One of the things that I love most about God is how God can take our small efforts, the things in our life that we don’t believe are good enough, and make them truly amazing.  He can take our small, human efforts, and perform divine miracles with them.

He can make the impossible, possible.  Listen to what happens in John 6: 8-11:

One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?” Jesus said, “Make the people sit down.” Now there was a great deal of grass in the place; so they sat down, about five thousand in all. Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted.

Jesus is here with a crowd of 5,000 (men, there were, most assuredly many woman and children there also) and it’s time to eat. But there is nothing there to eat, at least nothing that could feed a crowd this big.

But in this text, we see two people who I’m sure must have felt foolish offer up a small little gift when they saw a huge need.  

First, the boy offers to Andrew these five loaves and two fish. And then Andrew offers them to Jesus.

You can almost see the child sweetly offering up the food, as a child would go to their piggy bank when their family has a need.  The parents smile knowing that it won’t be enough.  You can almost see Andrew do that.

But then he takes that sweet gift to Jesus, knowing that there is no way it can help, but at least it’s something.  And Jesus performs a miracle.

From one small gift, Jesus feeds thousands.

Today, we all have gifts that seem so small with all the needs around.  Offer them anyway.  Give them to Jesus.  Give to them to his mercy and grace.  And see what he can do.

He can take our simple, small gifts, and do amazing things with them.  All for our good (and the good of others) and his glory!

Today, give your simple gifts to Jesus.

Singer, violinist, evangelist and Order of the Flame 2016 speaker Jean Watson reflects on emptiness as a blessing. Listen here:

The other day I was using Google maps and realized that when I dragged the map ahead on my route, this “re-center” button popped up!

How handy! Maybe this is a new feature from the most recent software update, or maybe I’m just that slow and haven’t noticed it until now, but I can’t tell you how many times I’ve jumped ahead on the map to find my destination and then didn’t know how to get back to find where I actually was (can I get an “Amen?”) .

That’s how I tend to live my life: while there’s a strong side of me that tends to dwell on how great yesterday was, I’m internally wired to be constantly looking ahead, zooming in to pinpoint my destination, viewing it from every angle (preferably from Street View) and wanting to know what to expect when I get there. I don’t like surprises. I long for the unknown to be familiar before I venture into it.

Therein lies the problem. Before I know it, I’ve mentally prepared myself for every scenario, have the answer for every potential question, and stewed over possible negative outcomes. I’ve built an entire world of possibilities around a destination and I’m not even there.

It’s only when I’ve worked myself into an “If/Then” frenzy that I realize it: I don’t even know where I am. I drag my proverbial finger back over my “map,” thinking that I’m backtracking, but I simply can’t find the little blue Star Trek insignia-thingy that is me. I panic a little. How am I going to get to where I need to go, if I don’t know where I am–right here, right now?

That’s when the Holy Spirit nudges me to look at my “re-center” button.

“He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” ~Colossians 1:17

“The Lord is the One who goes ahead of you; he will be with you. He will not fail you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.” ~Deuteronomy 31:8

When I push that button, it gives me the freedom to live each day as it comes. It reminds me to live in the present, because each day is a gift. It makes me aware that God himself goes before me, God knows my route, and he knows my destination.

Today, I need re-centered. I need today’s purpose. Not tomorrow’s, not next year’s, but today’s. It is today’s purpose that will determine tomorrow’s potential.

Goal-setting, five-year plans, and retirement ambitions are all good things, but sometimes I just need to take a step back and evaluate my current location on my life map.

Because every once in a while, I need to know where I am today before I can get to where God wants me to be.

*Note: I actually wrote this short piece the day before the tragic deaths of Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, and then those shot in Dallas. These events shake me. My heart is overwhelmed at the hatred and injustice God’s ultimate creation could have toward one another. It trembles in fear at the world in which I’m getting ready to launch my boys.

“From the ends of the earth I call to You, I call as my heart grows faint; lead me to the Rock that is higher than I. For You have been my refuge, a strong tower against the foe.” ~Psalm 61:2

There has never been a better time than now to re-center.

I really do love the book of Proverbs.  There’s just some really good stuff within this great book: wisdom that can help us live our lives in ways that are just so powerful and so good.

Ways that are just so true.  Listen to what we are told today in Proverbs 21: 1-2:

1 A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches,
and favor is better than silver or gold.
2 The rich and the poor have this in common:
the Lord is the maker of them all.

In this passage, we see what is truly priceless in the world.  Not power or wealth or status, but this.  A good name.  It is better than anything else you can have in all the world.

A good name is not for sale.  A good name doesn’t come from ill-gotten gain.  A good name speaks to who we are as people.  A good name is one of the few things that really does matter.

But how do we get a good name?  Verse two tells us.

We see in verse two where our worth comes from.  It comes from this fact: God is our maker.  He is the maker of the rich.  He is the maker of the poor.  He is the maker of us all.

