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When An Answered Prayer Blows Your Mind

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He pursues

His voice shook, his eyes filled with tears, his man strength broken. Brought low in every way. I stood outside his car door looking in at him utterly broken. He saw despair, pain, and weakness. I saw the most beautiful sight I’ve ever seen in my life. His heart cried out in agony. My heart filled with sheer joy. Not at his pain. But at the sight of a man pursued passionately by the God of the universe.

“Is God testing me?” His eyes spoke what he was unable to articulate.

“He is pursuing you.”

I witnessed the God that created this man, pursue him. I was an outsider, my view was different from his. I so clearly saw the pursuit. It was a prayer I’ve prayed for 14 years. That my dad would come to a point of accepting the gift of salvation through Jesus.

14 years ago, Steve and I accepted Christ. Both of us “believed” in God all our lives. We weren’t saved. Both of us attended church periodically. We weren’t saved. Both of us were raised hearing about God and believing. We weren’t saved. Until we were months into our first year of marriage and we were each being pursued by another. Individually, we each felt another pursuing our hearts. One was pursuing us who wanted our whole heart and wanted us to see the love He wanted to shower on us that we would never receive from each other or anyone else.

From the moment of our salvation, we have prayed for family and friends who we want to spend eternity with in Heaven. Several days ago my dad stayed with us for a long weekend. I watched the pursuit. I prayed that irresistible grace would pour over him like a crashing wave. I watched the wave break over him. Then the moment came when he said he felt Christ was pulling him. He told his mother he felt Christ wanted him to find Him. His mother said He wouldn’t be hard to find. He told me he was ready. And Jacob, Andrew, and I received one of the biggest gifts of our lives when we sat with him leading him to the God who created Him, the God who sent a Savior to die for him, and the God who desires to work through Him bringing glory to the Father.

His full story is not mine to tell. My story is one of watching a love story unfold in the life of one of the people I love most in the world. Each of us has a story to tell. Do you remember when you felt pursued by God?

If you have not placed your faith in Christ, do you feel him pursuing you? Do you feel a tug at your heart? Do you see His goodness laid out before you?

He pursues you because He loves you. It’s the purest love.

My dad realized what every believer understands after they have trusted in Christ. He is now free. He is forgiven. He will spend eternity in Heaven. He will experience joy in the midst of pain while here on Earth. Now there is hope for him. He realized salvation was a gift, not a burden.

A misconception is that when we place our faith in God, life becomes less fun and dictated by rules. That is a lie of the enemy. Satan is a deceiver and he desires to make you believe that God wants to be your boss and rule over you, taking your freedom away. It’s a lie.

Accepting Christ I found freedom. I’m not ruled by anything. I’m free in Christ. He isn’t a dictator. That is why He doesn’t force us to come to Him. He gave us free will. He gave us freedom to choose or to reject Him. Satan desires for us to forget the Creator of the universe could force us to come to Him, but He loves us too much to do that. He wants us to come to Him because we love Him. And when I wrapped my head around that, I fell madly, deeply in love.

To the point that I don’t care how crazy people think I am. I will stand before Him one day and will give account of my life. I don’t want to stand there and hear him ask me why I wasn’t more bold, why I held back sharing about Him, why I was ashamed of Him.

He took on shame I can’t imagine. A perfect, sinless man hung on a cross. Is there greater shame than that? He took shame for me. Why can’t I take shame for His sake?

God has ignited something in my heart. Watching his pursuit of my dad, watching the circumstances and people He used to reach him, watching the lengths He went to in order to make Himself heard has rekindled a flame.

It’s awakened a passion in my heart for Him and making Him known.

Where do you feel God rekindling a flame in your heart? Do you feel Him pursuing you?

Would you be willing to share with us here? Share where you hear God speaking to you? Where you see God moving. Where you see God pursuing? Where you see God in your everyday?

Honestly, I don’t know where I’m going with this. I just know God is leading me somewhere. Somewhere towards you, to draw out your stories. Your story could be what sticks in the mind of someone who needs some encouragement, who needs to know God is real, who needs to know God pursues. And if you don’t feel comfortable sharing publicly, would you consider sending me an email so I can share your story anonymously?

And here’s a picture of me with my dad, my new brother in Christ.

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When We Choose To Forgive

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This post was drafted 2 weeks ago.  I’m not exactly sure why I hadn’t posted it yet.  Maybe it’s because I’m not the voice of forgiveness.  I would feel like a hypocrite.  But I’m not writing this from the position of “I’ve mastered this…do what I do.”  I’m writing this from a place of repeated failures and as the recipient of undeserved, unmerited, lavish, radical, crazy grace and mercy.  

I didn’t change a thing in the post you are about to read from what I wrote 2 weeks ago.  Not a word.  I felt there was a reason God gave me the words to write at that time, and who am I to determine a different message must be written.  But I had to add what has happened to me since I wrote this post.

It’s easy to forgive.  When there is no conflict in your life.  It’s easy to write about forgiveness.  When you aren’t the one struggling in it.  It’s easy to forgive.  When you are counseling another.  

It’s NOT easy to forgive.  When you feel “right”.  It’s NOT easy to forgive.  When you are hurt.  It’s NOT easy to forgive.  When you feel you are saying “What you did was ok.”

I wrote this post 2 weeks ago.  And recently God allowed me to be thrown into a situation that had nothing to do with me.  In the blink of an eye, hurtful words were flying, hearts were broken, sins were revealed, and relationships marred.  I was fully plunged into the heat of the battle.  My husband reminded me that it wasn’t about me.  This was about spiritual warfare.  This was an attack.  But God had prepared me for it, I just wasn’t seeing it yet.  I fought my mind, which wanted to replay the scenes over and over again.  I fought the voices playing over and over again in my head.  And I asked God to help me to forgive.  Help me to be like Him.  I felt the pull of my own sin weighing me down, knocking me off-balance.  I heard Steve’s voice saying, “Don’t let this take you off your mission.”  

