by Destinee | Mar 9, 2021 | Destinee's Devotionals
Today is my birthday. About 4 years ago I began a tradition of not waiting on someone else to celebrate me, instead, I would plan to celebrate myself. And I had some really great celebrations with friends; from Starbucks trips, concerts, and fancy lunches to paint night, sushi, and late-night ice cream.
Then, one year, I just didn’t feel like doing anything. I think I was burnt out from ministry and over-extending myself. So, instead, I mostly took the time to rest. This year is weird too. Though I had been separated for about 4 years, this is the first year that I am divorced… officially single.
I am in a season of drought and burning fire. God spoke to me, He told me it was for my good, that this needed to happen and it would be painful and lonely… that doesn’t make it any easier.
So, instead of my usual, “Woo hoo! It’s my Birthday!” mood, I’ve just felt like crying all morning. I’m sitting in a coffee shop now holding back the tears. Ugh, crying in public is the worst.
Why write this blog? Well, maybe it’s because I am a known over-sharer… or maybe I just want to encourage someone who may be going through a similar season.
God has been teaching me how to love myself and how to allow myself to be truly loved by him. I’ve spent a good amount of my life codependently looking for worth and love in people. This way of living included never rocking the boat or speaking up for myself because I feared being rejected by people. I had rejection PTSD.
In my pursuit of love, I failed to love myself. And God tells me that I can’t even fully love another selflessly until I’m able to love myself and allow Him to love me. Why? Because without seeing myself as worthy and treating myself with love and respect which goes hand in hand with allowing God to fully love me, I will be looking for fulfilment in people. This means that I am not selflessly loving, I’m loving with the intent of getting myself filled up.
When I see myself as lovable and worthy and treat myself as such, I’m able to be filled up with God’s love. It’s not something I must strive for or earn. It just is. Once I can fully grasp this amazing, grandiose, heavenly love, I can extend that love to others from my abundance. Love that comes from a deficiency isn’t a godly agape love.
Agape love is selfless, sacrificial, unconditional love. It is the highest of the four types of love in the Bible.
The past few years have been a consistent lesson on loving myself, caring for myself, and allowing God to fully love me, but this new year has felt like boot camp in these areas. Sometimes God needs to break our hearts to get rid of the habits, lies, and things that never belonged there. He is refining with fire, purifying with pressure, and pruning every branch that doesn’t belong.
And that is exactly how my heart has been feeling: broken. Not broken for a person or a relationship, but broken from letting go of the codependency, people pleasing, and acceptance chasing that my life once was. Those things were comfortable, they were a source of feeling loved and worthy, but they were the wrong source. They were broken wells that couldn’t hold water. So, I’m transitioning from that life into learning how to be completely fulfilled by God, letting him be my ultimate source of love and being content in Him alone.
The space in-between those places is barren and lonely. It’s painful and it tests where my loyalty really lies. Under pressure will I run back to the comfort of fleeting, dysfunctional, toxic relationships, or will I run towards God, hang onto His hand and ride this out with Him? I choose the latter. I choose the creator of my heart, the one who has loved me beyond anyone else in this world, the one who has the words of LIFE. Where else could I go? That’s a rhetorical question of course… 😉
In love and understanding,
by Jenne Brown | Feb 2, 2021 | Jen's Jesus Journey, Uncategorized
I want to take some time today to talk about the power of our tongue. The tongue brings life or death according to the scripture.
Proverbs 18:20-21 NLT
Wise words satisfy like a good meal; the right words bring satisfaction.
The tongue can bring death or life; those who love to talk will reap the consequences.
Proverbs 18:20-21 NKJV
A man’s stomach shall be satisfied from the fruit of his lips he shall be filled.
Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit.
1. CHANGE HOW YOU SPEAK TO YOURSELF ABOUT YOURSELF
What words do you speak about yourself; to yourself, to others?
Do your words produce life or death? Do your words encourage and build up, or do they tear down and breed discouragement?
Do you find yourself saying things like, “Well, that’s how it always goes for me. Things never work out for me. I’ll never find what I’m looking for in life.”
Or “I’ll never change. This is just how I am.”
