Category: 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.

 

The question that changed my prayer life

We are encouraged to come to God with whatever is on our minds. On a typical day, I ask Him to take care of issues with my family members and friends. I ask Him to help me with whatever I am personally facing and pray about the areas I need to grow in. As people and situations cross my mind throughout the day, I pray for those too.

One day, about 10 years ago, God posed a question to me that dramatically changed my prayer life and my view of prayer:

Why do you ask Me in prayer to do things that I am already doing?

I stopped in my tracks. Why would I ask Him to do something He’s already doing? Was it because I feared He would forget? Or because He wouldn’t think of something in particular if I didn’t suggest it?

His question wasn’t a condemnation of my prayer life; simply a call to be more thoughtful about what I was praying.

At first, I struggled with what to say. It seemed like every request that came out of my mouth was something He was already doing. It pushed me to go deeper, to think more about what I was praying, and why.

I started changing my prayers from things like, “Lord, speak to me,” to “Lord, help me to hear what You’re already communicating to me.”

I caught myself praying, “Lord, protect my loved one,” and changed it to, “Lord, remind my loved one of Your ongoing protection and help them to fully trust in You.”

I began to pause for a moment before praying to think about what I already knew God was doing— based on His promises and how I could see Him working. Then I considered how I might support His work in prayer. I started praying more for eyes to be opened, for hearts to be soft and willing, and for awareness to be opened to the reality of God’s presence and His action in our lives.

I began pausing and asking if there was something in particular that God wanted me to pray. Imagine asking God what I should pray for myself! I could more fully participate in my own growth and transformation. Imagine asking God what I should pray for my loved ones! I could gain insight into their needs and their personal growth and better support them.

Prayer is not a one-sided conversation. Let’s slow down and see what He is saying to us and let that shape what we say to Him.

 

The Most Important Lesson in Psalm 23

While many of us know Psalm 23 by heart, we often overlook the deep treasures hidden in this passage. Perhaps the most important lesson in these familiar verses is hiding in plain sight. 

I discovered it when the Holy Spirit whispered, “Look at the verbs”. Then another suggestion, “Look at who is performing the action of the verbs”. 

What a revelation! When I considered the balance of these actions and responsibilities, they nearly all belonged to the Shepherd, not the sheep. That certainly didn’t represent how my life was playing out. I had been assigning all of the verbs to myself, feeling responsible for everything. 

The shepherd by nature provides, leads, restores, guides, comforts, prepares, and anoints.

And the sheep? They want for nothing. They lie down and rest. They trust. They receive a bounty from the Shepherd’s table. They are anointed and dwell with the Shepherd forever. 

We can’t get around this truth: we are meant to receive and abide far more than we are meant to do and achieve. 

Take a look at the verbs in Psalm 23 and the verbs in your own life. What can you learn from the balance of responsibilities in these beloved verses? 

There are more insights from Psalm 23 in my devotional book “Come Hear the Song of the Shepherd”. Click here to see my book on Amazon