When you feed negativity on the inside, it’s negativity that you’ll exude on the outside.
God’s promises aren’t just for certain people at a certain low point. His hope extends into any and every size pit or pothole.
Imagine how differently you might approach each day by simply stating: God is good. God is good to me. God is good at being God. And today is yet another page in our great love story. Nothing that happens to you today will change that or even alter it in the slightest way.
The Bible reminds us that on the other side of humility we find wisdom.
And so was this. These words – “Not in my presence will you talk about yourself in this way” – they don’t brush off easily. Nor should they. Sometimes a phrase lands in your soul with such weight it leaves the deepest impression. I collect these phrases like other people collect stamps and Beanie Babies. I fill the unlined pages of notebooks from Walmart with these phrases. These words that move me are treasures.
The emptiness in your heart because that person you love doesn’t seek to really understand you, rarely cheers you on, and doesn’t seem to want to connect intimately with you.
The more fully we invite God in, the less we will feel uninvited by others.
Which has really gotten me thinking about all the many times I assign thoughts to others that they never actually think. I hold them accountable to harsh judgments they never make. And I own a rejection from them they never gave me.
Numb souls are never growing souls.
Pain is the sensation that indicates a transformation is needed.
God isn’t ever going to forsake you, but He will go to great lengths to remake you.
If our souls never ached with disappointments and disillusionments, we’d never fully admit and submit to our need for God. If we weren’t ever shattered we’d never know the glorious touch of the Potter making something glorious out of dust, out of us.
Lord, what will fix this? What will take away this feeling that I’m going to be stuck in seasons of darkness the rest of my life?” Three words popped into my mind: Turn to Me.
God will lead us, comfort us, guide us, walk with us, prepare the best for us, and continue filling us with such lavishness that we’re not just full but overflowing.
Remember: what consumes us, controls us. As.
Our minds and hearts are like dry sponges. What we focus on is what will soak in and saturate us. If it is something foolish, we will make foolish decisions. If it is wise, we will make wise decisions.
To live is to love. To love is to risk pain. To risk pain is to live. It’s what it means to truly be human. As fragile as dust. The breaking of us. The making of us. The building up of our faith.
The Devil wants me to fill my emptiness with an unhealthy dependence on the acceptance of others. Because then he can get me so focused on the shallow opinions of others I get completely distracted from deepening my relationship with Christ.
And the gaping hole left behind is in some ways worse than death. If their absence was caused by death, you would grieve their loss. But when their absence is caused by rejection, you not only grieve their loss but you also have to wrestle through the fact that they wanted this.
My ability to heal cannot be conditional on them wanting my forgiveness but only on my willingness to give it.