There have been studies done that show people believe the words they speak more than they believe the words of others. The words of others certainly can have a huge impact on us, especially words that were spoken to us by our parents, family members, and people in positions of authority, such as schoolteachers or bosses.
So, there is a big effect from the words of others, but when we speak those words over ourselves, they take on an even deeper significance. When we repeat back the negative things spoken over us, we further increase their power over how we view ourselves.
When we call ourselves stupid, ugly, fat, worthless, lazy, and other negative things we are reinforcing this negative image of ourselves. But it’s even worse than when others say it, because when we hear our own words, we believe them to be true whether we realize it or not. Try speaking GOOD words about yourself OUT LOUD. Is it hard? Do you feel weird? Do you want to stop because it feels so awkward and unnatural and strange? If you answer yes, you’re not alone.
If you answer yes, it also shows how desperately you need to get comfortable speaking loving, kind, encouraging words to YOURSELF! Build yourself up with your words! Encourage yourself with your words! Do you struggle to give yourself compliments? Say to yourself, “Girl! You are a Rockstar! Look at ALL you do!!” C’mon. Give it a try! Keep doing it! Eventually it won’t feel so hard and you’ll start to smile and laugh as you do it, because it will feel so lovely to love yourself. Okay, you may laugh and smile the first time you do it because you feel awkward and foolish, but after a bit….your laugh and your smile will be because you BELIEVE it!
I say to people, “Be careful what you say because your ears hear you and you believe yourself.”
2. DON’T PROPHESY DEFEAT OVER SITUATIONS
Do you confess that situations are “too” hard?
What does it mean to say this thing is too hard? To me it means, oh well, I might as well give up. I can’t be successful. After all, this is TOO hard. What hope is there? I make a big deal about this because I used to speak to myself this way all the time. When I cried, “It’s too hard!” I was left feeling defeated and discouraged. It reinforced self-pity and a victim mentality that left me weak and struggling.
It is true that there are many things that are too hard for us. But there is nothing too hard for God.
Jeremiah 32:17 NKJV
Ah, Lord God! Behold, You have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and outstretched arm. There is nothing too hard for You.
Certainly, many things are too hard for you and me. But how does it profit us to confess this? We prophesy over ourselves with our mouths.
^
Prophecy foretells and forthtells. Prophecy tells about future events, i.e. foretelling. Prophecy also brings things into being, or forthtelling. What am I prophesying over myself? Maybe you never thought of the words you speak as prophecy. Doesn’t prophecy have to be inspired of God? The bible tells us about false prophets. Who inspires the false prophets? Isn’t it the god of this world? Satan?
2 Corinthians 4:4 ESV
…the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
^
Whose words am I prophesying over myself? Am I prophesying health and hope over myself? Or am I prophesying defeat and death over myself? For example, I’ve said, “Well, the doctors say I’ll just have to live like this the rest of my life.” I am not proposing that we don’t take medical advice into account. But even all the years of schooling completed by medical professionals doesn’t give them precedence over the Creator of the Universe. It may be that we will live with certain issues all our lives. But wouldn’t you like to at least give God the chance to change your diagnosis?
I am not asking that we deny a diagnosis, but I am asking that we deny it power over our lives and our future. It’s not that we can’t talk about it, but let’s talk about the diagnosis less and God’s promise and power more. God designed our DNA! He knows much more than any physician about how to fix us.
Think about what you’re saying. Are you saying, “If such and such happens, I’m going to be so mad.” Isn’t this a prophecy? Aren’t we telling our enemy exactly what he needs to do to get us to let go of our peace and confidence in God? Isn’t there a better way? Why don’t we prophecy our peace? We can say, I don’t know what will come of this scenario, but I will keep looking to Jesus who is the master and in the midst of stormy seas, he can help me hold onto my peace. Isn’t that a better option?
4. TAKE IT SERIOUSLY
I know some people may say, “Jenne, you’re getting a little out there on this. Isn’t that a little, I don’t know, new-agey?”
Let’s look again at Proverbs 18:21 again, this time from the Passion Translation.
