the gospel with others.”

What a profound statement! When I think about how often we all share things we are convicted about, like politics, raising kids, and other social issues, and compare how loudly and forcefully we share our thoughts but then when it comes to the gospel, the very message of Truth that can change a person’s eternity from hell to heaven…we pause…we second guess…we halt, cease and desist.

Sometimes we are worried about offending someone, sometimes it’s how they’ll feel about us after we share…or it’s just how confident we are in sharing the message. We might not know enough.

In the book, “After Easter” by Jeremy Royal Howard and Doug Powell, these questions are addressed as well as an excellent argument for factual evidence to build faith in the resurrection of Jesus Christ and what that should mean to us today.

This book is an outstanding tool for education, for a small group, or Sunday school. The book is divided into 7 chapters that discuss the resurrection and events afterwards. Each chapter ends with discussion questions that are thought provoking and convicting. The authors really get at the heart of belief in Christ, His resurrection and what do we do with this information.

It is chock full of scripture, and the last 25 pages are the full gospel of John. Besides a great study tool, it can be a witnessing tool and beginning to discipleship. It helps with understanding our sinful nature we are born with, especially with questions such as: “Do you think your sins are infinitely bad, or do you feel that they are understandable and God will overlook them? How does your view compare with the Bible’s view?”  

Later, the writers encourage us with the good news of 6 undisputed facts surrounding Christ’s death, burial and resurrection.

In the chapter entitled “Salvation through Faith”, the writers talk about how we identify “faith” and that “believing a lie doesn’t make it true, and truth is true even if no one believes it.” They hammer home that the gift of Salvation is an act of grace from a loving God, that we cannot do anything to earn it.

The authors remind us that “if we try to import our good acts into the equation, we are trying to make ourselves equal to (as good as) God. Nothing could be more futile.”

This book will encourage your heart and confirm beliefs! I highly recommend this book for witnessing, education, encouragement and to instruct others!

What do you Cherish?

“Instead of surviving relationships, why not cherish them?

I had the pleasure of reading Cherish by Vicki Courtney and 3 other contributing authors, Pam Gibbs, Susie Davis, and Whitney Prosperi

The book is written to primarily teen girls, but I found myself checking my own habits and thoughts on matters that she wrote about.

If you are the parent of a teen girl, you need this book!

Vicki separates the content into 5 categories and is written in a magazine style with great quizzes, quotes and pictures to keep you engaged.

All of the chapters are laced with scripture references and always directing the reader back to their own relationship with the Lord Jesus. 

The chapter on God has wonderful titles such as “What do you believe”, “Can you call something wrong?”, “Submitting to authorities”, and “Why are you here?”.

Vicki also includes a section in the back with scriptures to lead someone to Christ.

Along with relational help with friends, family, your world, guys and God she focuses on spiritual health and growth as the reader adopts the new patterns of relating, coping and cherishing the people in their lives.

Vicki weaves throughout the book the standard of scripture as the utmost guide on how to cherish earthly relationships as well as placing Christ on the throne of your heart.

I especially liked how the authors wrote about the relevant social issues our kids face such as attention seeking selfie-takers, gossipy girl drama, and blended family relationships. They also created charts, quizzes and lists to identify ways to recognize when others need help, cultivating relationships within the family walls, and who God says you are.

There is such great content and advice in this book and can be used as a reference guide for chartering the waters of teen years and into young adulthood as well. 

The voices in my head…..

How many voices are speaking to you right now? What’s pulling on you?

-How many views or likes you get on your social media posts?

-What your bank account looks like?

-Maybe its relational voices like peer influences in your life giving you advice and direction?

-Advertisements and sales.

-All of us are influenced by music. How many lyrics have you easily memorized over the years?

-Perhaps the voices that are loud to you right now are political or news worthy.

-Maybe…the voice is you. The self-talk we do in our heads. Be it strong and prideful or lowly and degrading,… or constantly comparing, we all have self-talk.

John 10:1-10 Jesus tells the story of the sheep and Shepherd. In verse 27 he says “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them and they follow me”. Jesus is the Good Shepherd and His followers are the 

sheep in the story.

Do you know the voice of the Shepherd? Could you pick it out among all the other voices swirling around like a hurricane? What does it sound like?

In John 14:6 Jesus says that he is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

This means that our Shepherd’s voice is the voice of Truth.

      Absolute Truth.

Not truth for you and truth for me, and we blow whatever way the wind blows and adapt and change and evolve. Absolute, 100% truth for life, for living and for all direction, the only standard!

So when you juggle all of the voices in your head from the world and from your own ideas and thoughts, where does Truth fit in?

Are you measuring all of your decisions and basing your thoughts about yourself off of what the world tells you or what absolute Truth tells you?

How do you know the voice of Truth and distinguish 

it from the others?

It is Scripture.

God’s Word is the living and active breath of God! It is just as relevant and applicable as it’s ever been, and the best thing about it is that it never changes!

God’s Word is Truth. John 1:1 says that Jesus himself is the Word. The spoken Word, the prophesied Word, the fulfilled Word and living Word!

In order to know the Word of Truth, you need to know scripture. Read it. It’s the only way you’ll ever distinguish God’s voice of Truth from all the other voices around you vying for your attention. They are not truth, they are a poor substitute, telling what you want to here and swaying you away from God’s Truth.

You’ll begin to know the difference because they clash, they are sometimes quite opposite from what we feel compelled to do.

~ We say I’ll hurt you because you hurt me….God’s Word says love our enemies and pray for those who persecute you. (Matt 5:44)

~ We say It’s what everyone watches on TV or listens to on the radio….. God’s Word says do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. (Rom. 12:1)

~ We say that admiration of someone turns to lust and we speak about how “hot” or “sexy” they are….God’s Word says that if you look after someone in lust you’ve already committed adultery in your heart. (Matt 5:28)

~ We say share online all the wonderful deeds you do…volunteering, giving to the poor, service work in other countries…just to “share” so others can see what you are up to….God’s Word says to do your charitable deeds in private or you will receive no reward from them. (Matt 6:1)

~ We say you should spend most of your life earning. Storing up wealth, using your money for you personally, making a fat retirement for yourself one day…God’s Word says Do not store up treasures on earth but rather treasures in heaven, For where your treasure is there your heart will be also!. (Matt 6:19-21)

~ We are so quick to judge! We speak about someone’s choices or behavior and execute judgement as though we have some right….God’s Word says that what measure you judge others that same measurement will be used on you…that we are to remove the plank from our own eye before trying to point out the speck in someone else’s. (Matt 7:1-5)

These are just some of the Truths you can find in scripture. I pulled most of them from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter 5-7.

As you can see we’ve wandered so far from the Shepherds voice of Truth, I’m not sure we could pick it out in a silent room because of all the influence in our own heads.

We pay such close attention to all the other voices and brush off like a crumb the voice of Truth.

It’s not popular, it’s not easy, and it’s so different from everyone else.

CORRECT! As I mentioned the verse above, Romans 12:2 says do not be conformed to this world. 

This means if you look like everyone else…You’re doing it wrong. 

Romans goes on to say that you need to be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

Time to put off the worlds voices and search out the voice of Truth.

Time to stand and be who we are called to be!

Lights in a dark world because we listen to THE voice of Truth!