BIG Life Devotional | Daily Devotional for Women

You may have been totally wrong and you may have been doing the wrong thing for a really long time, but God can turn that all around now. He can pull you out of the mess you created and save you from this. There’s only one thing you have to do. You must sincerely humble yourself and seek God. Lay it all down – the excuses, the guilt, the shame, the lies, the coverup – and look for God’s hand here. 2 Chronicles 33 tells of a King of Judah named Manasseh. Manasseh took the throne when he was only 12 years old and he was the ruler for 55 years. He did wrong, really wrong. His acts were evil in the sight of the Lord and absolutely detestable. Within the Lord’s temple, he built altars to other gods and worshiped them in the one true God’s place. Verse 6 says, “Manasseh also sacrificed his own sons in the fire in the valley of Bin-Hinnom. He practiced sorcery, divination, and witchcraft, and he consulted with mediums and psychics. He did much that was evil in the Lord’s sight, arousing his anger.” God is not pleased when we seek guidance and direction from any other source, real or unreal, other than Him. Plain and simple, don’t do that. If God is not revealing something to you, don’t go out seeking that knowledge in other ways. If God wanted you to know the future, he would tell you, not some woman in a sitting in a dark room of a little shack along the highway. God’s words are already in your Bible, you don’t need to flip a card or perform a ritual to discover them. What happens when we are living the wrong way? Well, we face consequences. We create messes, we live in messes. We seek things other than God, we find things other than God, and if it’s not God then it’s not good. Life becomes really hard when we do the wrong things. I’m not saying life is miraculously easy when we live right, but it becomes unnecessarily hard when we’re doing it wrong. There’s absolutely no peace when we’re constantly trying to cover things up. There’s no joy when we’re secretly dabbling in things we know we shouldn’t dabble in. But dang if the devil doesn’t trick us into it anyway, huh? Verse 10-11, “The Lord spoke to Manasseh and his people, but they ignored all his warnings. So the Lord sent the commanders of the Asyrian armies, and they took Manasseh prisoner. They put a ring through his nose, bound him in bronze chains, and led him away to Babylon.” God sends us warnings. Warnings to turn from our wrong and seek him. Warnings to change what we’re doing on our own before he has to get involved and change things for us. You see my friend, if you’re not willing to change what God is prompting you to change, God may just step in and change things for you. Forced change is always harder than self-realized change. Manasseh’s life is now miserable because he refused to partner with God in changing the things he was doing wrong. He has a ring in his nose and he’s bound in chains by the enemy. And whew, if that isn’t exactly what happens to us. The enemy binds us and claims us as his captive when we continue to do the things God has warned us are wrong. Our families fall apart. Everyone is suffering. Chaos surrounds us. But there’s good news coming. Grace and mercy is waiting to meet you right here! You’re one choice away from those chains being broken and this mess being redeemed. Verse 12-13, “But while in deep distress, Manasseh sought the Lord his God and sincerely humbled himself before the God of his ancestors. And when he prayed, the Lord listened to him and was moved by his request. So the Lord brought Manasseh back to Jerusalem and to his kingdom Then Manasseh finally realized that the Lord alone is God!” Manasseh wasn’t required to fix a single thing first.

Transcribed - Published: 2 July 2025

Proverbs 4:23, “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” This is where we start for any desired or necessary change because this is where every single thing in your life originates. Your heart. Any issue you have is from a heart issue. Any battle you fight within is a heart battle. NLT: Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life. KJ: Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life. It’s so easy to think we need to start by working on our habits or change our circle of influence, but the first and most important thing we must do is check our heart. Otherwise, it’s like putting new rims on a car with a blown engine. What good is that? What good is the rhinestone steering wheel cover when half of your engine fell out on the street? Engine first, then the other stuff can follow. Without the engine, your car is absolutely no good. Without a healed heart, all these other changes are temporary. The Hebrew word for heart is Lev. It means your inner self, your core. It is your control central. There is no Hebrew word for mind, only heart. This is the source of your thoughts, your desires and your actions. If the heart is damaged, every aspect of your life is negatively affected. Why should you guard your heart? Because the enemy is attacking it. Plain and simple, your inner being is his target. Girl, you can have great hair and he doesn’t care. You can have fabulous legs or a perfect smile and it’s of no concern to him. But that heart of yours is a real issue for Satan. If he can damage your heart, he twists your thoughts. If he can damage your heart, he corrupts your desires. If he can damage your heart, he has you acting as his puppet. And that’s why scripture says ABOVE ALL ELSE, GUARD YOUR HEART. Your heart is the most important part of you. Everything in your life is flowing from your heart. If your heart is pure, then your thoughts are pure, your desires are pure and your actions are pure. But if it is polluted, every thing else is polluted and eventually ruined. THIS IS A HEART ISSUE. It was always a heart issue. And it is always a heart issue. Change the heart and everything that flows from it naturally changes. How do you change your heart? That’s a really big job. That’s an overhaul you’re not equipped for. That’s why God did it for you. Ezekiel 36:26-27, God says, “I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart. And I will put my Spirit in you so that you will follow my decrees and be careful to obey my regulations.” A new heart comes from God. It is his gift to us through Jesus. We don’t earn a new heart, we simply accept it. The new heart offered by God is healed of all past damages. It is no longer wounded. It has been made brand new. The new heart offered by God is not reminded of it’s past wrongs. It is not weighed down by shame or chained by guilt. It is free to beat without burden. It has been made new. Now, protect this new heart God is offering you because the enemy sure wants to poke at it. A poked at heart thinks negative thoughts of worry and fear. A poked at heart is overwhelmed and uncertain. A poked at heart beats shallow and plays little. And let’s be clear, that’s not God’s desire for the heart Jesus died to give you. If you’re struggling with an addiction, whether it be an addiction to alcohol, addiction to your phone, or addiction to attention from men – it’s a heart issue. Honey, your heart has been poked at. Either you’re functioning from an old heart that’s never been made new by God, or you’ve allowed the gift of your new heart to be bombarded by the attacks of Satan.

Transcribed - Published: 1 July 2025

Have you ever had to clean up a mess you didn’t create? Did someone else’s problem become your problem and by association you were negatively affected? Maybe right now you’re dealing with something that wasn’t your fault, but it is your reality. It’s not fair, but it’s for real yours now and what you do with it from here matters. God sees how you’re carrying this. He knows the details and he hasn’t overlooked you in the middle of this. You may be part of a group affected, but you will be singled out in accordance to your individual actions and attitude. Here’s how I know, it’s in our Bible. Last week in episode #1903 titled “Hey, That’s Me” we studied the story of Caleb who waited for God’s promise for 45 years, then he walked in the Promised Land. And after all those years of waiting, he declared in Joshua 14: 10-12, “The Lord has kept me alive and well as he promised for all these 45 years since Moses made this promise – even while Israel wandered in the wilderness. Today I am 85 years old. I am as strong now as I was when Moses sent me on that journey, and I can still travel and fight as well as I could then. So give me the hill country that the Lord promised me.” Do you remember why he had to wait for 45 years to step into his promise? Because of someone else! He was delayed because of someone else’s disobedience. Someone else’s failure created a problem for him, and that problem lasted from the time he was 40 to the time he was 85. Back up a bit and Caleb explains the delay. Verse 7-8, “I was 40 years old when Moses, the servant of the Lord, sent me to explore the land of Canaan. I returned and gave an honest report, but my brothers who went with me frightened the people from entering the Promised Land. For my part, I wholeheartedly followed the Lord my God.” Caleb went as 1 of 12 spies chosen by Moses to check out the land God had promised them. There they saw a beautiful and blessed land overflowing with abundance, inhabited to giant people. When the 12 spies returned to give their report, 10 of them focused on how huge their enemies were and spread fear among the people. Caleb and Joshua acknowledged the truth of how big their enemies were, but they were grounded in faith reminding everyone of God’s promise. Numbers 14: 8, “They are only helpless prey to us! They have no protection, but the Lord is with us! Don’t be afraid of them!” But the people ignored the faith filled report of Caleb and Joshua, and listened only to the fear spread by the other 10 spies. They refused to move forward and cowered in forfeit. Yes, they forfeited what God had promised. The Israelites were left to wander in the wilderness for over 40 years. Caleb and Joshua couldn’t conquer the land on their own, so they too were stuck. Imagine for a moment how frustrating this must have been. They knew God had promised them victory, they knew the way had already been made, they knew everything they could ever dream of was right there waiting for them, but they couldn’t enter because of the unbelief and fear of everyone else. Everyone else’s problem became their problem. They were in a mess they didn’t create. And that mess lasted for 45 years. 45 years of wandering in a wilderness the two men of faith didn’t choose. 45 years of being surrounded by people who’s lack of faith kept them from walking in the fullness of their own faith. 45 years of life passed where they didn’t get to live in the abundance God had promised because of the choice of others. But does Caleb sound bitter here? Does he sound pitiful? No. He sounds positive. He sounds powerful. He sounds ready! You can be pitiful or you can be powerful, but you can’t be both. Caleb chose power. And today, God says to his girls,

Transcribed - Published: 30 June 2025

There are things happening in your life right now that you don’t understand. Things you can’t control. However, there are clues all around you to remind you of who IS in control. Reminders of how you’ve always been taken care of. Leftovers of what has happened for you before. What leftovers do you have? Leftovers of the last miracle God pulled off for you. Leftovers of the last ridiculous blessing you didn’t deserve. Leftovers of provision that was more than enough. Those leftovers are for a purpose, and perhaps it’s a purpose that is perfectly timed for what is happening right now. The Bible tells us a story about leftovers. In fact, there are 4 accounts of this story so I recommend reading each of them. They are: Matthew 14:13-21, Mark 6:30-44, Luke 9:10-17, and John 6:1-14. This is a story of abundance that proved Jesus’ power over impossible odds. But before there were leftovers, there was a need with an grossly insufficient supply. Of course the story is the feeding of the crowd, but this story goes beyond the feeding. This story goes directly to your boat today to meet you where you are and remind you of what God has done. 5,000 men plus their families had gathered to hear Jesus teach. They had stayed all day to listen to his every word, and they grew hungry. The only food available in the crowd was carried by a young boy, a measly 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish. And Jesus says, that’s enough. What you have is enough. In fact, it will be more than enough! Jesus fed every person there all they could eat from the bread and fish that never ran out. Out of curiosity, I wanted to understand the magnitude of this miracle. Many people believe this food given by a young boy in the crowd was his lunch packed that day by his mother. The loaves of bread were more like crackers and the 2 small fish were something like sardines. Others say the fish were likely smoked tilapia and the bread were small loaves of barley. But really, it doesn’t matter. It’s still absolutely ridiculous to think it could feed a crowd of 5,000 men PLUS their families. So, as a visual, I asked ChatGPT, if you had a large Papa John’s pizza and you split it evenly among 5,000 men (I’m not even including their wives and children), how much would each man receive? The answer: About 0.16% of a single slice. That’s roughly the size of a crumb or a small flake of cheese. Everyone gets a microscopic taste, just enough to say they participated. But, in the hands of Jesus, it became MORE THAN ENOUGH. Every account of this story says EVERYONE ate as much as they wanted. Afterwards, Jesus told the disciples to gather the leftovers. Yes, the leftovers were important. 12 baskets full of leftovers. This is significant. The leftovers mattered. Proof of miraculous provision. Evidence of God’s power in personal matters. What would these leftovers become? They show up one more time in scripture and I believe it’s just for you and I to see today. After the feeding of the crowd, and the gathering of the leftovers, Jesus instructs his disciples to get on a boat and leave. Later that night they find themselves in a battle with the winds blowing against them. Jesus comes walking out on the water to them and scares the bejesus out of them. You know the bejesus … have you ever had the bejesus scared out of you? You see something and you’re like “oh, be Jesus, be Jesus, please be Jesus.” The “be Jesus” came right out of you. Well, the disciples thought he was a ghost on the water and the bejesus is scared out of them, and then they realize it actually IS JESUS. Peter has a moment of bold courage and walks on the water with Jesus, then the waves come and he starts to sink, Jesus saves him, then Jesus gets in the boat and the waters calm down. Awesome, good story. But there’s one more thing.

Transcribed - Published: 27 June 2025

Why do you say what you do about yourself? Why would you ever dismiss yourself from the best offerings of life because of a limitation you’ve accepted as your truth, but it quite simply doesn’t have to be? What you’re believing and what you’re saying MATTERS. It matters what you believe about God. It matters what you believe about you. It matters what you say about God. It matters what you say about you. Yesterday at the BIG Life Texas Lake Retreat we created one of the funnest days of our lives. We went absolutely no where. We never left the retreat house. We simply played. We played like children again. We put zero limitations on our ability to play. We literally hit a bouncy ball in the pool for 1 hour and 30 minutes, trying to get to 25 hits back and forth without it hitting the water. In the process, we laughed until we cried. We may have peed in the pool unintentionally from laughter. We collected 15 people on a 6 man floating island and played Red Rover. The laughter could probably be heard for a mile. But then the icing on the cake was late last night, we gathered in the yard and we had BIG Life Horse Olympics. Now, to fully understand the levels of serious competition of which we were engaged, you must go to YouTube and watch videos of Hobby Horse Competitions. It’s legit. Grown adults compete against one another in riding stick horses. They prance, they gallop, they race. There are points for style and speed. The prancing we did on our stick horses was undeniably impressive. The relay race on our stick horses was a sight to behold. We cheered, we celebrated, and goodness gracious did we have a ridiculous amount of fun. Why? Because we didn’t declare ourselves too old. We didn’t worry about what a single other person was thinking. We took off all the limitations and we lived. Why don’t we do this every day, my sisters? I’m not saying ride a stick horse to work tomorrow, however I’m also not saying don’t. I’m saying listen to what you’re saying about yourself, and decide you will align your beliefs and your self-talk with the fullness of God’s offerings. It matters. Do you remember the story of the Israelites being led by God to freedom and when they came to the border of the land God had promised them, they were afraid to enter. So what did they do? Moses, the leader of the Israelites, sent 12 spies into the land to check out their enemies. Numbers 13 & 14 tells us the 12 spies returned and gave their report. 10 of the spies said the people living in the land were giants and there’s no way they could conquer them. 2 of the spies, Joshua and Caleb said, “Let’s go at once and take the land. Don’t be afraid of the people of the land. They are only helpless prey to us! They have no protection, but the Lord is with us! Don’t be afraid of them!” But of course, we know the Israelites listened to the negative news and believed it. They chose to live in fear and forfeit the promises of God. As a result, God declared none of them would ever live in the land he was prepared to give them, except for the 2 who returned and believed. For 40 years, the Israelites wandered in the wilderness, short of their promised land, and only Joshua and Caleb survived to lead the way to promised victory. Now, here’s what Caleb has to says as an old man after all that waiting. Listen close to what he says about God and about himself. Joshua 14:10-12: “Now, as you can see, the Lord has kept me alive and well as he promised for all these forty-five years since Moses made this promise – even while Israel wandered in the wilderness. Today I am eighty-five years old. I am as strong now as I was when Moses sent me on that journey, and I can still travel and fight as well as I could then.

Transcribed - Published: 26 June 2025

I know you’re staring down some really big, overwhelming stuff right now. I know you’re already thinking this really isn’t likely for you. I know there’s a part of you that really wants to dream and imagine it being possible, but there’s an even bigger part of you that discounts the possibility and brings you back to a place of reality. The reality that big things don’t typically happen for you. Let me tell you about another reality my sister. A reality that is just as real as anything you have ever encountered in your entire life. The reality is, these big things have never looked so small in the hands of God. Sitting here, in his mighty, capable and caring hands, it’s all possible. It’s all workable. It’s all feasible. Everything you’ve ever hoped and imagined is made so incredibly possible in the hands of God, it’s almost ridiculous. It’s almost ridiculous how close you really are. It’s almost ridiculous how this could all happen. And it’s totally ridiculous how you keep taking it out of his hands! Why are you doing that? If you trust God with this, then why are you still allowing those dark worst case scenarios to run through your mind? If you trust God with this, then why are you still worrying about it? If you trust God with this, why are you letting it ruin your mood, stall your next steps, and halt your progress? You don’t have to feel guilty over it, but girl you can surrender it again. Today, right here, you can put it back in his hands. These are really BIG things to you. So big you can’t see around them. But trust me, to God it all makes perfect sense. Standing in the middle of a large city, it all seems so confusing with tall buildings, crazy drivers and one way streets. But fly over that same large city in an airplane and you see how the buildings are flattened into perfectly stamped squares in a pattern, and all the roads connect by great design. Oh it’s the same city, however now, you’re above it. Your higher perspective reveals how possible it is to navigate when you can look down on what was previously in your way. God sits high above these problems in your way and he sees how it’s totally possible to get where you want to go. He sees the grid. He knows the connections. He has every step all within his view, and holds every detail within the palm of his hand. And today he says “MY GIRL, THIS IS POSSIBLE.” It’s more possible than you ever imagined. It’s more feasible than you ever stopped to think. This isn’t nearly as big as it feels to you right now staring up at all the things standing in your way. This can be navigated. There is a way through this. Jesus said in Matthew 19:26, “Humanly speaking, it is impossible. But with God everything is possible.” The question is, are you doing this with God, or without God? If this is in your hands, it will remain impossible. If this is in God’s hands, it’s totally in the realm of possibility. How do I know? Because Jesus said so! 1 Peter 5:6 “Humble yourselves under the mighty power of God, and at the right time he will lift you up in honor.” Humility invites God to lift you up and show you a higher perspective to get through this. Read it again. HUMBLE yourselves under the mighty power of God, and at the right time HE WILL LIFT YOU UP in honor. This is admitting we can’t do this on our own. Confessing that without God, I’m a hot mess express. Knowing if I can do anything good at all, it’s a result of God’s Spirit dwelling within me. And girl, when we don’t humble ourselves, life has a way of humbling us. Either way, God says I just want you to be humble. There’s an easy way and there’s a hard way, we choose the way.

