A Newer You in the New Year

A Newer You in the New Year

by | Jan 4, 2018 | Bible Study, Encouragement

Happy New Year, friends. If you’re anything like me, every last Christmas tree needle has been swept from the house, the gnarls of Christmas lights are tucked away in boxes, and you just found a stray ornament that didn’t make it into those boxes—one that will possibly sit on your dresser until next year, because you’re just not walking that thing down into your unfinished basement when it’s 6 degrees outside. Or maybe no one is like me. At any rate, here we sit at the top of a new year. A fresh slate prime for dreams and ambitions to be etched into its stone. Another chance to strive for what might not have been accomplished last year. A new beginning.

In the midst of the excitement and zeal for the months ahead, a stark reality exists—a change from one year to the next doesn’t mean we’ve changed. But you knew that. Whatever we hope will be different about ourselves in 2018 will only be so if we do something different than we did last year. If we make changes. Thus, the ever-popular New Year’s Resolution.

But I don’t want to talk to you about resolutions today. Rather, I want to talk about milk versus meat. I want to talk to you about being spiritual people instead of worldly people, or merely human people. This is actually really thrilling and may be our answer to not only a new year but also a newer us. Follow me for a moment into Paul’s letter to the Corinthian church—a letter particularly applicable to our day and culture.

Paul wrote that he was speaking to the church in words “taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual things to spiritual people.” (1 Cor 2:13.) As I sometimes struggle to understand the things I read in the Bible, or even the deeper Christian writings, my first thought when reading this passage this morning was, Lord, if the Spirit teaches spiritual things to spiritual people—and often I don’t hear you in the way I long to—am I not as spiritual as I need to be? Have I let the pleasures and comforts and selfish desires of this world overtake me?

 I know what you’re thinking— “Don’t be too hard on yourself or so legalistic, especially at the top of a happy New Year.” But it felt like a good and liberating question to ask the Lord. I continued reading…

“For my part, brothers and sisters, I was not able to speak to you as spiritual people but as people of the flesh, as babies in Christ. I gave you milk to drink, not solid food, since you were not yet ready for it…because you are still worldly. For since there is envy and strife among you, are you not worldly and behaving like mere humans?” (1 Cor 3:1-4.)

Again, HAPPY NEW YEAR FRIENDS! Isn’t this encouraging?

The freeing truth is encouraging, yes: when we evaluate the selfishness and envying and strife we often foster in our relationships, we begin to see how these get in the way of hearing the voice of the Spirit in our lives. When we’re competitive or unkind, or worldly in our thinking and passions, it reveals a spiritual immaturity we want to grow out of in 2018, not simply for better behavior’s sake, but so we can grow into being spiritual people who understand spiritual things…so the Lord doesn’t have to hold back a feast for mere formula.

One of the crucial processes to growing into spiritual maturity is through studying the Bible. The reason this is true is because both the Old and New Testaments testify of our Savior and Redeemer Jesus Christ, the One whose grace forms us into His likeness so we can further grasp the way the Spirit would have us to live. The Bible reveals Jesus to us. So if we’re going to be different in 2018, we have to commit to studying His Word.

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The most spiritually transformative period of my life took place over a decade ago when I realized that so much of my depression, anxiety, unrest, general stuckness, and perpetual unhappiness had to do with having placed my hope and affections on the stuff and the people of this world—some of which was inherently really good. These people and things had become harmful because they had become all-consuming idols. The Lord, in His kindness, stripped me of these false gods that weren’t bringing me lasting joy anyhow, turning my attention and affections to Himself. My whole life changed. Not simply because of a new year but a whole new way to live.

If you’re looking for joy, hope, or healing in the New Year—if you’re desiring not just a new year but a newer you—studying the Bible reveals where we find that joy, hope, and healing. It tells us how to be spiritual people who understand the secret of spiritual knowledge. It’s all found in Jesus Christ, and no other god rivals Him.

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How will you be different in 2018? What steps will you take? What will you do differently? Whatever you do, make studying the Bible a top priority starting in January.

If any of my story resonates with you, you might consider beginning your year with No Other Gods: The Unrivaled Pursuit of Christ, a Bible study based on the passages of Scripture that have so changed my life. I recently re-wrote that study and added teaching videos to it. You can find the DVD leader kit and member book in my store.