Your words are so powerful that they will kill or give life, and the talkative person will reap the consequences.
This is the scripture, the God-breathed word. God inspired this book, and he seems to take what we say pretty seriously. The book of Proverbs talks a lot about being a fool or a wise person. It’s clear that a person who ignores this truth is a fool who is killing themselves over time. It says the person who talks a lot will receive the consequences. What fruit are you receiving? Are you eating the sweet fruit? Or the poison?
Proverbs 18:20-21 The Message Version
Words satisfy the mind as much as fruit does the stomach; good talk is as gratifying as a good harvest.
Words kill, words give life; they’re either poison or fruit – you choose.
Who is it that tells us that our words are not that big a deal? I propose it’s the enemy, the satan who says it is silly to put such weight on our words. God is certainly telling us to consider carefully what we say. The devil opposes God, and he will whisper to our minds or through friends, coworkers, family members who may say, “Oh, don’t get so serious!”
^
I know that it may feel like, “Gosh, that’s a lot of work, to think about my words all the time. I’m not sure I want to work that hard on that.” It is work. However, the long term effects of eating the sweet fruit of right words is worth the effort and will produce health in our lives and the lives of those around us. Otherwise, we will be consuming the poison of words of death that will shrivel us up from the inside out.
Have any of you heard stories of the wife who slipped a little bit of poison into her husband’s meals over time? She just put a little bit, a little bit over time. His death wasn’t sudden or obviously from poison, but he was still being affected. That is what we do to ourselves when we don’t heed God’s warning to watch our words.
Psalm 34:21 The Message
The wicked commit slow suicide; they waste their lives hating the good.
Let’s not be like that!
These changes take time, but being aware, being reminded gives us a place to begin. I challenge you to pick one area of your life where you will change your words, your confession, your prophecy about yourself and your life. Enjoy the sweet fruit!
by Destinee | Jan 27, 2021 | Destinee's Devotionals
The Church needs to stop treating divorce like the unforgivable sin.
I want to be very careful in writing this blog because this is a very touchy subject.
I think it’s important to discuss the guilt that many abused women feel when facing divorce in order to get away from the rampant unrepentant sin that is causing them physical, mental, and emotional pain.
This blog is not justifying divorce, of course, divorce is an ugly thing for all involved. This isn’t about giving every unhappy person a pass to go file for divorce instead of working through their issues. Marriage is hard! Soldier up!
This is about a special group of women. Those who are not perfect but have poured out their lives to their husband who takes and takes and takes.
This husband is verbally abusive; he talks down to her about her weight, calls her names, says hurtful things and then claims he’s joking, he tells her that no one else would ever want her.
This husband is emotionally abusive; he never validates any of her feelings and tells her that she’s overreacting, he makes her feel crazy, when she wants to discuss something important he tells her that she’s just trying to argue, he cheats on her and lies over and over again, he is controlling and manipulative.
It’s hard for people on the outside to see this abuse because these types of men are usually very charming.
This husband is physically abusive; this is the easiest abuse to spot. He leaves “mysterious” bruises on her arms, face, and elsewhere, he uses intimidation to control her, he keeps her in fear so that she’ll never tell on him or leave, he isolates her from her friends and family, he showers her with love after hitting her to keep her confused.
These are not marriages that we should pressure women to stay in. The Church has made the mistake of putting the restoration of the husband onto the abused wife’s shoulders!
“If you love him like Jesus he’ll change”, “you just need to submit to him”, “you need to pray harder.”
Hearing these types of comments makes me physically ill. No wonder we live in a society where our men aren’t living up to the true authority and masculinity that God gave them!
I personally know a woman who asked her brothers in Christ to come alongside her to confront the obvious sin of her husband and they wouldn’t do it. They were more worried about offending the husband and pushing him away… which is not Biblical AT ALL. (Matthew 18: 15- 17)
Church, our women are fighting these battles alone!
Let me tell you, the type of mental strength it takes to leave an abusive relationship is immense! If a woman in your ministry had the strength to bring the abuse in her marriage up to you do not discourage her with a guilt trip on the sin of divorce!
