God Desires Our Obedience and Not Our Help

What if full obedience to God means we stop offering Him our help?

Mama, can I help you make the cookies?

Mimi, I want to help you!

When my kids were little, they wanted to help bake sweet treats and sometimes even clean (that changed after a few years).

Now, my grandchildren find pleasure in helping for various tasks. And we always have little helpers to take our dogs outside on leashes.

While there are times I’d prefer to do these things myself for the sake of time and so I control the end result, how the cookies look and taste or how the bed is made, I enjoy helpers.

But my heavenly Father never requests my help or desires my assistance. Still, I often pray with a Plan A and Plan B written on my heart and under my breath, hoping the Lord reads between the lines unless I’m bold enough to say it out loud.

Writing these words and admitting them seems a bit ridiculous on my part. Because who am I to give help to the great I AM?

God’s Helper

Yet, I know in my heart, I want to be the Father’s little helper. It’s seen in my actions, attempts at controlling my own life and circumstances and in my lack of full obedience to God’s Word.

I know this to be true, but I struggle with breaking the helping-and-controlling cycle.

Are you used to having control? Do you jump in to fix a situation in your life or a family member instead of patiently waiting on the Almighty God? 

Truth is, sometimes we strive to manipulate the outcome of our circumstances and perhaps the people in our lives. Even our Christian walk and full obedience to God may become things to control.

When we know the Lord is high and lifted up, sitting on a glorious throne and managing the details of our lives from heavenly places, trying to help only affects our greater good and best outcome.

Let’s look at what the Bible has to say about it.

Obedience for Our Wellness

“But this command I gave them: ‘Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people. And walk in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you.’” Jeremiah 7:23 (ESV, emphasis added)

Worshiping God: More Than Music and Church

What does worshiping God look like in our daily life? How can we worship the Lord with our life?

Because we often limit worship to church services.

We went to worship this morning. Join us Sunday for worship.

Or worship becomes about music intended to lead us into God’s presence. These are both good, good things.

Gathering with the family of God for corporate worship is biblical and powerful. And anointed music that speaks directly to our hearts, carrying us before God’s throne room in awe? It helps our soul and points us to the Holy One.

But do we realize the Almighty is worthy of our daily worship?

Are we faithful to give Him praise and thanksgiving every day, not just on Sundays and special holidays?  

Do we offer ourselves as a living sacrifice, an act of spiritual worship? (Romans 12:1).

Because it’s easy to allow the world and the enemy to distract us from worship in our daily lives. Instead, our hearts worship our desires and ways, and what the world has to offer. 

We may give our life as worship to people, things, self-worship, fame or fortune.

So let’s look at some ways to worship God in daily life.

Worshiping God: the Creator

All of creation shows us how to worship the Creator. It’s simply recognizing the beauty surrounding us.

Every time we gaze at a sunset, see a glimmer of light shining through the window, stand in awe at the twinkling of stars or the ebb and flow of the ocean, and admire the autumn foliage, let it remind us, all of creation worships our glorious God.

Worship the Creator, not His created beings.

Worship Through Holiness

How the Lord’s Prayer Helps Us Resemble Jesus

Who do you resemble?

Were you the spitting image of your mother or father at birth, as a child, or now? 

Maybe there’s a resemblance to both parents or not to either one. 

Perhaps people think you resemble someone else. 

As a twin, my sister is always someone I resemble.

Besides physical attributes, there’s another way we resemble someone—in character.

To grow to resemble Jesus is one of the most important aspects of Christianity. But if we miss this, we miss the purest meaning for CHRISTian.

Yet, how do Christians look like Christ?

After our spiritual birth, is there a way to really grow to resemble Jesus?

In Matthew 6, Christ seizes an opportunity to teach His disciples and listeners how to pray. While the prayer, line-by-line, is beautiful and powerful, we make other discoveries in the text. 

It showcases who God is. And we uncover the mission of Jesus. Still further, it reveals how to look more like Jesus Christ.

The Lord’s Prayer

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

(Matthew 6:9-13)

How to resemble Jesus through the Lord’s prayer:

1.) Jesus recognized His Father’s holiness.

