Emily Jones

Disappointing: Acceptance Is Not Based On Perfection

Devotionals, Stay SaneJanuary 28, 2018September 8, 2019

We don’t need to attain perfection in order to have acceptance from God. We may feel we are disappointing, but this is not how He feels about us.

I was at the gym a few days ago when I got a text from my mom that quoted a devotional we both read. “If God had a face, what kind of face would He be making at you right now?” I responded, “What are you waiting for? Why are you wasting time? Come to Me. I’m here.” I know there is much to be had in the presence of God, but I feel like my feet are cemented in the ground. I have been praying for the strength to shake it off and move in His power.

My mom responded “I used to always see a disappointed face. Now…He’s usually smiling.” When I read that I started crying! It took me by surprise, but I didn’t even care that I was in public. How long have I been operating from a low-level belief that God is often disappointed with me? Since that day I have been seeking to erase that lie and, as my 16-year-old daughter likes to joke, kill it with fire!

Disappointing: Striving for Perfection

Who is a God like You, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of His inheritance? He does not retain His anger forever, because He delights in steadfast love.

Micah 7:18, ESV

Don’t we all agree God loves His children where we are? Yet we don’t fully believe it. It sounds good. Our spirit wants to trust that He is pleased with us. But our flesh is hard pressed to maintain the appearance of perfection. Pride is a liar. Striving to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect is a worthy goal. But He never once said in scripture that we were to strive alone. Jesus sent us a Helper.

Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send Him to you.

John 16:7, ESV

Yesterday morning, I looked at myself in the mirror and said, “No one is as disappointed in me as I am.” We are our biggest critics, our own worst enemy. We’re relentless! I referred back to the conversation with Mom and soaked up her final thought from that day at the gym. “As we draw closer to Jesus, the Spirit searches deeper, turns the spotlight on brighter, so to speak. So what you’re feeling is a sign of growth.” Essentially, now that I feel like a fool I’m free to get over myself! It’s time to shake off that cement I was griping about and move toward truth.

Let those who delight in My righteousness shout for joy and be glad and say evermore, ‘Great is the Lord, who delights in the welfare of His servant!’

Psalm 35:27, ESV

Disappointing: Acceptance

Several years ago, while at Sojourn Church in Louisville, Daniel Montgomery shared two situations with the congregation before posing a question. First, he told us about a day where he basically got up on the wrong side of the bed. He was a grump-o-potomus the entire day, yelled at his kids, snapped at his wife and acted like a bear with his co-workers. The following day his quiet time was anointed and birds were singing. He loved on his family, was courteous to strangers at the coffee shop, and encouraged and laughed with his coworkers. That evening ended with a time of family devotion.

He asked which of those days we thought God was more pleased with him. The obvious answer is the day where he did everything right. But he said, “Neither!” God doesn’t base His affections toward us on our performance. He loves us and delights in us because we are His workmanship. Clearly, we are accountable for our actions, but we are His kids no matter how emotional or irrational we happen to be feeling on any given day.

Your turn…

Anyone who is in Christ is a new creation. We belong to the King of kings. Struggles are inevitable. Temptations win out. But when God looks at us He sees Jesus, not our shortcomings. How differently would your day look if you truly believed that? The God of creation is fond of us.

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Reflections for Ragamuffins: Daily Devotions from the Writings of Brennan Manning

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Erin Perrilleon

Fight the lies with truth!

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Consumed: Too Many Choices Distract Us From What We Truly Need

Devotionals, Stay SaneJanuary 14, 2018September 8, 2019

Our culture is consumed with satisfying our needs however we deem best, but we still crave more. We are created to to be filled by Christ alone.

I’ve been asking myself the same question for the past month. It’s that scene from You’ve Got Mail where Kathleen Kelly says, “I’m wondering about my work and all. I mean, what is it that I do exactly? All I really do is run a children’s bookstore…” Except I exchange bookstore for ministry. Couldn’t anyone do this job?

