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Learning What is Most Important
Do you find the most spiritual growth often comes from your most painful seasons? Have you ever felt you have learned more from your mistakes than what you have gotten right? Let me be the first to raise my hand. I relate so much to Habakkuk. There is so much we can learn from this book tucked within the pages of the Old Testament, but some of the lessons God doesn’t sugarcoat are painfully hard. We learn that God doesn’t always remove the difficult things that come into our lives. Some will come simply because we live in a fallen world. Others will find us because we choose to follow…
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Finding Hope Even When Life Brings You to Despair
Do you ever feel cast down while walking through a hard season? Do you find it helps to know you aren’t alone in how you feel? I get it. Sometimes, I get anxious, wanting to control all my outcomes. Times when fear floods my mind, and the “what if this” and “what if that” scenarios want to march around inside my head. I can quickly start to feel down and out, thinking about things I fear might happen and wondering how those things will actually play out in my life. I have lost count of the times I have fallen on my knees before God, pouring out all my worst-case…
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Waiting on God is Never a Bad Idea
Do you ever question God when it seems all you do is wait for Him to move? Do you ever feel like just answering your prayer would be a much better idea than spending so much time waiting out the hard seasons in your life? Recently, my new puppy took advantage of my quick exit before I took the time to put my ink pen out of reach. When I returned, she had chewed a hole in the ink casing and spilled ink on my brand-new throw that was a gift from my daughter. In a heated rush to see if I could salvage the throw, I hastily decided I…
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Chosen for the Best
As a girl who often battles comparison, I have often felt drawn to the verses in Acts 1:22-26. In this passage, we read of two men who have both faithfully served God and walked with Jesus during his earthly ministry. These two men are each considered to take Judas’ place as the twelfth disciple. I am sure the suspense built as the eleven apostles gathered to cast lots to see who God would select for this special place of service. After each was carefully considered and prayed over, only one would be chosen. “And they put forward two; Joseph called Barsabbas, also called Justus and Mattias. And they prayed and said, ‘You, Lord,…
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Learning to Pray and Believe
Have you ever wrestled with the whole thing called prayer? Have you ever sincerely just wondered how does it work? Maybe you have prayed and prayed for something and find yourself still waiting. Maybe you see “her” prayer answered but not yours, and it has you struggling to understand. Acts 12: 1-17 tells us that while Peter was sleeping in a maximum security prison cell chained between two prison guards, the early church prayed for him. Peter’s situation looked hopeless to change, yet the early church prayed. There was no way out of his sentence. Death was imminent, yet the early church prayed. There was no way of escape,…