Do not make these women out to be the “sinner” in the situation. God never called them to be martyrs for their marriage. The true injustice is the way their husbands are treating them.
Now, I want to speak directly to this special group of women. Somewhere along the road, something inside of you was broken. It could have been an absent father, abusive father or some other type of hurt from someone.
The point is this, they made you feel like you were worthless. They made you fear rejection. So you people please and pour yourself out until you have nothing left. You allow yourself to be used and abused hoping that your love will change them.
This isn’t how God designed marriage to be. This isn’t what God created you for.
Do not raise your children to believe that this is okay, just to perpetuate the cycle in their adult life.
Separate from the abuse.
Be wise in how you go about this, some men can become very dangerous when they lose control of their victim. Enlist supportive people who will give you godly counsel and protection.
Stay on your face in prayer, you will need all of the wisdom and power God can give you.
DO NOT FEEL GUILTY.
God loves you! He hurts seeing his beautiful daughter being treated this way. He won’t even listen to your husband’s prayers because of the way he treats you! (1 Peter 3:7)
You can not change that man, only God can. So give God full control of your marriage. While you’re separated work on healing your soul, growing into a deeper relationship with God and becoming whole on your own.
Never jump into a new relationship without godly counsel, healing, and seeking God first.
Many women sadly skip the self-reflection and healing and immediately jump into another relationship with a man who ends up being abusive in a different way or much worse than the original husband.
Heal what’s broken inside of you first.
Divorce is not the unforgivable sin. You don’t have to jump straight into a divorce either, you’re aloud to separate from the abuse to get a clear mind and seek the next steps God wants you to take.
I can’t say it any better than Gary Thomas, “If the cost of saving a marriage is destroying a woman, the cost is too high. God loves people more than he loves institutions.”
Please share this for one of these special women out there. ❤️
Much love,
by Jenne Brown | Jun 22, 2020 | Jen's Jesus Journey
I’ve come to cherish God as a tower of refuge to his children, to me, his daughter. I’ve fallen in love with the discovery that God is my tower of safety during times of trial, difficulty or confusion.
Psalm 18:2 NLT
The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my savior; my God is my rock, in whom I find protection. He is my shield, the power that saves me, and my place of safety.
Let’s look at it in The Passion Translation
Psalm 18:2
You’re as real to me as bedrock beneath my feet, like a castle on a cliff, my forever firm fortress, my mountain of hiding, my pathway of escape, my tower of rescue where none can reach me. My secret strength and shield around me, you are salvation’s ray of brightness shining on the hillside, always the champion of my cause.
Psalm 61:2-3 NLT
From the ends of the earth, I cry to you for help when my heart is overwhelmed. Lead me to the towering rock of safety, for you are my safe refuge, a fortress where my enemies cannot reach me.
Psalm 144:2a NLT
He is my loving ally and my fortress, my tower of safety, my rescuer. He is my shield and I take refuge in him.
This reference first came alive for me when I was dealing with a cantankerous coworker my first summer in
Albuquerque. I had just moved across the country with little more than hope and chutzpah. The first job I got was cold calling people over the telephone to persuade them to volunteer to fundraise for a charity.
We’ll call that bawdy broad who spiked my ire, Betsy. She was grey haired and disheveled, with eyes keen as a hawk and a voice like a trumpet blasting orders. She lugged her oxygen tank outside for cigarette breaks, coming to rest in the driver’s seat of her worn, tired automobile, as the car, groaning in duress, sunk down under her weight. To me her car always felt like it was going to fall apart at any second. I was always halfway trying to find the hidden duct tape and wire that I thought must be holding her vehicle together.
She was an overbearing, boorish bully. I heard tales of her previous political incorrectness. The only one I can remember right now is that she called a Native American coworker, Pocahontas and sincerely couldn’t understand why that wasn’t acceptable. Then I came along, fresh into my new lay-it-all-down-for-Jesus life and honestly, I wasn’t sure anymore how to act.
