All through the book of Deuteronomy, the people of God were told to remember. Remember where God found you. Remember His faithfulness. Remember that He spared no expense to deliver you out of slavery that He might bring you into your promised land. Each time I read Moses’ words to the Israelites as they stood on the edge of their promise, I cannot help but hear these same words spoken over me. “Remember.” We are all prone to forget. One moment we stand in praise of Jesus after He did some crazy awesome thing in our life. And the next moment, fear comes when we face uncertainty, and we forget that Jesus had just parted the Red Sea on our behalf. Just like the nation of Israel, we are called to remember. Remember who our God is. Remember His heart toward us. Remember the gospel and the cross. Remember His…
Archive for the ‘Fear’ Category
Today is another day. A day full of choices. We can gloat in victory or drown in our sorrows in response to the election results, or we can choose to believe in who God is. Regardless of whether or not your candidate won last night, we can’t let individual preference or fear divide us. In a climate of hate or strife, let’s choose love. Let’s check ourselves continually to ensure that our thoughts and speech build one another up, that what we say and think is honoring to God and to one another. As followers of Christ, it’s imperative that we keep ourselves in check to ensure we’re promoting unity instead of contributing to the worldly divisiveness we see so much of in our country right now. It’s not about who our president is. It’s about who we are as followers of Christ, first and foremost, and who we are as Americans. Christians are ambassadors of…
Jesus turned this world on its head. Things people thought they knew crumbled in light of His teaching. The first are the last. The greatest is the least. The rich are the poor. Life is found in death. Strength is found in weakness. Second Corinthians 12:9-10 says, “But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” You see, our weaknesses do not negate our strength. It’s not about ridding ourselves of all our weaknesses, but allowing our weaknesses to become our strength. Allowing God to become our strength. I still have weaknesses. LOTS and LOTS of weaknesses….
Jesus is on the throne, now and forever. It seems I’ve been reminded of this continually lately. Life’s circumstances have clouded my vision a bit, but with this simple reminder, I have consistently been brought back to the truth. Troubles lose their weight when we see and believe this reality deep within our souls. This truth gives us a heavenly perspective on the circumstances we face and allows us the ability to endure trials with confident assurance that our God is in control. Now, I cannot pretend to know all the reasons why God allows difficulties into our lives, but when confronted with them, I often think about what Paul wrote to the church in Philippi. He said, “I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance…
Last week, I wrote about how important it is to engage in the pursuit to know God. About how we can use a Biblically accurate understanding of who God is to see the world and ourselves as they truly are. All truth, remember, begins and ends with God. There is, of course, so much to know about our God. Truly, we will never be able to fully grasp all that He is, and I think that’s okay. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want a God who is able to be fully grasped by a mind limited by humanity. I love how J.I. Packer put it. He said, “A God whom we could understand exhaustively, and whose revelation of Himself confronted us with no mysteries whatsoever, would be a God in man’s image, and therefore an imaginary God, not the God of the Bible at all.” But God does reveal Himself to both…
I’m super excited to share some incredible news on the heels of the article I recently wrote called, Living Victoriously in the Messy Middle. What I’m about to share serves as an example to what was written in that article, particularly the point I made about doubts. So anyway, here’s the news! The Coombs Family adoption has taken a bit of a twist. Just under a month ago, my husband Travis said, “If God wants us to adopt, He’s gonna have to drop something in our lap.” Famous last words, it seems. Not more than a few days later, it happened. A wonderful little bundle of joy was dropped in our lap. A baby girl, only a few weeks old, in Uganda. For those of you just tuning in, we’ve been pursuing an adoption in Ethiopia for the past five years, not Uganda. Hence, the twist of this incredibly wonderful, yet immensely difficult, faith-testing journey….
“How’s the adoption?” A friend asked excitedly as I walked into church one Sunday. I desperately wanted to tell her that we were moving forward without a hitch and that we had everything ready and that we would soon be traveling to bring our children home, but I couldn’t. Instead, I reluctantly spoke words that broke my heart. “We’ve hit another roadblock,” I said, before mustering enough faith to add, “but we’ve been here before.” I expected to see sorrow in my friend’s eyes at my response, but she simply said, with complete and total assurance, “Yep, and you know how to get through them,” before she quickly hightailed her way to service. I was a bit stunned to be honest at her quick reaction to my heartfelt confession, but I couldn’t help but smile. She’s right, I thought. I do know how to get through them! God was reminding…