Everyone matters.  Everyone is important.  Everyone is made in God’s image.  And Jesus died for everyone.

You have never met an unimportant person.  You have never met what C.S. Lewis calls a “mere mortal.”

There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilization—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting splendors… Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses.

God is the maker of us all.  Everyone matters.  Treat everyone like they are that sacred.  Because they are.  Treat everyone with the worth that they have. That’s how you get a priceless treasure.  That’s how you get a good name.

I suspect sometimes that I live more out of a sense of obligation than awe — more aware that I’ve signed onto a system than that I am a servant of a holy God who has actually sapped the power out of death and sin. I need to be reminded that systems are not living, breathing things, but Jesus is. If I’m going to recommit to that truth today, how can I live like Jesus is alive?

1. Let the dead things die. Toss the old habits that are not working for you any more. Toss the old, dead rituals. Let’s be honest: some of us are still waiting for 1953 to roll around again so we can get back to a more comfortable kind of religion. Folks, Jesus is doing a new thing! Toss the things you keep wanting to come back that are never going to come back, both in your spiritual life and in the rest of your life. Let the things that have no life for you die.

2. Learn to feast. Psalm 23 is a song of death and resurrection. It paints this picture of walking through a valley of shadows, on the verge of death, with a focus on the feast at the far side. On the next rise, just past the valley, there is a table set by God himself.  “You prepare a table for me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil. My cup overflows.”

This Psalm is about how to walk through trouble with a feast mentality, rather than a spirit of scarcity.

I remember reading this line one evening years ago while I was sitting in the chapel of the church I was serving at the time. We offered Wednesday night communion and I was the pastor for that service. I’d sit in the chapel and as folks came I served them. In between people, I usually read the scriptures.

My husband Steve usually came to that service on Wednesdays, and I remember one week in particular when he showed up. It had been a hard week for him. He was teaching, and it seemed like he was struggling more than usual with classroom discipline. Like that semester he had every demon in Morgan County taking history from him. It was a rough season.

As he walked up to the altar, I was reading this very line from Psalm 23 about God preparing a table for us in the presence of our enemies. I looked up from that line to see my husband kneeling at the altar, his hands out to receive the elements, all his enemies weighing heavily on him — the students, the work, the tests to be graded. And I thought to myself, “Here it is! Being lived out right in front of me … God inviting Steve to a feast!”

In the face of so many enemies, Steve was invited by the Lord of the Universe to come to the table, to get his cup refilled, to receive God’s goodness and mercy, and to remember that even with so many demons hanging on, God was with him. God was on his side. God is on his side  and yours … and mine.

If the message of Christmas is that God is with us, then the message of Easter is that God is for us.

This is what it means to get a feast mentality. It is to set your face toward that table, believing in the goodness of the One who set it for you, while you’re still in the valley. It is to believe the story is true even when life is hard.

3. Get a resurrection mindset. That is a mindset that is fearless in the face of change. It is a mindset that believes that God has a big, honkin’ plan for your life, something much bigger than you’re thinking, and something you won’t discover as long as you’re tweaking the small stuff?

Jesus is worthy. The cross is glorious. The good news is worth believing. The Kingdom to come is an absolute assurance and the resurrection is proof.

Learn to live as if this is so.

I went to church on a Saturday morning to meet a group of folks who wanted me to offer communion to their group. The first person I saw was one of the leaders. She drove right up next to me in the parking lot, rolled down her window, and said, “the dog ate the communion bread.” I thought she was joking, but she looked at me with dead seriousness and said, “no, really. How can a miniature dachshund need that much communion bread?”

What a powerful analogy for what happens to so many people in this world. Good people, intelligent people who somewhere along the way got hurt by the church, or found such hypocrisy among Christians that they couldn’t see the point of it. It is as if the dog has eaten their communion bread. It is as if Satan or life or fallen human beings or something else in the world has stolen their right to be in communion with God. The terrible result for too many of us is that we no longer trust God. We are suspicious that maybe he does not have our best interests at heart. We secretly wonder if given an inch, God would try to make us walk a mile we don’t want to walk.

After all, if God is so good, why is life so hard?

This question baits the enemy of our souls. If he can get us to suspect God’s motives, he can yank us right down into misery and anger. All the anger, fear and loneliness we feel has a single root cause. It grows out of a basic distrust in God — in his power to provide, in his sovereignty, in his desire to do for us.

The antidote is in the names of God. We discover in his names the character of the One worthy of our trust. Yahweh: “I Am.” Emmanuel: “God With Us.”

Figuring out who God is is fundamental to how we relate to him. Thomas Merton writes: “Whether you understand it or not, God loves you, is present in you, lives in you, dwells in you, calls you, saves you and offers you an understanding and compassion which are like nothing you have ever found in a book or heard in a sermon.”