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Praying for God’s Way to be Our Way

Praying for God’s Way to be Our Way

by | Oct 25, 2017 | Encouragement

It’s funny how a single word in Scripture can tip the scales with the weight of a boulder, even a word as seemingly insignificant as a pronoun. Especially when you need it. The other morning I came across a familiar plea of the Psalmist’s, “Lead me in your righteousness… make your way straight before me.” I’ve prayed this a thousand times with slightly different language. Lord, I don’t know what the right thing is to do here, things are complicated, I could go either way…. make my way straight.

I’d never realized it, but David and I were one word off from one another. Did you catch it? I’d traded the word your for my inadvertently, unintentionally, not even in a selfish way, I don’t think. But what a shift in perspective I needed—for the Lord to make His way straight before me, rather than Him making my way straight. It’s a subtle but powerful difference of perspective. The picture of the Lord leading us in His righteousness and laying out His path straight before us is beautiful and freeing imagery. It reminds me that because of Christ’s grace for me I’m joining Him, I get to be on His road, I get to wear His righteousness, not the other way around.

David’s prayer also cuts through the heightened me-centered culture we’re living in. The pervasive sense that God should get on board with whatever feels like righteousness to me just by virtue of it being my personal truth. Or, if there’s a path that feels good to my heart or gut or instincts, well then certainly that must be synonymous with God’s path for me. The mantra of the day seems to be that whatever feels right to me must be right to God. But David didn’t see it that way.

With refreshing, liberating, convicting perspective the Psalmist asked God to lead him in His righteousness, to make His way straight before him. I love this because it’s antithetical to me trusting my own sense of goodness and inner compass to lead me, which has been disastrous for me to say the very least. I love this because God’s righteousness and path will never fail us. I love it because it frees us from the pressure of having to obtain an elusive sense of righteousness or having to discover a once-in-a-lifetime path that’s suited just for us.

Because of the blood of Jesus we’re invited to approach God and His Word with confidence, knowing that His goodness and holiness and righteousness are revealed and described right there for us. The pure and blessed ways He’s calling us to follow Him on aren’t confusing or mysterious but are laid out before us. This is good news, especially in a day where the discourse would lead us to believe that the lines are blurred, the only road is our own and it’s all about us.

Amidst the cacophony of voices and opinions and varying pathways, would you take some quiet, uninterrupted time today and pray this with me? “Lord, lead me in your righteousness, because there is only one righteousness and it’s yours and yours alone. Make your way straight before me, because the only path I ever want to walk on is yours and yours alone.”

 

What a difference a word makes.

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Letting Go of the Christmas Ideal for Christ Himself

Letting Go of the Christmas Ideal for Christ Himself

by | Dec 1, 2016 | Encouragement, Holidays

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The Christmas season is upon us, often meaning our joys and sorrows are increasingly magnified. If our lives are brimming with joy and loved ones near, well, the strings of bulb lights and wintery wreaths energize that happiness like cinnamon to steaming cider. But if we’re treading a path of loss or suffering or unmet longings, our pain is only increased by the continual reminder of what could be, or should be—A soul mate to call your own, a home of bustling children and grandchildren, vibrant health, full stockings and bank accounts, and chestnuts roasting on an open fire.

Longing for the Christmas Ideal

The Christmas ideal that accompanies our passage through December is a companion that reflects what we deeply hope to be our reality while exposing the parts of our lives that fall quite shy of the image it upholds. As a single woman with no children, Christmastime is both exceptionally sweet and a reminder of what is not. I will not be arm in arm with a husband through the malls, nor will I be buying my own children matching pajamas. I’ll be torn between deeply enjoying my parents and family in Virginia on Christmas day while simultaneously missing my community in Tennessee, the friends who make-up my daily life.

To be absolutely certain these are trifle voids compared to some of the unspeakable upheaval and tragedies some of the people I know are currently in the throes of. Regardless of how we’re walking through this Christmas season, every point at which life does not measure up to loved ones around crackling fires and picturesque table settings will be exposed.

So what do we do with a Christmas ideal that shows us what we all long to be true but is perpetually out of reach?

We do what Elizabeth did when Mary came to visit. We rejoice in our Savior instead of dwelling on who’s got it better or where our lives aren’t living up to our Christmas expectations.