Transcribed - Published: 24 June 2025

2 Chronicles 25:8, “The Lord has the power to help you or trip you up.” Do you want God to help you? Well, we must ask, what warrants God’s help? If you feel God has been tripping you up instead, we must also ask, what warrants God’s resistance? It’s actually quite simple and there’s no need to make it mysterious or complicated. Your obedience to God warrants his help. Your disobedience to God warrants God’s resistance. When you’re obedient, he will help you in divine and marvelous ways. When you are disobedient, he will trip you up at every corner and absolutely nothing will seem to work. There are extreme perks to obedience. When you seek to follow and obey God, you are NOT suddenly more loved or more righteous. You are not earning salvation. Ephesians 2:9, “Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.” This is all a gift from God which not a single one of us could ever be good enough to earn. However, there is something undeniable that happens when you seek to follow and obey God, and here it is: You’re on a path God can bless. Obedience aligns your steps going in the direction of God’s blessings. Obedience puts you on the path of unspeakable goodness. God WANTS to bless you. God wants to help you. Obedience aligns you with the outpouring of his desired blessings and divine help. Disobedience quite simply gets you off track. And when you’re off track, you miss what God has for you. Blessings never jump off track and go chasing you down dark alleys. God’s blessings are on the path of his intended will, and if you’re straying off the path, those blessings simply never collide with you. In your disobedience and pursuit of your own way, God absolutely WILL trip you up. Why? Because he loves you too much to sit back and watch you continue down a path without his blessings. Here’s what we miss: God trips us because he loves us. He sees where we’re heading and he knows the blessings we are forfeiting, so he sticks his holy foot out and trips us up. THANK YOU, LORD! Right now, think of the times when you’ve been heading in the wrong direction, making the wrong plans with the wrong people, and suddenly absolutely nothing would work for you. You fell on your face. Faceplants are a sweet, sweet gift of God. That’s our moment of forced pause. That’s our opportunity for redirection. If God didn’t love you, he would have let you keep running right into that, but instead his holy foot tripped you. Looking back we see it. How many times in our moments of failure did we say, “God, why me?” but we failed to hear his answer of, “Because, my girl, I love you too much to let you continue on this path. I have so much better for you.” Isn’t God sweet? It’s awesome when God blesses us, but it’s life changing when God stops us. If you have a loved one running full steam ahead on the wrong path, maybe a good prayer would be, “Father, in your loving grace and mercy, would you place your holy foot on their path and allow them to trip? And when they trip, would you catch them and lovingly redirect them?” That’s what he’s done for you, my sister. He’s tripped you, he’s caught you and he’s redirected you. Now, as you walk the path of his will, he can help you in supernatural ways because his blessings are per-aligned all along the way for you! Now, let’s dig deeper into this scripture. 2 Chronicles 25:8 says, “God has the power to help you or trip you up”, but what is the context? Who is receiving this warning and what can we learn from it? King Amaziah was the ruler of Judah. Judah is the land of south Jerusalem. There have been a series of good kings and bad kings.

Transcribed - Published: 23 June 2025

Every single one of us have made mistakes. The problem is, some of us believe making that mistake makes us a mistake. The enemy of your soul loves the shame game because it eats away at your soul. Shame corrodes the very part of you that believes you are capable of change. Shame is a destructive force straight from the pits of hell. Someone you love may be battling shame and you simply don’t understand that’s why they’ve pulled away. That’s why they hide. It’s really not you, it’s the story they tell themselves from their place of soul eating shame. Living in shame means something in your past now threatens to darken your future. It means you’re being held back from your God-given potential because of your past mistakes. Now, understand, it is not God’s will for you to be held back, he’s not the one doing the punishing. It is not his desire for you to be reliving the mistakes and shortcomings. It is God’s plan for you to live in absolute freedom and walk in full redemption. It is by his divine direction that every bad thing would be turned around and used for good. Has that bad thing been turned yet, or is it still creating bad feelings within you? Is it still telling bad stories stirring up shame in you head and in your spirit? Is it still poking at you, taunting you with threats of uncovering, revealing and exposing? You’ve been blackmailed. Blackmailed by the devil. He is the one threatening to reveal this compromising or damaging information about you. He is the one demanding payment for what has already happened, holding you hostage in a past you can’t go back and change now. So your future is sacrificed because you’re busy making payment for the past. How much longer will you pay for this? Girl, are you ready to be set free of that? Are you ready to stare down the one who holds these threats against you and declare they are now powerless? It is time! I remember as a little girl blackmailing my older brother. I heard him cuss on the school bus. That day as we got off the bus I told him of my plans to tattle on him. Because I had incriminating evidence against him, he agreed to make a deal with me. I wouldn’t tell mom and dad about him cussing, in exchange for his obedience to my every demand. I had him cleaning my room, doing my chores, and giving me his toys so that I would hide his secret. And it worked. It worked for a long time. One day he didn’t comply with my demands and I reminded him of his offense and the ammunition I had against him. He was tired of me ruling him, so he finally said, “go ahead and tell mom and dad.” So, that’s exactly what I did. I marched my happy little bossy butt right in to my parents and I proceeded to tell them about the time my big brother said a cuss word on the buss. Oh I felt so powerful. I was sure he would most definitely regret not continuing to hide behind my blackmail. Instead, mom and dad scolded me. I was punished for being a brat and he was dismissed from his wrong doing because it no longer mattered. What’s done had been done and he had punished himself enough over it! Oh girl, don’t you know the devil has been a brat to you. Just how long has he been threatening to reveal your mistakes? How long has he had you cowered down and missing out? For real, missing out on the fullness of life offered to you because of something you can’t go back and change? So the payment continues as you are blackmailed by the devil. Reminded of your past. Haunted by that decision. Tricked by your shortcoming. Tormented by your failure. You pay with your shame that causes you to hide. You pay with your regret that causes you to settle. You pay with your sacrifice of the abundant goodness available to you here and now. And you end up living a little life when you were created for a BIG Life!

Transcribed - Published: 20 June 2025

When God created you, he had an image in mind. He had a life’s purpose and destiny envisioned for you, then he equipped you perfectly for it. Part of the equipping we often miss is the DESIRE for the life we were created for. That’s right, he not only makes you the right person to fulfill the image he had in mind, but he places the desires within you for that destiny. Psalm 37:4 says the Lord will give you the desires of your heart. What if that actually means your hearts desires originate with God. Your deep core desires are a result of your Creator’s deposits within you. It was all part of his great design of YOU. If you study enneagrams, you find we are designed so uniquely different. I’m a 7, the enthusiast. (Surprise, as if you didn’t know). I am extroverted, spontaneous optimist. I am playful, high-spirited and practical. My desires are for new and exciting experiences. And this is exactly how God made me. Why? To fulfill my purpose. This is who I needed to be to be the voice that wakes people up and inspires them to live up to their God-given potential. My desires for adventure perfectly align with my destiny of hosting BIG Life Adventure Retreats. Study your own unique self and you too will find every detail of you is in alignment with a greater plan that excites you. Ya’ll, God is a genius! He created you on purpose with a purpose. Your personality type, your talents, your tendencies, and your desires work together to guide you exactly where God wants you to go. How about we stop wishing we were someone else, and start rocking exactly who we were created to be? How about we stop settling for a watered down, lesser than, cheap imitation version of who God says we are, and rise up and start believing we are his masterpiece handcrafted for a purpose? How about we start trusting God knows exactly what he is doing and we partner with his plan? How about we stop giving up when it gets hard and believe God has made a way for us to not only survive, but thrive. Here’s the problem, when things get tough, we start looking around at what we want RIGHT NOW and we settle for that immediate gratification, sacrificing what we want MOST. What do you want most? What are your deepest desires? Those desires are there as a guide to the life you were created for. What do you want right now? Is it in conflict with what you want most? Typically it is. You most want a strong healthy body. But dang a doughnut followed by a nap sounds pretty ahhh-mazing, doesn’t it? You most want a fulfilling and successful career. But the leap required to get there is scary, so the security of what you have now is good enough for today. You most want a healthy thriving relationship. But that doesn’t seem to be knocking on your door, so you’ll settle for what there is just so you’re not alone. Do you see how the offerings of ease, comfort and security are often in complete contradiction to your deepest desires? And do you see how ease, comfort and security are tools the enemy uses most on us? Honey, if he can’t defeat you, he will settle for detouring you. He would love to take you to Hell with him, but if he can’t have your soul, he will fight for your purpose. He will attack your destiny. How does he fight? Not always with the scary demons and fiery darts we imagine, no he often fights with freaking nap times that turn into lazy, unlived days. He fights with temptations that derail your progress, defeat your willpower and leave you convinced something is wrong with you and you’ll never change. He battles with offerings of false security that make you think a guaranteed paycheck is better than the uncertainty of the future you dream of. He offers what isn’t quite right, but it’s right now, so you settle. And this is what kills our potential.

Transcribed - Published: 19 June 2025

Join Pamela for part 2 of the unscripted Bible study of 2 Chronicles 20 and see how God turns your battlefield into the Valley of Blessings. Follow Pamela on Instagram – https://instagram.com/headmamapamela Or Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/pamela.crim Find out more about BIG Life – http://biglifehq.com

Transcribed - Published: 18 June 2025

2 Chronicles 20 After this, the armies of the Moabites, Ammonites, and some of the Meunites[a] declared war on Jehoshaphat.2 Messengers came and told Jehoshaphat, “A vast army from Edom[b] is marching against you from beyond the Dead Sea.[c] They are already at Hazazon-tamar.” (This was another name for En-gedi.) 3 Jehoshaphat was terrified by this news and begged the Lord for guidance. He also ordered everyone in Judah to begin fasting. 4 So people from all the towns of Judah came to Jerusalem to seek the Lord’s help. 5 Jehoshaphat stood before the community of Judah and Jerusalem in front of the new courtyard at the Temple of the Lord. 6 He prayed, “O Lord, God of our ancestors, you alone are the God who is in heaven. You are ruler of all the kingdoms of the earth. You are powerful and mighty; no one can stand against you! 7 O our God, did you not drive out those who lived in this land when your people Israel arrived? And did you not give this land forever to the descendants of your friend Abraham? 8 Your people settled here and built this Temple to honor your name. 9 They said, ‘Whenever we are faced with any calamity such as war,[d] plague, or famine, we can come to stand in your presence before this Temple where your name is honored. We can cry out to you to save us, and you will hear us and rescue us.’ 10 “And now see what the armies of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir are doing. You would not let our ancestors invade those nations when Israel left Egypt, so they went around them and did not destroy them. 11 Now see how they reward us! For they have come to throw us out of your land, which you gave us as an inheritance. 12 O our God, won’t you stop them? We are powerless against this mighty army that is about to attack us. We do not know what to do, but we are looking to you for help.” 13 As all the men of Judah stood before the Lord with their little ones, wives, and children, 14 the Spirit of the Lord came upon one of the men standing there. His name was Jahaziel son of Zechariah, son of Benaiah, son of Jeiel, son of Mattaniah, a Levite who was a descendant of Asaph. 15 He said, “Listen, all you people of Judah and Jerusalem! Listen, King Jehoshaphat! This is what the Lord says: Do not be afraid! Don’t be discouraged by this mighty army, for the battle is not yours, but God’s. 16 Tomorrow, march out against them. You will find them coming up through the ascent of Ziz at the end of the valley that opens into the wilderness of Jeruel. 17 But you will not even need to fight. Take your positions; then stand still and watch the Lord’s victory. He is with you, O people of Judah and Jerusalem. Do not be afraid or discouraged. Go out against them tomorrow, for the Lord is with you!” 18 Then King Jehoshaphat bowed low with his face to the ground. And all the people of Judah and Jerusalem did the same, worshiping the Lord. 19 Then the Levites from the clans of Kohath and Korah stood to praise the Lord, the God of Israel, with a very loud shout. 20 Early the next morning the army of Judah went out into the wilderness of Tekoa. On the way Jehoshaphat stopped and said, “Listen to me, all you people of Judah and Jerusalem! Believe in the Lord your God, and you will be able to stand firm. Believe in his prophets, and you will succeed.” 21 After consulting the people, the king appointed singers to walk ahead of the army, singing to the Lord and praising him for his holy splendor. This is what they sang: “Give thanks to the Lord; his faithful love endures forever!” 22 At the very moment they began to sing and give praise, the Lord caused the armies of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir to start fighting among themselves. 23 The armies of Moab and Ammon turned against their allies from Mount Seir and killed every one of them. After they had destroyed the army of Seir, they began attacking each other. 24 So when the army of Judah arrived at the lookout...

Transcribed - Published: 17 June 2025

Where do you turn first when you have a decision to make? Where do you go when there’s a problem? I’m not talking theoretically, I’m talking very practically. How do you make your decisions? What determines your next step? Who do you go to with your problem? Who’s care do you seek? Did you know God literally LOOKS for ways to defend and show his strength to anyone who is fully committed to him? Anyone who will come to him first is who he wants to offer divine power to. But why is this so hard for us? Why do we try to do it ourselves first? Why do we trust other sources for our answers, and overlook our God who holds it all? Oh, I know why … because the enemy of our soul works hard to keep us from accessing the power that defeats him every single time. The enemy never wants you to remember your best first choice is always God. You absolutely cannot fail when you seek God first and remain committed to him. One of my favorite scriptures is 2 Chronicles 16:9, “The eyes of the Lord search the whole earth in order to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him.” Oh, the visual of that! God’s eyes are not just taking a casual glance over the earth, skimming over the details – No, he is intently searching. He’s looking at every detail, listening to every prayer, watching every next step, to find those who are fully committed to him. Those who will come to him first. Those who will trust in him with their whole heart. If that’s what he’s searching for, does he find it in YOU? Really, is that you? Or has God just become your back up plan, your last resort, your emergency call? If you could only see the supernatural strength he has available for you. If you could only imagine the divine details he has aligned and waiting for you … but you only access them when your heart is turned to him first. When he is your first call. When he is your go-to instead of your backup. When he is your first thought instead of your after-thought. When your heart is fully committed to God, then YOU ARE THE ONE HIS SEARCHING EYES FIND to send his supernatural strength to. I love the hidden object puzzles. It’s the cluttered scene with hundreds of random objects, and you’re searching for the hidden cat, the hidden sailboat and the hidden chicken drumstick. You have to look closely and not be distracted by the details of everything else you’re seeing. What helps you most is to know what what the hidden object looks like. You get an image of that object in your head, then you search through the mess for the match. God is searching through the mess for the match. He knows precisely what a heart committed to him looks like, and he will always find it. The problem is, we struggle to know what God looks like in our mess. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never actually seen God so it can sometimes be hard to know when I’ve found him. God, is that little voice you? God, is that closed door from you? Am I supposed to search for a key to unlock it myself, knock on it, tear it down, or keep moving down the hall? Well, the good news is, this isn’t about your eyes, this is about God’s eyes. Your eyes are not required to see God. God’s eyes see you. It’s the eyes of the LORD that search the whole earth. And what his eyes are looking for is the heart that is fully committed to him. That’s your part. Commit your heart to him. Not eyes that can see him. Not a mind that can understand him. Just a heart committed to him. And when your heart is committed to him, he naturally becomes your first call, your go to, your primary thought. I’ve got to talk to God about this. I need to ask him first. When God’s eyes find a heart committed to him like that, then he sends his special strength to take the next step, make the necessary changes,

Transcribed - Published: 16 June 2025

God has been waiting for this very day. Waiting for you to just come to him with your broken pieces, your disappointment, your fears and your worries, and seek him with your whole heart. Girl, why did it have to get this bad before you finally came to him? Why do we wait? I’m not sure, but that is often what we do. But here you are today, at the end of yourself feeling quite hopeless, and this is where you drop that heavy burden and you surrender it all to God. That is what he has been waiting for. While you’ve been away, wandering about through life, God hasn’t hated you. Honey, he has always loved you. He has always awaited your return to him. He has wanted nothing more than for you to seek him so he can reveal himself to you. So, here you are … and God sees you! He saw you as you decided you would try this on your own. He saw you as you got busy with life and put him on the back burner. He saw you as you made a mess. But he never once stopped loving you. He waited. He’s been waiting through these storms. Waiting through these struggles. Waiting with all the power in the world to help you, guide you, rescue you and restore you. The only thing you have to do is decide today is the day you begin seeking him with all your heart and soul. Right here, at this very moment, you can whisper in your heart, “God, I want you to be the Lord of my life.” You’ve tried this on your own and it’s simply not working. But when you put God back in his rightful place over your life, things start changing! You won’t be a magically new person with a brand new fixed life over night, but God will begin doing his work to make you new. As you seek him with all your heart, your daily habits and priorities will begin to change. Your thoughts will become different. You will respond to the same problems in a different way. And with these gradual, God directed changes and shifts, your life gets back in alignment with the good plans your Creator has had for you from the beginning. That’s how it happens! It all begins with a decision to seek Him. That’s it. It doesn’t have to be any more complicated than that. Just decide you want God in your life and you want to give him your life. Our Bibles are filled with stories of people just like us who would lose their way, wander away from God, make a mess, then God would wait for them to come back. And no matter how many times they had wandered away, the moment they called out to God again, he responded. But it was always life’s troubles that brought them back to God. And that’s what’s bringing you back right now isn’t it? Trouble. GOD CAN HELP WITH THAT! He’s been waiting for you to seek him for this. 2 Chronicles 15:4, “But whenever they were in trouble and turned to the Lord and sought him out, they found him.” Verse 12, “Then they entered into a covenant to seek the Lord with all their heart and soul.” Verse 15, “They earnestly sought after God, and they found him. And the Lord gave them rest from their enemies on every side.” I might not know what enemies you’ve been battling and what wars you’ve been in, but I know God can give you rest from all that. I know he can strengthen you to overcome and break free from that struggle. I know the answer for every single problem you face is to simply SEEK GOD. We are promised that when we seek God, we will FIND HIM. Deuteronomy 4:29, “If you search for the Lord with all your heart and soul, you will find him.” Verse 31, “For the Lord your God is a merciful God; he will not destroy you or forget the covenant he made with your ancestors.” You are under covenant with God. An agreement … if you seek him, he will make himself found for you. If you ask him for help, he will help you.

