Daring to be Restless

January is coming to an end already, today is the last day.   How remarkable.   And thus ends the first month of the book challenge.   How has it gone, friends?   Have you finished?   Have you started?   Have you been captured by the beauty of God and His plan for you?   What has been your favorite part of this month’s chapter?   What ministered to your heart the most?   Please, feel free to share with me what God has been doing on the inside of you as you have journeyed with us this month.   As for me, the quote from Captivating that stood out the most to me appeared in the middle of page 105.   John and Stasi Eldredge write there: “ There is much life saving that needs to be done yet, and someone needs to do it . Not in a pressure-filled You’d better get to it kind of a way.   Rather, an invitation.   Your feminine heart is an invitation by your Creator.   To what?   To play an irreplaceable role in His Story .   Isn’t that what your Lover wrote there? Some dream, some desire,

“Expect the Lord, do manfully, and let thy heart take courage, and wait thou for the Lord …” – Psalm 27:14, 1899 Douay-Rheims Bible                 This verse formed the basis of the sermon yesterday at church, and it was painful.  Sitting in my pew, tears sprung immediately to my eyes as Pastor began to expound on this verse.  For the last several months, my heart has been wrestling with this idea of “waiting.”  There are dreams God has placed on my heart, dreams I long for, ache for, weep for, that I literally dream about at night with such clarity and such a sense of realness that I wake in confusion as to which is real – what I saw in my sleep or what I see now that I am awake … dreams I wish I wasn’t waiting to see come to fruition any longer.  I have fasted and prayed, have waged war with the devil, have aligned my words with the Word of God … and still I wait.  At least I thought I was waiting, until I dug into my study notes, and God began to show me what it truly means to wai

Water you turned into wine, opened the eyes of the blind - There’s no one like you, none like you. Into the darkness you shine, Out of the ashes we rise, There’s no one like you, None like you. Our God is greater, Our God is stronger, God you are higher than any other. Our God is healer, Awesome in power, Our God.   Our God. ~ Chris Tomlin singing, “Our God”                 Do you believe it’s true?   Do you believe that there is none like our God?   Do you believe that our God really is able to open blind eyes and cure the sick?   That He’s moving mightily upon the earth even now, and if you don’t feel it or see it – that it’s not His fault?   Do you believe that He wants to sweep you into the majestic and frighteningly glorious plan He has for His people?   Do you believe that “If our God is for us, then who could ever stop is?   And if our God is with us, then what could stand against?”   Do you believe that God has mighty plans for you so much bigger than a comfortable house a

 Yesterday, as I sat down to consider my choices for further devotional reading, I picked up the book my sister-in-law gave us for Christmas: Radical by David Platt … and I have to say, I am astounded.   I am excited and nervous, and ready to be challenged like never before as I work my way through the pages of this book.   Writing about Luke 9, in which Jesus tells a variety of would-be disciples why they won’t find the journey to God particularly comfortable , Platt writes on page 12:                 “But we don’t want to believe it.   We are afraid of what it might mean for our lives.   So we rationalize these passages away.   ‘Jesus wouldn’t really tell us not to bury our father or say good-bye to our family.   Jesus didn’t literally mean to sell all we have and give it to the poor.   What Jesus really meant was …’                 And this is where we need to pause.   Because we are starting to redefine Christianity … to take the Jesus of the Bible and twist him into a version