Tag: God

God is in the Restoration Business

faith, grace, Life Lessons, Spiritual Growth

He breathes life into lifeless places. It doesn’t matter if it’s a relationship, your health, your emotions, your dreams…. He brings dry bones out of the grave and wraps them in flesh once more. He Restores the years you lost, the love you lost, the friends you lost, the faith you lost, the dreams you lost, the opportunities you lost.   Over and above what we can even think of or imagine. He makes all things new, again. If you let Him. If something in your life needs total restoration, read these promises below and be encouraged. He CAN do it. He HAS done it for others (including me). He WANTS to do it…

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Deserts

faith, Life Lessons, Spiritual Growth

Lately I’ve been feeling….dry. And by “lately” I mean for like the last 6 months. And by “dry” I mean a little dead on the inside. Spiritually. I have heard about spiritual desert seasons people go through. When they feel distant from God. And I’ve seen the cheesy church signs that say things like: “Feeling distant from God? Who moved – you or Him?” Thanks for that extra guilt and shame, church sign.  In a time when I already feel lost and confused. The fact of the matter is, I have been marching steadily toward the purpose and the mission to which God has called me. Not away from it or Him. So…

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You Make Me Brave

faith, Life Lessons, Success & Motivation

Jonathan Robert Willis *Photographer snapped this shot at the ‪#‎Unpolished2015‬ conference the moment he was asking me about my book, and i was telling him and his team about how i’m in the editing process now and how editing is WAY harder and more work than writing the book ever was! and then we laughed about it. what i love is that this expression captures so much of what 2015 was for me – that’s an overwhelmed laugh. it’s laughter lined with a layer of uncertainty because i actually had no idea what i was doing. being an author, publishing, speaking publicly…. i know it’s what I’m being called to, but it’s all…

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Hosanna in the Highest

faith

I’ve been spending quite a bit of time over the last month thinking about the upcoming holiday. Easter Sunday. Resurrection Day. I wanted to spend time really meditating on it, about the significance of it, and not just let it pass me by like any other Sunday, any other weekend, any other holiday. Mostly, I’ve been thinking about the week leading up to that day – this week– what some people call Holy Week, and others have aptly named Passion Week. I’ve been trying to imagine what would have been going through Jesus’ mind each day leading up to his betrayal, trial, and execution. Today, the first day of Passion Week, is called…

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The Believer’s Freedom

faith, freedom, grace, Life Lessons

I remember the first time I had a revelation about this verse it set me FREE: “Everything is permissible–but not everything is beneficial. Everything is permissible–but not everything is constructive.”  – I Corinthians 10:23 What Paul is saying is you can do anything you want, but not everything is going to make you happy, or satisfied, or peaceful, or prosperous. Especially with where I was in my life at that point, I needed to know I wasn’t being told “what not to do”, that I could make my own decisions and God would still love me and forgive me. What I needed at that time in my life was not more rules and…

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Discernment & Hearing Tim’s Voice

faith, Spiritual Growth

My friend Tim died suddenly. He was 35. I was with him two weeks prior, joking around, pushing, poking. Then his heart stopped beating and he was gone. I will never see him again on this earth. After his death, I was struggling with the decision of whether or not to attend his funeral or a Christian leadership conference that was coming up the same weekend.  We were going to be taking a friend with us to the conference who tried to commit suicide two weeks before.  As I contemplated the decision, weighing in my mind were things like being judged by other people for not going, and disappointing others if I decided…

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