Transcribed - Published: 13 June 2025

God has promises for your life. However, promises are a gift that is never forced. It is always up to the recipient to claim the gifts of God’s promises. What unclaimed promises are waiting for you, my sister? Yesterday, in episode #1893: A Heart To Do More, we read all of 1 Chronicles 17. David had a heart to do more for God than God ever asked of him. After all of David’s successes, he wanted to do something great for God, so he decided he would build a Temple for God’s presence to reside in, rather than a portable tent. And in response, God tells David, “No, you are not the one to build a house for me. But after you die, one of your sons will build my house. Now David, I am building a house for you. A dynasty of kings. From you will come a King over my kingdom forever.” God blessed David more than David could have ever blessed God. He sees our heart and responds to the desires within our heart. I’m learning the desires of my heart are growing, but they will never catch up with the desires of God’s heart for me. He will always meet me and raise me! Isn’t that what God does? Just like a hand of poker, he meets us and then raises us. What he has to invest in us is always greater and bigger. Now, imagine for a moment being David. He is King. He has gone from rags to riches. He is loved and celebrated. Everything he does turns to success because of God’s hand. But when he decides to build a Temple for God, God tells him no, you’re not the one to do it. That must have hurt a little. Imagine having a beautiful voice and a genuine heart to sing for God, but God says, “No, you’re not the one I’ve chosen to sing for me.” Ouch. Imagine being Michelangelo with all the artistic talent in the world to paint and being told by God, “Nope, you’re not the one I want to do my painting.” Wouldn’t your feelings get hurt? Wouldn’t you question why God wouldn’t choose you? Wouldn’t it feel personal? Wouldn’t you pull away a little and get pouty? I know I would. But David trusted what he could not understand. He didn’t have to understand God’s decision or selection, he didn’t even have to agree with it, he just trusted it. It wasn’t what he wanted, but it was what he accepted in faith. Later, God reveals to David why he wasn’t the chosen one to build his temple. God said in 1 Chronicles 22: 8-10, “You have killed many men in the battles you have fought. And since you have shed so much blood in my sight, you will not be the one to build a Temple to honor my name. But you will have a son who will be a man of peace. I will give him peace with his enemies in all the surrounding lands. His name will be Solomon, and I will give peace and quiet to Israel during his reign. He is the one who will build a temple to honor my name.” When God says no to you, will you trust him without understanding why? Will you lean in instead of pulling away? You know what David did when God told him he was not the chosen one to build his Temple? He began gathering the materials for building so when the one God had chosen was ready, it would all be there for him. Now that is remarkable. God, even if you don’t choose me to build it, I will help gather for it! David leaned in, and as a result he received the promises of God that were greater than he could have ever imagined. God promised to build a dynasty of kings for David. And he did. He promised to bring from him a King that would rule God’s Kingdom forever, and he did. Jesus is the descendant of David. He is the King of Kings. Remember, Jesus is identified as an ancestor of David more than any other person in his lineage. That’s the fulfillment of God’s promise!   Has a misunderstood move of God caused you to pull away?

Transcribed - Published: 12 June 2025

This morning, before sitting down to study God’s word and write today’s devotional, I inquired of God what he wanted of me specifically. Here’s what he told me: “Be unrushed. I have words for you to receive and then teach. Stay attuned to my Spirit as I guide. I have a very special message for all my girls today. I’ll need you to go slow so nothing is missed and my words are heard clearly.” I do everything (but run) fast. I talk fast. I think fast. I sleep fast. I walk fast. I write fast. Slowing down is a unique challenge for me. I want to cram absolutely everything I can into this 15 minutes with you, but today will be unrushed. Per God’s clear instructions, we’re slowing down to hear him clearly. The scripture God has asked me to share is 1 Chronicles 17 … yes, the entire chapter. We’re reading about David. Remember, David was the little shepherd boy, the son of a shepherd who courageously defeated the giant Goliath, and was then chosen by God as the next King. David became a mighty warrior guided by God, successful in everything he did. Now, after all of his success, David humbly wants to do something for God. But check out what God does instead! When David was settled in his palace, he summoned Nathan the prophet. “Look,” David said, “I am living in a beautiful cedar palace, but the Ark of the Lord’s Covenant is out there under a tent!” Nathan replied to David, “Do whatever you have in mind, for God is with you.” But that same night God said to Nathan, “Go and tell my servant David, ‘This is what the Lord has declared: You are not the one to build a house for me to live in. I have never lived in a house, from the day I brought the Israelites out of Egypt until this very day. My home has always been a tent, moving from one place to another in a Tabernacle. Yet no matter where I have gone with the Israelites, I have never once complained to Israel’s leaders, the shepherds of my people. I have never asked them, “Why haven’t you built me a beautiful cedar house?” “Now go and say to my servant David, ‘This is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies has declared: I took you from tending sheep in the pasture and selected you to be the leader of my people Israel. I have been with you wherever you have gone, and I have destroyed all your enemies before your eyes. Now I will make your name as famous as anyone who has ever lived on the earth! And I will provide a homeland for my people Israel, planting them in a secure place where they will never be disturbed. Evil nations won’t oppress them as they’ve done in the past, starting from the time I appointed judges to rule my people Israel. And I will defeat all your enemies. “Furthermore, I declare that the Lord will build a house for you – a dynasty of kings! For when you die and join your ancestors, I will raise up one of your descendants, one of your sons, and I will make his kingdom strong. He is the one who will build a house – a temple – for me. And I will secure his throne forever. I will be his father, and he will be my son. I will never take my favor from him as I took it from the one who ruled before you. I will confirm him as king over my house and my kingdom for all time, and his throne will be secure forever. So Nathan went back to David and told him everything the Lord had said in this vision. Then King David went in and sat before the Lord and prayed, “Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my family, that you have brought me this far? And now, O God, in addition to everything else, you speak of giving your servant a lasting dynasty! You speak as though I were someone very great, O Lord God! “What more can I say to you about the way you have honored me? You know what your servant is really like.

Transcribed - Published: 11 June 2025

Have you ever done something, and while you were doing it, you knew it wasn’t right, but you did it any way. That little voice within was talking, but you didn’t want to listen. The inner alarms were ringing, but you just kept on. I have a funny little story for you … If you know me, you know I’m a lover of bright happy colors. My wardrobe is mostly from a company called Natural Life. It’s a little bit hippy and a whole lotta happy. BIG Life and Natural Life truly need to do a collaboration of the happiest Jesus girl clothing on the planet. They haven’t reached out yet. Well, recently, a friend who owns a boutique that carries the Natural Life brand sent me a link advertising a massive warehouse sale. Now, I’m currently out of the country with one little suitcase. I don’t have space for anything new and I don’t even have a shipping address to receive it. So, when she first shared the website link of massive clearance, I ignored it. A few weeks went by and I decided maybe I should order me a few new pieces for when I return to the states and have them waiting for me. So, I clicked on the link and began scrolling. Y’all, the romper I had paid $65 for was $12. My favorite hat was on sale for $2! Entire bedding sets were $7. I don’t even own a bed, y’all I am full on homeless, but for some reason I decided I would really need a bedding set because it was so cheap. And so would 8 of my best friends. I had hundreds of dollars of items in my cart, and the total was only $65. So, what do I do? I keep adding more things to my cart. Oh, there’s my favorite happy travel bag, I’m going to need a dozen of those and I will give them away at the next retreat. Gosh, everyone will want one of my favorite coffee mugs, so yes, let’s get 30! The cart grew and grew, yet the discounts kept piling up and my total remained at $65. I literally spent hours tingling with excitement thinking of who would want that sweater, who would love that floral dog bed, who would be thrilled over that fuzzy blanket. Still, the total never moved from $65. All while there was a little voice within that said, “Pamela, something isn’t right here.” Susshhhhhhh little voice, I’m basically doing free shopping for all the happy things for me and my people. The inner alarm is ringing as I put in our credit card information. But I ignore the alarm and proceed because it’s all just sooooo pretty. At this point I have a semi-truck load of things scheduled to be delivered to my friend Nicole’s house in Illinois so I text her and tell her to make space. Gifts are on their way!!!!! Girl, I just redecorated your whole house for you! Oh the excitement. Then comes the confirmation email … in a foreign language. Then the credit card charge … totally NOT my beloved Natural Life. I had been scammed. And sadly, I knew it the entire time, I just wouldn’t listen. I wanted it so bad I just couldn’t be told no. And guess what … that semi-truck never showed up with my massive order, and now they have my credit card. You know what … I did that. I have no one else to blame. Sometimes we do the same exact thing when there’s far more than $65 on the line. We proceed with relationships we know darn good and well aren’t right. We step right into jobs and careers that were never meant for us, but the offer of money was so good. And we go from one bad decision to another because we’re chasing fickle feelings and fleeting desires. Was that little voice within God? Was God trying to get our attention, trying to direct our steps, trying to safeguard us from disaster? Was God showing us a better way, giving us an out, and offering divine wisdom, but we didn’t accept it? Scripture tells us of David who became a mighty warrior and King.

Transcribed - Published: 10 June 2025

The book of 1 Chronicles begins with chapters of genealogy all the way back to the very first man, Adam. Long lists of strange names that today seem rather unimportant to us. 4 chapters in, after reading over names of fathers and their sons, sprinkled with a few wives and daughters names, there’s a surprising detail included about one man that truly stands out. Tucked in the middle of genealogical lists, it seems almost out of place. He wasn’t a king. He wasn’t a mighty warrior. He was a man who prayed. 1 Chronicles 4: 9-10, “There was a man named Jabez who was more honorable than any of his brothers. His mother named him Jabez because his birth had been so painful. He was the one who prayed to the God of Israel, “‘Oh that you would bless me indeed, and enlarge my territory, that your hand would be with me, and that you would keep me from evil, that I may not cause pain!’ So God granted him what he requested.” And that’s it. After this verse, we go right back to genealogical lists of long strange names. If you’re skimming through, just trying to check this book of the Bible off your list, you’ll miss it. Today, we’re not missing it. Why would God’s word include this otherwise seemingly unimportant man’s prayer? Why would his prayer be preserved for us to read today? In the early 2000’s, I was given the gift of a tiny book called “The Prayer of Jabez”. This book was kept in our hall bathroom to let guests know we were “spiritual people”. I read the book, and began praying the prayer as if it were some sort of hidden key to unlock the storehouses of heaven, and after a few days of nothing major happening, I forgot about it. The Prayer of Jabez became a popular prayer for people seeking material blessings. A sort of ‘name it and claim it’ prayer that seemed to be working for others, but wasn’t quite paying my mortgage. Was I not doing it right? Not praying it enough? Not really believing? All these years later on my spiritual journey, I come back to that prayer of a man named Jabez and I see it completely different. He wasn’t a man with a secret key to the riches of heaven, he was a man seeking God for guidance and making his life fully available to be used for the purposes of God … and to that, GOD GRANTS HIS REQUEST. I must admit, my prayers began from a place of wanting something from God. And my sister, it’s okay if your prayers are there right now. Our God is such a good, good Father. He understands his daughter who comes to him for blessings, and he also knows he has sooooo much more for his girl! Oh how he is patient with us through our selfish seasons. Oh how he graciously allows our prayers to start wrong, and grows us to make them right. The prayer of Jabez isn’t a hidden formula of magic words to be repeated for mysterious miracles. The prayer of this honorable man of faith is an example of God’s work within us to align our hearts to his. Jabez isn’t trying to get something from God, Jabez is calling on God to help him accomplish the promises of God in his life. God has promises for you. Promises of purpose. Promises of grace and mercy. Promises of joy and fulfillment. Promises of peace and power. It’s time to learn how to pray for God to help you live in the fullness of his promises. The prayer of Jabez pleased God, and God granted his requests. His heart was right. His desires were pure. He wasn’t reciting magical words, he was trusting fully in God’s goodness and power. So, let’s look at the 5 parts of Jabez’s prayer: 1. Before he speaks a word, he knows who God really is. He is the Lord. He is all powerful. He is untouchable, yet approachable. He is high above all, yet he bends down to hear the whispered prayers of the soul seeking him as Lord.

Transcribed - Published: 9 June 2025

Join Pamela in this unscripted devotional as she shares her testimony of God’s saving grace and healing power from a massive stroke. 1 Peter 4:15, “If someone asks about your hope as a believer, always be ready to explain it.” 1 Chronicles 16:8, “Give thanks to the Lord and proclaim his greatness. Let the whole world know what he has done.” Revelation 12:11, “(The accuser) has been defeated by the blood of the Lamb and by their testimony.” Follow Pamela on Instagram – https://instagram.com/headmamapamela Or Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/pamela.crim Find out more about BIG Life – http://biglifehq.com

Transcribed - Published: 6 June 2025

Guidance. Isn’t that what you really need? You need God to guide you, direct you, show you, because honestly you don’t know what you’re doing here. Stop everything and grab something to write this word down. It can be a handwritten note, or a typed note in your phone. Whatever you do, just get this written word in front of your eyes now so you can really see it. Write the word GUIDANCE. Do you see the beautiful word hidden within guidance. Look at it. The last 5 letters. Dance. Underline it. Highlight it. Put a box around it. The guidance you seek is a dance. The problem is, you’ve been trying to lead the dance and it was never yours to lead. Your job in this dance is to follow. Now look at the word again. G-U-I-Dance. The G is God. Then there’s a U and I. God, U and I Dance. This is what your life is supposed to be. A dance with God, your creator. You are his beloved daughter of the dance, he is your trusted and skilled guide. A friend shared this word with me yesterday and I can’t stop looking at it. G-U-I-Dance. God, you and I dance. Psalm 32:8: The Lord says, “I will guide you along the best pathway for your life, I will advise you and watch over you.” If you’re not trusting him to be the lead, then the dance has become a real mess, hasn’t it? He knows the best path for your life and you don’t always see it. If you’ve taken over the lead, the dance isn’t flowing like it should. Two people trying to lead one dance leaves absolutely nothing feeling right. It’s awkward. It’s jerky. It’s forced. And it’s evident … someone is lacking trust. I wonder if that’s what your life feels like? You’ve been trying to force your own way, make this all happen in your timing, now it’s become awkward and you feel deeply unhappy. Oh honey, you’ve been trying to lead this dance. At the root of that is your lack of trust in God. Really, are you struggling to trust God to actually get this right? Are you questioning God’s goodness in this? Have you convinced yourself your timing would be better? It’s hard to follow someone you simply don’t trust. Proverbs 3:5, “Trust in the Lord with ALL your heart, don’t depend on your OWN understanding.” This is a complete surrender to the one you’re trusting to know the way better than you. This level of trust and surrender doesn’t happen overnight, but you’re taking lessons and learning. That’s what this is – you’re taking dancing lessons. You’re learning the art of surrender. You’re learning to follow. Your dance lessons are teaching you to trust God as your guide. Honey, just keep showing up for the lessons. You’re getting better. You’ll learn the flow. With God, life becomes a flow instead of a force. Proverbs 3:6 TPT, “With all your heart rely on him to guide you, and he will lead you in every decision you make.” God’s guidance IN everything comes as a result of you fully trusting him WITH everything. Then, you dance. You move. You flow. You go together so effortlessly. He guides and you follow. After God says “I will guide you” in Psalm 32:8, he then says in verse 9, “Do not be like a senseless horse or mule that needs a a bit and bridle to keep it under control.” Now I’ve never trained a horse, but I’ve leash trained our 130 pound yellow lab. At 2 years old, that dog was uncontrollable. Whichever direction I was leading, he wanted to go the other way. Always. He literally dislocated my husband’s shoulder on our first trip to the beach. It was comical to watch our walks, because he was most definitely walking us more than we were walking him. But, with training, he learned to follow our lead. Ultimately, he learned to trust us.