I’d worked decades in corporate America, but then I felt radically redeemed, and I was worried if I wasn’t fanatical, I might be betraying my new found love for Christ. Sometimes I’m still not sure how to act. I’d left the only ministry I knew at 39 years of age. Then a couple years later I felt like God asked me to give away practically all my belongings. Six months later I flew across the country from Columbus, Ohio to Albuquerque, New Mexico on a one-way plane ticket with no savings and no job – just grit, determination and fierce hope.
I landed at the Albuquerque International Sunport late on the Tuesday after Memorial Day. The Fourth of July was on a Saturday that year and I began this short-term position the following week. Betsy was curious about me. She had worked for this charity previous summers and winters and I was a new face among the summer workers. I made my passion for Jesus known, and she seemed to zero in on how to behave contrary to that. She would begin to loudly praise the goddess of the working woman when she successfully recruited a volunteer. She would take over the morning staff meeting to explain how she had reached out to the powers of the universe to enlist their aid.
Honestly, at that point, I was rigid for Jesus. Every time Betsy spoke like that I was fit to be tied. It’s rather humorous looking back. And Father God used the opportunity to teach me some about how to relax.
She sat directly across from me and the thin cube wall did little to muffle her booming voice. I would silently bind and rebuke her most of the day. I felt locked in an epic spiritual battle with her, although most of my warfare was under my breath. I was constantly wound up and tense, full of contention and conflict. I thought that was the appropriate approach to spiritual warfare at that stage of my walk with God.
But one day I clearly understood God impress upon me that I was not to engage with Betsy that day, not even by silently rebuking and binding the spirits I believed to be operating through her. To obey the Father’s direction, I mentally placed myself inside the tower of God. That is the first time I remember doing that. I don’t recall how I had the idea, but once I visualized myself inside the tower that is God, I was surprised and delighted to see Jesus inside with me! We were sitting cross-legged on the floor playing Uno!!
This mental vision tickled and fascinated my heart, helping me keep myself out of feeling the need to control the situation with Betsy through prayer and rebuking like I usually did. To my surprise when I stopped trying to combat her inside my spirit, things were much calmer. I realized all my effort was not necessarily God’s will for how I should behave in that and similar situations. I realized that my attitude and stance toward Betsy was really making things worse, not better.
I have continued to utilize the tool of placing myself in the tower in the years since. Usually the times that I place myself in the tower of God are when I feel my mind under a relentless attack from the enemy. I’ve talked to enough people to imagine you will recognize the scene I’m about to describe.
I don’t always recognize right away that it is an attack of the enemy. The thoughts feel like my own. I will begin to feel that I am unholy or less than or, feel accused. I will defend myself against these thoughts. Well, yes, that was a bad thought, I’ll concede, then explain but I love that person and I enjoy their presence, but I did have this bad thought about them…more than once….I’m not perfect…and while I’m still defending myself, another thought arrives fast and furious attacking my character, my motive of heart, my discipline of life.
These accusations come at me and I defend myself – again and again, not even realizing these thoughts are not my own, they are our common enemy whose name satan means accuser, adversary. That’s who he is. That is what he does. He comes to steal, kill and destroy as it tells us in John 10:10.
Back and forth it goes, a volley of attack and defense and I am worn out by it. Then I will realize this is a wearying tactic of the enemy, the devil. However, even recognizing what is happening doesn’t seem to stop the volley for me. What has worked for me at times is to declare in my spirit that I am going into the tower. I don’t understand exactly how it works, but it seems that God honors that statement and in my mind I see myself in this tower and my mind quiets and I find relief.
The tower has looked different in these visions at different times. One day as I walked to work, I put myself in the tower and I noticed a window in the tower that I had never seen before. I went to the window and looked out. To my surprise and delight I saw Jesus carrying a flame thrower. He was burning up all the lies and accusations Satan made against me. I found so much comfort and encouragement in that visual! All day long while at work as I walked to get a cup of coffee, or go to the bathroom, in my mind, I would look out the tower window and see Jesus Christ hard at work defending me against the ceaseless attacks of the enemy.
Revelations 12:10-11 NLT
Then I heard a loud voice shouting across the heavens, “It has come at last – salvation and power and the Kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ. For the accuser of our brothers and sisters has been thrown down to earth – the one who accuses them before our God day and night.
