Apparently, we are a people who have spent a lot of time in the chase and have learned of its futility.

[The oh my goodness, please believe in me and know I'm valuable and take a chance on me even though I can't prove to you my worth chase that is exhausting but what we've all at some point done in our life.]

But if we are blessed, we are also a people who have learned about the powerful thing that happens when someone comes alongside, offers their arm to lock with, and says, maybe even in words: I believe in you.

And then…

We dream.

We attempt.

We feel free.

We hope.

We start to believe, too.

Because the truth is, we change when someone believes in us.  We become more than we ever thought we could be.

It is exactly what God spoke to my heart about someone not long ago…someone I was spending days, praying for Him to change.

Lisa, you have no idea who she could become if you loved her like I do.

Because when someone loves you…believes in you that much, there is no limit.

So let’s stop chasing those who have to be convinced about our worth so we can get on with it. And let’s give others the gift of who they could become, too.

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On a Deeply Personal Note:

I’m joyful to be able to say: this season of my writing life is going to be a true locking of arms.

[So you know: I am not the author who has had instant, best selling success.  I am the work hard, trust God, keep head down and pray like mad not to quit, do everything the wrong way and learn the hard way but can’t stop processing life and God with words, even when I want to. So every book contract for me is not a given, and I hope it never is because then I might start trusting myself.]

My 4^th book, forthcoming in August 2014, has found its home with Harvest House Publishers, a place I have long had a heart connection with but have thus far never locked arms.

I have loved every publisher I have worked with.  But there is something about nesting with a place who sees, values and believes in your worth at the core level.

So I am thrilled to dive into writing this project with people who do that and ask for your prayers in the process.

Now…how can I pray for you?

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We weren’t equipped for how life would require we engage in it or be sorely left behind…how the rules would be left up to our own discrepancy and that sometimes, our better judgement would not win.

I don’t attempt to write the rules, today.

I do, however, want to give we who engage in this crazy new way of life some parameters, since we will be our own deciders of how much it is becomes something useful and good in our life or something harmful and negative.

Here are some ways to know…it’s likely time to take a social media step back.

• When it becomes a consistent distraction. – When we get to the point where it interferes with prior commitments we need to honor, daily to dos that serve our family or are more important, compromises our personal health/fitness and even, our relationship with God. [A practical litmus test question for if it's become too important: Is it the first thing on my mind every morning/last thing on my mind before I go to bed?]
• When it becomes too personal & we lose perspective. – When the successes of others leads us to feel jealous over their life; diminishes the richness of our own; when we find ourselves assuming that things others write/post are directed or meant for us and it causes us to get angry, bitter, or overly concerned.
• When it becomes about performance. — When it becomes more about “what can I post to get likes or get people to admire my life” instead of “what can I share to inspire/help others, out of the outflow God is doing and the resources He’s given me?”
• When it divides or damages. – When we find ourselves directly critical or passive-aggressive in our words in order to silently “dig” at others (often couched in spiritual sayings and even, Bible verses); Share too much information in a way that embarrasses ourselves or those we love or diminishes our testimony or relationship with God; When we find ourselves having to give excuses to justify our use or when people close to us question our overusage.
• When it becomes a main identity/way of escape. – When it becomes the way we feel most comfortable communicating, making friendships or engaging with people because we can become something else from afar without the same level of engagement or effort with face-to-face friendships/relationships.

Friends, social media can be a beautiful tool to bring people together, unite the body of Christ, restore severed relationships, and communicate a powerful message across the world.

But it will be up to us if it brings us down before any of that can happen.

Let’s check ourselves. 

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*Conversation: Do you see the need to keep the things I listed in mind when you use social media? Which one/ones are particularly helpful to you? [psst. A lot of people struggle with this. Pass it on?]

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Sometimes between family barbeques, carefree Saturday afternoon laughter and Instagram-worthy selfies comes news that halts the whole life thing in its tracks.

And the switch inside flips and the lump forms in the throat and you can’t believe you let the world’s comforts numb you into forgetting, once again.

Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. [John 16:33]

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When it turns night on the day I hear news that I do not have a mental compartment for and my heart breaks for people I know but not very well but love, still, because of Jesus, I go to church.  It’s the only place that really makes sense.

The praise songs start and I waffle between wanting to raise my hands to God in worship and rant like a lunatic at Him with a gutteral why?!…ask for the power to turn back a clock and make things different…clutch my kids up and throw them in a bubble of steel that will incubate both them and me from anything, God forbid, like this.

But I know John 16:33, and I can’t pretend I don’t.

And so I just ask for things like hope and cradling and something called strength that I’m not sure in this kind of instance what it even means.