Transcribed - Published: 5 June 2025

God is in the details of your life. His word tells us of our value and his individual care, down to numbering the hairs on our head. Yes, you are only one of billions in a great big world, but you are HIS ONE and his eye is on you. You have no idea what he is doing for you right now. You cannot imagine the way he is moving heaven and earth just for you, but without your knowledge and awareness he is doing it. He is doing great things for you. He is aligning a way through this. He is clearing the path to his open door. But my sister, he will not force your feet to move in that direction. Your faith in action will be required here. As we study 2 Kings together, we find a true story of God working in the unseen at the same exact time a movement of faith is made. It would be easy to miss, but today we’re going to look for God in the details and find his marvelous power at work. Reading in NIV, 2 Kings 7: 3-8: Now there were four men with leprosy at the entrance of the city gate. They said to each other, “Why stay here until we die? If we say, ‘We’ll go into the city’—the famine is there, and we will die. And if we stay here, we will die. So let’s go over to the camp of the Arameans and surrender. If they spare us, we live; if they kill us, then we die.” At dusk they got up and went to the camp of the Arameans. When they reached the edge of the camp, no one was there, for the Lord had caused the Arameans to hear the sound of chariots and horses and a great army, so that they said to one another, “Look, the king of Israel has hired the Hittite and Egyptian kings to attack us!” So they got up and fled in the dusk and abandoned their tents and their horses and donkeys. They left the camp as it was and ran for their lives. The men who had leprosy reached the edge of the camp, entered one of the tents and ate and drank. Okay, now let’s dig deeper to see God at work in the details of these four men’s lives. These men had leprosy, a deadly disease which caused them to be completely excluded from the care and connection of family or society. No one touched them or even came near them. They were forced to spend their final desperate days on the outskirts of the city, left to die with others who were infected. But God still cared about these lepers. They were not forgotten by Him. My sister, you may feel forgotten by others, left out and excluded, but God cares deeply about you. His eye has never left you. He hears your cries and every time you call out to him, he comes near to you. Psalm 34: 17-18, “The Lord hears his people when they call to him for help. He rescues them from all their troubles. The Lord is close to the brokenhearted; he rescues those whose spirits are crushed.” Do you really believe that? Do you believe he hears you? Do you believe he is responding to you? Do you believe right now he is close to you? He is responding to you. In the unseen, he is doing something miraculous in response to your faith. You have to look at this story in 2 Kings chapter 7 to see the power of God at work. What time of day was it when these 4 men with leprosy got up from the desperate and hopeless situation and set out for the enemy’s camp? Scripture says it was AT DUSK. That’s an important detail, because God is showing us what he was doing at the same exact time in response to their desperate step of faith. In the enemy’s camp, the Lord had caused the entire army to hear sounds of an attack coming. Sounds of chariots and horses. In fear, the Aramean army left everything in their camp behind and fled IN THE DUSK. This little detail shows us at the same time the 4 men took their desperate steps of faith, God was clearing the way for them. He was doing the impossible for them! And woah, if you listened to yesterday’s episode, you know there are unseen angel armies protecting and fighting for us.

Transcribed - Published: 4 June 2025

Faith isn’t asking you to believe in something that isn’t real. Faith is asking you to believe in something real, something promised, something guaranteed, yet in the unseen. Can you believe it without seeing it? Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not real. Girl, you have no idea what is surrounding you at this moment. You have no idea of the powers that are FOR you. But you can absolutely trust in it. We’ve been studying about the life of Elisha, a prophet of God in the Old Testament. All good comes under attack, and the enemies of Israel had zeroed in on Elisha and wanted to take him out. 2 Kings 6: 14-17: “One night the king of Aram sent a great army with many chariots and horses to surround the city (where Elisha was). When Elisha’s servant got up early the next morning and went outside, there were troops, horses and chariots everywhere. “Oh, sir, what will we do now?” the young man cried to Elisha. “Don’t be afraid!” Elisha told him. “For there are more on our side than on theirs!” Then Elisha prayed, “O Lord, open his eyes and let him see!” The Lord opened the young man’s eyes, and when he looked up, he saw that the hillside around Elisha was filled with horses and chariots of fire. The young man could see all that was stacked up against them, but in his fear he couldn’t see all that was stacked up FOR them. What was for them was far greater than what was against them. It’s easy to see everything that is against you right now. The odds may not be in your favor. Circumstances may be desperate. Your chances seem to have run out and nothing seems to be coming together for you. All you see here are closed doors and dead ends. But my sister, what you see is NOT all there is. In the unseen is far more working for you. Miraculous unfoldings are aligned, but you can’t see them. Goodness, blessings, open doors and provisions are here for you. Faith is calling you to believe in the promises of God, even when you can’t see evidence of those promises. Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not real. It’s unseen, not unreal. The horses and chariots of fire surrounding Elisha and his young servant were real, whether seen or unseen. They were indeed there even before the servant’s eyes were opened. Through faith, they could be trusted before they were seen. Have you ever lost your cell phone? (On the daily, right?!) You know it is exactly where you left it, but you just can’t remember where you left it. Does this make your phone any less real? You can’t see it right now, but you know it’s still there. You know it’s working even when you can’t see it. So you have someone call you. You listen for the ring, follow the sound, and find it where you left it and immediately remember, of course that’s where it is. Your phone was just as real when you didn’t see it and when you couldn’t find it. You never stopped believing in it’s physical presence. Well honey, God has promised REAL things to you as his girl. These things are really there and really working. It’s time you believe it even when you don’t see it. Psalm 34:7, “God’s angel sets up a circle of protection around us while we pray.” I’ve never seen that circle of protection around me, but I’ve benefited from it countless times. I’ve been in those close calls and split second saving grace moments. My angel has put his hand on me time and time again to protect me, saving me from disaster and harm. God’s angel has done that for you too, right? I live an adventurous life and I tend to put myself right in the middle of shark infested waters, tall cliffs, and questionable safety harnesses … a lot.

Transcribed - Published: 3 June 2025

God truly does work in mysterious ways, doesn’t he? His ways are so mysterious, that they can appear disappointing in our human perspective. The question is, in your disappointment, have you given up and dismissed yourself from seeing the fullness of what God was doing? Many years ago, my husband and I gave up a very successful business we had built in Dallas to follow the prompting of God to go to El Paso, Texas to help build a church. Once there, we struggled to pay rent, struggled to keep the repo man from taking our truck, struggled to buy groceries. Life became one big struggle. Our little boy was in kindergarten and he was required to wear a uniform. We could only afford to buy 2 uniform shirts, so when 1 of those shirts got ruined, I was washing that lone little white shirt by hand every single night. Struggling. My sister, if you’re in a season of struggle, please know I understand. I’ve been in the struggle. But we were there out of obedience. I thought surely obedience would be handsomely rewarded. Then the church fell apart and closed, the family we moved there to help left, and there we were left with absolutely nothing but a mess to clean up. Why in the world did God bring us there to fail? I’ve never been more disappointed in my life. Y’all it’s one thing to struggle when you still have hope. It’s a completely different thing to struggle when you’re sorely disappointed. But what if this disappointment is part of God’s mysterious way? It is for a purpose and your faith is being called to action here. 2 Kings chapter 5 tells of a successful man in a struggle. This man was Naaman. He was a commander of the Syrian army and had nothing but great victories. He was a loved, mighty warrior. But as successful as Naaman was, he had an incurable disease that would slowly kill him. He had leprosy. Leprosy was a problem he couldn’t fix. Through a series of connections, Naaman ends up going to see the prophet Elisha for healing. And there, he is disappointed. 2 Kings 5: 9-12: Naaman went with his horses and chariots and waited at the door of Elisha’s house. But Elisha sent a messenger out to him with this message: “Go wash yourself seven times in the Jordan River. Then your skin will be restored, and you will be healed of your leprosy.” But Naaman became angry and stalked away. “I thought he would certainly come out to meet me!” he said. “I expected him to wave his hand over the leprosy and call on the name of the Lord his God and heal me! Aren’t the rivers of Damascus better than any of the rivers of Israel? Why shouldn’t I wash in them and be healed?” So Naaman turned and went away in a rage. The key word here is EXPECTED. Naaman expected the man of God to work in one way, but he experienced something radically disappointing instead. You may be disappointed in God right now, and that’s okay. He knows your human mind cannot conceive the fullness of his divine ways. He knows your sight is limited. He knows his ways are so much higher than your ways and he never expected you to understand him. However, he does call you to trust him in faith. Faith can look at a disappointing reality, deal with the real emotions of it, and still take the next step. Faith can lean in instead of tapping out. Faith can be disappointed without dismissing the appointment. My sister, you can still show up disappointed. I was so disappointed in God’s provision when we stepped out in faith. I was so discouraged by the utter failure of hard steps taken in obedience. I wanted nothing more than to pack my bags and go back home … the problem was, there was no home to go back to. There was no money to go anywhere. We were stuck. Stuck in a place we didn’t want to be. But what we didn’t realize then is we were stuck there for a purp...

Transcribed - Published: 2 June 2025

Our God is unlimited. He cannot fit in our little box of reasoning and understanding. He cannot be contained by earthly constraints and limits. GOD CAN DO IT. He makes the impossible possible, and he does it without sweat. Nothing is too hard for him. Nothing is out of his reach. The only thing you have to do is bring him your limits, bring him your insufficiency, bring him your way too little and far too late and BELIEVE he can do something with it. Don’t you know he can, my sister. He can do far more than you could ever ask, think or imagine. Time and time again he can come through for you personally in the sweetest and most divine ways. You won’t be able to understand it. You won’t have a plan for it. You won’t be able to reproduce it on your own. It’s simply God’s miraculous work in the details of your fully surrendered life. But first, you really do have to fully surrender your life to him. Yes, surrender before you understand God. Before it all makes sense. Without a sense of fully getting it or a means of control. You just have to surrender to the God who formed you and chose you and is relentlessly calling you to a relationship and partnership with him. And once you surrender your life, then you find all those questions you had simply don’t need to be answered anyway. Your human mind has a head on collision with faith, and faith says God holds it all and can be trusted. This week I’ve been messaging with a podcast listener who so desperately wants to surrender her life to God, but she’s struggling. She’s struggling to understand. Struggling to make sense of some restrictions of religion and exclusions of evangelism. And it just doesn’t feel right to accept the saving grace of the Jesus she believes in when it means that others aren’t saved as well. So, the beautiful soul that she is, has decided if Jesus can’t save everyone, then she doesn’t want to be saved. I can’t pretend to have the right words to guide her. But I know God’s word is for her. I know when God says in 2 Peter 3:9 that he is not willing, wishing or wanting anyone to be lost from him, he absolutely means it. How will he save everyone? How will he reach the ends of the earth with the saving grace of Jesus? I don’t know. That’s my little box, and God simply does not fit in my little box. But I know the impossible is made possible with God and my understanding is simply not required. My faith is calling for my surrendered mind to simply trust him. And I believe that’s what God is doing in this precious woman’s life as she is seeking. He’s calling her to faith that will bring her to a place of surrender and trust. A place where her little box will be crushed with an encounter with the Almighty. You know why? Because God is not willing, wishing or wanting to lose HER. Maybe that’s what he’s doing in your life right now too. He’s personally showing you he’s not willing, wishing or wanting to lose you. So he’s been speaking to you. He’s been calling you. He’s been relentlessly tapping on your heart and you know it! Girl, just let him in! I’ve been studying 2 Kings 4 in depth this week. It’s truly a book of the Bible and a chapter I’ve sped right through before and missed the depths of the lessons available in the stories God wanted preserved for us. I’ve been practicing a slower pace to savor the fullness of God’s word and let it come alive in me. That has brought me to the final paragraph in the chapter and an ‘ah-ha’ moment to be shared here with you. Let’s read it together. 2 Kings 4: 42-44: One day a man from Baal-shalishah brought the man of God (Elisha) a sack of fresh grain and twenty loaves of barley bread made from the first grain of his harvest. Elisha said,

Transcribed - Published: 30 May 2025

Today, we’re going to study a beautiful story turned tragic, then made miraculous. God has specifically asked me to share this story with you, his girls today. We will look at this story in 3 separate parts. First, the beautiful part. 2 Kings 4: 8-17 One day Elisha went to the town of Shunem. (Remember from yesterday’s devotional, Elisha is a prophet of God with a very special connection to deliver God’s messages and do God’s miraculous works.) A wealthy woman lived there, and she urged him to come to her home for a meal. After that, whenever he passed that way, he would stop there for something to eat. She said to her husband, “I am sure this man who stops in from time to time is a holy man of God. Let’s build a small room for him on the roof and furnish it with a bed, a table, a chair, and a lamp. Then he will have a place to stay whenever he comes by.” One day Elisha returned to Shunem, and he went up to this upper room to rest. He said to his servant Gehazi, “Tell the woman from Shunem I want to speak to her.” When she appeared, Elisha said to Gehazi, “Tell her, ‘We appreciate the kind concern you have shown us. What can we do for you? Can we put in a good word for you to the king or to the commander of the army?” “No,” she replied, “my family takes good care of me.” Later Elisha asked Gehazi, “What can we do for her?” Gehazi replied, “She doesn’t have a son, and her husband is an old man.” “Call her back again,” Elisha told him. When the woman returned, Elisha said to her as she stood in the doorway, “Next year at this time you will be holding a son in your arm!” “No, my lord!” she cried. “O man of God, don’t deceive me and get my hopes up like that.” But sure enough, the woman soon became pregnant. And at that time the following year she had a son, just as Elisha had said. My friends, you simply cannot out-give God. He sees the good you do, and he responds. God responds with blessings so overwhelming good that we couldn’t even dare ask for them. But, know this … God sees the heart of your “good works”. Are you doing good things just to be seen? Are you hoping good things will come to you as a result? Jesus warns us about this in Matthew 6:1, “Watch out! Don’t do your good deeds publicly, to be admired by others, for you will lose the reward from your Father in heaven.” Verse 4, “Give your gifts in private, and your Father, who sees everything, will reward you.” This has been a a very hard lesson for me personally. If I did something good, I wanted everyone to know about it. I was intoxicated with the praise. I desperately wanted to be liked because of my good deeds. Then God asked me to shut down my public life, draw close to him, and be completely obedient in secret. I cannot tell you how good this has been for me. Maybe God is calling you to the same secretly good life of obedience where absolutely no one else will know of the goodness you do. This truly opens a door for God’s blessings on a whole other level! This woman gave a room to Elisha not to be seen or praised, but out of pure goodness and obedience. As a result, God saw her private gifts and he rewarded her. His reward to her was a blessing she didn’t even dare ask for. It was a gift so big she hadn’t even hoped for it. The thing her heart most wanted, but she hadn’t allowed herself to dream of … a son. A son when it was too late. A son when it was totally unlikely. And God did it for her. She couldn’t out-give God, and neither can you. What if on the other side of your obedience and humble acts of kindness and goodness unseen by everyone else, God has a gift so perfect for you that you don&#...

Transcribed - Published: 29 May 2025

Have you ever faced an impossible situation and not known what to do? Have you ever had a debt so big you couldn’t pay it, or a problem so big you couldn’t fix it? Have you ever had God come through for you in unexpected ways to provide exactly what you need? I certainly have and I bet you have too. 2 Kings chapter 4 tells the story of the prophet Elisha helping a poor widow. Verses 1-7: “One day the widow of a member of the group of prophets came to Elisha and cried out, ‘My husband who served you is dead, and you know how he feared the Lord. But now a creditor has come, threatening to take my two sons as slaves.’ ‘What can I do to help you?’ Elisha asked. ‘Tell me, what do you have in the house?’ ‘Nothing at all, except a flask of olive oil.’ she replied. And Elisha said, ‘Borrow as many empty jars as you can from your friends and neighbors. Then go into your house with your sons and shut the door behind you. Pour olive oil from your flask into the jars, setting each one aside when its filled.’ So she did as she was told. Her sons kept bringing jars to her, and she filled one after another. Soon every container was full to the brim! ‘Bring me another jar,’ she said to one of her sons.’ ‘There aren’t any more!’ he told her. And then the olive oil stopped flowing. When she told the man of God what had happened, he said to her, ‘Now sell the olive oil and pay your debts, and you and your sons can live on what is left over.'” Wow. Isn’t that just incredible? You’re likely not facing your children being taken as slaves because of your debts, but you’re facing a hardship that is a threat. You don’t have the solution. You can’t do this on your own. But there’s one question you need to hear right now, “Tell me, what do you have in the house?” It’s easy to become so negatively focused that all we see is what we’ve lost and what we don’t have. That won’t help you now. WHAT DO YOU HAVE? This woman had only a small flask of olive oil. Understand, this was a very small container used for anointing, not even cooking. It was her only thing of value and her only thing left. I find it remarkable in her state of desperation that she even remembered she still had something so small. After losing so much, she still knew she had that small flask of olive oil. Perhaps that morning, she had made a list of her gratitudes and all she had left to be grateful for was her 2 sons and that tiny bit of olive oil. She knew she had it because she was grateful for it. Gratitude. It costs you nothing, but it makes everything more. Gratitude turns what we have into enough and more. This woman had taken an inventory of what she still had to be grateful for, so she immediately knew, I HAVE THIS FLASK OF OLIVE OIL! And her gratitude for so little made a way for so much more. Good ol’ Willie Nelson once said, “The more you practice the art of gratitude, the more you have to be grateful for.” How many of us know that’s true? Gratitude is riches. Complaint is poverty. This widow woman facing the threat of losing her 2 sons had spent time in gratitude for what she had left. And that gratitude brought a richness she could not have expected. My sister, what have you been complaining about? It’s making you a poor woman. You simply cannot be grateful and be complaining at the same time. You cannot be fully aware of your blessings while you’re complaining about the details. Gratitude is a sacrifice. It’s a sacrifice of entitlement and expectations. It’s a sacrifice of control. Complaining is also a sacrifice. It’s a sacrifice of blessings and provision. It’s a sacrifice of seeing God’s power to take what little you have and make it more than eno...