And they have defeated him by the blood of the Lamb and by their testimony. And they did not love their lives so much that they were afraid to die.
Another time, there was an interior courtyard with a lush, blooming garden in the tower vision. That occurred in January or February when blooming gardens were not yet, even in Albuquerque which does experience winter. Sometimes the tower has been small, sometimes it has been vast, with wandering wings left for exploration. I don’t know what new details God will place for me in the tower, but it’s always a pleasant surprise to discover.
I want to follow up on Betsy. Months after the summer work session ended she would call and quiz me about what I knew about future work at the charity, about my life and what I was doing. One time she confessed to me her loneliness. And I encouraged her. I came to feel compassion for Betsy and was moved to tears as I prayed for her on my walks to work. I don’t know where she is now, but she gave me a real gift. Her combative behavior drove me to discover the tower of God that has become a place of rest and refuge for me.
I hope my story can inspire you to find that same sweet relief, whether it’s the vision of the tower, or a different, yet personal and perfect for you experience of the sanctuary of our God. He is a rest to his people.
by Jenne Brown | Jun 8, 2020 | Jen's Jesus Journey
Have you ever stood there in the deepest place of your heart and called the dreams God would have you to dream utter foolishness?
Maybe you’re better than me. Maybe you don’t doubt. Maybe you can embrace all he calls to you. I’ve dreamed and I’ve chased dreams with boldness and enthusiastic fervor. I’ve lost my dream more than once and felt left with nothing, least of all understanding or compassion from others. I’ve stood in the barren places trying to make sense of what’s happened. And God calls me to let him strip the callous cynicism that has wrapped around my heart as a pretense of protection that really only shields me from the tender massage of God’s love.
God calls me to trust his goodness over my experience.
I remember worshiping heartily in loving abandonment at a beautiful, praising church. The leaders urged us to dream with the Lord and I began to dream what I considered lavish, extravagant dreams. I felt the Lord capture me by the tails of my envisioned garment as my mind’s eye was soaring upward in elaborate, sweeping imaginations. He confronted me at the very core of my deepest desires. He brought me to the edge of an internal chasm where I had tossed away long-ago hopes and desires.
God dared me to dream truly dangerous dreams that had nothing to do with far off nations or evangelistic endeavors that could win me acclaim and honor. He asked me to dream again for the things I gave up on; to come back to the dreams I considered dead and allow him to breathe his life into them again.
A lesson in dreaming.
I think of the Shunamite woman who declared she had no need when Elisha asked how he could repay her kindness to him. Gehazi, Elisha’s servant gave insight to the question of what they could do for her.
2 Kings 4:14-17 NLT
Later, Elisha asked Gehazi, “What can we do for her?”
Gehazi replied, “She doesn’t have a son, and her husband is an old man.”
“Call her back again.” Elisha told him. When the woman returned, Elisha said to her as she stood in the doorway, “Next year at this time you will be holding a son in your arms!”
“No, my lord!” she cried. “O man of God, don’t deceive me and get my hopes up like that.”
But sure enough, the woman soon became pregnant. And at that time the following year she had a son, just as Elisha had said.
Several versions translate it as “Don’t lie to me.” Don’t you lie to me – don’t you dare give me hope that I can ill afford.
Some things seem too costly to care for, to long for, to nurture hope for. Desires so profound, that to allow ourselves to desire them feels it will break us and we think in self-preservation we must cast them aside to be able to bear daily life.
Sometimes I must give these desires to the Lord to hold til I feel the strength to carry them in my own heart. There is an area I have felt him consistently beckoning to my heart to have courage to hope in. A place he seems to keep sending tidbits of hope and encouragement through words of people who do not even necessarily know what they speak of.
One point where I again felt disheartened and ready to lay those dreams down, I felt the Lord asking me to keep holding on. A friend and pastor, unaware of the conversation I’d had with God, shared that he felt there was an area I wanted to give up in that he felt the Lord wanted to give me and to not quit hoping. These are sometimes almost intangible wisps and bits and I think I must be imagining all of this. Since then I have had dreams and other signs regarding this thing.