And the words that come to mind are ones directed at me, and they are few but sledgehammer like…

How dare I.

hurry through short prayers for my kids in the morning so I can feel better about having prayed for them but not get bold and haggard before God in fierce, meaningful pleas for their life?

coast through days without realizing they are gone, numb myself in front of a humming tv, look for hours for just the right shoes but can’t sit still for 20 minutes alone with God without thinking about a grocery list?

not kiss my husband goodbye on that morning I’m mad at him, taking for granted he’ll come back through the door the same way he left?

forget that a lion that’s real with big, snarled teeth and a hatred inside prowls, daily, at the opportunity to pounce and maim and ruin and scar and sometimes I fail to protect myself against him, accordingly?

assume every Saturday will be a barbeque and a chance to be lazy and take pictures of my kids on a trampoline with heads thrown back in laughter?

forget, even for a second, that while I complain over having to change bedsheets and make a school lunch, again, people are hurting so bad only God will sustain their breathing.

And strangely…these words how dare I are not the finger pointed, indicting kind that are meant to make me shrivel and cower from life because I am guilty of all the things, and more.

But they are the kind that snap back, move, remind me to pursue and fight and never, ever forget or take for granted one second in a John 16:33 world.

And even in this moment, when I write it all down and the words hit hard, I can’t forget the second part of that verse that is the most important.

But take heart, because I have overcome the world. ~Jesus

And I am grateful that the world doesn’t win, even in moments it feels like it does.

And angel armies do exist, and boldly, God commands them.

And His promises are true, even when they feel like they aren’t.

And the best of everything we will one day know but not now truly does exist and thank God for that because this world offers a really messy much less.

And the tears really do reach His heart and so do the prayers and the groans and other pain sounds reserved for only this kind of heartache.

Thank God.

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*Conversation: Would you commit to prayer for this hurting family, The Mitchells? I’d LOVE for my amazing readers to leave these sweet people a comment to let them know that people everywhere are lifting them up in this deep moment of pain and need. Leave a verse, a thought, a prayer, or just a simple “I’m praying for you in [wherever you are from.] Thank you, friends. May this post inspire us all to be better.

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Someone reading doesn’t think he or she can keep doing this or that.  Someone doesn’t want to, even if they could.

Because life is not easy and struggles are great and wisdom is a gift not a given and the world threatens to break even Teflon types.

The truth is, all of us reach the point, sometimes daily, where we need strength to not throw in the towel.

But we won’t defeat our moments of discouragement and difficulty by deciding to bail when things stop being easy.  [Because that is just the human side of us that wants relief from the hard thing.]

We win when we simply…prayerfully…take the next step.

We don’t have to understand it all right now. It doesn’t need to all make sense.

We don’t have to know exactly where we are going or how it’s going to play out.

We just need to put one foot in front of the other and keep going.

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*Conversation: Need prayer to just keep going? Leave me a comment with a “yes” [and more, if you want], and I will pray for you.

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[Not the scrappy girl kind with hair pulls and nails scratching, but the kind of sharp words that punch harder and bruise deeper.]

It was my go-to response to things in my life I didn’t like.

So when as a high school girl a rumor was started about my pastor-father that I didn’t like, I went to find the source.

At work.  In the middle of the mall.  She, a girl from my school. 

And I began to respond to something I didn’t like in the only way that made sense, by fighting back with my words.

But after the adrenaline had left and the words were said, the heart still ached over something all my words couldn’t change.

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The truth is, we all have things in our life we don’t like…things that hurt us deeply.  And we all have go-to ways we use to respond to them.

We become the fighter, the jokester, the holier than thou Bible beater, the needy one, the addict, the controller, the pleaser, the happy-all-the-time-no-matter-if-we-are-not, the busy-my-schedule-so-I-don’t-have-to-think-about-it.

We turn to shopping and eating and tv and porn and hobbies like Facebook that become obsessions and sex and relationships that are so toxic we would tell someone else to never, ever keep.

But those things will never change anything. [for the good]

Only the power of God can do that.

So maybe we stop responding to things we don’t like by punching with our words or living life through a computer screen or laughing when we don’t mean it or living in a shell of who we were created to be just because it’s what we have known best.

Because we have the power through God to change the things in our life we don’t like.

It just won’t happen without Him.

*Friends, I bring this message to the students of Southwest Baptist University today.  I’d love to hear from YOU…1) to let me know if you will pray for God to use this to speak to hearts, and 2) if you will commit to pray for God to show you what your “go-to” response to things you don’t like in your life might be?  That’s the first step towards change.  Love you!

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“I just want to ask him: am I a wimpy Christian or does he ever struggle, too, with his faith?”

I heard her and understood.  Because the truth is: sometimes, when we see a passionate Jesus lover really out there doing it for Him, it makes us feel inadequate and small.

I told her words I needed to hear, myself:

Everyone struggles.

Everyone doubts God sometimes.  Everyone steps into a pile of mess and tries, first, to clean it off ourselves.

Everyone has taste buds that sometimes crave wrong things.

Everyone has breaks of the heart that no bestselling book, amount of Twitter followers, achievement, stage or platform can ever mend.

Everyone says things we shouldn’t, lets God down, holds things in our heart we never want known, grasps onto things that should be let go and vice versa.

Everyone has family challenges.  Everyone could stand to pray more.