There are days when my heart and flesh fail. I want to get through a Sunday morning with zero hiccups and have so many volunteers I have to turn people away. But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. He shows me how need leads to Him being able to show up at the last minute and save the day. God really likes to do that because He gets all the glory!

Consumed: Too Many Options

It’s easy to slip into the show up, fill up, go home mentality. It’s like an entire generation of pirates, “Take what you need. Give nothing back.” Every day presents us with scads of choices. Do you want a small or medium latte? Would you rather have chicken or hamburgers for dinner? Should you go with highlights, balayage or a solid color at the salon? Our options are abundant. When we walk through the doors of our churches it’s enticing to bring those expectations with us.

Options have been a thriving part of western society for the last few generations. As a result, self-absorption is now an inbred disease. We’ve all seen adults acting like toddlers, right? When they don’t get their way they whine and moan. Maybe you are that person. I’ve certainly digressed to infantile behavior on more than one occasion. It wasn’t pretty. I’m glad you weren’t there to see it.

Some churches succumb to giving tantrum-throwers a watered-down gospel that neither convicts nor produces change. At best, it offers a gold “I went to church today” sticker. Maybe we saw a few friends and got goose bumps during one of the worship songs. In our society we are easily bored. If something doesn’t dazzle us we’re on to the next thing.

Consumed: What We Need

Hold up! The gospel is dazzling! The Christian life is never boring! So what are we missing?

God takes our lives and changes our story. He fixes our mess and changes our want-to. Jesus doesn’t charge us to seek first His kingdom and His righteousness so everything we need might be given to us. No; He said He will give us all the other things we need.

For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

Ephesians 2:10, ESV

The early days of my faith were just that—faith. I professed Jesus Christ as Lord and by faith I continued to claim Christianity. But now I have come to know and believe the love God has for me.

So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.

1 John 4:16, ESV

He is the One and only. I want to be done toying around like this faith owes me something for being a long-standing member. Need motivates. Rapidly consuming and moving on to the next thing seems to merely produce more clutter. And don’t we all long for a simplified life?

His love heals the self-absorbed ego and enables us to notice and be sensitive to others around us.

Timothy Keller

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Evan Dennis

We are messy people who make messes, but God redeems those messes and makes us beautiful.

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uncomfortable, suffering, pursuing, pursued

Uncomfortable: Intimately Knowing God Through Suffering

Devotionals, Stay SaneDecember 21, 2017September 8, 2019

Christianity is hard and uncomfortable. Pursuing God through our suffering results in blessings and knowing Him more intimately.

I laid awake last night pondering the brokenness and sorrow surrounding us. The desperation is palpable. As I prayed, a verse nestled deep in my soul sprung to mind and repeated until I fell asleep.

I would have despaired unless I had believed I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.

Psalm 27:13, NASB

When I got up this morning I went to the book shelf and retrieved the New American Standard Bible my parents gifted to me on Christmas day, 1990. Most other versions don’t include the part about despairing. NKJV says, “I would have lost heart,” but ESV, NIV, HCSB and NLT skip straight to being confident about seeing God’s goodness while here on earth.

Most days I feel that unwavering assurance, but what about the days when that conviction wavers? When the days turn into weeks or months? When you yell at the sky WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?!

Uncomfortable: Pursuing God In Spite of Suffering

Some of the people I love are hard pressed on every side. I wish I could swoop in and take on their struggle. But who am I to say I could weather a storm better if God has given a season of testing to someone else; to my friend…to my child? Stepping back, I am humbly reminded I am not their savior. I have no idea how God is working sadness or brokenness or devastation for His glory. He has used painfully uncomfortable times in my life to produce a courageous heart. Can He not do that for them?

C.S. Lewis said, “If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity.”

Why Christianity then?

Pursuing the God of the bible has not saved me from heartache in this world; instead it seems to draw it like a magnet! But I have experienced God’s goodness. I have been wrapped in His peace that surpasses understanding. There was a time when I felt Christianity was only the best option and no other religion or belief was worth pursuing. In essence, if this world was all there was, I would still have lived a good life. I had no clue how thinking in those terms revealed the depth of my distrust. Only through the foundation of the scripture was I able to stop doubting and believe (John 20:27, NIV) when I encountered heartbreak, fear, and loss.