A Tale of Two Relatives

Consider Elizabeth’s story leading up to the encounter with Mary who came to visit her newly pregnant with Jesus. Elizabeth and her husband Zechariah had pleaded with the Lord for children but with nothing but seeming silence in return. For a woman of Jewish culture to be barren was the ultimate social shame, a devastating loss of legacy and meaning in one’s society. After years of what Elizabeth would refer to as her “disgrace among the people”, the angel Gabriel visited her husband in the temple proclaiming that Elizabeth would soon become pregnant with a son. And while any son would have done just perfectly for Elizabeth, this child would be the forerunner of the Messiah. After all her suffering, Elizabeth would bring into the world one of the most important figures in Christendom.

Mere months before the very first Christmas, we find Elizabeth’s life shaping up more divinely than she could have ever imagined. Her disgrace has been removed, her womb is inhabited with child, her status in society has been exalted. Soon she will place in her husband’s arms what she’d always longed to give him but never could. Elizabeth, well along in years and having been faithful to the Lord through decades of unanswered prayer has finally reached her moment. The shaft of God’s favor is finally beaming down upon this most faithful and deserving woman.

Nothing like six short months for someone to threaten a Christmas ideal; Enter, teenage relative Mary.

In those days Mary set out and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judah where she entered Zechariah’s house and greeted Elizabeth. (Luke 1:39)

Essentially the only woman in all of space, time and history who could have possibly outdone Elizabeth, shown her up, beat her out, crashed her party, would have been Mary the mother of Jesus (of course this was not Mary’s heart or intent). At the peak of Elizabeth’s glory a much younger and arguably less deserving woman steps through the front door bearing a child greater than her own. And if we’re looking at all of this strictly from a human perspective, Elizabeth’s Christmas ideal fractures before Christmas has even come.

But Elizabeth was not caught up in comparisons or jealousy. Instead, Elizabeth stuns with her gracious response.

How could this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? (Luke 1:43.)

Her words reveal a secret we desperately need at this time of year: Elizabeth’s hope was not in an ideal but in a person, the person of Jesus Christ. When the blessed mother of her Lord entered her home, the farthest thoughts from Elizabeth’s mind were the ways in which her esteem, happiness or place in society would be threatened. All that mattered to her was the Lord, and because this was foremost true she could delight in Mary’s blessing as well.

Resist the Christmas Comparison Game

As I venture into this Christmas season I will be deeply disappointed if I compare myself to those whose lives are living up to the Christmas ideal in ways I wish were true of my own. I will ache unnecessarily if I set my hopes on Christmas-y images of magical settings that inspire a longing they are powerless to fulfill. If my focus is solely on the movies and malls and mulling spices, I will miss out on intimacy with my Savior, the only one able to commune with me in the deepest places of my heart. I will look to Him to do what only He can do in me, what no idealistic fantasy can.

As unmet longings and desires are awakened this season, I will spend quiet hours in God’s Word being reminded of the ways that the Desire of Nations meets our longings. When I feel alone, I will meditate on Immanuel, God with us. Like Elizabeth, I want to look beyond my own wants while delighting in and helping others in the context of Christ and community—that the mother of my Lord, should come unto me?

While I intend to hold nieces and nephews on the couch and watch Frosty and Rudolph, decorate a bang-up tree, make gingerbread houses, stroll leisurely through shops, sing with Amy Grant in the kitchen, splurge on Christmas-y cups of coffee, read by the fire, dine with friends at special gatherings, and perhaps let myself dream of the unlikely if not impossibly serendipitous love story through a Hallmark movie or two, my hope will not be in these trappings.

The Christmas ideal will not be mistaken for my Savior.

 

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A Disney Trip and 3 Reasons I’m Choosing Aunthood

A Disney Trip and 3 Reasons I’m Choosing Aunthood

by | Nov 21, 2016 | Encouragement

I just got back from Disney World with my parents, siblings, in-laws and five nieces and nephews, twelve of us in all.

I’m not really an amusement park person by nature—something about suffocating crowds and lines that serpentine in numbing rows and $14 turkey legs that I don’t really get. I realize I’m in the minority here though, so I pushed through my aversions and punched my ticket. (Actually I scanned my fingerprint, which linked to my magic band, which linked to my credit card. Basically, Disney owns me.)

