Tag Archives: Easter

Planting and Watering Little Sprouts of Faith

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Growing 2

Planting and Watering Little Sprouts of Faith | Gift 25 | 40 Gifts of Lent 

Reflections on I Corinthians 1 – 8

It’s not the one who plants or the one who waters who is at the center of this process but God, who makes things grow  I Corinthians 3: 6 – 7 (MSG)

I finally have a garden. It has taken several years of nurturing the soil and ridding the ground of overbearing thistles with prickly thorns and tap roots very difficult to pull up out of the ground. I had to work hard and steady week after week, staying focused on the vision I had for the garden, to prepare the soil for new growth. Seeing the fruit of my hard work is quite rewarding, seeing God’s handiwork in every glorious bloom.

I Corinthians 3: 6-7 is another gift of hope that I treasure because I am reminded how faithful God has been to our family. There were months and years when our children looked like they were growing thorny thistles with a tap-root trying to choke their faith. My husband and I fought against the fatigue of constantly pulling out the weeds in their lives, turning over the soil once more and planting seeds once again…not to lose sight of the vision we had for our children to produce a righteous fruit, to grow and thrive in their faith in God, by grace alone.

Parenting is the hardest thing you’ll ever do and the more you love your kids, the harder it is. You already realize how much time is involved with planting truth into your kids and to continually fuel their faith but have you considered how much prayer is vital to their spiritual growth?

In the book, Praying Circles Around Your Children, author Mark Batterson exhorts us with a metaphor of praying circles around our children. It simply means “to pray without ceasing.” It’s praying until God answers. It’s praying with more intensity, more tenacity. It’s not just praying for, it’s praying through. [1] That’s when you’ll see the thistles and tap roots of sin in your children’s life replaced with new life mirroring Christ. It’s a beautiful garden!

Praying for our kids strengthened our resolve to stay focused on the vision for them. With your physical eyes, you see who a person is. With your spiritual eyes you see what a person can be. [1]

What vision do you have for your children? What does the garden look like in your home? Planting and watering is knowing your children and knowing scripture so that you can train them in the way they should go. Pray that they won’t just survive but pray that they will thrive. [1] Your family garden will thrive when you saturate your life with God’s word. Read God’s book so you will know what to teach your children and what to pray for your children.

Don’t just pray for them, pray with them. Praying for your kids is like taking them for a ride; praying with your kids is like teaching them to drive. [1] Repeat words from God’s book to your children. Pray those words together. Repeat them over and over again. Your prayer is for your children to use God’s word as their GPS to guide their way.

I remember the exciting days watching our children grow strong in their love for God and the exciting day when they became the drivers of their own children’s faith. Planting and watering little sprouts of faith in the tender hearts of their daughters and young sons.

The effect of planting is faith. The effect of watering is faith. But the decisive cause of faith — the life and growth of little sprouts of faith — is not planting and watering, but God.

 Rise during the night and cry out. Pour out your hearts like water to the Lord. Lift up your hands to him in prayer, pleading for your children.  (Lamentations 2:19)

Growing

[1] Praying Circles Around Your Children by Mark Batterson 

 

Three Things to Do When the Pain Won’t Quit

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Romans 12:12

Three Things to Do When the Pain Won’t Quit

Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Romans 12:12 (NIV)

I once wrote about the rough edges of a smooth life. I remember a chaotic and exhausted feeling from fighting a never-ending bout of nerve pain. I had to make an active choice to be joyful because choosing to be joyful while enduring serious pain is not a natural tendency for any of us. It was not easy to do. It required a lot of perseverance and clinging to hope. Not just the hope that this would end “right now!” but a deeper hope that all of this painful mess was designed for a greater good.

The more I focused on finding joy outside of myself and focusing on the presence of God, hope became a vibrant reality. This new-found hope is strengthening my patience to endure a little longer. One day at time…just a little longer, to be patient with this interruption in life named affliction.

So two of the things to do when the pain won’t stop is to be joyful in hope and patient in affliction. The third is to be faithful in prayer.