Uncomfortable: Blessing from Suffering

It’s not all bad either. There is much good. In just my small sphere of life, I have witnessed God restore broken friendships and shattered marriages. God literally raised my son from the dead when his heart had not beat for nearly 10 minutes. I swore off volunteering in children’s ministry at church, yet through the power of the Holy Spirit, God softened my heart and is not only using me to guide young minds toward the gospel, but He is blessing me in the process!

I am sincerely grateful for the glimmer of hope that has carried me for so long; yesterday’s belief has sustained me. Now I want the raging wildfire that doesn’t cower at challenge or shrivel up when tragedy strikes. On good days, I have prayed “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts!” (Psalm 139:23, ESV). May I not recoil and complain when He does just that. Suffering is a necessity to achieve gratitude and grasp the fullness of life that is found in Jesus Christ.

I love Brennen Manning’s eloquent thoughts on the matter. “It is hard to be a Christian, but it is too dull to be anything else. When Jesus comes into our lives with his scandalous cross in the form of mental anguish, physical suffering, and wounds of the spirit that will not close, we pray for the courage to ‘stand fast a little’ against the insidious realism of the world, the flesh, and the devil.”

Uncomfortable: Intimately Knowing God

My son asked me this morning, “How can I make daddy laugh?” I laughed. “It’s taken me 20 years to learn that art; it’s not exactly something I can explain. You have to know him,” I said. “I do know him!” he argued. I said, “It’s the same with God. In order to know what pleases someone, what they enjoy, what makes them happy, sad, excited – what makes them tick – you have to spend time with them. As you get to know them more intimately, you learn how to say something at just the right moment to bring a smile to their face.”

To be loved and pursued is at the core of every human being. It is a longing placed there by God. He fulfills that daily through His word and any other means He chooses to use to make us aware that He is the God who sees. He is here. There is no one like Him.

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Glenna Hopper

but God…pursued

Because the Lord loves you fiercely, you are pursued fiercely. When circumstances arise that feel like attacks against you, know that God is using them to bring you into a deeper relationship with Him.

Identity: Finding the Source of Who We Are

Devotionals, Stay SaneNovember 1, 2017January 13, 2019

Instead of us looking inward to find our identity in Christ, we need to look to who He is. Only by knowing who He is, do we know who we are.

My adolescence was spent mostly outdoors. Unless I had schoolwork or lightning was splitting the sky, I was breathing fresh air. Most of my childhood memories revolve around being in nature. Often, I reflect on experiences like when a friend, my brother, and I unrolled toilet paper back-and-forth across the street and through several yards. In the rain. That was fun.

As a child, I exhibited awe and wonder; I trusted with abandon. There was nothing to distract me from marveling at God’s creation. Unfortunately, maturity walks hand-in-hand with the loss of innocence and awe takes a back seat.

In the movie Alice in Wonderland, there is a scene with the Mad Hatter and Alice that I love:

“You’re not the same as you were before. You were much more muchier; you’ve lost your muchness.” – Mad Hatter

“My muchness?” – Alice

“In there [he points to her heart], something is missing.” – Mad Hatter

Identity: What It Is

The dictionary defines muchness as: greatness, as in quantity, measure, or degree. But we all lose our muchness sooner or later. We work on ourselves to restore what is missing when we slow down long enough to realize it. Frantically, we read about how much God loves us and who He says we are, trying desperately to regain our identity as a child of the King. But we are missing something. Does anyone else feel it?

A vital step is being skipped in our effort to reclaim our identity in Christ. Knowing how precious we are in God’s sight doesn’t hold much weight nor do we even possess the ability to believe it fully without intimately knowing His character. Otherwise we are like the man James references who looks at himself in the mirror and then once he walks away immediately forgets what he looked like (James 1:23-24).

