Tag Archives: Jesus

Feel Taken for Granted?

Posted on May 7, 2013 | 3 Comments

My daughter explained to me the difficulty of auditioning for a lead in a musical yesterday. “It’s harder when you know the director. It’s like you’ve messed up already in front of her, so why try your best? I always work harder when it’s someone new, that’s why I always do better.”

Clueless as to how her young heart embraced familiarity and discouragement, I launched into coaching. “Do you think that’s what God would want or what that other guy would want?”

“Well, Satan, of course, but I don’t know why,” she said.

“Do you know that this is the same thing that trips people up in marriage?” I asked.

She looked at me confused. “How?”

“We think we know someone super-well, so we think we know what he’s thinking. We think, ‘We’ll always be married,’ so we stop trying our best. Or we think, ‘I’ve already messed up, so why try my best?’ and we get lazy. We stop trying hard. What do you think God wants us to do in our marriage?”

“Do our best!” she said.

“Exactly. And my guess is that this is the same in your relationship with your brothers, and with Dad and me… but we really all should be trying our best with those closest to us, right?” I asked. “So you should give your director your best audition, because you know her, not the opposite, right? And besides, you know you should be doing your best regardless of what you do or who it’s for, because you are really doing it for God.”

“Hmmm… Yeah. I forgot that,” she said, running off to practice for the audition.

I couldn’t remember the reference or the wording at the time, but today, here’s what I’m sharing with her from Colossians 3:23 (ISV):

Whatever you do, work at it wholeheartedly as though you were doing it for the Lord and not merely for people.

Hebrews 10:29 (NKJV) says we are in deep trouble if we take for granted what Christ has done for us: Of how much worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace?

Mark 6:6 has Jesus wondering at the lack of respect and ingratitude towards Him in His own town of Nazareth, when He began His ministry.

Are we guilty?

Dare you today to combat the lies of this world and the disrespect that comes with familiarity by being grateful.

There’s no room for misery in a heart overflowing with thankfulness.

Count your blessings – here or on Facebook with us today, or in a notebook daily on your kitchen counter or office desk, capturing the many blessings of this life. In Daughters of Sarah, we call this activity, “Gratitudes.” It’s one of the big life-changing and marriage-overhauling exercises in The Respect Dare book – especially the way God had us do it.

Start now – you’ll find that even the hard eucharisteo of suffering includes blessing – you’ll see it if you start with the obvious things we humans label as “good.”

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

Psalms 107:1 O give thanks to the LORD, for he is good: for his mercy endures forever.

Psalms 118:24 This is the day which the LORD has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.

Psalms 136:1 O give thanks to the LORD; for he is good: for his mercy endures forever.

John 11:41 Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank you that you have heard me.

Ephesians 5:20 Giving thanks always for all things to God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ;

Colossians 3:17 And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.

Having a thankful heart produces a life of gratitude and joy, which is the opposite of discouragement. If you have trouble with this concept, read Ann Voskamp’s One Thousand Gifts. But regardless, start counting. I’ve noticed a difference in my ability to stay out of the pit by doing this. Dare you to join me.

The enemy has little traction in a life filled with gratitude.

Double dog dare you to share and comment as a Titus 2 woman of influence, encouraging others to do the same. We can facilitate this environment in our homes – and change everyone’s experiences…seriously. Dare ya.

So glad you are here!
Love to you,

~Nina

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Posted in Avoid Divorce

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Good Mom?

Posted on March 21, 2013 | 4 Comments

The boy stretched his arms upward in expectation.

“Carry me, Mommy,” he said.

Instead of lifting him, the very pregnant woman squatted next to him and steadied her swollen body.

“Oh, I wish I could, sweetie,” she said. “Mommy’s too pregnant to lift you for a while. How about we hold hands as we walk down stairs?”

She smiled and took his hand. “I love you, you know,” she said.

He smiled and said, “I know. I love you too, Mommy.”

And then the voices spoke to him.

“She doesn’t love you any more, you know,” came one.

“She has a new baby that will take your place. You are worthless to her,” hissed another.

And he believed these surprising things about himself.