I’m not joyful and I’m not patient unless I am faithful in prayer. I don’t want to settle for mere relief when God is offering all of himself. It’s because of this relentless discomfort that I am praying more. Not just praying for myself but for family, friends, for people I haven’t met yet, for the city I live in, for the church where I worship and serve, and for the community of relationships I have across the world serving in Haiti, Togo, Mexico, the Ukraine, Thailand, the Philippines, Belarus, Indonesia, Uganda…I know there are more. This is becoming a worship experience during the very early hours of morning when the sky is still dark and everyone else is sleeping.

Three things to do…and all three are gifts from God, comforting us in our heart-of-hearts, giving us much more than better circumstances.

Be joyful in hope
Be patient in affliction
Be faithful in prayer

Romans 12:12 2

A Staggering Promise

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A Staggering Promise |40 Gifts of Lent | Gift 23

Reflections on Romans 1 – 8

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.  Romans 8:28 (ESV)

There is a promise written above. It is staggering in size and should fill a searching heart with answers and real hope. Read it again and let it sink deep into your mind. There are two words that jump off the page when I consider this promise. Two words: all things.

All things mean all things. All things mean the good, the bad, the horrible, the wonderful, the tragic, the beautiful, the painful, and everything else.

The infinitely wise, infinitely powerful God pledges to make everything beneficial to his people. [1] From where we stand, we can’t see whether it’s something good or bad. All we can see is that God’s sovereign and He is always good, working all things for good. [2]

Once you walk through the door of love into the massive, unshakable structure of Romans 8:28 everything changes. The crashing and burning and just plain running out of gas may be what is needed for your roots of faith to dig deeper into this promise. There comes into your life stability and depth and freedom. You simply can’t be blown over any more. The confidence that a sovereign God governs for your good all the pain and all the pleasure that you will ever experience is an absolutely incomparable refuge and security and hope and power in your life. [3]

Whatever You may do, I will thank You.
I am ready for all; I accept all.
Let only Your will be done in me…
And I’ll ask for nothing else, my Lord.
~Charles de Foucauld

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[1] John Piper  [2] Ann Voskamp  [3]  Adapted from personal journal notes of a sermon by John Piper. Also, the comment, “crashing and burning and just plain running out of gas” is a quote I recall from reading the book, Stitches by Anne Lamott

About 40 Gifts of Lent 

I am anticipating the arrival of Easter and celebrating the most amazingly good gift I’ve ever received. I want to focus my heart on the fulfilled expectation of Christ’s first coming and the glorious expectation of His second coming. To continue reading, please go here: 40 Gifts of Lent

#LentChallenge

Surprised to Be Loved |Sunday Respite | 40 Gifts of Lent 2014

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From the Sky to the Sea

Surprised to Be Loved | Sunday Respite | 40 Gifts of Lent 

But me he caught—reached all the way
from sky to sea; he pulled me out
Of that ocean of hate, that enemy chaos,
the void in which I was drowning.
They hit me when I was down,
but God stuck by me.
He stood me up on a wide-open field;
I stood there saved—surprised to be loved!
Psalm 18:16 – 19 (The Message)

Sunday Respite 3

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SUNDAY STILLNESS

Scripture and Snapshot

About 40 Gifts of Lent

I am anticipating the arrival of Easter and celebrating the most amazingly good gift I’ve ever received. I want to focus my heart on the fulfilled expectation of Christ’s first coming and the glorious expectation of His second coming. To continue reading, please go here: 40 Gifts of Lent 

#LentChallenge

Ask the Big Question

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Ask the Big Question 1

Ask the Big Question

40 Gifts of Lent | Gift 22
Reflections on Acts 24 – end

Then I heard a voice in Hebrew: “Saul, Saul, why are you out to get me? Why do you insist on going against the grain?” I said, “Who are you, Master?” The voice answered, “I am Jesus, the One you’re hunting down like an animal. But now, up on your feet—I have a job for you. I’ve handpicked you to be a servant and witness to what’s happened today, and to what I am going to show you”  Acts 26: 12 – 16 The Message

I think the biggest question I’ve ever asked God to answer is, “Who are you?” I often think I know who he is, but truthfully, I don’t know what I don’t know.