Transcribed - Published: 28 May 2025

I love me a good success story. A story of doing it right and beautiful things coming together. I don’t necessarily have one of those. Instead, I have a story of God’s unfailing patience towards me as I I did it wrong, failed, tried again, messed it up, gave up, came back, and stepped into a future I could never dream of or deserve. My sister, do you know God is patient with you? Not because of your performance or your goodness, but because it’s his nature. The Lord once came down in a cloud and stood with Moses and he said in Exodus 34:6, “I am the Lord God. I am merciful and very patient with my people. I show great love and I can be trusted.” Patient is who God is. Continually requiring God’s patience is who we are. This morning, I sat alone on the sunkissed patio of a rural farmhouse in Tuscany, and I began to think of how God brought me here. It wasn’t all the things I did right that led me to this place in life. It wasn’t a brilliant business plan or extreme talent. Rather the complete lack there of. Every step of the way, the only continual thing has been God’s undeniable, unwavering patience with me. I look back on my own journey and I almost feel embarrassment. Those early years were shamefully humble. Those first steps were so incredibly flawed. I was wrong. I did it wrong. I lead wrong. I planned wrong. Yet God was patient with me and continued to give me opportunities. Opportunities to learn and grow. Opportunities to fail and then get better. Opportunities to come to the end of my self and meet Him for the impossible next steps leading to a place I could not see. Do you see God’s patience in your own story. Through the wrong relationships, the wrong choices, the wrong paths, God patiently worked it all out for you personally. He didn’t will for that wrong in your life, but he made space for it all so you would come to a place and space of seeking him fully. Your story is not a story of success, it is a story of God’s patience. A story of him never giving up on you. A story of him allowing an imperfect journey to work out his perfections in you. And that story is still unfolding. Within your Bible is the most beautiful story of God’s patience with a man who was dreadfully wrong, then put on a path of eternal righteousness. That man is Paul, the author of the majority of our New Testament Bible. A man God used to teach through the past 20 generations of the saving grace of Jesus. But, never forget, Paul was first Saul. Saul, the persecutor of Christians. The man on the wrong mission to stop the message of Christ. But an encounter with God on the Road to Damascus changed Saul’s name to Paul and forever changed him. Changed not because of his behavior or performance, but changed because of God’s patient work within him. That’s why Paul writes in 1 Timothy 1: 15-16, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, and I am the worst of them all. But God had mercy on me so that Christ Jesus could use me as a prime example of his great patience with even the worst sinners. Then others will realize that they too can believe in him and receive eternal life.” Paul didn’t have to live in the shame and regret of his journey because he saw God’s patience all through that journey. That’s what God is showing me now. I’m being humbled. Through it all, he has been so patient with me. And through your journey, as wrong or as long as it may have been, God is so patient with you, my sweet sister. Now, here’s what the Holy Spirit has whispered to me so gently today to share with you: Slow down, stop rushing and punishing yourself. Hear God say, “I am patient with you, Beloved.” God has never been in a rush with me. He’s allowed my every wrong turn to lead me to the right place eventually.

Transcribed - Published: 27 May 2025

The separation between life and death is a hard one for us to understand. You lose someone so dear to you, then somehow life goes on. On the worst day of your life, the rest of the world is still living. They’re celebrating, gathering, traveling, vacationing, laughing and living, completely oblivious to your life altering pain and loss. It seems almost cruel, yet it’s true for every one of us. When my time of loss comes, your life will be going on untouched. That’s simply the way it is. This devotional is specifically for your moment of loss. For that hard day that awaits us all when life is forever changed here on earth and we’re left without someone we love. My friend, I have the most beautiful message for you today. I will be sharing God’s direct words to guide you in re-imagining the time of separation that awaits us all. Have you seen the movie Interstellar with Matthew McConaughey? I’m not typically a fan of space movies, but this one is particularly spiritual to me. Watching this movie, it was like an ah-ha moment helping me understand the separation between life and death. Earthly time and heavenly time are radically different! In the movie, the astronaut played by the ever charming Matthew McConaughey, lands on a distant planet rotating near a black hole. There, every hour on the planet is 7 years on earth. While he is remaining perfectly ageless, his family is growing up and growing old. To him, only 3 hours and 17 minutes had passed, but 23 years had passed on Earth. His son had aged to be older than him by the time he returned. Time simply passed different in a far away place. Heaven is a real place, and it is far away with a very different time. In the hospital room with my Daddy, he held my Mama’s hand and struggled to let go. He didn’t want to go on without her, he wanted to stay. He wanted to stay with all of us. The thought of the separation his death would bring was so painful to him. That’s when I remembered that movie. I explained to him that in Heaven, time passes on a different plane and he will have just gotten the tour of his heavenly mansion, then we will all be there. Yes, we’ll be there in a matter of hours, Daddy. He closed his eyes in peace, knowing that in Heaven’s time, we wouldn’t be separated. Now, let me share God’s word on this theory of heavenly time. Peter said in 2 Peter 3:8, “But you must not forget this one thing, dear friends; A day is like a thousand years to the Lord, and a thousand years is like a day.” Did you know Peter is actually quoting scripture from about 1,000 years before? He knew this truth because of Psalm 90:4, “For you, Lord, a thousand years are as a passing day, as brief as a few night hours.” And this truth carried him through years of imprisonment and even his own death in crucifixion. This time is so minimal when viewed from an eternal perspective. In Heaven, we will be with God, living on his eternal timeline. My human mind cannot comprehend 1,000 years that pass as quickly as a few hours, but if God’s word says it, then I choose to believe it. I trust it. I hold on to it. Then the separation between life and death is just a minute moment in time and we can continue with an eternal perspective. Trying to understand it, calculate it or control it will only leave you frustrated. This isn’t for you to control. This is for you to believe. Faith is required here, and it is our faith in what we cannot see, cannot understand and cannot control that pleases God. The Lord says in Isaiah 56: 8-9, “My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts. And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.” This is where faith comes in.

Transcribed - Published: 22 May 2025

There are no limits on what God will do for you. I’m here to remind you this morning that God wants to give you a ridiculous story. A story so against the odds that He is the only explanation. Have you been coming to him with your requests to seize the ridiculous story with extraordinary details and wildly unreasonable life available to you? Today is a special celebration in my world. Coach Lonnie and I are celebrating our 31st wedding anniversary. We have a ridiculous story. One of those “against all odds” stories. One of those, ONLY GOD stories. Maybe you’ve heard our story, well here it is again. I grew up in a tiny little country town in Missouri. When you live in a town with the population of 2,000 people, by about the 7th grade every boy in your school is either your cousin, or you already dated him … or worse … he’s both – he’s your cousin and you already dated him. So, each summer before school would begin, I would gather a few girlfriends at my house, we would stand in a circle holding hands and pray the following prayer – “Dear Lord, please bring new boys to our school. Amen.” Now let’s be clear. I didn’t know Jesus. I didn’t grow up in Church. At that point in my life, it was really the only prayer I had ever prayed. Lord, bring a new boy to my school. Silly. Childish. Selfish. AND HEARD. At the young age of 15 God clearly heard my prayers and uprooted an entire family from Dallas, TX and planted them smack dab in the middle of Douglas County. Our population jumped from 2,000 to 2,004 and rumor had it one of the new residents of Ava, Missouri was a 17 year old male. Can you say heart flutters and radars set on high sensory. We didn’t even know his name – we referred to him as new boy. There were more girls than just myself on the quest for new boy’s attention, but I walked away the proud winner of his affection and I promised I would one day marry that boy. That one day came 6 days after my high school graduation. Yes, somehow my parents let me get married immediately after graduating HIGH SCHOOL. And new boy was forever mine. We married, went on a 1 week honeymoon, then very unlike all the fairytales, he flew away to Germany to finish his tour in the Army there for 1 more year. After that 1 year apart, he was stationed in Georgia, and we were finally able to be together. A few short months into the dream life of living on love and ramen noodles, surprise surprise, trouble hits. A blood clot was lodged in my brain stem, causing a major stroke. I lost my ability to walk or talk and my newlywed husband was prepared for his bride to never be the same. He never left my side. He never broke down and cried. He was just there. A strong and steady rock. He fed me, he bathed me, and he even shaved my legs. And God healed me. We have since ran marathons together, adopted children together, started businesses together, traveled the world together, and made life one big old adventure together. And it all started with a ridiculous prayer. A prayer for God to bring new boys to my school. God gets all the glory for this ridiculous, big, beautiful story that was against all odds. I believe our God is the God of the ridiculous. The Bible is filled with ridiculous stories. Stories of floods and rainbows, stories of wine made out of water, dead men raised, the blind made to see, a man in a whale’s stomach, a talking donkey, and people walking on water. It’s totally ridiculous. And you know what I think … I think God wants to give you your own ridiculous story. Won’t you be willing to pray ridiculous prayers out of ridiculous faith? Won’t you invite God to move mountains for you? God loves to show up and do the impossible. He loves to do things that only he could do so we all stand in awe and give him praise and honor. If a teenager who didn’t even know Jesus yet could ask God to bring new b...

Transcribed - Published: 21 May 2025

Whatever Jesus says about you, that is your truth. He never says anything to give you false confidence or just make you feel better in the moment. His words about you are true, you can count on them, and build your life on them. This is what he said about you … he said you would do even greater things than him. Whoa … say what Jesus? Yip, that’s what he said. John 14:11 “I tell you the truth, anyone who believes in me will do the same works I have done, and even greater works, because I am going to be with the Father.” This wasn’t some sort of rah-rah pep talk to puff us up with false hope. This was Jesus’ final teachings to his closest circle of friends right before he went to the cross. This was his final message. His passing of the torch. If you believe in me, you will do even greater things than I have done. Why? Because Jesus went to be with the Father. What happened when Jesus went to be with the Father? We were given the Holy Spirit to dwell within us. God’s spirit comes with POWER, and girl as a believer of Jesus, that is what you have been offered. The power of the Almighty dwells within you, empowering you to do the things Jesus did, and even greater. That’s hard to believe though isn’t it? Me? I’ve been empowered to do these great things? I’m just ordinary. We all put our stretchy pants on the same way. Nothing really magical about me and you. But girl, never forget what is INSIDE. The power to move mountains is in us. The power to change anything that needs to be changed is in us. The power to do the impossible is in us. This is what Jesus says about you … You will do even greater works than him! And as my friend Bob Goff reminded me, Jesus wouldn’t have told us we’d do greater things than him if he didn’t think we could. Why not take him up on his offer? It’s not too bold or cocky to say “Alrighty then Jesus, I want to do something great with my life.” In fact, that’s obedience. Lord here I am with the power of your spirit in me, I’m ready to do those great things. Why have I always read this scripture and dismissed myself of this truth? Why would I assume these great things were for someone better than me to be doing? Why would you assume the same? The only qualifying factor here is if we believe in Jesus. Okay, you believe in Jesus, then you have the power to do some radically awesome things with your life! That’s it. There’s the exchange. NEVER FORGET WHAT IS LIVING INSIDE OF YOU. Romans 8:11 “The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you.” That’s the impossible. That’s life altering power. That’s the ultimate show of overcoming, and that is what lives in you! Your mind should be blown right now and girl your confidence should be through the roof. I love watching documentaries. Everything from a documentary on an unsolved mystery to how dogs think. I love it all. I recently watched a sports documentary showing the relationship between a coach and his players. I love the words a coach speaks to draw out potential within a young man. Coach said “Boy, you have a whole world of potential inside of you, you just have to live up to it.” This player was struggling, showing up as a lesser than version of who he was capable of being. The coach saw something in him he couldn’t see for himself. Isn’t that us? Aren’t we the player in life sometimes struggling, showing up as a lesser than version of who we are capable of being? And Jesus is the coach who sees in us what we can’t see for ourselves. We not only have a whole world of potential inside of us, but we have the power of God in us! With God, all things are possible. When God is for us, who can be against us?

Transcribed - Published: 20 May 2025

You did not wake up today to be mediocre. You weren’t given this life to live little. This is your opportunity to step into your destiny and become exactly who you were created to be … and honey that’s not average. There is something incredibly special about you. Something totally unique to only you. It is by great design you are where you are at this moment in history to do your thing. Now, do it. Live the life only you can live. It is what you are here to do. I wonder what God had in mind when he designed you? When he imagined you at your fullest potential and equipped you perfectly for the mission, I just wonder what he was up to. Don’t you want to know? Don’t you want to experience this life he designed for you? Ephesians 2:10 “For we are God’s masterpiece, created in Jesus to perform good actions that God prepared long ago to be our way of life.” One of my favorite ways to study God’s word is to look at different translations of a scripture. I do that by using the Google. (Genius, I know.) So, let’s take Ephesians 2:10 and look at it from a few different angels to dig deeper. Voice translation: “For we are the product of His hand, Heaven’s pottery etched on lives, created in the Anointed, Jesus, to accomplish the good works God arranged long ago.” Honey, you are Heaven’s pottery, and you’ve been etched onto a life meant to do the good works of God. When this brief life is over, you remain Heaven’s pottery. The Passion translation, “Even before we were born, God planned in advance our destiny and the good works we would do to fulfill it!” God not only has a destiny for you, but he has all the good works you will do to fulfill it already aligned for you. You don’t have to create the good works yourself, you simply need to step into what God has specifically for you. And when you do, it’s such a perfect fit you can’t deny it. Amplified translation, “We are spiritually transformed, renewed, ready to be used for good works, which God prepared for us beforehand taking paths which He set, so that we would walk in them, living the good life which He prearranged and made ready for us.” Did you even know there is a good life made ready for you? Did you know the Almighty God has a path set for you and all you have to do is walk in it? God created us for a way of life. A good way of life. How does a masterpiece such as you live? We have an enemy in this life. That enemy comes to kill, steal and destroy all God created. As God’s finest creation, of course you are the target of this enemy. His sneaky ways are woven into our everyday lives and we often miss his greatest attacks. Attacks that we have become accustom to as ordinary, but nevertheless have certainly kept us from our mission. I’m talking about attacks to consume you with nonsense, distract you with chaos, and strip you of the confidence to be who God says you are. Have you fallen victim to his attacks? Have you been consumed with nonsense? Wrapped up in things that quite simply don’t matter? Have your priorities been out of alignment? It all happens so easily without our awareness. We’re giving our most treasured ones nothing but our leftovers. Strangers get our best attitude, our jobs get our best effort, then we go home and treat those we love most with impatience and carelessness. Daily we’re wasting countless hours of this short and precious life on things of zero importance, then wondering why we never have enough time to do the things we need to do. Yes, this is totally normal. BUT THIS IS NOT WHAT YOU WERE CREATED FOR. God designed you to rise above the nonsense and be better than average. He created you with the power to overcome the pull of the world and live BIG. Will you? Will you examine your priorities today and give ...