Lies, but there nonetheless.

And at age 3, it’s the first thing he remembers.

…

I don’t claim to be a perfect mother by any stretch of the imagination.

But I do know I have dealt with my own emotional baggage (and continue to do so as it pops up), read every parenting book I can get my hands on, apologized and freely offered forgiveness, and refused to wrap my identity up in my kids’ behavior.

I have made plenty of mistakes, even though I have had my nose (and heart and mind) in a Bible nearly daily for over two decades.

And prayer is a regular part of our existence.

And even though I did everything in that 3 year old boy’s life “right” at that moment, the enemy still got to him.

And when I found out about it, when he was nine, for a while, I blamed myself. To be totally honest, I cried a bucket of tears over it. The “if only I’d” thoughts started coming and plagued me hard and fast for a chunk of time, until I listened to Truth’s soft quiet voice over the deafening cacophony of lies spewing forth from that other guy. Truth said, “You did the absolute best you could at the time, and still are.”  And I still make mistakes. So I own them, apologize to those I hurt, forgive myself as well, and move on. I apologized to that boy who carried a broken 3 year old in his heart.  Even though I hadn’t wounded him personally and the enemy had, I had to help him. I had to facilitate forgiveness for him so he could move on.

The absolute Truth is that there is only ONE Jesus Christ.

I’m going to be human and so are you.

And the enemy is still going to act. He even acted with Jesus Christ Himself present – because the Trinity allowed him to. And the Trinity allows him to act still.

Today, I want to remind all of us of something that matters greatly. It’s a foundational thought that literally impacts everything in our relationships: It’s often the lies we believe that destroy our relationships.

Lies about what we or other people think, feel, or believe about themselves, others, or God Himself.

Dare you to refuse to believe the lies of the culture or that other guy who is busy on the prowl, looking for someone to devour. He wants to get in the way of your relationship with God, yourself, and others. He wants very much to destroy your marriage and can easily do so if he can get you feeling resentment instead of compassion, shame or guilt instead of God’s gentle conviction, bitterness instead of understanding and kindness, hate instead of love, and disagreement instead of curiosity.

And he starts with our thoughts about ourselves.

Within all of us is a 3 year old (or younger) who believed a lie that became the filter through which much of reality is seen. Dare you to challenge that. I didn’t know this at the time, but when God wrote The Respect Dare, one of the first things He had us do is revisit our childhood. A psychologist friend of mine later told me that a person’s childhood is where our personality and beliefs about ourselves, others and relationships are formed. By the time a child is 12, she said, these things are pretty solidly ingrained. What is cool, however, is that forgiveness actually has a “rewiring” effect on the brain, and it can heal not just unhealthy thinking, but the habits of thinking associated with emotionally damaging events.

Dare you to aggressively pursue Truth and forgiveness in your relationships.

Double dog dare you to do the hard work necessary to get through your own emotional baggage and have healthier relationships with yourself, God and others. TRIPLE dog dare you to apologize when you hurt others (even unintentionally or by accident), and forgive them and yourself, and continue to do your absolute best in relationships. Facilitate it for those (whether child or adult) who are not mature enough to do so for themselves.  Have empathy, even if you did nothing wrong – that’s called compassion, and it’s very Jesus-like.  “That’s got to be so hard for you.”  “I’m so sorry you are feeling this way.” Even, “I’m so sorry you perceived that from me.  It must have hurt you deeply.  It wasn’t what I meant to communicate at all.

Know this is different than “owning” other people’s “stuff” – you aren’t taking responsibility for their behavior, but rather facilitating a discussion that helps them get free with forgiveness and the revelation of Truth.

It matters more than you know right now and impacts our ability to interact with literally everyone in our lives.

1 John 4:4-7 Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2 By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3 and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already. 4 Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. 5 They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them. 6 We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error. 7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

What about you? What lies have you believed? Can you choose to believe you are loved? Can you choose to believe you are a good mom? Dare you to share and encourage someone else. :)

Matthew West “Forgiveness”

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Posted in Avoid Divorce, Got Pain?, Growing, Kids & Parenting

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Got Pain?