Besides a generous amount of family laughter about stuff that is probably only funny to us, here’s how things went down: My oldest niece begged me to take her on Soarin’ for a second time, meaning we cumulatively waited in line for the length of a football game for a ride that lasts approximately as long as a lightening bolt. On the last night our family finally sat down at a decent restaurant when my baby niece started crying because she’d become constipated while eating an Olaf cake pop. At the end of dinner my youngest nephew thought he’d flushed his magic band down the toilet, which in a child’s world is equivalent to your house burning down.

But we joyfully enter this craziness because we’re aunts.

We embark on the turf of our nieces and nephews because we have a unique role in their lives that’s different from being their mom or dad.

So here are three reasons I’m choosing to invest as an aunt, besides the fact that I just love them so much and want to be in their lives:

Investing As An Aunt Means Stewarding The Family Relationships God’s Given Us

When I read through Scripture, especially the Old Testament, I see a strong thread of the importance of family and one’s heritage. Because I’m not married and don’t have children of my own, the children of my siblings are especially dear to me. (This is also true for my married siblings.) As a single woman, or any woman who has a void in her life, we can focus solely on what we’re missing, or we can claim the place God has given us with our nieces and nephews, a place no one else has.

If We Don’t Own Our Place In Our Nieces’ And Nephews’ Lives, Someone Else Will

I don’t want to abdicate the role I have with my little ones, because all manner of voices and opinions are, right now, competing for their attention and affections. I want the opportunity to demonstrate the grace of Jesus when they fail, reveal His love when they know they don’t deserve it, unfold the truths of Scripture as they grow, and offer wisdom in a confusing world that’s spilling over with ideas leading far from the heart of God. Of course my little group is still young, so a lot of what’s going on right now has to do with peeling tangerines and breaking up scuffles and buying bearded dragons as Christmas gifts. But still, I’m filling a space in their lives I pray is an extension of Christ’s love for them.

If We Invest in the Children Now We’ll Have A Voice Later

While we can’t strong arm our nieces and nephews to love the Lord their God with their whole hearts and minds, if we build a relationship with them today we’ll have a trusted place with them tomorrow. Even if they veer off that narrow path, they’ll know deep in their hearts who is praying and aching for them to come home. “Teach [God’s Words] to your children, talking about them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.” Deut 11:19.

Let’s own our places in the lives of these little ones. We have a place no one else does.

 

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In the Word In 2016, One Day At A Time

In the Word In 2016, One Day At A Time

by | Jan 6, 2016 | Encouragement

In The Word In 2016, One Day At A Time

Morning Meditation, January 2016

Psalm 119:105, “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path.”

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It’s that first week of January. That week I equally anticipate and dread. The parties and late nights and tins of assorted cookies are so last year, and I’m a little sad about that because I particularly savored the lazy days in pajama pants and the Trader Joe’s holiday section of festive chocolates. Gatherings and punctuations in routine were welcome solaces at the end of a year’s busyness. I relished them late into the night because all was calm, truly quiet, and after short nights of rest when I could have kept sleeping I forced my languid self out of the covers because I didn’t want to miss all that quiet. I mean there was the mall and commotion and parties and such, but the deadlines and general tugs had abated. Maybe you too were like me, nursing those last few weeks in December like the fleeting hours of sunlight in August.

Then the New Year came and a flip got switched. I was ready for a clean slate, a little discipline back in the mix, and a good carrot wouldn’t hurt anyone. And as much as I love a Christmas tree with its lights and sentimental ornaments—when it’s over it’s over. What made me feel all tingly inside a month ago had now become a scraggly fire hazard I’ve been known to single-handedly heave onto the top of my car, tie up and careen to the Christmas tree graveyard out of sheer desperation for it to be out of my house. This is not something you can wait for another person to come help you do. It. Has. To. Go. Then I start vacuuming pine needles. All the decorations get packed and stored in the abyss of my underground basement until next year. The trapdoor slams, and 2016…. here we go. That’s the exterior part anyhow.