I first felt hope resurrected in this area some years ago when a pastor broached the topic. But here it is, many years later and the desire not yet fulfilled. I come to Jesus and say, “Weren’t you the one who told me to reconsider this dream? Why did you ask me not to pass so quickly on this thing? Why did you say to me it was better to hope for this thing that I have yet to hold?”
I’ve heard women speaking out about a promise God made to them, to their lives, and they are holding on eight years, ten years, twelve years past the promise made, ever more in conviction. And I confess that I have been offended in moments by their passionate profession of confidence. I confess that I have been angered, and scorned them as foolish, BECAUSE I HAVE BEEN CONVICTED BY THEIR FAITH when my own faith has felt too fragile.
I have to guard myself from things that would weaken me. I have to recognize my vulnerability especially before going on social media where the everyday lives of ordinary people can seem far more extraordinary than mine.
I have to come against the temptation to not rejoice for people who have received their miracle, who are living out the answer to their prayer while I still stay in a pattern of holding; while I still wait. I am not always strong enough to view their happy pictures of answered prayers and feel joy for them. But I make myself declare gratitude for their victory as an act of rebellion against lurking bitterness. Me too, I whisper.
Let me rest in a holding pattern of hope. I declare my soul anchored to hope even when it all seems a wisp of a cloud. That’s what Elijah held onto – just a wisp of a cloud no bigger than a man’s hand, just a puff of smoke that became a victory deluge. I declare it despite not feeling it. That is sometimes the definition of faith, is it not? To declare it true, before we feel it or believe it yet, just to declare it true because truth isn’t found in our feelings.
There’s a sound of rain. I believe God is calling us to hope again. I feel him asking us to allow this groundswell of dreams to rise up within, these desires not born merely of selfish intent. I think God is saying, hold on to hope because it is a hope God would give to us, it is a desire he desires to give us.
I feel that so many of us are like the Shunamite woman, it seems far too painful to allow the seed of hope to swell inside us to grow the dream, to hold the child, to see the dream of many decades fulfilled in our heart, in our arms, in our lives. But I hear his urging, don’t let go of hope, hold on. It’s coming yet. Hold onto hope. Dare to hope. We will not be disappointed when we pour our hope into our God who is a stalwart bulwark.
by Destinee | Jan 30, 2020 | Destinee's Devotionals
I’ve always heard that being your child’s friend is a bad thing. I agreed with this sentiment for a really long time, until God started showing me what a REAL friend is.
Yes, I agree that you shouldn’t be the world’s definition of a friend; someone who will enable you to do self-destructive things, sugar coat, and tell you what you want to hear for the sake of the friendship.
This is the reason there is a negative connotation with being your child’s friend. Parents who take on this role of “friend” enable their children to remain in the negative life choices they’re making, often being influenced by the parent.
This is the “cool” parent because they buy their kid alcohol or smoke weed with them and sometimes worse.
As you can see, this is no friend. A real friend doesn’t drag you down with them into their addiction or other behaviors that could negatively affect your life. A real GODLY friend will lovingly call you out when you’re going the wrong direction. They will inflict necessary wounds for YOUR good.
Better is open rebuke than hidden love. Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses.
Proverbs 27:5-6
God is our example as a parent. He has so many different aspects to Him through the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit that we can learn from.
God is so many different things to us. He is our father, he is our FRIEND, he is our healer, he is love. (I could go on, but for the sake of time…)
He laid down his life for us, his friends, showing us the greatest love, he taught us the mysteries of the Bible, He has loved us through everything, yet never enabled us. He ENCOURAGES us to rise up and do better.
God is BOTH our loving father AND our friend.
This tells me that I can be that too. I can enjoy spending time with my kids, being silly with them, playing games, laughing, and being able to LIKE each other.
It’s one thing to know you love your kids (and they love you) but to actually LIKE each other too? This is a blessing.
I’ve made it a habit to constantly tell all four of my kids that they are my best friends, and maybe, just maybe they will learn what a true friend is through me.
You are my friends if you do what I command.
John 15:14
What do you think? Please share your thoughts below!
Always,