Learning From the Greatest Leader in History

A substantial part of the success of institutions rises and falls on its leadership.

Entities like countries, teams, companies, families, non-profits, and churches.

And sometimes even in our own individual lives when we need leading for direction, purpose, goals, dreams, vocations, talents, and so on.

So, as with any other position or title, leaders come in many shapes and sizes. 

There are average leaders, good leaders, not-so-good leaders, and great leaders.

But there’s no category for perfect ones. Because no one’s without faults and downfalls—with one exception.

Greatest Leader Who Ever Lived

Only one leader in history was perfect. The greatest leader of all time.

He painted a picture of leadership we haven’t seen on the canvas of another human since.

Look at some of His leadership qualities: 

• wise
• kind
• humble
• gracious
• merciful 
• servant
• sinless
• above reproach 
• no evil dwelled in Him

His name? Jesus Christ. The Son of God. The King of kings and Lord of lords.

Servant Leadership by the Greatest Leader

Do We Overlook Our Family in Kingdom Work?

How can I pray for you?

How can I help you?

My roles often prompt me to ask these two questions of others, especially other women.

This includes life roles and callings in both the past or present. Like pastor’s wife, youth pastor’s wife, women’s leader, mentor, Christian writer, blogger, and speaker.

Asking how to pray and help someone for mentoring, a conversation, hard circumstances, a Bible study, small group, a stranger in need, or simply talking with a friend fosters a connection unlike any other.

Prayer is one of the greatest gifts we give someone.

And offering real, authentic, and tangible help?

It’s what few are willing to do.

But what about my family and yours?

Do we overlook the people right in front of us in need of prayer and help?

First and foremost, those under our roof, our husband and children. And adult children who already left home. Yet it also includes siblings, parents, grandchildren, in-laws and possibly other extended family.

Let’s consider some examples of how we flesh this out in real life.

Overlook or ask our spouse how we can pray for them.

5 Ways to Center Our Marriage in Jesus

Our greatest hope in marriage is to center it in Jesus.

My love story with Christ began when I was sixteen as I gave my life and heart to Jesus.

Then, my love story with my husband, Mike, began when I was twenty. He heard me share my Jesus story at a college event. We were also in a sociology class together, Marriage and Family. I know—crazy!

Since we were both Christians, we became friends. After a few months, we went on our first date and dated over the next three years. We had a long engagement before we said, “I do.”

But there’s one thing I’ve learned in marriage over the years. The only thing that gives marriage real hope is to center it in Jesus Christ.

When we accept Jesus as Savior, He desires we center every area of our lives in Him. So it makes good spiritual and biblical sense to keep Jesus center in our marriage too.

Here are 5 ways to keep Jesus center in our marriage.

(1.) Run to Christ for deep and wide and high love.

Jesus Christ is the only source of authentic love. We may know this truth, but we often forget to go to the source of real love. And then we find ourselves looking to other things, especially our spouse, for what only Jesus provides.

Going to Jesus helps us live satisfied with love from our Savior. The love in our marriage becomes a by-product of a much deeper and more authentic love.

“May have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” Ephesians 3:18-19 (NIV)

When Wit’s End is Not the End: Real Peace

When we’re at wit’s end, it’s not the end, but an opportunity for Christ to show Himself as the beginning and the end.

Because Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega, real peace begins with Him.

Plenty of times in my life, I felt anything but peaceful. And I desperately wanted to refocus my mind and redirect my heart.

I desired to embody the peace Christ makes available to me.

Still, I felt nothing but frustrated and overwhelmed in the circumstances.

Yet, in an uncertain world, there is an undeniable peace, an unshakable anchor for our soul.

Even when bad things happen, the peace of Christ never changes and remains constant.

It offers security strengthening the weariest of souls.

Christ speaks words of peace over us. He applies the Spirit’s soothing balm to our deep wounds and restless minds. Jesus calms our last nerve.

So here are five ways to refocus our heart to find P.E.A.C.E when we arrive at wit’s end.