Identity: Where It Comes From

How do we recover or incite the wonderment of God?

Psalm 111:10 tells us that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Being a confident woman is not achievable by hours of introspection and assuring myself that I am precious in God’s sight. The words are true; so why do I continue to doubt their validity by being anxious, trying to take control and micromanaging the crap out of everything around me?

Proverbs 14:26 says that strong confidence is found in the fear of the Lord; that is where we begin to lay hold of our “muchness.” Once we have a grip on how all-powerful our Mighty God is, we can equip ourselves to believe the adoration He lavishes on us.

Awe helps us worry less about self-worth by turning our eyes first toward God, then toward others. It also helps establish our self-worth in the best possible way: we understand both our insignificance within creation and our significance to our Creator. – Jen Wilkin

We are precious in God’s sight. He does adore us. His perfect Son was slaughtered so that we could have access to call the One who controls the universe Father. May we remember that He holds the stars in place. He tells the sun to rise and set.

Take a walk in His creation and stand in awe of Him.

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Tj Holowaychuk

Adventure: Leaving What is Safe for Abundant Life

Devotionals, Stay SaneOctober 15, 2017September 8, 2019

Adventure means leaving our comfort zone. It can be uncomfortable, but often what is on the other side is the abundant life.

Just before I woke I had a chilling dream. I was running through a banquet hall attempting to elude a man pursing me. I felt sick as I realized there was nowhere else to run and I had to fight. Finding some knives on a nearby table I hurled them at my attacker. He was able to deflect them with plates or large metal bowls which he would in turn launch in my direction. We ended up in hand to hand combat; I was sorely outmatched. He pinned me against a wall where he slowly stab me in the thigh. I suspected that he thought the blow was mortal since it was one of his signature moves. He lowered me to the ground and walked away triumphant.

The scenes changed and it was dusk. Outside in a harvested wheat field, I was leaning against a wooden fence. Wondering if I looked pale or if I would soon lose consciousness I looked down at my feet expecting to see blood, but there wasn’t any. A glimmer of hope sprung up that perhaps my wound just needed to be mended. Birds started singing as I made my way back to the main house and I knew I wasn’t going to die from the stabbing, but I would have the limp for life.

That was when my tweeting birds alarm fully pulled me from my dream.

Adventure

It has taken me a seriously long time to grow into my name.

Emily: industrious, disciplined, striving.

It is difficult for me to stay on task, so striving certainly resonates with me. Somewhat recently I have scratched the surface of being more self-disciplined. This is because two years ago this weekend, my husband got a job that moved our family 600 miles away from my hometown. And stuff. got. real.

I didn’t used to be an adventurer; I stuck with what felt safe. But when we uprooted our family, I had two choices: become a recluse in one of the most densely populated cities in the U.S. or find community.

We hadn’t even begun to settle in our new home when the heavens opened up and dumped three feet of snow. The blizzard gave us the opportunity to meet several of our neighbors while we were out shoveling every two hours. I hadn’t met that many people on any street we’d lived on before! I had a lot of free time on my hands after our kids were in school. Out of my normal comfort zone, but strangely fearless, I signed up for a ladies’ bible study at our new church and met some friends. Life really took off from there.

Leaving What is Safe for Abundant Life

Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.

Hebrews 10:23, ESV

My dream captured an accurate picture of my life as a Jesus follower. Historically I’ve run from conflict; but some battles I must fight. Usually they’re messy and rarely do you escape without some wounds and lasting scars.

A lot of change has occurred since our move. I took a job in ministry and have developed intimate community. But our family has also incurred some blows from the enemy. At times, I feel like I’ve prayed all the prayers, read all the books, said all the things…and the enemy still advances. So, I turn and fight – expecting the hits Satan thinks will wreck me – confident that my life is in God’s hand.

I turn and fight... confident that my life is in God’s hand. Click To Tweet

What adventures have led you to an abundant life? Let me know in the comments below!

Do you feel like you are striving? Strive to be better, not different!

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Iker Haro