I forget to ask God, “Who are you?” when life is moving steadily by at a happy rhythm with no interruptions. It’s those “life interruptions”…those “stepping off a cliff interruptions” that shake up my thinking to ask God the big question, “Who are you?” I would like to say that I’m a brave person, able to face any challenge, but I’m actually afraid to face the unknown. The interruptions in life bring me to my knees. [1] I read once that you’ll never treat the darkness as something strange until your eyes are opened to the light. I’m asking to see more of his light. I’m asking God for his help to stop fighting against his will.

I am asking God to answer the big question…I’m asking for a life-change of deeper faith, a faith that is not just something I do with my brain (head knowledge) but the way that I live my life. Throughout life, our faith must grow. We start with a small faith, but as we live the Christian life our faith becomes stronger, enabling us to trust God more and more. [1]

Ask the big question of God and he will reveal who he is through his son, Jesus…and then you will get up and go and press on through his strength and grace.

In Christ there is grace to sustain for every need, grace to empower every deed. There is the grace to forgive all of our sins and the grace to impute to us his perfect righteousness. There is the grace to absorb the wrath of God we were due and the grace to conquer the sin and death we could not escape. There is grace to live and grace to die. There is grace to crawl and grace to fly. There is grace below and grace up high.

In Christ, there is grace to get through the stinkin’ day. And whether we do so by the skin of our teeth or bounding and leaping with joy upon joy, our souls are united to him day by day and age to age. Because his fullness does not afford a meager grace, a probationary grace, a tentative grace. For from his fullness we have all received grace upon grace. [2]

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[1] To Count it All Joy is a Real Life-Change, Donna Harris, More Grace  | [2] All of Christ for All of Life, Jared C. Wilson, The Gospel Coalition Blog

About 40 Gifts of Lent 

I am anticipating the arrival of Easter and celebrating the most amazingly good gift I’ve ever received. I want to focus my heart on the fulfilled expectation of Christ’s first coming and the glorious expectation of His second coming. To continue reading, please go here: 40 Gifts of Lent

#LentChallenge
Sandra Heska King - Still Saturday

More Blessed to Give

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More Blessed to Give

40 Gifts of Lent | Gift 21

Reflections on Acts 18 – 23

In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’

And when he had said these things, he knelt down and prayed with them all. And there was much weeping on the part of all; they embraced Paul and kissed him, being sorrowful most of all because of the word he had spoken, that they would not see his face again.   Acts 20: 35 – 38

Here he is, telling his friends goodbye and reminding them to remember how Jesus lived his life…a life of giving the ultimate sacrifice for others. For you see, this man, Paul, especially knows what’s it like to receive a gift. He is a living testimony of how much the King of Kings gave to him. He was rescued while traveling on a road towards  murder and mayhem. He was already blind in darkness before the righteous blinding of God’s redeeming grace slayed his soul to its knees. He didn’t ask for this grace…he didn’t know that he needed to be rescued. He would not have chosen to see the way of Christ on his own, he would not have asked for the gift of grace on his own…so God chose him to receive it. And now because he has experienced the reality of being rescued with pure glorious light that broke into his darkness, he is truly free to give and give and give some more.

Don’t you see? It’s because we have received much that we are able to give much!

Blessed to Give 1

About 40 Gifts of Lent 

I am anticipating the arrival of Easter and celebrating the most amazingly good gift I’ve ever received. I want to focus my heart on the fulfilled expectation of Christ’s first coming and the glorious expectation of His second coming. To continue reading, please go here: 40 Gifts of Lent

#LentChallenge

The Reality of a GodQuake

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Rejoiced with his household 2

The Reality of a GodQuake

40 Gifts of Lent | Gift 20

Reflections on Acts 12 – 17

And when they had inflicted many blows upon [Paul and Silas], they threw them into prison, ordering the jailer to keep them safely. Having received this order, he put them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks. About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them, and suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken. And immediately all the doors were opened, and everyone’s bonds were unfastened. Acts 16: 23 – 26

Our agenda apart from God is to have a very safe, tidy little life. God says, “Sacrifice your individual needs for me and my glory!” When God comes into our life, things give way to his glory. Instead of you fitting God into your agenda, he becomes your agenda. He radically changes your priorities.  The reality of God supersedes the most frightening, dark and difficult situation to a place of singing and worshipping him.