The next morning, I prayed again and again.  “God, how do we forgive?  I know you tell us to forgive 77 times (meaning never quit forgiving).  But it gets so old.  I don’t want to keep forgiving.  But I love you, so I want to walk in obedience to You.”   

I zipped up my fleece, double knotted my running shoes and took off down the trail.  Over and over again, I said to myself, “I will not repeat the conversation.  I will not think about who did what and who said what.  This will not bring about forgiveness.”  I looked through the trees along the path.  One stood out.  I envisioned Jesus nailed to that tree.  A holy, perfect God, who WILLINGLY allowed himself to be nailed to that tree.  Each strike of the hammer represented my sins.  My unforgiveness.  My pride.  Then I was among the mockers who hurled insults at Jesus.  I was one of them!  Jesus stayed on that cross, taking the full weight of our sins, sins which we categorize as bad and not so bad, but God does not.  They are all heinous to Him.  And then.  Then.  Jesus answered my question.  He told me how to forgive.  He cried out to God, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” (see Luke 23:32-34)

They know not what they do.  Sin is blinding.  We know not what we do.  And that is how I can forgive.  There are 2 clear pictures of forgiveness.  The first is Jesus dying on a cross, taking my sin, and offering forgiveness for my sins when he never even sinned.  God offers forgiveness IF we choose to accept it with His free gift of salvation given through the death and resurrection of His Son.  The 2nd picture is given through the Son, who hung between 2 sinners.  One believed, and Jesus assured him He would see him in Heaven.  He forgave his sins.  And Jesus asked God to forgive those who were crucifying Him because they know not what they do.  In the picture of the cross, forgiveness is plastered all over it.

I don’t deserve the mercy God gives me.  I don’t deserve the forgiveness He offers me.  But His grace.  His beautiful, amazing grace.  

And so, I CHOSE to forgive.  I CHOSE to obey God.  I CHOSE to win.

During my run, immediately after this revelation, this song began to play.

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Here is my original post.  Please, please, please listen to the track at the very end of this post.  It is about 20 minutes long, so listen when you have a few minutes.  It could change your life and how you view forgiveness.  It could change every moment you have with the ones you love…….

Something dangerous chips a hole in our heart if we aren’t careful.  Little by little.  Each chip leaves an opening just big enough to allow another danger to flow into the depths of our heart.  The part that we need to guard and protect.

Unforgiveness.  It’s nasty and seeks to destroy.  It paves the way for bitterness to take root.

If we don’t recognize its grip on us, we are setting ourselves up for broken relationships, hardened hearts, and discipline from God.

We do not deserve God’s forgiveness.  Yet He forgives us.  He forgives us wholly and completely when we ask Him.  He doesn’t forgive us because we deserve it.  Because we are “good” most of the time.  Shouldn’t God be our model?  When we choose to forgive someone, we aren’t saying, “What you did was ok.”  We are choosing to forgive because that is what God desires for us.

What in us prevents us from forgiving?  Our pride?  Our need to be right and to prove to others we are right?  Is that more important than obeying God?

God instructs us to forgive because He knows the damage that is done when unforgiveness is present and bitterness takes root.  The road it leads down is lonely.

I recently heard a talk given by Dianne B. Collard, author of “I Choose to Forgive”.  She forgave the man who murdered her son.  I sat in complete astonishment through her entire talk.  Speechless when I walked out the door.

Here is the link.  I can’t encourage you enough to listen to this.  It’s less than 30 minutes.  You will be captivated, convicted, and compelled to forgive.

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Bad Breath And A Plank In The Eye

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We entered the doors of church a little later than usual.  We made our way to a pew that could barely  fit four of us.  The boys sandwiched themselves between us and quickly got to work on their sermon notes activity sheet.  Every few minutes Zachary would whisper something to Jacob.  After a few times, I noticed Jacob becoming very snappish with his brother who adores him.  His head turned sharply towards me as he hissed, “Mom, his breath is treacherous.  It’s driving me crazy.”  The look on his face told me he was not kidding.

Initially I chuckled, thinking how funny his statement sounded.  Then I noticed how visibly upset Jacob was over the smell of his brother’s breath.

“Stop talking to me.  Your breath stinks!”  Jacob snarled to Zachary, who just looked at me with raised eyebrows and a sheepish little grin that seemed to say, “What?  I’m…..sorry…”

Jacob turned away from Zachary and faced directly towards me as he made his final comment about the state of Zachary’s breath, to which I replied to Jacob, “Your breath smells equally as bad.  Leave him alone.”

“So what, Zachary’s is worse.”

Jacob was seething, overly agitated, and lacked all forms of mercy, grace, and compassion.  I’ve been there.  Have you?

Oh what a picture.  What a picture of our humanness.  A picture of myself.  A picture of each of us if we are truly honest with ourselves.  How often are we so focused on the sins and wrongs of others that we fail to see our own sins, our own shortcomings?  How often are we so focused on how bad someone else’s “issue” is that we unknowingly cultivate a garden of anger, resentment, pride, and self-righteousness in our own hearts?

Matthew 7:5 “You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”

We are all sinners.  Jesus didn’t die because we are naturally good.  No!  We are sinners.  In need of saving.  None of us has minty fresh breath all the time.

Thank God for grace.

Imagine the richness of our experiences in life if we removed our own planks before focusing on the specks of others?  Imagine how we could see God in a completely new way.  Imagine how our relationships with each other and our walks with God would grow if we could do this.

In our own power, it’s impossible.  We can’t do it.

2 Corinthians 12:9 “But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.”

I am weak.  I am in constant need of His power resting on me.