Jeremiah Smith says there is nothing more important, no higher priority in your life, than for you to figure out who God is. Knowing God affects everything else in your life. It affects your choices, your relationships, your outlook, everything.

The name El Shaddai literally means, “God Almighty,” but the Hebrew sages often translated this name as a statement from God: “I said to the world, enough.” This name of God is a precious promise to his children: “In the face of your great need, I am enough.”

That truth ought to be life-changing. The same God who brought you out of slavery to sin, who defeated the enemy of your soul, who made hope bigger than death, is enough. The same God who broke into our world through a virgin’s birth has power enough to be in the midst of your greatest struggles, defeating your enemies, reframing and redeeming everything. Because God is enough, nothing is lost in his economy.

To know God is the great quest. I believe that quest begins with the name that assures us God is enough. Whatever our sin, brokenness, problems, whatever else in our lives vies for our attention, God is enough.

El Shaddai. Enough.

Reprinted with permission from www.artofholiness.com.

I’m tired of the struggle.

I ask my 14-year-old to clean his room…again…knowing that there is no good reason I should have to tell him constantly to actually put his clothes IN the hamper, instead of AROUND the hamper. “Clean” is subjective, and our definitions clash. This is new to me, as my firstborn is not quite as laid back in regards to his living space.

Finally, when “clean” becomes a pit of clothes (clean? dirty?), sports paraphernalia, school supplies, etc., I go into Martha Stewart mode and demand him to, “pick everything up and put it where it belongs. NOW!” I rattle through MY list of “clean” and by the time I’m finished, his eyes are glazed over. I throw in a “you’re not watching NBA until it’s done!” in a desperate attempt to provide incentive. Most of the time I get a hug and an offer to do other chores, “you know, I think it’s time for me to unload the dishwasher,” or an apologetic, “I’m sorry, I just remembered I have homework.” Sigh.

We’re trying to raise our boys to be independent young men, strong Christians, and productive members of society. Cleaning their rooms is something they’re perfectly capable of doing for themselves.

However, recently I walked into his room and all I could think was, “oh my.” I looked at him, tsk’d, and said, “we have to do something about this.” He moaned, “but there’s so much.” I took a deep breath and replied, “why don’t I help you?” His eyes lit up and we divided the tasks. No complaining, no excuses, no negotiating. We went to it and we got it done. Together. I was a little surprised at how pleasant it actually ended up being.

I was reminded of this story a few days ago when I received a text from a friend who indicated how thankful she was that God was showing her things that he wanted to work with her on. Wait. What? He wanted to work with her? I thought God was more of a “here’s the things I want you to work on—chop, chop,” kind of God. Seriously.

I can only think back again to my teen’s room. If I take that space and envision it as an area in my life that needs “cleaned up,” I peer at it and say, “God, I know it needs cleaned, but I think I may have other homework to do,” or “God, wouldn’t you rather me work on this other area instead?” (Of course, folding towels is so much easier!) The clutter, the mess, is so overwhelming and I’m defeated before I’ve begun. My own words to my children echo back into my heart: “no, I’m not helping you with that mess. You’re the one who made it,” so I tend to not ask God to help me “clean my room.” My mama’s heart feels pained as I’ve unknowingly taken my “God helps them who help themselves” mentality and projected it onto my children. I have failed to balance teaching them independence as individuals, yet dependence on God. My shortfall of grace is glaringly apparent.

Letting that word “with” really soak in has taken me far deeper than I expected.

It also explains years of failed New Year’s resolutions. It’s no wonder that my resolve to do ___________ never makes it past the end of January. I’m simply not strong enough to do it on my own. Or maybe it really has nothing to do with strength.

Maybe I wasn’t created to do it on my own.

God wants to do life with us and has promised to be there for us. There are too many verses stating that for me to list here, but here are a couple:

Isaiah 43:1b-2

“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
    I have summoned you by name; you are mine.
When you pass through the waters,
    I will be with you;
and when you pass through the rivers,
    they will not sweep over you.
When you walk through the fire,
    you will not be burned;
    the flames will not set you ablaze.

And my favorite passage,

Psalm 139:7-10

Where can I go from your Spirit?
    Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
    if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
    if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
    your right hand will hold me fast.

I learned something that day a few weeks ago.

I learned that working together is far more productive and more fun than working alone, even on a task that is generally boring and mundane. We finished twice as fast as my guy would have finished on his own, and to be honest, most of the stuff may have ended up shoved under the bed!

Is God showing you an area in which some clean-up needs done? Improving your physical health? Cultivating a certain fruit of the Spirit? Strengthening your spiritual discipline? Finding freedom from debt? Repairing your marriage?

Our God has no intention of making you do it by yourself. He is not asking you to do it in your own power. He is asking to work with you on these things.

And true comprehension of that, my friends, can end the struggle.