Transcribed - Published: 19 May 2025

Today is an invitation. An invitation to get away with God and allow him to renew your spirit. My sister, I don’t know what has your burdened, or weary, worried, or rushed, but God wants to revive you from the inside out with a personal encounter with him. My prayer for you today is that you are swept away by the presence of God in the sweetest, most indescribable and unexpected ways. You know, God created this whole magnificent world so that you would be in absolute awe of him. Romans 1:20 says, “For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God.” Psalm 33:8 says, “Let all the inhabitants of the earth stand in awe of God.” His entire creation is calling you to the awe of your Creator. With this miraculous beauty surrounding you, you have no excuse for not knowing there is a God behind it all. When is the last time you stood in awe of God? When in the past week were you swept away by his divine existence in the details of your life? Yesterday I arrived to our Retreat house in Venice, Italy. WOWZERS. A little back story on this house – it looked entirely too good to be true. And how many of you know when it looks to good to be true, you should run the other way? That was this house. Online, the photos looked AI generated. Entirely too perfect. Every detail was simply unimaginable. And the tell-tell sign, it had no reviews of previous tenants. Listen, I’m a pro … you DON’T DO THAT! 6 months ago while planning this retreat, I contacted the owner and basically said, “I need proof this house is for real because obviously those photos are not real.” The owner kindly explained he had spent the past 10 years meticulously remodeling this 3 story home in the heart of Venice to be a dream piece and we would be among the very first to stay there. Then he offer to do a facetime from the property to prove it was real. So, I was in. As the date of this retreat grew near, I became more excited and yet more nervous. Was it real? Walking down the winding ally ways that are the maze of Venice, I arrived to the front door and I was absolutely swept away. The house was literally EVERYTHING. I stood in the private garden and wept. How was this real life? How do I get to be here? How do I get to bring 14 strangers together to experience this perfect paradise together? God met me in that garden in the sweetest way and said, “My girl, what I have for you is too good to be true, it’s impossibly perfect because I am your God of the impossible. You can believe it.” I’m swept away by his divine existence in these details. How sweet of God to hand create experiences for his girls that are too good to be true. But how often are we invited into these encounters with him, but we’re too busy, too rushed and too distracted to even notice. How many times have you dismissed yourself from opportunities God declared possible for you, but you couldn’t imagine stepping far enough out of your little comfort zone to show up for the experience. He wants to sweep you away girl, but you’re going to have to lose your footing and take a flying leap of faith. Together, we’ve been studying the life of Elijah in the Old Testament. Where we last left off was Elijah had come to his breaking point and wanted to curl up and just die. God so sweetly sent an angel to give him a nap and a snack instead. Then that nap and snack supernaturally strengthened him for the 200 mile journey to a scheduled encounter with the Almighty on Mount Sinai. Now, we read about the encounter Elijah had so your heart and head can be prepared for the encounter God has waiting for you as well. 1 Kings 19: 11-14, “As Elijah stood on the mountain,

Transcribed - Published: 16 May 2025

I don’t know what you’re going through right now, but I know this isn’t how it ends. There’s life beyond this. There’s beauty and blessings and immeasurable goodness on the other side of this. But there are days in the middle of it where you wonder. You wonder where God is. You wonder why he’s not doing something. You wonder why he doesn’t just fix this. And maybe you wonder how much longer you can take it. Isn’t it incredible how God can speak to your situation through a complete stranger like me? Isn’t it remarkable how sometimes the messages are nothing short of divine timing to arrive at precisely the time you most need it? Let’s be real clear … the only way that happens is the work of the Holy Spirit. I have no special powers. I’m a radically ordinary person with an extraordinary God, and I’m simply honored to get to speak with you. Sometimes I’m grateful I don’t know exactly what you’re going through because I feel totally inadequate to help in any way. I don’t have the right words. I have no idea how to guide you through some of those dark days. So I’ve learned that God, in his wise and clever ways, keeps me clueless to the details so I don’t get in the way and his words flow. No, I don’t know what you’re going through, but God says he has life for you beyond this. A beautiful woman named Robin came to our Bali Retreat a few weeks ago. She hugged me and said, “Your devotionals have gotten me through my darkest days.” I knew nothing about her dark days. I knew nothing about the unimaginable terror she had endured. But God knew, and he talked to her just as he has been talking to you. Robin had many days of hiding in fear in her own home. God spoke to her on those days. Robin had many days of hoping things would change as they only got worse. God spoke to her on those days. And on the day that Robin was shot 6 times by her husband in domestic violence, God spoke to her. He spoke to her in ways only he could know through people who didn’t know. Robin’s survival is truly miraculous. 6 bullets ravaged her body. The bullet in her neck was like threading a needle, a milimeter either way and it would have been instant death. The bullet through her chest, her abdomen, her back … all deadly. Yet, she survived. Miraculously she remained calm, feeling the presence of God assuring her she would survive for her children. Now, 2 years later, Robin walks with strength, dignity, peace and a testimony of God’s goodness. Through it all, God spoke to her. And he was right, he always had life beyond this for her. There’s beauty and blessings and immeasurable goodness for her and her children. Did you know within your Bible there’s a story of a man who was so overwhelmed with life that he simply didn’t want to live anymore? His days had become so dark that he wanted to die. You need to know the story because you need to know God’s response of kindness and care. God didn’t rebuke him, he personally attended to him. Who was he? Elijah. We’ve been reading about the life of Elijah, a prophet of God. Things had been hard for Elijah. People wanted to kill him, blaming him for a drought that lasted over 3 years. Now there was Jezebel, an evil woman who vowed to kill him because of his acts against her false God. And this was his breaking point. He had had all he could take. He was over it. Have you ever been there? At your breaking point. Maybe you’re there now. You’re just ready to throw your hands up and quit. You’ve hurt for so long and you don’t want to hurt anymore. You don’t want to care anymore. You don’t want to live like this anymore. 1 Kings 19:4, “Elijah went alone into the wilderness, traveling all day.

Transcribed - Published: 13 May 2025

Jesus is not impressed by your show. Everything you do to impress others is repulsive to the God who’s eye never leaves you. His loving eye is always on you, is he pleased with what he sees? The lyrics of the song Jireh by Elevation Worship speak directly to my heart. It says, “It doesn’t take a trophy to make you proud. I’ll never be more loved than I am right now.” I don’t know why I’ve tried my entire life to earn some kind of trophy to make my Father proud, but I’m finally realizing I’ve already won with God. I’m already loved. My performance is not required. Lord, reveal our show. Move in our spirits to make us sick over the showy things we do that make you sick. Strip it all down so we can see you are our audience of one and you desire our presence over our performance. The very last public sermon from Jesus warned against the show. Even in those days, they had a celebrity culture. Human hearts wanted to be admired and exalted, so there was a show to create a celebration of followers around them. Putting on the show of the day were the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees. They were the ones who looked spiritual, but inside they were spoiling. Spiritual show. Gag. We’ve all seen it, but where are we guilty of doing it? Have you ever bowed your head to pray, but it was more to be seen praying that to actually talk to God? Have you ever pretended to praise but it was a physical show of something you never felt spiritually? God doesn’t need you to “show” a single person how to perform. Exit stage left, Sis! Your performance has been cancelled. This last public sermon of Jesus is found in Matthew 23. Starting in verse 1, “Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, ‘The teachers of religious laws and the Pharisees are the official interpreters of the law of Moses. So practice and obey whatever they tell you, but don’t follow their example. For they don’t practice what they teach. They crush people with unbearable religious demands and never lift a finger to ease the burden. Everything they do is for show. On their arms they wear extra wide prayer boxes with Scripture verses inside, and they wear robes with extra long tassels. And they love to sit at the head table at banquets and in the seats of honor in the synagogues. They love to receive respectful greetings as they walk in the marketplaces, and to be called Rabbi.'” Then, verse 11, “The greatest among you must be a servant. But those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” Jesus is telling the Pharisees to stop the show, and he’s telling his people to stop following the show. Yes, did you hear that? Stop following the show. If it’s become all about them, then it’s not all about Jesus, and it’s not for you. Have we become so entertained by the show that we’re following the very things Jesus said, “don’t follow.” Girl, who are you following? For real, who’s life do you follow? Who’s reels do you watch? Who’s videos flood your feed? Who’s posts do you read? Are these people with an impressive show, but they’re not showing you Jesus, they’re just showing you them. (And it’s all really just a show.) Their show is to impress you, and that’s a problem. Jesus says, “Everything they do is for show. Don’t follow them.” Unfollow. Delete. Disconnect. Seriously. Now, look at all that space you have for Jesus again! I’ve become a geek about God’s word. I love to dig deeper and understand the time and deeper meaning of words that we may be missing. So, what are the prayer boxes and tassels Jesus refers to? He says in verse 5, “Everything they do is for show. On the arms they wear extra wide prayer boxes with ...

Transcribed - Published: 13 May 2025

Today, we have a lesson in God’s miraculous provision when we trust him enough to offer what we already have. God’s math doesn’t make sense, but will you open your hands so you can live in the divine provision of an unlimited God? It’s hard to fill a closed hand, my sister. It’s time to open your hand, open your mind, and open your heart. God has some filling to do! Last week, we ended with episode #1873, “God Will Provide”. We read in 1 Kings 17 how God called Elijah away to a safe place by a brook during a drought. There, God kept the water flowing and a raven bringing him food every morning and evening. Elijah learned trained dependence and trained obedience. Elijah couldn’t make the raven deliver food, he had to depend on God for that. Elijah couldn’t predict how long that little brook would still have water, he had to be obedient to stay until God told him to leave. He was in training, just like you and I are in training. We’re learning to be dependent on God with these circumstances we can’t control. We’re learning to be obedient to God with these predicaments we can’t predict. Then, God allows the brook to dry up in his divine timing because it’s time for Elijah to go to his next divine encounter. Someone needs to hear today that this thing you’ve been counting on has come to an end because God says it’s time to move now. It’s not a punishment, nor is it a dead end. It’s simply a prompting to go where God is leading you next because staying here is not his best for you. I’ve learned to pray for closed doors so I keep moving down the hallway to God’s best door for me. I no longer want to settle for what my fickle feelings want in the moment. I don’t want to stay here just because it’s easy or familiar, all while sacrificing God’s better plan for me, even if it’s harder. Hey, if it’s hard, God will strengthen you for it. Stop avoiding hard. It’s time to step in faith toward the hard move you’re being prompted to make. When the brook dries up, where is God telling you to go next? God said to Elijah in 1 Kings 17, verse 8, “Go and live in the village of Zarephath, near the city of Sidon. I have instructed a widow there to feed you.” Now that makes absolutely no sense. God, you’ve been hand feeding me in miraculous ways here at this brook every morning and every night. Why can’t we just stay here. You have the power to keep that brook flowing, why won’t you just sustain it longer? A widow is the poorest of all people, and that’s who you want me to ask for food? Lord, you’re not making sense here! The distance from the dried up brook to this specific village God has said to go to was 85 miles … on foot … in a drought … without a snack pack and a 40 ounce water bottle. And remember, there are people who want to kill Elijah because he’s the one who announced the drought, so he was blamed for it. The argument for staying right where he was must have been strong. But, his trained dependence and trained obedience is kicking in, and he goes. Verse 10-12, “So he went to Zarephath. As he arrived at the gates of the village, he saw a widow gathering sticks, and he asked her, ‘Would you please bring me a little water in a cup?’ As she was going to get it, he called to her, ‘Bring me a bite of bread, too.’ But she said, ‘I swear by the Lord your God that I don’t have a single piece of bread in the house. And I have only a handful of flour left in the jar and a little cooking oil in the bottom of the jug. I was just gathering a few sticks to cook this last meal, and then my son and I will die.'” Dang. Talk about barking up the wrong tree. He had just asked this woman for the very last of what she had.

Transcribed - Published: 12 May 2025

There’s a story in the Bible titled “Fed By Ravens” in 1 Kings 17: 1-9. It’s a story of God’s miraculous provision to Elijah during a time of drought. Anyone going through a drought in life right now? A particularly rough time where everything seems to be harder … yeah, God’s going to provide for you, my sister. And it might just be in a very unexpected way. Let’s read the story together. Now Elijah told King Ahab, “As surely as the Lord, the God of Israel, lives—the God I serve—there will be no dew or rain during the next few years until I give the word!” Then the Lord said to Elijah, “Go to the east and hide by Kerith Brook, near where it enters the Jordan River. Drink from the brook and eat what the ravens bring you, for I have commanded them to bring you food.” So Elijah did as the Lord told him and camped beside Kerith Brook, east of the Jordan. The ravens brought him bread and meat each morning and evening, and he drank from the brook. But after a while the brook dried up, for there was no rainfall anywhere in the land. Then the Lord said to Elijah, “Go and live in the village of Zarephath, near the city of Sidon. I have instructed a widow there to feed you.” Elijah was a prophet who performed many great miracles of faith. This was a time when the government supported the worship of other gods. But Elijah’s name itself means “Yahweh is my God.” To turn the people from their idol worship, God would send a drought over the land of Israel. You know, hardship causes us to return to God like nothing else. God knew their worthless idols wouldn’t save them when they prayed to them, but he could. He cares more about our character than our comfort, and this drought would make them very uncomfortable. Elijah prophesied to the people of Israel that the drought was coming, so when it stopped raining, they of course blamed him. A drought was a serious problem for survival. Crops wouldn’t grow. Rivers would run dry. Animals and then people would die. And because they blamed Elijah for the drought, his very life was in danger with the people’s retaliation. But God will provide. Don’t you know that’s true? GOD WILL PROVIDE. He will show up in the most unexpected places in the most unconventional ways, and he will personally provide for those who are devoted to him. To protect and provide for Elijah, God tells him in verses 3&4, “Go to the east and hide by Kerith Brook, near where it enters the Jordan River. Drink from the brook and eat what the ravens bring you, for I have commanded them to bring you food.” Elijah had to go in faith. Faith that God would protect him. And faith that somehow, God would provide for him. When God said, “drink from the brook”, Elijah had to wonder when the water would run out. God didn’t promise him it wouldn’t run out, he simply told him to go there in obedience. God isn’t promising you what he’s given you today will last forever. This entire life is temporary, it’s all going to run out. But can’t you see what he’s given you here for right now? Can’t you see how it’s enough? And don’t you know when this runs out, he will provide in a new way? But what about those ravens? Ravens, not to eat, but ravens to carry food right to him twice a day. The Lord had commanded the ravens to bring him food. Ravens are large black birds considered at that time to be unclean. You couldn’t eat them or even touch them according to religious laws. So how absolutely bizarre this is God’s chosen means of bringing Elijah food. God could have had fish miraculously flop themselves onto the bank of the river, but no, he has ravens bring bread and meat to him each morning and evening. He could have arranged for kind travelers to secretly bring him a picnic, but no,

Transcribed - Published: 9 May 2025

What do you do when you don’t know what you’re doing? What do you do when you don’t know how to do it or what to say? How quickly do you turn to the Google or ChatGPT for your answers? Your circle of girlfriends don’t know any better than you, so why are they always your source of guidance? Your all-powerful, all-knowing God has been just waiting for you to ASK HIM! Have you asked God to help you do the right thing? Have you asked God to help you say the right thing? Have you asked God to help you navigate this to get to where you’re supposed to go? I assure you of this, God knows more than ChatGPT! He holds your divine answer … and he’s not trying to hold that divine answer from you. King David had a son named Solomon. Solomon was chosen as the next king when he was only 20 years old. He had massive shoes to fill and an overwhelming job to be done, and he didn’t have the slightest clue how to do it. So here’s what he did: First, he made an offering to God in full surrender. 1 Kings 3:4, “The king went to Gibeon and sacrificed 1,000 burnt offerings.” Now understand, the sheer quantity of these offerings would have taken some serious work and several days. This sacrifice showed Solomon’s dedication to God. It reflected his true priorities. It revealed his absolute surrender to the Almighty. With his newly appointed high position, he didn’t have to do this, he CHOSE to do this. And here’s what happens next: 1 Kings 3:5, “That night the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream, and God said, ‘What do you want? Ask, and I will give it to you!'” God’s offering of absolutely anything Solomon wanted came after his fully surrendered heart and aligned priorities. God responds to our sacrifice. He responds to our commitment to him. So really think about that before you start rambling off your list of requests … what have you sacrificed for God? Where are you offering your best? Does he have a prominent space in your daily life? Is there a set aside portion of you for him? Imagine if God asked you this same question today. What do you want? God can do absolutely anything, now what would you ask him for. Ponder that for a second. Your answer reveals your heart. And maybe God hasn’t made the offer to us because he knows our hearts aren’t fully surrendered to him yet. We’re still holding back. We’re still divided. We’re still selfish and surface level. But Solomon wasn’t. Solomon replied to God’s offer in verse 7-9, “Now, O Lord my God, you have made me king instead of my father, David, but I am like a little child who doesn’t know his way around. And here I am in the midst of your own chosen people, a nation so great and numerous they cannot be counted! Give me an understanding heart so that I can govern your people well and know the difference between right and wrong. For who by himself is able to govern this great people of yours?” Now THAT is a good answer! Give me an understanding heart. Verse 10, “The Lord was pleased that Solomon had asked for wisdom.” The prayer of asking God what to do, when to do it, and how to do it PLEASES THE LORD. He wants you to seek him for guidance over the Google, over ChatGPT and over your circle of girlfriends. God says, ASK ME! James 1:5, “If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking.” MSG translation says, “If you don’t know what you’re doing, pray to the Father. He loves to help!” Oh, that’s you, isn’t it. Girl, you totally don’t know what you are doing. Then you should ask God for help with that! VOICE translation says, “If you don’t have all the wisdom needed for this journey, then all you have to do is ask God for it He will grant you a...

Transcribed - Published: 8 May 2025

If God has called you to it, he will make a way to it, right? If it’s God’s will for you, then it will come to you, right? Impossible will be made possible. You’ll just step into it. It will just happen. You’ll see God’s miraculous works unfold right before your eyes when you’re standing in the right place at the right time. Yip, that’s what I thought. I thought following God’s will would almost be easy. You see, I thought the whole impossible being made possible would feel magical in a way. I thought I would just show up and things would start happening. So, when I showed up in faith and nothing happened, I was sorely disappointed. When I worked and worked and everything I had was still measuring up short, I was deeply confused. Failure isn’t what I had signed up for. Struggle wasn’t my choice on the menu of faith. But it’s what I got. So, where did I go wrong? Just in case you’re struggling, I want to share a personally hard fought hallelujah with you. It’s one I would have never chosen for myself, but it was the one that most humbled me, then strengthened me. Following God’s plan for your life will cost you something. Stepping into God’s purposes will require more of you than a little sacrifice … it will require all of you. It will take all you have, then more. And there will be times where disappointment threatens to stall you. You need to know that so you can keep going. Yes, God is calling you to something. Yes, he is leading you somewhere. Yes, he has a purpose in all of this. And NO, my friend, it won’t be easy. Jesus said in Matthew 7:14, “The gateway to life is very narrow and the road is difficult, and only a few ever find it.” He wasn’t kidding. The first time I knew God was really calling me was in the middle of my successful years. My husband and I had worked hard to build a business in Dallas, then we felt a prompting to move to El Paso, Texas to help start a church. My husband was reluctant. He knew how hard starting over would be. I was excited. Excited because of new adventures. Excited because I thought the palm trees in the pictures meant tropical instead of desert. Excited because I thought obediently following God would bring more success. God rewards faithfulness, right? If I’m being honest, I liked the thought of being rewarded by God. I failed to read about the narrow difficult road that would be required. We moved to El Paso to help build that church while rebuilding our relocated business. The building of that church was a disaster. The only bigger disaster was the rebuilding of our business. We struggled. HARD. There was no money and no future prospects of that changing. This was not what I had signed up for. This is not what I thought following God would look like. I naively thought if following God required you to give up something, he would almost instantly repay you with double. Well, that ends up to NOT be the way it works. A faithful God who loves me wildly watched me struggle. He watched me fail. He watched me hit my knees at a rock bottom and surrender in sheer disappointment. And he took all that brokenness and he rebuilt me in ways I didn’t sign up for. I had been cheap with my sacrifices. I had been selfish with my offerings. I was willing to follow God’s calling, but there needed to be something good in it for me. It ends up God didn’t bring me to El Paso, Texas back then to build a church … he didn’t call me there to rebuild a business … he brought me to the desert to do a humbling work in me. He began showing me a faith that wouldn’t be easy. A sacrifice that would hurt. A life of obedience that would cost me something. A narrow difficult road that would lead to life. Have you naively assumed following God will be easy?

