Author: jamie

By Posted on Posted in hearing God, rest

At least a couple of times a week, I wake up around 3:00 AM. I usually wake with anxiety, suffocated by some issue pressing on my chest like a hundred-pound weight.

The anxiety is compounded with frustration at my sleep being broken again. How will I function tomorrow? I’ll never get back to sleep. Then my thoughts drift back to the issue I’m anxious about… kids, finances, short-comings, etc.

Not too long ago, I was on the hamster wheel of worry in the wee hours, running in endless circles. Then a thought broke in. Not my own thought of course… it was far too gentle for 3:00 AM to be mine. It had to be God.

Let me in.

I tried to make room for Him in my thoughts. The struggle to turn those worries into prayers finally way to sleep. In the morning when I made my way to the Word, He spoke to me. One of my favorite morning routines is to listen to scripture readings presented by a sweet sister in the Lord. (click here to listen.) God ministered to me through Psalm 24 as Summer read the passage to me three times.

 7Lift up your heads, you gates;
    be lifted up, you ancient doors,
    that the King of glory may come in.
8 Who is this King of glory?
    The Lord strong and mighty,
    the Lord mighty in battle.
9 Lift up your heads, you gates;
    lift them up, you ancient doors,
    that the King of glory may come in.
10 Who is he, this King of glory?
    The Lord Almighty—
    he is the King of glory.

As I listened, His personal word to me came through with great affection:

Your defenses are low at 3:00 AM. I let your anxiety rise from where you’ve buried it, so I can address it. Your heart is open and laid bare at that moment. Your choice is to wrestle the anxiety OR to let me in and minister to your heart. Will you close your heart to Me, or let the King of Glory come in?

Just talk to Me. Tell me your feelings and worries. Let Me comfort you and sort your feelings out for you. Let Me guide you and show you what to do. Instead of resenting the insomnia and trying to silence the anxiety, just welcome Me in and let Me help you. Embrace the moment and in no time you will be back to sleep.

Resist the urge to wrestle, to solve, to rehash or rehearse. Perhaps if you hand things to me, I may whisper answers and wisdom to you at 3:00 AM.

It’s not insomnia. It’s an invitation.

Dear friend, recognize it as an invitation to trust Him, to lay your burdens down. It’s an invitation to rest and be at peace in His presence. Let Him in.

From the archives: originally posted August 21, 2017

By Posted on Posted in newsletter

 a note from your heavenly father

Beloved,

I am compassionate and merciful.  When you cross the lines of sin, I am patient with you. When you struggle against Me, I stay with you—guiding, convicting, and transforming you through My spirit.

I do not constantly criticize you, nor do I hold a grudge.

I do not punish you for your sins as you might deserve. In my mercy, I temper justice with peace.

Can you measure how high heaven is above the earth? My wide, loving, kind heart is greater than that. Especially for those who trust in me.

You see, I take all your sins and failures—and I remove them.  As far as the east is from the west, that’s how far I remove them from you.

A good earthly father expresses love for his children; it is no different with me, your heavenly Father;

I show my love and compassion to you.

For I know what you are made of; I know your frame is frail, and I remember that you came from dust. But you are mine, and I love you.

Psalm 103:8-13 inspired by the Voice version, written from the Lord’s perspective.

 

By Posted on Posted in newsletter

>>>”What’s keeping you from the heart of God?” series

A few weeks ago I started a series on Instagram and Facebook about the barriers that keep us from feeling close to God. So far I’ve shared videos about three things that cause us to feel far from the Lord:

The first thing that comes to mind when I ask the question, “What is keeping you from the heart of God?” is some form of shame. Many of us have core beliefs about ourselves that are rooted in shame. Deep down, we might think that we aren’t good enough for God.  We’ve been taught that our sin separates us from God, which is why Jesus went to the cross… but I think we hang onto this idea that every time we sin or fail to do certain things, it separates us from God again. This is not true! The Holy Spirit dwells in us, so there is never any distance between you and God. Shame causes us to be disconnected from the awareness of His presence, but this awareness can be renewed by calling out to Him.

The second thing that I think causes us to feel far from God is that we do not have enough experiential knowledge of the love of God. Remember in Eph 3:14-19 when Pauls prays for the people to experience the width and length and depth and height of Christ’s love? He says that the result of this deeper revelation of His love results in being filled with all the fullness of God. To experience Him more, we need to understand his love! We know about his love, and we can preach it to others, but when it comes down to it, we think His love has limits, don’t we? We aren’t “fully convinced” of his love. But we can ask for a tangible revelation of His love.

The third thing that I think causes us to feel far from God would be old hurts that we hold against him. Maybe we don’t outright blame God, but we don’t understand why He didn’t prevent some of the painful things in our lives from happening. This affects our ability to trust Him and open our hearts to him.  When working through my own hurts, I found two things very helpful. First, someone counseled me to ask God, “Where were you when this happened?” It took some time, but the Holy Spirit gave me eyes to see Jesus in some of the most wounding moments of my life.  This started me on a quest of asking the Lord what I call “the hard questions”. I found Psalm 77, where the writer poses several hard inquiries to the Lord and this confirmed that God wanted me to wrestle out these questions with him.  The other thing that helped me was recognizing that God has given us free will. Though he tries to guide me and you, he does not outright stop us from sinning against him or anyone else. I had to come to terms with the fact that he gave free will to the people who hurt me. If you want to understand God’s role in your hurts, it’s ok to ask Him hard questions .

I will be sharing two more barriers in this series! Check out Instagram or Facebook over the next two weeks.