P-Pray

Sometimes we pray as a last resort. Which is the place we find ourselves at wit’s end. Perhaps if we started out our day by praying instead of diving into our daily routine and checking our phone and email, our heart would prove more peaceful. And our mind becomes more thoughtful about what lies ahead and how to ask the Lord for help.

Take time to pray first before thinking too much or talking too much with people other than God. And ask God for His peace, real peace.

Overflowing: Giving up Half-empty and Half-full

Overflowing.

It paints a picture of filling and fullness spilling over in our lives.

Whether our current days of uncertainty rob our joy.

Or, we scramble for resources we fear are not available.

And even in times of abundance, when life seems good and our source secure.

The Lord wants us to remember, He is our true source. 

Our battle cry in this world becomes: “Lord, fill me.” 

But do we remember to go to the true source of everlasting joy and peace? Are we confident the Lord fills us with good and true things? Have we realized God’s fullness seeps into every corner and crevice of our empty places?

To answer these questions, let’s look at 3 points to keep us overflowing in God.

(1.) Remember our cup’s not half-empty or half-full but overflowing in God.

We no longer need to live with the perspective of the half-empty or half-full cup. And we no longer do just enough to get by until more is required to fill our own cup. Instead, we ask the Lord to give us the strength to run to Him for everything we need. Because these are promises found in His Word.

“You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows” (Psalm 23:5).

“For he satisfies the thirsty and fills the hungry with good things” (Psalm 107:9 NIV).

“I am the Lord your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it” (Psalm 81:10).

Break Free From Spiritual Captivity in King Jesus

Let’s break free!

Neither prison itself or the clothes prisoners must sport appeal to this girl. And no doubt the entire experience proves undesirable. 

Like confinement to a small space, lack of freedom, prison food or no food, missing my family and friends, and dreaming of a future.

Likewise, Jeremiah 52 recounts this kind of story with an evil king of Jerusalem, Zedekiah, who rebelled against God, and also rebelled against the king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar (don’t see those names listed in baby-name books).

So, as a result, Nebuchadnezzar sieged Jerusalem; its king, city, and people fell to this utter destruction and despair:

• Imprisoned King Zedekiah until his death.
• Burned down houses and the house of the Lord.
• Broke down all the walls of Jerusalem.
• Plundered items from the temple.
• Killed the chief priest, keepers of the threshold, and men from the king’s council.
• Took thousands of captives from Jerusalem as exiles to Babylon (seventh and eighteenth years of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign). Then, hundreds of captives from Judah (twenty-third year of his reign).

Yet, when we arrive at the final four verses of this last chapter of Jeremiah, we meet Jehoiachin, king of Judah. Exiled to Babylon and imprisoned when he was a young (Matthew Henry Commentary suggests at eighteen-years-old).

Break Free – Captivity Turned to Freedom

But here’s the rest of the story in God’s Word when despair turned to joy and captivity turned to freedom. It’s also my story.

10 Things I Wish I’d Known on My Wedding Day

A floral veil cascaded past my waist.

Lace sleeves extended in a V-shape across my hands.

My neckline sported a delicate strand of pearls from my maternal grandmother. 

I walked down the aisle to the hope of always and forever. 

Altough our pastor completed pre-marriage counseling with us, nothing really prepared us for marriage struggles. 

So come along as I take a look back to discuss what I wish I’d known the day I said, “I do.”

And see if any of these resonate with you or offer you hope.

(1.) I wish I’d known to communicate in an authentic and vulnerable way. 

Men and women communicate differently. And our temperaments and past relationships have shaped us.

Learning all the differences is key. But I wish I’d also realized the importance of learning to be authentic by showing a vulnerable side.

After “I do”: Share how you are vulnerable at work, in other relationships, online and with your marriage. Get it all out in the open and be the real you.

(2.) Ask for and give forgiveness. 

I wish I’d known how forgiveness releases us from the shackles unforgiveness places on us. “Bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.” Colossians 3:13 (ESV)

In Jesus, forgiveness has been freely extended to us for our sins and missteps against God.

After “I do”: We ask our spouse to forgive us for our missteps and freely offer it when our heart bears wounds.

(3.) Pray over my marriage.