Recently I was allowed the privilege of speaking at a lovely friend’s bridal shower. My husband and I have our own story of redemption and beauty and yet in the midst of hard, it felt like I had nothing to offer. I was asked, declined and then did a quick about face and agreed to pray. God has a way of speaking “even in” the hard, especially in the hard. Sometimes you just need a reminder of where you have come from… It is out of an overflow of God’s work in me that I can open my mouth and let Holy Spirit lead. I trust HIM more than I trust me (even though I daily battle Him for control).

LOVE GOD

Jesus said, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence.’ This is the most important, the first on any list. But there is a second to set alongside it: ‘Love others as well as you love yourself.’ These two commands are pegs; everything in God’s Law and the Prophets hangs from them.” Matthew 22:37-40 MSG

Love God, above anything else. Pursue your time with Him, prioritize it, set it as the first thing. Let it be, let HIM be your everything! He alone is to be our place of anchoring. When you find yourself floundering, pivot your gaze and allow first things to be first. It is our relationship with Him, that when set at the helm – will overflow into the rest of our lives.

Luke 6:45 says that out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth will speak. Let Him be your source, your flowing water, your daily bread, the quenching for your thirst and your hunger. Let your WANT be in and for Him first.

We are better people when we have spent time in the secret place with Him. From that place, we can come filled up, rather than depleted. We can come to the table with our offerings rather than the expectation that someone else needs to “fill us”.

Now may God, the fountain of hope, fill you to overflowing with uncontainable joy and perfect peace as you trust in Him. And may the power of the Holy Spirit continually surround your life with his super abundance until you radiate with hope! Romans 15:13 TPT                                          

LOVE YOURSELF – Let God Define You

“Love others as well as you love yourself” – it is easy to swing straight into loving others, but then I think we miss part of the truth communicated here. “Love…as well as you love yourself.” Many of us have our own work to do. At 46, I am still I the middle of my work.

Trauma, poor decisions, lies spoken over us and lies we have believed about ourselves… We often allow these inadequacies, insecurities, weaknesses, strongholds, fears…to be our excuse for building up walls to them to protect ourselves from other’s opinions and judgements.  We call it humility and think we are “humble” and prioritizing others. We lose our voice, our value, our worth when we say we are “less important” or unimportant.

Areas of brokenness have a way of rearing their heads later – when we least expect it and often when we are most vulnerable. And in that point of weakness, they often cement themselves as a pillar in our lives; “that’s just who I am”.

Choose to stay in that place of intimacy with the Lord, continually allowing Him to define you, refine you, purify you, prune you, shore you up, renew your minds… He is gentle, he is not shaming or condemning. Let HIM define you above all else. And if you realize that your idea of yourself is much less than anyone else in your life, find someone who lives the truth of “I am who He says I am” and who speaks “your language” to help you navigate the way towards wholeness and truth.

When we are not living the best version of ourselves, we will be limping around in life – shackled to those things that are not really true about ourselves. It’s like using a cane when we actually we have all the tools to walk tall and strong without it. Or think about those of you who wear glasses or contacts. If you can remember your life before them, and then the moment you put them on – “I didn’t realize what I was missing, I didn’t realize how blurry a world I really was living in, I didn’t realize I could see this clearly.”

We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us! 1 Cor 13:12 MSG

This word is clearly about heaven, about the one day. But if we are called to bring His Kingdom to earth as it is in heaven, I believe that there is part of this verse’s truth that rings true for today. We can pursue clarity this side of heaven – not just about God, but about ourselves.

LOVE OTHERS, BUILD COMMUNITY

Above all, constantly echo God’s intense love for one another, for love will be a canopy over a multitude of sins. 1 Pt 4:8 TPT

Love your husband. Prioritize relationship with him above all other earthly relationships. Play together. Laugh together. Make memories together. And do all of that growing as a three-stranded cord – a cord that is not easily broken. Let God be the binding, the anchoring, the glue between you and him.

Surround yourself with godly women. Women who know you, women you feel safe with, women who will encourage you, sharpen you, call you out and point you to Jesus. If you don’t have those women, find those women, pray that God will bring those kinds of women into your life – for community is what can hold you fast when the entire world seems to be spinning around you. I know for me, when my private world imploded, it was those kinds of women who kept my arms raised when I struggled to see through to tomorrow. Prioritize godly, intimate community.

THE WORD

Lastly, it circles back to the first. Keep Jesus at the center. Spend time in His Word. As you do, the Word will come alive to you and through you. Pray it and speak it over yourself, your husband, your marriage and one day any children. The Word became flesh and came to live among us. Now that Word has been given to us, laid down as a sacrifice, that we might also be able to speak LIFE.

There is power in it. It is living and active. It has the power to move mountains and set us on the right path. It never returns void.