What’s going on inside me is a different kind of packing up and putting away and looking ahead. I think a lot about the previous year. All the ground covered, or perhaps lost. Maybe just maintaining was a feat. I journal. I thank God for His faithfulness and consider based on last year where He might be leading in this one. I take a few more walks than normal and pray and ponder, asking the Lord to reveal Himself in greater measure. What should I put my hand to? Is there a new skill to learn or an old one at which to get better? Who is the Lord putting on my heart to encourage, pour into, disciple, or take a mission trip to visit? What do I need to repent of, besides way overdoing it in the Trader Joe’s holiday aisle? Really. What desperately needs sanctification? What parts of my heart have been hurt, calloused over to which I need Him to tend? I process all of this a bit more than the other eleven months in the year, and I’m guessing you do too.

And after all that I usually remember that what will ultimately be accomplished in 2016 will happen one helping at a time, one decision at a time, one hour earlier up in the morning, one prayer meeting, one seed, one meal made, one yes or no…. at a time.

And one page at a time.

Every moment we’re immersed in the Word is a moment with eternal ramifications. All those moments add up, which is why it’s vital to make time for them each day. To have a plan and to guard that plan. I find that having a study I’m working through is helpful because it offers a daily beginning and end, an author as a guide, and all along the way points toward Christ through the Scriptures. If a bible study isn’t what works for you, I would take a book of the bible you want to study and pore over it in a month or two’s time, but set a daily plan. Journal what you’re learning and what God’s revealing. Have on hand a solid commentary as a supplement. Here’s a link to some of LifeWay’s offerings as a starting place.

At the top of 2016 may we allow The Word to give us understanding of God’s character so we can know who He is and how He acts. May it speak to our longings and passions and instruct us how to let them inspire but not rule us. At its feet may we gain wisdom for complex situations and understanding that peels back layers of prejudice, deceit and selfishness. As it says in Hebrews The Word is able to divide between soul and spirit, so sharp it can cut through sinful sinews, or separate good from bad or good from best.

For His Word is a true mirror, refiner’s fire, healing balm, sure rudder, sheltering hull, lamp, light, hope, help, plumb line, comfort.

May we let it do its work one day at a time.

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Immanuel, God With Us

Immanuel, God With Us

by | Dec 15, 2015 | Encouragement, Holidays

Merry Christmas Friends,

I hope you all are having a meaningful Advent season. I’ve always felt that the holidays magnify whatever state we’re already in. If we’re in love, the season strings lights around our romances; If we’re lonely or hurting, those same lights seem to cast a glaring beam on our ache. And if we’re somewhere in the bell curve of general humanity, we probably have both excitement and longing that are simultaneously being magnified. It is perhaps for this reason that no other name means more to me at Christmas than the name Immanuel, God with us.

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This is where I’ve been sitting in the mornings and evenings, contemplating and communing with this God With Us. My tree looked more charming in the lot than it did when I finally steadied it upright next to my fireplace, which isn’t working right now by the way. My chimney is leaking among other problems like it being almost ninety years-old. But the tree and the leaking chimney with the stockings hanging from the mantle will do, because they remind me of Jesus having come.

Consider the significance of having come.

God did not wave a wand or sweep His right arm across the sky or condemn from afar when He could have. Instead, He sent His Son to save His people from their sins (Matthew 1:21). I sat by this tree last night and this morning, recounting not just my sins but my sinfulness. (David, the Psalmist, the King on whose throne Jesus would eventually reign, claimed in Psalm 51 that he was sinful since birth.) I’m not talking about berating myself at Christmastime, rather I’m just a little more aware of what’s wrong with me, or what’s not right with me, and how much I need a Savior.

I’m aware that in this life we can be as excited and crackling with happiness as cranberries on a skillet, and in the very same day we can wound with our words, jealousy can tackle us from behind and we can be faint with longing. In either state we need a Savior. And so Jesus came. God with us. Not God far away, not God from a distance, not God as one of many. But Immanuel.

My prayer for you and me this Christmas is that we would relish His nearness. Our sins have been forgiven, joyful all ye nations rise. He mends the brokenhearted, O come let us adore Him. He brings His blessings into our broken relationships, far as the curse is found. He frees those in bondage, chains shall He break. Joy to the world, the Lord has come.

I am grateful for each one of you and look forward to seeing many of you on the road in 2016.

Merry Christmas,
Kelly

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