Tag: grow

Do you re-read books?

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Do you re-read books?

I have a few I like to re-read.  These are part of my resources.  Books that speak over me and encourage me.

It goes without saying but just in case, the Bible is an irreplaceable resource for me.  It speaks to me and it amazes me how I can hear the same verse and depending on the day I hear it differently.  God speaks through His word and I believe He speaks through other’s too.

So while God is speaking to me through His word, He also comforts me through others words.  Books have been a comfort for me especially as I work through healing.

Abba’s Child by Brennan Manning was one of the first books that taught me I can come and sit at Jesus feet as is.  I can come to Jesus with all of my feelings that I’ve labeled good or bad.  I can come with my sin and sit at His feet and you know what He gave me in those moments, His love.  Deep gratitude began to grow in me towards God.

Then it was a few years and a lot of heartache later, God met me with the book Finding Spiritual Whitespace by Bonnie Gray and it rocked my world.  I was in counseling working through trauma and Bonnie’s words spoke over me so clearly.  The heart of her message was that I need “space/rest” for God to speak over my wounds.  She has been a kindred spirit and I am grateful for her words and how God to used them in my life.  She also wrote Whispers of Rest which is a continuation of how we get spiritual whitespace in our life.  This book really helped me reconnect with myself, because God wants to be with all of us not just part of us.

Finally, two books that are impacting my new year.  Try Softer by Aundi Kolber  and To Bless the Space Between Us by John O’Donohue.  If you need salve for a worn out soul, if you need comfort, if you need space to just breathe and know you are safe-these book hold that space for you.  They draw you back to God and renew a fresh perspective that is better.  It is better to try softer and not be so harsh with ourselves.  God is a God with compassionate love towards us.  I believe He wants us to experience this here and now.

These are some of my re-reads.  I will pick them up when I feel misunderstood and hurt.  I will pick them up when I need a pick me up.  I will pick them up when I need to know I’m not alone. These books break me out of that “stuck” feeling and help me become more curious.

What are you reading that is speaking to your heart?

Encouraging you in a new way?

 

Letting fear lead

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Most of my life, fear has lead.

Even after becoming a Christian in the seventh grade, I have journals of asking God to make me brave, to relieve my fears.

To no avail.

It was a way of life before I was a Christian and continued.  I wasn’t sure I was “saved” because this struggle seemed so deep. And a lot of my prayers and faith depended upon God answering these desperate pleas for freedom from fear.  I was asking God to take something away, but it was something that needed tended.

Maybe some of you are like me, I want all of the “how to-s” to do it the same way as so and so and be free of fear.  Because what I’ve always wanted most was that exact thing, freedom from fear, the end result, perfection, Heaven really.

With the help of my counselor, I can sit with my fears a little longer.  I can let them settle so I can see clearer.  Fear was a defense, a way of protection.  That is a correct connection.

There were areas of my life that needed defending.  Needed a voice.  A person to stand up and say I got this!

And His name is Jesus Christ.  When I listen to my greatest fears and hurts, I treat myself with kindness.  And then that kindness can flow out to others.  But the truth is if I sit just a second longer, Jesus, the Holy Spirit is able to come up and the whirlwind clears.

God is a whisperer, not a screamer.  If something within you is screaming by all means give notice, but you don’t have to respond immediately, unless your arm is falling off or something.  If there’s no blood, you got a few minutes to breath and see something different.

I read an article recently, and thought oh crap this is me right?, I have to fix this right now.  I can’t live this way.  (An old response.)  But once I sat a few minutes longer, I realized there was something for me to learn.  A piece for me to take away.

I can sit back and think.  Things are changing, slowly.  Progress is happening.

Fear might always be my knee jerk response, but my guess is it will become less and less my immediate response.  As long as I give it enough attention to listen, let it speak, and choose wisely.

Fear is a means of protection.  We shouldn’t go running into a fire, the fear of it hurting should be enough to stop us.  Fear is purposeful.  But sometimes it has grown so loud, it has drowned out all the other voices, like God’s.

This isn’t easy.  I still fail in this.  But in the failing is where I grow the deepest.  The “oh-yeah I forgot this doesn’t work anymore.”

So don’t let fear lead, not by ignoring it, but by giving it a seat at the table so it no longer has to yell like a toddler in your ear until you listen.

Let a trusted mentor/counselor walk through some of those fears.  Pray that God would show you something knew as you sit just a little while longer until the calm comes.

Patience

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“…in the good soil, they are those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience.” (Luke 8:15)

This gospel lived out is not fast-paced.  It can be, and might feel that way at first, but there’s a deepening, a patience as God slowly gets the junk out of our hearts so He can move in.  I think this is what it means to have a honest and good heart-it’s where He moves in.

This past week I cut down our myrtle tree.  It had a bug in it last summer and needed to be “pruned.”  I’m the worst gardener, I can’t grow much, but I did prune.  And three days later, after a good rain, our myrtle tree started blooming.  It might not be as big this year, but it will be healthy.  I will patiently watch it grow and flower this year.  Knowing next year it will grow and bloom even more.

In this passage, the person with fruit didn’t just produce it quickly but patiently, waiting, praying.

Patience, a word spread all throughout the Bible.  It is a word repeatedly coming to mind the past day.

What does patience look like in your life?

I realized that patience looks different sometimes for me, but with the same undertone. I lack patience with myself to grow and change, as well as with others.  I want things to be instantaneous.

I don’t think this impatience is necessarily wrong, but it is definitely misplaced.

God instantaneously changes us the moment we are saved.  He sees us as Jesus, His Beloved Son.  Healed.  Complete.  Whole.  Perfect.  Not because of anything we have done, but because who we now identify with.  We need Jesus, and as we confess that truth He comes and lives within us, and God sees us differently.  He knows who we are, and our salvation is complete in the One who can truly save us.

He sees us faultless.  

“To him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy.” (Jude 24)

As we live this life He is completely patient with us to realize who we are in Him.

Unbelievably patient.  Like we would have left us a long time ago.  But because He sees us as we truly are, He never quits.  Never doubts.  Never walks away.

He slowly, tenderly walks with us and helps us.  We’d be wise to ask for that help today, instead of trying to bulldoze our own path.  And maybe asking Him to help us be aware of the changes He’s already made in us.

Let Patient Love fall all over you today.