Born to be Free

During some of the hardest parts of last year, there was one phrase God told me more than others. "You forget Who I am." When I've been on my knees in my closet, scrawling God's promises to me out on the walls, that phrase soon joined them. In the midst of my everyday, in the middle of any crisis we face - We end up forgetting Who He is. Isn't it strange?  How we can develop this soul-amnesia, lose sight of all that He's gotten us through? Remembering the past and passing down stories of their ancestors was very important to the people of Israel.  There were accounts delivered from generation to generation by word of mouth.  There were feasts, festivals, sabbaths, fasts and even certain years in their entirety set apart as a time for the people to gather, rest and  remember.   Remember the faithfulness of their God - how He had delivered them, brought them to the place they called home, gave them victory over powerful armies - and would soon send ...

I've been thinking over Ezekiel 37 a lot lately.  Ezekiel was a priest called to be God's prophet during the Babylonian captivity.  In chapter 37, we see God's power demonstrated in His ability to raise up His people in a new spiritual birth. "The hand of the Lord was upon me, and he brought me out in the Spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of the valley; it was full of bones.  And he led me around among them, and behold, there were very many on the surface of the valley, and behold, they were very dry.  And he said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” And I answered, “O Lord God, you know.”  Then he said to me, “Prophesy over these bones, and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.  Thus says the Lord God to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live.  And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall l...

As people with beautiful souls in a broken world, we've become well acquainted with many kinds of fear. There's the fear of failing that test; not finding a job; never feeling better; never finding out where we fit in all of this. It will manifest itself in a variety of ways.  It might be the worry that makes all your days seem unbearably long yet agonizingly too short - the kind that is the source of your gray hair.  Fear could be what drives you to tears and panic as you're held a captive to your own mind. Fear isn't make-believe.  You can't tell someone they can't be sad because others have it worse any more than you can say they can't be happy because others have it better.  Sometimes it takes a re-working of the schedule, a weeding out of stress.  Other times it requires a re-working of both mind and spirit, a tearing down of the Devil's strongholds. But do you know what else? Fear is a lie.   Whole multitudes of shrieking fal...

Yesterday, my little sister fell asleep on my lap, and it hit me - how much I'm going to miss these days. People live in different mindsets, some are great at focusing on the subject at hand.  I'm not one of those people. When I was little, all I could ever think of was growing up, seeing the world - and I suspect that many people have done the same.  My nine-year-old self wanted to be an Egyptologist and solve the ancient mysteries of the pharaohs.  I wanted to do great things with my life, and frankly I've never lost that thought - to dare greatly. Fast-forward to the teen years, when people begin the great and treacherous journey to discover who they are and where they belong in the world.  We're a people looking forward to when we'll know more, but still looking back and wishing things were like they used to be. When I was sixteen, I began Bible Quizzing - something that God used to rock my world and turn my life upside down in the best of ways.  No...

There's a whole, wide world out there. Does it sometimes seem too wide?  A bit too big for little old you and me? Maybe it's because we feel too small for the job.  Maybe we think somebody else could do it better.  Moses certainly thought the same thing.  In Exodus 4, it is written -  " But Moses said to the  Lord , “Oh, my Lord, I am not eloquent, either in the past or since you have spoken to your servant, but  I am slow of speech and of tongue.”   Then the  Lord  said to him, “Who has made man's mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the  Lord ?     Now therefore go, and  I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak.”    We tell ourselves that there are better leaders out there, better friends, better writers.  But here's the thing - if God wanted somebody else to do your job, He wouldn't have given it to you.  1 Corinthians 7:17 says "Only le...

Many of us as Christians are wrapped up in evangelism, spreading the gospel to others and seeing their lives freed from the grip of evil.  It's the Great Commission and it needs to be lived out every day. But there's something else we need to be doing too - Preaching the gospel to  ourselves . Our very own Jesus, when the devil himself was standing in front of Him - what defense did He choose?  How did He refute the prince of darkness? He quoted scripture. This God incarnate - He's the Master of heaven and earth and could've called on His army of angels, but chose words instead. They say the pen is mightier than the sword - but the pen of God is a two-edged sword wielded by an all-consuming fire of a God. The Word of God is the greatest weapon for fending off the enemies of God. The devil will whisper lies into your heart every day - sometimes he'll even  shout  them.  But you almost never know it's him talking. That's the thing - all thos...

This week I'm leaving for Washington to visit a friend and help her move. Traveling has played a fairly large part in my life this year - physically and spiritually. Between Bible Quizzing competitions out of state, the trip to Canada, and a journey to the Carolinas - much of the past twelve months I've been discovering new parts of the world, and new sides of myself. When this year began, I decided to choose a word to live by for the remainder of 2017.  Feeling like I often ran away from the hard things God brought my way - I chose a three letter word - "yes".  I was done avoiding the things He had called me to do, and so I said yes. Yes to journeying out of the country, to restoring relationships, to not being dominated by my fear.  Yes to speaking up and stepping out, and learning that love is both the simplest and the hardest thing to give.  Yes to caring for the people around me, but remembering that I can't ignore my own soul in the process.  How c...