When the jailer woke and saw that the prison doors were open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped. Acts 16: 27

Every single person who has met God knows of a time when God went from being a concept into being a reality. There’s always an earthquake when God comes down in the Bible because God’s glory is ultimate. God’s reality shakes everything.

But Paul cried with a loud voice, “Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.” And the jailer called for lights and rushed in, and trembling with fear he fell down before Paul and Silas. Then he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” Acts 16: 28 – 31

When you get into the presence of the real God, things that you believe very deeply will change, because He’s more glorious than you. God will rearrange everything in your life, as he did in the jailer’s life, to reveal his glory to you. Like the jailer, we cannot deny the reality of a God quake when he moves in our hearts and calls us into his grace.

And they (Paul and Silas) spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. And he (the jailer) took them the same hour of the night and washed their wounds; and he was baptized at once, he and all his family. Then he brought them up into his house and set food before them. And he rejoiced along with his entire household that he had believed in God. Acts 16: 32 – 34

The gift is being rescued from a shattered and splintered life into a life of overwhelming peace and joy…the reality of a Godquake.

My personal journal notes from a podcast by Tim Keller, The Gospel and Your Self, was used for this post.

About 40 Gifts of Lent 

I am anticipating the arrival of Easter and celebrating the most amazingly good gift I’ve ever received. I want to focus my heart on the fulfilled expectation of Christ’s first coming and the glorious expectation of His second coming. To continue reading, please go here: 40 Gifts of Lent

#LentChallenge
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Share Good News

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Share Good News

40 Gifts of Lent | Gift 19

Reflections on Acts 7 – 11

So Philip ran to [the Ethiopian] and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” And he said, “How can I, unless someone guides me?”  Acts 8:30, 31,and 35

“Do you understand what you are reading?” No, I do not always understand. I’m thankful for the wisdom of others to teach me and guide me with understanding of timeless truths.  For years, my husband and I have been “joined at the hip” with a group of friends in a Life Group…where we live life together, work through our messes together, and explore the Word of God together. We take turns meeting in each other’s home. We laugh a lot, we eat a lot, and sometimes we need to cry on each other’s shoulder.  It’s a beautiful thing to have friends share good news, the gospel grace, each time we meet. The good news they share flows from them quite naturally and refreshingly so.

I recently read an interesting comment by Trevin Wax about the distinction between “sink Christians” and “faucet Christians.” Sink Christians, he says, view salvation as something to soak up. It fills the sink and they soak in the benefits (heaven, peace, Jesus, etc.). Faucet Christians see salvation as something that comes to them in order to flow out through them to the rest of the world as a blessing to others, as a pipe carries water from its source to a parched land. I like that!

I like to think of the ones investing in my life as “faucet Christians”…pouring on the grace with patience, having a casual conversation to explain the scriptures, much like Philip did with the new friend he met on a dusty desert road.

…Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with this Scripture he told him the good news about Jesus.
“Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter
and like a lamb before its shearer is silent,
so he opens not his mouth.
In his humiliation justice was denied him.
Who can describe his generation?
For his life is taken away from the earth.”
Acts 8: 32 – 35

Good things happen when God is involved in our casual conversations…

“And as they were going along the road they came to some water, and the [Ethiopian] said, “See, here is water! What prevents me from being baptized?” And he commanded the chariot to stop, and they both went down into the water, Philip and the [Ethiopian], and he baptized him. Acts 8: 36 – 38 

We have much to talk about. Much to rejoice about! The season of Lent is not all sweetness and light, and the story we will remember in a couple of weeks is full of violence and cruelty. But in the midst of it all, there is the undercurrent of beauty and the triumph of Hope in the distance. And this is what we celebrate! [1]

Share good news!

“…and [the Ethiopian] went on his way rejoicing.” Acts 8:39

[1] A quote from my friend, Amy Frank | The Celebration Project | Beauty and Ashes 

Good News to Share 1

About 40 Gifts of Lent 

I am anticipating the arrival of Easter and celebrating the most amazingly good gift I’ve ever received. I want to focus my heart on the fulfilled expectation of Christ’s first coming and the glorious expectation of His second coming. To continue reading, please go here: 40 Gifts of Lent

#LentChallenge
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