Transcribed - Published: 7 May 2025

I recently read a new book which has become one of my top 10 all time reads. It’s “The Let Them Theory” by Mel Robbins. If you’ve read it, you know the game changer, peace giver, and eye opener, the simple lessons of “let them” and “let me” are. I honestly cannot be the same after reading it and beginning to practice it. I’m no longer disturbed over the things that once upset me so. I’m not even bothered by my previous pet peeves. I’m just “letting them” left and right, and that’s “letting me” live in peace and joy! Yes, I’m recommending the book. It’s absolutely brilliant. But here’s what the book doesn’t reference … it doesn’t reference all the scripture that supports the Let Them Theory. So, I’m giving it to you now. While studying more in 2 Samuel, I was blown away to come across King David speaking the words “let them.” David’s own son was scheming to attack him and take the throne. Others were cursing him and throwing stones at him. And to all of this, David says in 2 Samuel 15: 11, “Let him.” Let him curse me. Let him throw stones. Let them talk bad about me. Let them be against me. Let them be wrong. Let them. David says, “Let them. Perhaps the Lord will see that I am being wronged and will bless me because of the curses today.” What a lesson. It’s not up to me to correct anyone. I don’t have to convince anyone to change. I’m not responsible for what they think or what they say. If God sees it is wrong, then he himself will handle it. Revelations 22:11, “Let the one who is doing harm continue to do harm; let the one who is vile continue to be vile; let the one who is righteous continue to live righteously; let the one who is holy continue to be holy.” LET THEM. You can’t make anyone else get sober. You can’t make them financially responsible. You can’t make them be nice. You can’t make them heal. They will only fight their battle when they’re ready to fight. My sister, it’s not up to you to change anyone. The convincing is not yours to do. Your judgment is not needed, nor is your correction. GOD CAN HANDLE THIS! You can’t control them, so God says “let them.” Changing them is not your job. If they are not your child living at home, then correcting them is not your responsibility. Judging and condemning them is certainly not your calling. People are continually showing you who they are – let them and believe them. Take all the energy you used to spend on trying to change and control them, and put it on letting yourself get better. You do you … You can do you much better when you take the focus off what everyone else is doing and take a deeper look at what you’re doing. Focusing on what you can’t control makes you stressed. Focusing on what you can control makes you powerful. You can control YOU, so God’s word says in Galatians 6:4-5, “Pay careful attention to your own work, for then you will get the satisfaction of a job well done, and you won’t need to compare yourself to anyone else. For we are each responsible for our own conduct.” It’s a trick of the enemy to be so focused on how someone else needs to change that you miss your own need to change. Then we’re all just a bunch of hyper-critical, broken people walking around thinking it’s always someone else’s fault. We’re carrying undue stress because we’ve taken on the burden of trying to change every one else. Honey, you are NOT JESUS – you don’t change anyone. You don’t save them. You don’t fix them. Jesus is working on YOU – focus on that.

Transcribed - Published: 6 May 2025

Within you is the battle of what the old you wants to still do, and what the new you in Christ is being prompted to do. The old you went there, did that, and wore this, and you simply never thought twice about it. Now, with the Spirit of God living within you, you see things differently, don’t you? That little voice within is changing you. You no longer want to do those things you used to do. You don’t want to dress like that, talk like that or act like that. Recognize this growth you are experiencing! This is the holy work of a loving God within you. He didn’t hate you the way you were, but he sure loved you too much to see you sacrificing the fullness of everything he had for you. As you’re growing and changing, you are seeing a bigger and more beautiful life right in front of you and God says it’s yours for the taking! Galatians 5: 16-17, “Let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won’t be doing what your sinful nature craves. The sinful nature wants to do evil, which is just the opposite of what the Spirit wants. And the Spirit gives us desires that are the opposite of what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, so you are not free to carry out your good intentions.” I still feel the pull of my old sinful nature sometimes. I bet you do too. We’ve been warned the battle continues. While in Bali, my eyes were opened to how we dress. The Balinese women are stunning in their conservative clothing. Then there’s us … often showing cleavage and cheeks. I literally felt a call to being more conservative. A call to be less about the show on the outside and more about the love on the inside. Really, is it my body that makes me beautiful or the light in my eyes? What makes you beautiful? Did God tell you that or has the enemy tricked you? The enemy constantly schemes to trick God’s girls into selling out to the cravings of our sinful nature. We crave to be seen. We crave to fit in. We crave to be liked. We crave to be wanted. We crave to be special. We dismiss it as “normal” and “harmless” but it’s a slippery slope we play on when we cave to those cravings. Suddenly we’re finding our worth in things that can be taken, or our value in things that only the world offers. It’s all gotten twisted and we’re left seeking, chasing and craving. Hear God now as he says, “My girl, come back to the beauty and simplicity of what I have for you. You don’t need all of this.” James 4:8 says, “Come close to God and he will come close to you.” And here, in the sweet closeness with our Creator, our desires change. Lord, change my desires to align with the eternal plans you have for me. Untwist all the enemy has twisted in me. Release me from the ties of this world. Forgive me for my sinful nature and heal me of my brokenness. For the past few weeks, I’ve been studying Old Testament scripture, specifically in the book of 1 & 2 Samuel. There you find the life story of David. He began as the little shepherd boy who defeated a giant, and he grew up to be a mighty and powerful king. But with all that royal power as king, came the power to royally screw up. Have you ever noticed the more you have, the more you can really mess up. King David had been wildly successful in every battle he faced. God had blessed him with continual victory, but then all that victory left David unchecked. 2 Samuel 11:1-5, “In the spring of the year, when kings normally go out to war, David sent Joab and the Israelite army to fight the Ammonites. They destroyed the Ammonite army and laid siege to the city of Rabbah. However, David stayed behind in Jerusalem. Late one afternoon, after his midday rest, David got out of bed and was walking on the roof of the palace. As he looked out over the city,

Transcribed - Published: 5 May 2025

Romans 12 1-2 So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. Romans 12:1-2 TPT
experiencing all that delights God’s heart becomes your genuine expression of worship. Stop imitating the ideals and opinions of the culture around you, but be inwardly transformed by the Holy Spirit through a total reformation of how you think. This will empower you to discern God’s will as you live a beautiful life, satisfying and perfect in his eyes. 3 I’m speaking to you out of deep gratitude for all that God has given me, and especially as I have responsibilities in relation to you. Living then, as every one of you does, in pure grace, it’s important that you not misinterpret yourselves as people who are bringing this goodness to God. No, God brings it all to you. The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us, not by what we are and what we do for him. Romans 12:3 TPT
A warning about pride:  Be emptied of self-promotion and don’t create a false image of your importance. Instead, honestly assess your worth by using your God-given faith as the standard of measurement, and then you will see your true value with an appropriate self-esteem. 4-6 In this way we are like the various parts of a human body. Each part gets its meaning from the body as a whole, not the other way around. The body we’re talking about is Christ’s body of chosen people. Each of us finds our meaning and function as a part of his body. But as a chopped-off finger or cut-off toe we wouldn’t amount to much, would we? So since we find ourselves fashioned into all these excellently formed and marvelously functioning parts in Christ’s body, let’s just go ahead and be what we were made to be, without enviously or pridefully comparing ourselves with each other, or trying to be something we aren’t. 6-8 If you preach, just preach God’s Message, nothing else; if you help, just help, don’t take over; if you teach, stick to your teaching; if you give encouraging guidance, be careful that you don’t get bossy; if you’re put in charge, don’t manipulate; if you’re called to give aid to people in distress, keep your eyes open and be quick to respond; if you work with the disadvantaged, don’t let yourself get irritated with them or depressed by them. Keep a smile on your face. 9-10 Love from the center of who you are; don’t fake it. Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to good. Be good friends who love deeply; practice playing second fiddle. 11-13 Don’t burn out; keep yourselves fueled and aflame. Be alert servants of the Master, cheerfully expectant. Don’t quit in hard times; pray all the harder. Help needy Christians; be inventive in hospitality. Romans 12:11-12 TPT
Be enthusiastic to serve the Lord, keeping your passion toward him boiling hot! Radiate with the glow of the Holy Spirit and let him fill you with excitement as you serve him.  
Let this hope burst forth within you, releasing a continual joy. Don’t give up in a time of trouble, but commune with God at all times. 14-16 Bless your enemies; no cursing under your breath. Laugh with your happy friends when they’re happy; share tears when they’re down. Get along with each other; don’t be stuck-up. Make friends with nobodies; don’t be the great somebody. Romans 12:15-16 TPT
Celebrate with those who celebrate,

Transcribed - Published: 30 April 2025

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Transcribed - Published: 29 April 2025

Just how perfect do things have to be for you to feel happy? What is required for your motivation and inspiration? Are you waiting for a list of things to be bought, a list of things to come together, and a list of confirmations to make life better? What if we’re waiting on things we were never supposed to wait on. And what if while we’re waiting, life is passing. Time in Bali is truly life changing. You simply can’t be in the middle of the raw beauty here and not see the fingerprints of the Creator. But of even greater impact are the people. People God made. People God loves. The Balinese way of life shines a light on our own way of life and stirs a desire to change. I see God here. I hear the Holy Spirit here. He whispers, “My girl, you are precious, but this life has become unprecious to you. It’s time to change.” Has life become unprecious to you? It has to be perfect before you’re truly happy, and honestly perfection is really hard to obtain and impossible to maintain. Overflowing happiness is reserved for radically special days, so the ordinary days you go into robot mode, and robot mode has your face looking like you’re either quite miserable or you’re quite disgusted. Honey, you don’t look happy. Your energy doesn’t reflect a girl who recognizes the preciousness of life all around her. Have we become the girl who needs to have a plan and for that plan to be working in order to be happy? Have we become the girl who is wrapped up in the details and missing the whole point? Have we become the girl who is always trying to rush everything? We’re rigid, negative and nit picky. Have we become the girl who cares more about how it looks than the purpose of it? We’re fake, we’re superficial, and we are forever in a hurry about something. I make my own self want to gag, quite honestly. Oh how I’ve strayed. Have you strayed too, my sister? Want to come back to a better way of living where life is precious, God comes first, people are loved and we’re back in balance? Me too. Let’s do this together. 1 Thessalonians 5:16, “Always be joyful. Never stop praying. Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.” Can I get an AMEN?!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This is a life moto! This is a daily guide to living. And this is what I see in Bali. I see people living this command in our Bible far better than us. The Balinese people are Hindu, but before you dismiss them, I assure you they are not so unlike us in faith, and they are lightyears ahead of us in living out this command. Here in Bali, they are truly always joyful. In some living conditions we can’t imagine, they overflow with joy. With daily hardships beyond our experience, they exude genuine happiness. They pray continually. God is their priority in every detail of life, not just in word but in action. We learned yesterday that at noon when the sun is high above you and you can’t see your own shadow, it is a call to pray. Oh let that set in for a moment – when you can’t see your own shadow, you pray. But even deeper than that, we learned to pray in gratitude for not just the things that are good, right, working and coming together, but to pray in gratitude for the undesirable things, the hard things, the uncertain things, the painful things. Be grateful in everything because you trust God knows precisely what he is doing. Yesterday here at the BIG Life Bali Retreat, we spent the day with our local drivers who taught us the deepest life changing lessons. Their teaching words were powerful and left us each deeply moved. But it was the behind the scenes moments we witnessed that hit me the hardest. While driving down a tiny street in Ubud, we came upon a ceremony at a village temple where dozens of mope...

Transcribed - Published: 28 April 2025

Imagine actually sitting with Jesus this morning and sharing breakfast. Like literally being at the table with Jesus himself, talking. Think of how his love would flow through his words. How his attention would be fully on you. How everything he said would be absolute truth guiding you to the life you were created to live. How his hands would bare physical reminders of what he endured for you, and how those hands would welcome you to come and sit with him. How time with Jesus would remind you of your value and your worth, and give you confidence in the good plans for your life. Wouldn’t your worries be lessened and your burdens be lightened after chatting with Jesus? May I remind you, this is exactly what we have been called to be in the lives of others? 1 Corinthians 12:27 says “Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.” As the body of Christ here on Earth, we have been given work to do. Jesus said in John 14:12 “Anyone who believes in me will do the same works I have done, and even greater works, because I am going to be with the Father.” After Jesus walked this Earth, he declared you and I would continue his work and do even greater things. We are his body now, carrying his spirit, on a mission. So, what was it Jesus did while he was here that we are to continue and go even further? He invited everyone in, even the ones others considered unworthy or unfit. He made time for others without rushing on by. He cared, he listened, he showed up, he gave. He healed the sick, he cared for the poor, he brought peace and mercy, he forgave. He made himself available. He did the impossible through the power of God. Now, we are here at this exact time, filling our exact space, to represent Jesus in everything we do. It was once said “Christ has no body on earth but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours.” Sister, it is your eyes God uses to look at this world with compassion. It is your feet God uses to go about doing good. It is your hands God uses to reach out and bless. How will you be Jesus today? I once took a retreat group on a sail boat in the Florida Keys. The firstmate on that sailboat looked a whole lot like Jesus. I walked off that boat really feeling like I had spent a little time with my Jesus just because of this sailor’s hair, eyes and smile. It left me to wonder what part of Jesus we’re supposed to be representing today. I may not look like Jesus, but could I love like him? Could someone leave my presence and feel like they have felt the love of Jesus? Could we care like him? Serve like him? Listen like him? Share like him? Lead like him? Could you bring some Jesus with you to work today? Could you bring some Jesus in your home today? Could you live in such a way that makes others feel like they just spent a little time with Jesus? Could a car ride with you be like a trip with Jesus? Could a random conversation with you at the grocery store be like a chat with Jesus? Could a text from you be like a message from Jesus? I wonder what Jesus would say if he had your phone today? I wonder what his Facebook status would say? I wonder what his Instagram story would be? Well … represent him there! Aren’t we here to be his hands and feet? The feet of Jesus belong to those willing to be moved by God. The hands of Jesus belong to those willing to reach out. 
Have you told God you are available to him today? Available to be guided, lead and directed by his Spirit? Available to be wherever you are, and be there fully? Available to look around and see a need, and step up to meet it? God is continually speaking to us. You know when you get that gut feeling or that little urge to do something kind that’s out of your character … that’s God. All you have to do is listen. Be willing to move your feet and go. Go over to that person and speak life.

Transcribed - Published: 25 April 2025

Easter is officially over, now what? What happened after Jesus rose from the grave, and what should we be doing now after the celebration of Easter? I find it interesting that we rarely talk about all Jesus did after coming out of that tomb. Why is that? We can’t leave Jesus on a cross, we can’t leave him in a tomb, we must allow him to fill the space he has earned the right to inhabit. Today, we talk about that space! After Jesus’ death and resurrection, he spent 40 days walking among his believers, teaching, healing, and doing miraculous works no one could deny. Thousands of people came to believe in Jesus during those days. Even those who were part of wrongly convicting and crucifying Jesus were given the opportunity to see him alive again, witness his miracles, and even receive his forgiveness and total redemption over their lives. The apostle John ends his writings about all Jesus did in these 40 days after his resurrection with this statement in John 21:25, “Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.” But even with all these miracles that couldn’t be contained in all the books in the world happening with Jesus back with them, he said it was best for him to leave. How could it be better than Jesus teaching and healing? How could it be better than Jesus walking with them and making himself known? One thing, and only this one thing … The Holy Spirit empowering us to do these things and even greater things! Jesus says in John 14:12 “I tell you the truth, anyone who believes in me will do the same works I have done, and even greater works, because I am going to be with the Father.” But what’s so good about Jesus going to be with the Father instead of staying here with us? John 16:7 “But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. The Advocate Jesus speaks of is the Hebrew word parakletos. Para means close beside and kaleo means to make a call. Put together, parakletos is an advocate who makes the right decision because he is close to the situation. WHAT? This is Jesus’ parting gift to us! Because Jesus leaves us to return to the Father, we receive one who is so close to us always that we are divinely guided with the right decisions! John 14:26 “But the Adovcate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.” Yes, Easter is over, but girls, we have been given the gift of the Holy Spirit because Jesus has returned to the side of our Heavenly Father, and placed the third part of the trinity, the Holy Spirit, within us! How is it possible we are walking around as followers of Christ and recipients of this incredible gift, totally missing the power we have inside of us? The Holy Spirit teaches us all things, meaning we don’t have to walk around in this life confused, overwhelmed, or unsettled. He is close to us and close to the situation, so he can perfectly guide us in making the right decisions. You don’t know what to do from here? You don’t know if you should stay or if you should go? You don’t know what’s best? You don’t know which way to turn? You don’t have to know, you just have to consult the Holy Spirit, then follow his promptings! There’s one thing greater than understanding … trusting. Trusting the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Trusting the empowering of the Holy Spirit that if you will just show up, he will work in you to do impossible things. Trusting if you will open your mouth, he will supernaturally guide your words. If you will lift your foot, he will guide your next step.