Posted on December 13, 2012 | 13 Comments

Even the seed must die before it lives – it literally gets ripped in half and destroyed before life bursts forth.

Trust Him in the now of your circumstances. The Christian walk is filled with death. Death to sin, to selfishness, to pride, to independence, to immaturity, to all the things we place before our reliance on God.

Death occurs before life springs abundantly.

Hebrews 12:11 (ESV)

For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

Something good is coming. Don’t turn away from this present darkness – you’ll miss the coming blessings He has in store for you.

Dare you to ask Him to help you die to the things that are not from Him, that you might have life abundant.

It’s why Jesus came. Follow Him.

Just because we follow Christ doesn’t mean we do not have trouble in this life – but it does mean we have hope.

So glad you are here and on the journey with us! J

Love to you,

~Nina
Romans 8:28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for
those who are called according to his purpose.

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Posted in Avoid Divorce, Got Pain?

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Forgive Me… but I Have Sinned…

Posted on July 27, 2012 | 10 Comments

Wednesday, after blogging, I headed to the barn to ride. Here’s another confession for you: I’ve been riding horses for over 35 years, and I’ve never fallen off. I’ve come close a number of times, but have never been launched. All those years of watching the rodeo growing up must have taught me to hold on… This summer, however, I had the privilege of being schooled by a tremendously talented young woman who really should train full time. I realized that the things she was having me do to “find my seat” (like ride bareback), could send my arthritic bones from horseback to ground hard and fast.

And I was seriously scared to fall off.

I was afraid of getting hurt. And I was taking more risks in riding, like trotting without my feet in the stirrups to work on balance. So the fear of falling and getting hurt was fresh and fierce.

Wednesday, I tried to ride Libby bareback.

I’m sure I could have sold tickets to the spectacle that ensued.

Moving the huge mare over to the mounting block (three short railroad ties stacked loosely on top of each other), I lurched my leg over her, and found myself stuck half on, sliding off.

She’s REALLY wide and round, like a barrel. I was nearly doing the splits.

So I slid off and tried again.

And found myself stuck and sliding once more.

At this point, I was starting to feel like a big goofball, and was thankful that where we were was hidden nicely behind the barn.

With grand determination, I slung myself up again…

And stuck I was.

And then, the next thing I knew, I was BOUNCING my back off the mounting block (WHAM!!), and whacking my helmet-covered head against the fence. Libby’s foreleg was inches away from landing on my shin bone. I moved quickly, wondering if I was seriously hurt.

And I wasn’t.

Not at all.

Not a scrape, not a bruise. Not a single bump.

I was literally stunned.

Not only did the thing I was afraid of most happen, but I didn’t get hurt, and it built my confidence.

(okay, yes, I know the horse wasn’t even moving, but seriously, it was enough – God knows I need baby steps here)

Realizing I just didn’t know how to get on her, I put her saddle on and we road that way.

When I told my oldest son about the experience, he suggested a Parkour move that might help me next time. I’m not sure I’ll be able to do it, but I am going to try.

Or maybe I’ll just bring my step-stool with me.

:)

Romans 3:23 says, “For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”

I’ve always been about being real with the people in your life – my kids, my husband… and I’ve realized recently that the depth of our understanding of God’s love for us will be something satan is not only familiar with, but uses really well to derail us in our obedience to the Father.

And I know God allows this to happen, but allows it for our good and for His glory.

If you’ve been reading the last few days, you are familiar with the recent journey.

Posting on Wednesday was really hard. Mainly because I knew transparency was the order of business that day, and to be 100% honest with you, I was afraid to be real. I wrote about that on Thursday.

But I did what I was supposed to do, and standing in my kitchen, as soon as I hit, “Publish,” I encountered this nagging feeling about a devotional I used to read daily. My thoughts were drawn to the shelf in the bookcase where it was, even though two days before, I had taken it out of the bookshelf and left it who-knows-where in a menopausal moment. I kept trying to get on with my day, but my mind kept being drawn to the bookcase, bottom shelf.

