I have to remember that giving honor reveals more about my character than the character of the other person.
Making art provides uncomfortably accurate feedback about the gap that inevitably exists between what you intended to do, and what you did.
When Adam and Eve chose to sin, their sin infected and infiltrated the goodness of all God had made. So, while there are still good things in this world, the world is no longer a perfect reflection of God’s goodness.
We must feel the pain to heal the pain. If we never allow ourselves to feel it, we won’t acknowledge it’s there.
In a growth mindset, people believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work – brains and talent are just the starting point. This view creates a love of learning and a resilience that is essential for great accomplishment.3 I am fascinated by this research.
God is good. He is way more interested in developing our characters to match our calling than in manipulating our circumstances to make us happy.
Life doesn’t add up. People don’t add up. And in the rawest moments of honest hurting, God doesn’t add up. All of which makes us hold our trust ever so close to our chests until it becomes more tied to our fears than to our faith.
So the human heart was created in the context of the perfection of the garden of Eden. But we don’t live there now. This is why our instincts keep firing off the lie that perfection is possible. We have pictures of perfection etched into the very DNA of our souls.
Since Satan’s goal is to separate us from the Lord, this is exactly where he wants us to stay. But the minute we turn to His Word is the minute the gap between us and God is closed. He is always near. His Word is full and fully able to reach those deep places inside us desperate for truth.
It is possible to rise up, do battle with our issues, and, using the Lord’s strength in us, defeat them – spiritually, physically, and mentally – to the glory of God.
The space between our expectations and our reality is a fertile field, and it’s the perfect place to grow a bumper crop of disappointment.
Don’t we get into God’s Word so it can get into us? So that it can interrupt us, change us, satisfy us? How sad to simply settle for learning facts about the Bible when it was meant for so much more.
Have you ever dared to ask this? Have you ever dared to say to God, Lord, whatever Your will for my life is, that is what I want? Believing God is not for the weak at heart. It’s only for those who want to discover the rich blessings of walking close enough to God to hear the constant drumming of His heartbeat.
My body size is not tied to my happy. If my happy was missing when I was larger, it will still be missing when I get smaller.
But there was no response, no one answered, no one paid attention.” It’s a vivid picture and a strong warning, and the same response we’ll get whenever we try to get our fulfillment from a false god – from anyone or anything apart from the one true God.
People do affect us. But the peace of our souls is tethered to all that God is.
I don’t know what to say or how to say it.” So I said nothing. Not a word. I stuffed it all down and started to build a barrier to hide behind. After the incident, I smiled when I saw her, but I held her at a distance. She knew something was wrong, but when she questioned me about it, I lied. “Everything’s fine,” I said. But everything wasn’t fine. Not at all.
From that cracked-open-heart place, a God-breathed strength will rise. Rise.
I used my cravings for food as a prompting to pray. It was my way of tearing down the tower of impossibility before me and building something new. My tower of impossibility was food. Brick by brick, I imagined myself dismantling the food tower and using those same bricks to build a walkway of prayer, paving the way to victory.
I stuff because: I don’t feel safe enough to confront this person. I don’t have the energy or the time to get into a conflict right now. I don’t know how to address the issue. I don’t want to seem hypersensitive. I don’t want to get rejected. I don’t want to lose control. I don’t want to make things worse, so I convince myself I can just let it go.