Transcribed - Published: 24 April 2025

Have you been hurt by Church? Me too. Is it a reason to pull away from God? It could be, but it shouldn’t be. You know what Church is? Church is a gathering of totally imperfect people who claim to know they need Jesus. They’re not always going to get it right. They’re not always going to teach it right. And maybe they didn’t treat you right. I grew up not knowing Jesus because as a little girl, the country church where my family went didn’t quite do things right. My parents were hurt, so they stopped going. When they stopped going, my access to the Bible was cut off. From the time I was 5 to the time I was 15, I heard nothing of God. Church isn’t always going to be right. One denomination says it has to be this way, while another denomination says it has to be their way. We create division and differences and make our own rules on the path to Jesus. People are hurt in the process. Families walk away. Little girls grow up not knowing about God. So, what if instead of getting our doctrine from a gathering of imperfect people who need Jesus, or a person who has been hurt by people who need Jesus, or the Google, or any other source of any kind … what if instead we look directly at God’s word for truth today. What does it take to be saved? What is required to gain salvation? What can we do to gain access to eternity in Heaven with God? What are the steps? What is the right way? How can we be sure? And have you screwed up so much for so long, you’re now out? We find our answer at the cross. And it’s so simple, so pure, so powerful. For some reason, we’ve spent lifetimes twisting and contorting simple truths into rituals, rules and guidelines which Jesus came to eliminate. Before Jesus, the way to God was complicated. There were rituals. There were rules. There were people who could talk to God and people who could not. There were certain clothes that had to be worn, sacrifices that had to be made, words that had to be spoken. Within the temple, there was thick curtain that kept ordinary people out of the holy space where God’s Spirit dwelt. Only the high priest could access this space of God’s spirit, and only once per year. A blood sacrifice was required for that yearly entry. So many ceremonial rules and regulations. Then, following God was scary. If you did it wrong, you would be struck dead. So of course we’re confused on how we could ever be made worthy of access to God. Of course we’re uncertain of our right to approach God with our brokenness. Of course we question if we could ever be good enough to be guaranteed God’s spirit to guide us and God’s forgiveness to cover us for eternity. But Jesus made everything so simple. We don’t have to complicate this. When Jesus was hanging on the cross, in his final breath, something happened. We often read the story and miss the life altering change that happened in that moment. But today, we’re not going to miss it. We’re going to see it. We’re going to understand it. And we’re going to receive it. Luke 23, Jesus is hanging on the cross between two criminals. Verses 44-46, “By this time it was about noon, and darkness fell across the whole land until three o’clock. The light from the sun was gone. And suddenly, the curtain in the sanctuary of the Temple was torn down the middle. Then Jesus shouted, “Father, I entrust my spirit into your hands!” And with those words he breathed his last.” Tucked in between the miracle of the sky going completely dark at 3:00 in the afternoon, and Jesus breathing his last breath, is the sentence that changes everything. “Suddenly, the curtain in the sanctuary of the Temple was torn down the middle.” This was the curtain that separated us from God. The curtain that only the high priest was allowed to go behind once a year to gain access to ...

Transcribed - Published: 23 April 2025

What do you do after a big disappointment? Your steps after a failure are of great importance. When you most don’t want to get out of bed to face the day, there’s something Jesus wants you to know. We will learn this valuable lesson through the story of Peter. Remember, Peter is the gutsy friend of Jesus who always jumped to go first. He was all-in, then he fell all-out. Anyone else feel that way? You’re all-in, then you stumble and you’re all-out. You struggle to find that steady middle ground where you just stay faithful. You’re up, then you’re down. You’re hot, then you’re cold. You’re in, then you’re out. It’s black, then it’s white. Ahhhh, Jesus likes you. He sees the potential in you! Just like he saw the potential in Peter, his hot and cold friend who sometimes made a mess of things. Peter’s final interaction with Jesus before the cross was a harsh realization that he had denied knowing Jesus. Peter had been warned it would happen, which means Jesus always knew of Peter’s pending failure, yet he chose him as his friend any way. Jesus says in Matthew 26:34, “I tell you, Peter, before the rooster crows today, you will deny three times that you know me.” And sure enough, that’s exactly what happens. Peter denies knowing Jesus once, twice, three times, then the rooster crows and Peter begins to weep bitterly. The next thing that happens is Jesus hanging on a cross. Imagine the guilt and shame Peter must have felt. This was failure. This was disappointment. This must have been a “I want to crawl in a hole and never come out” moment. But, Jesus came back to pull Peter out of that hole and launch him into a greater purpose. After Jesus’ crucifixion and burial, Peter is out on a boat fishing. Yes, he had returned to doing the only thing he knew to do … fishing. And Jesus shows up on the shore. Peter and the other disciples had been fishing all night, and caught absolutely nothing. Jesus yells from the shore and says, “try throwing your net on the other side of the boat” and the nets became so full of fish, they nearly broke. That’s when they knew it was Jesus. It was THEIR Jesus. They had watched him die on the cross, they had seen him buried in the tomb, but here he was helping them haul in a load of fish! So of course Peter is the first to jump out of the boat and swim to Jesus. Why? Because that’s what Peter does. He’s the all-in guy with a history of also falling all-out. When Peter gets to him on the shore, Jesus asks him a question. This is the same question he is asking you and I today, so listen closely. John 21: 15-17, “Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?” “Yes, Lord,” he said, “you know that I love you.” Jesus said, “Feed my lambs.” Again Jesus said, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” He answered, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” Jesus said, “Take care of my sheep.” The third time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, “Do you love me?” He said, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.” Jesus said, “Feed my sheep.” Something very important is happening here. How many times did Peter deny knowing Jesus? Three. How many times did Jesus repeat his purpose for Peter? Three. Yes, once for each failure. Once for each denial. Once for each doubt Peter must have been carrying within him, questioning how he could have ever denied his Jesus and failed him to to point of leading to his death. And Jesus is saying, “Peter, if you love me, then you’re going to have to give up your disappointment, your guilt, and your shame over your failure. And once you give it up, I have something so much greater for you … your purpose!

Transcribed - Published: 22 April 2025

There is a hill outside the city of Jerusalem called Golgotha or also called Calvary, both words meaning skull. The hill was given it’s name because of it’s shape of a skull. Do you think that was an accident? It was here on top of this skull shaped hill that Jesus was crucified on the cross. Have you ever thought about the meaning behind this? Why there? Nothing was by accident. God was in every detail as he sacrificed his one and only son so that whoever would believe in him would have eternal life. I believe this place was strategic. The cross was on top of the skull because Jesus wants to give you victory over your mind! Did you know it’s not only your soul that has been saved, but your MIND has been saved as well. The victory was won over your mind by Jesus on the skull! How absolutely strategic. The evil one fights to take back what Jesus has claimed and most often what he gets is our mind. How successful has he been in your life lately? Have your thoughts been victorious or have they been fear filled, anxious, negative, defeated thoughts? Jesus paid a high price for your victory, why would you ever allow the defeated one to defeat you in your head? Your greatest asset is your mind. Your mind paints a vivid picture and your body responds with every emotion and energy to create the picture. Every choice you make, good or bad, was first a thought in your mind. So, of course your mind is under attack. A relentless, violent, brutal attack, and it’s happening every minute of the day. Whatever gets your mind, gets you. Your thoughts are the guide, so the important question is, who is the author of your thoughts? Scripture warns us of strongholds on our mind. 2 Corinthians 10: 4-5, “We use God’s mighty weapons, not worldly weapons, to knock down the strongholds of human reasoning and to destroy false arguments. We take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” The word “stronghold” comes from the Greek word ochuroma. This is a Greek word used to describe a prison. The “strongholds” scripture refers to are lies that the devil has ingrained so deeply in your mind and in your belief system that they now hold power over certain areas of your life. These lies create a spiritual fortress of wrong thoughts which becomes your prison. As a prisoner to these thoughts, you begin to view life through the illusion of bondage Satan has put on your mind. Thoughts of worry. Thoughts of fear. Thoughts of anxiety. Thoughts of lack. And eventually, these tangled and twisted thoughts begin to take control of your life. Now, you can’t seem to dismiss those thoughts. You can’t just shake it off. This stronghold on your mind has overwhelmed you. And if we allow this stronghold to continue, dismissing it as who we are and what we naturally struggle with, it becomes a trap where Satan mentally seduces you and imprisons you with your own thinking. My sister, does this sound familiar? Have your thoughts become twisted and knotted with worry, fear, anxiety, or negativity? This is a strong hold and it is holding you back. Holding you back, you say … from what? Holding you back from the freedom of being who you were created to be and living the life God created you to live. Holding you back from the joy of the Lord. Holding you back from your purpose and your destiny. But remember, your mind is saved! Just like your soul has been redeemed, so has your mind. You are no longer a captive here. Any strongholds the enemy has established in your mind can and must be destroyed. You have been equipped for this battle! The weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds.” Ephesians 6:17 gives us a list of battle gear, and the first is the helmet of salvation. Now how totally ironic is that … where was your salvation bought and secured?

Transcribed - Published: 21 April 2025

Good Friday, the day we remember the crucifixion of Jesus. The personal sacrifice of One for all. For me. For you. On this day we remember Jesus carrying that cross for us. We remember him willfully stretching out his arms as they nailed him to that cross, signifying “this much.” This is how important you are. This is how loved you are. This much, with arms wide open. And we remember his excruciating death, the pain inflicted, the burdens carried, the weight of it all which took his final breath. What an incredibly sad day. The day the world fell dark and our Jesus was crucified for being nothing other than holy, righteous, miraculous and pure. And yet, we call it Good Friday. The worst day in history when evil prevailed and the son of God was unjustly put to death between two thieves. It was bad. Painful. Dark. Terrifying. Unfair. And yet it was Good. It was the ultimate good. It was the good the world could not see which God had planned. The good which would not be revealed without the bad. The good which would allow the worst to first unfold. The good which would require some time. (Maybe there’s some good in the works in your life, but right now it looks bad. Take notice of how God works.) Let’s read the story of this day: Mark 15: 22-39 They brought Jesus to the place called Golgotha (which means “the place of the skull”). Then they offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it. **Do you know why the offering of this wine mixed with myrrh is important? Why such a specific, seemingly unimportant detail to be included in the record when Jesus refused it? It’s important because this mix was a drug which dulled the senses. An offering to the one facing an agonizing death by crucifixion, making it more bearable. But Jesus refused. He refused ease from the suffering. He wanted a clear mind while he hung on the cross. Why? So he could think of me and you. So he could give wholly of himself, enduring it to the full for us. 24 And they crucified him. Dividing up his clothes, they cast lots to see what each would get. It was nine in the morning when they crucified him. The written notice of the charge against him read: the king of the jews. They crucified two rebels with him, one on his right and one on his left. Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads and saying, “So! You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, come down from the cross and save yourself!” In the same way the chief priests and the teachers of the law mocked him among themselves. “He saved others,” they said, “but he can’t save himself! Let this Messiah, this king of Israel, come down now from the cross, that we may see and believe.” Those crucified with him also heaped insults on him. ***Could he have come down at that moment? Could he have called down an Army of angels from heaven to avenge him and destroy his accusers? Absolutely. It was all within his power, but it wasn’t within his purpose. His purpose was to pay the ultimate price for us. And because of that purpose, he endured. Because of that purpose, he took the insults, he took the pain and he took the punishment, so that we wouldn’t have to. 33 At noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. And at three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”). When some of those standing near heard this, they said, “Listen, he’s calling Elijah.” ***I always found Jesus’ final words confusing and burdensome. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Every translation of the bible reads the same. There is no alternate meaning here or way to read it. Jesus is saying God has turned his back on him in these final moments. Why? When Jesus hangs on the cross, despised, suffering,

Transcribed - Published: 18 April 2025

If you had only 1 year left to live, what would you do? You would take that vacation, right? You would spend all the time with the people you love. You would make the memories and capture the moments. What if you only had 1 month to live? You would leave for that vacation tomorrow, right? You would waste no time. You would make amends. You would say everything you need to say. But what if you only had 1 day. One day left to live. If you knew this were your final day of life ever on this earth, what would you do? I’ll tell you this much for darn sure, I wouldn’t be worried about emails or texts. I wouldn’t spend a second watching someone else live their life on social media. And for heaven’s sake, I wouldn’t be trying to sleep away the day! What would you do if you knew, this is it? One last shot at living. Who would you most want to be with and what would you want to do? What things would no longer be of any importance at all, and what would become the single most important thing to you? Jesus knew he had one more day. He knew the next day he would go to the cross to suffer and die. And what did he do on his final night of life? He washed feet. Woah … doesn’t that hit you hard? Knowing this was his last night of his human existence, he chose to wash feet. Jesus says in Matthew 11: 29, “Walk with me and work with me – watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace.” This is the ultimate unforced rhythm of grace. This is knowing time is short and choosing to slow down and do what is most important. Watch how Jesus does this. And remember, Jesus is washing the feet of 2 people who were about to do really stupid things. One would deny him, and one would betray him. Judas and Peter were both at that table with Jesus and had their feet washed. But Judas and Peter were not the same. Do you know the difference? Both sinned. Both failed, but Jesus says something very different about the two of them. On that final night of Jesus’ life, the disciples are gathered with Jesus in the Upper Room for the Last Supper together. For those of you not from the South, supper is dinner. Where I grew up, you ate 3 meals: Breakfast, Dinner and Supper. This was Supper, the evening meal. This meal was eaten together reclining at a low table. Sitting on the ground at a low table meant their feet were very close to their food. Because the shoes of those days were sandals, you know Jesus sandals like Berkenstocks, their feet would be very dirty from the dusty roads. It was customary for the lowest servant present to wash the feet of everyone at the table. And Jesus is here on his final night of his earthly life and sees dirty feet from dusty journeys. While Jesus is humbly washing their feet, he explains the difference between Peter who denies Jesus, and Judas who betrays Jesus. Now listen closely because this is important for you today. Get ready to have guilt and shame and burden lifted right off your shoulders! John 13: 1-11, “It was just before the Passover Festival. Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.The evening meal was in progress, and the devil had already prompted Judas to betray Jesus. Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.He came to Peter,

Transcribed - Published: 17 April 2025

When Jesus walked this Earth, he was God in human form. He was still all-knowing and all-powerful. He had the power of Heaven and an army of angels at his fingertips. He was lacking nothing, yet he chose not to walk his path alone. He gathered friends and shared the journey with them. Have you ever thought about that? If Jesus needed friends on his journey, don’t you think you’re going to need some on yours? We were designed to need one another. Designed to walk together. Your life works best when shared with others. Jesus chose 12 people and those people became his disciples. They went everywhere together. He wasn’t a one man show trying to do everything on his own. He understood his impact was greater, and his journey was better, when shared closely with others. Who are you sharing your life with? Who have you let inside the walls and shown your true self? Or are you still keeping people at a distance and pretending you don’t need anyone? Is it possible that perhaps your load is too heavy to bare because you’re trying to carry it on your own? You’re exhausted trying to pretend like everything is okay when the truth is you’re barely hanging on. How about you let someone else help you carry that for a bit? Jesus, on his way to Golgotha to give his life, could no longer carry his own cross. A bystander named Simon then carried the cross, literally, for Jesus. We don’t see Jesus fighting him on it. So, why are you refusing help with your cross, your burden, your heavy load to carry? Galatians 6:2 “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.” I’m not to go through hardships alone, and neither are you. We’re here to carry the weight of each other’s burdens. Who’s burden are you helping carry right now? Really, let God check your heart on this. Is there anyone you’re helping with their hardship or struggle? Or has your world become small and self-focused, making you oblivious to the call to carry other’s burdens? Christ has called us to make things easier for each other instead of harder. But dang if we aren’t in a time where we just make it harder for each other. We come in with our opinions and views and we post crap our fingers have no business typing. We have become cynical and self-righteous, adding onto the weight of someone else’s burden instead of helping them carry it. Every time you add to the burden instead of help carry it, you are failing to fulfill the law of Christ. You are breaking his law. What is that law? Back up to chapter 5 of Galatians and it’s clear. Galatians 5:14 “The entire law is fulfilled in a single decree: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.'” Love each other. Love each other the way Jesus taught us to love. Jesus shared his life fully. He washed the feet of others. He cared for a crowd of people who would be missing dinner. He was concerned for those who had a concern. Jesus MADE time. He stopped, he looked, he connected, he shared. He had friends, a close circle. Then he tells us to do the same. Now maybe this hasn’t worked out so good for you in the past. Maybe you’ve tried to have a close circle of friends and it ended in bickering, then you decided you were better off doing this thing on your own. I’ve been there too. I’ve shut it all down after being hurt and pushed others out. THAT IS THE WORK OF THE ENEMY. Don’t let him win this. Don’t let him convince you that everyone is bad and eventually you will just be hurt again.

Transcribed - Published: 16 April 2025