So I walked over to the bookcase, knowing full well that the devotional wasn’t there. Squatting down, my eyes surveyed the titles on that last shelf. And there was another devotional, one I’d put there because it literally was falling apart…and I pulled it out of the shelf. I opened it to what I thought was Wednesday’s date, July 24 (yes, I know that was wrong, but God knew I can’t keep the dates straight in the summer!), and I was met with 1 Thessalonians 5:16-19, which reads:

16 Rejoice always, 17 pray without ceasing, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. 19 Do not quench the Spirit.

And Revelation hit. The opposite of giving thanks and rejoicing is to complain.

And in focusing on the complaints in the reviews, I neither gave thanks, nor prayed for those whose comments were nasty and mean, and as a result, I quenched the Spirit.

And then I complained myself… and to a handful of people, under the guise of “Will you pray for this? It’s not going well.” And in doing so, focused on sin instead of glory.

So this morning, I asked God to forgive me for those things.

And then I read through the reviews again.

And I had another Revelation. They weren’t as horrid as I originally had thought. I can clearly see that there were just a couple of reviewers that wouldn’t have liked what we did regardless of what it was. I read what they wrote again, and saw them for what they were: as broken and messed up and sinful as I am. And I forgave them for their mean words. And then I thanked Him for helping me SEE.

I also saw some more Truth: there were more that gained TONS from the class than those who didn’t like it or us.

And I learned something else, equally important…I saw that what I had created needed have some things fixed to be stellar – which I knew, but for the first time, I felt like it was doable, and was motivated to do the work. We don’t have the money to fix it right now, but I need to just do the next thing, and trust God to figure it out for us. And I need to do the next thing He’s asked me to do.

The biggest thing that I have learned is that I spent too much time trying to please God (which is Biblical, but should be second) and not enough time trusting God.  TRUST needs to gird my relationship with Him.  I need to obey out of TRUST.  Not obey out of trying to please Him. He’s already pleased.  I’m already a butterfly.  If you read the DNA of a caterpillar, it is 100% butterfly.  You wouldn’t know you were looking at a caterpillar’s DNA unless you were told.  Jesus makes me a butterfly, even if I’m still slowly scrunching myself forward, gorging on leaves, as a caterpillar.

I let my self-image get wrapped up in the doing, and when the doing didn’t end the way I thought it would, I didn’t know what to do. I lost my value. I handed over my joy – through complaining, a lack of trust, and an absence of prayer for those who hurt me.  How immature is that? Duh. TRUST HIM. He’s got it covered, even though I don’t know how we get to where He’s taking us.

And in the middle of all of this, I’ve also learned more about His Great Love for us all, being transparent, and where my strength comes from.

When I set my coffee cup down Wednesday morning, I saw “Nehemiah 8:10″ written in the bottom of it. I’ve been drinking out of this cup for well over a year now, and I never saw that in the bottom! I knew it was on the outside…but…

“The joy of the Lord is my strength.” Nehemiah 8:10

Now I knew why I had no strength.

And when we complain, instead of “counting it ALL joy,” and praising God in the middle of trials, when we stop praying about literally everything, we hand our joy over to that other guy. And as a result, lose our strength.

Dare you to ask Him to help you be thankful and rejoice for something tough you are going through right now. Seriously.

:)

Double-dog-dare you to obey Him, as that changes everything, even when it is hard!

Please feel free to “subscribe” or better yet, comment and share to encourage others who think they are failing and alone.

I’m so glad you are here.

Thanks for being on the journey with me. Thank you for encouraging me this week. Thank you for your prayers. :)

You’ve helped me become stronger. And with all my might, I will do what God has asked me to do, focusing on whatever is pure, noble, right, lovely, admirable, praiseworthy, and excellent, finding contentment in my current circumstances, doing ALL things through Christ Who strengthens me.

I’ve remembered (there’s been SO MUCH!! :)   too much to go into on and on here) that ALL of His people in the Bible struggled like I have. I’m in fabulous company! One of them even denied and abandoned Him – and was fully restored.

His name was Peter.

Love to you,

~Nina

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Posted in Avoid Divorce, Got Pain?, Growing, Wives

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