Absolutely everyone on the planet who has ever been and will ever be struggles in some way at some point in this life.

Even the best preachers and most faithful missionaries.  Even the wisest women and the strongest men.  Even amazing, passionate Jesus lovers who go on national TV and share rich wisdom about the journey God has them on which is based on some kind of awesome crazy love.

And when we believe anything else we put others in a space that makes us feel less.  And we wrongly believe there is something wrong with us, that we are the only one who struggles and we must be in some not-as-fit-for-ministry category that doesn’t exist.

But it’s not true.

Because everyone struggles.

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*Conversation: How does it make you feel, to remember that everyone struggles in some way?

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I won’t be writing, again, until the week of April 8, when I return from having spent a sweet week with my family on Spring Break.

Until then.]

“My Savior wept that all tears might be wiped from my eyes,

groaned that I might have endless song,

endured all pain that I might have unfading health,

bore a thorny crown that I might have a glory-diadem,

bowed his head that I might uplift mine,

experienced reproach that I might receive welcome,

closed his eyes in death that I might gaze on unclouded brightness,

expired that I might for ever live.

 

…Help me to adore thee by lips and life.”

Love Lustres at Calvary~The Valley of Vision: Puritans Prayers and Devotions

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[And part of me argues, too, in that core place that drives my thoughts, wants and conversations, as I often find it hard to find anything else important but Him.]

But then I remember my unchurched, non-believing friends [and even believing friends who know God in their hearts but that’s about where it stopped]…and how often it’s not God they are turned off by but His followers and our approach he or she can’t stomach.  And I have to care about that because of the risk.

That because of the approach, some may never experience Him.

[So please, save the emails.  I know that Jesus was misunderstood and believers are to be in this world but not of it and those not Jesus followers likely won’t understand.]

The truth is, we can throw our big Jesus parties all we want, loud tooting horns and all, but if it is not welcoming, no one will want to come.  And isn’t the point of the Jesus party to draw people in, not preach them away?

Passion for God is the fuel that drives us to travel.  But sometimes, in our zeal, it doesn’t translate.

When it comes off as haughty, superior or mostly about us. [You should be doing what I’m doing kind of vibe.]

When it pushes rather than prompts. [How do people respond to my approach? – best question to ask.]

When it doesn’t leave room for different ways to serve God. [My ministry is the most important underlying feel.]

When it helps people have an excuse to dismiss God. [She/he sounds like a spiritual crazy and I can’t at all relate type of thing.]

Friends, I’ve never seen a better way to draw people to Jesus than to be so much like Him that others inexplicably can’t turn away.

And from what I’ve seen, that has never involved tooting a loud horn.

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*Conversation: Does this post resonate with you? Stir you? Do you agree/disagree? Share your OWN experience, either way…I’d love to hear it.

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about bringing my best to God.

The truth is, every time I read the books of Leviticus and Numbers this happens.

Because out in the margins, written over and over in my own hand, the word BEST.

There is nothing long or fancy about this post.

Just a burdened heart, compelled to share with you, my faithful reader, what He is reminding me.

Too often, I get used to Him and take who He is too lightly.

He is holy, and he expects holiness of me, too.

I put him behind other things, when 1^st place is always to be His.

And the only words I am left with in this moment…

God, help me.

I want to bring my best.

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*Conversation: What are your words to God this morning, after reading this post?

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I am still thinking about her.

The 20ish young woman, beautiful, with scarf around neck in messy perfection and glasses that makes the look all look right.

She comes up to me and almost immediately begins fidgeting, looking at everything around me but my eyes…my cue to know that really, she wants to talk.

Standing around me, all women who are older – 40’s and up, about 6 of them – huddled in their own random conversations, only quietened by her words, which, through tears, come next.

I’m struggling with an eating disorder.

I take her into my arms to pray and think only this: thank God someone still has courage.

And I am grateful, that in this moment, God has used the voice of a young woman to inspire those standing around in earshot to somehow be courageous in their struggle, too.

If it’s true as they say, that women are on the rise, then we need some young women.

to be grounded: to know the Bible, rest in its convictions and believe it is not just cool made up stories but 100% God-breathed and true.

to be fearless: to keep being courageous, keep calling us out on things that don’t read real, keep doing things the women who have gone before them have not had the guts to do.

to still value men: to understand that no matter what society says, all men are not idiots, chauvinists, addicts and abusers…that good men are vital and important and even when we, as women, rise we must not get prideful and think our moment warrants dismissing the value of men.

to be willing to learn and hear: that despite the fact the delivery is not always good, there remains a depth in those who have gone before and have some life journey lessons to both respect and learn from.

to love God most: to crave Him and chase Him and honor Him, even when no one else does so the world may know the One to rescue when things gets worse. [and they will]

The truth is, those younger will soon be older and we who are older will, too, and will wake one day to find out that now, she is our teacher.

And how we’ve invested now will determine how good of a teacher she will be.

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*Conversation: Do you see the value in investing in the younger generation? How else should we invest that’s not on my list? 

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