One Word

It’s easy to want to give up right now, isn’t it? I said to Brad during our morning jog yesterday, “It feels like America is destroying itself. It feels like we are imploding.”

And yet, there is so much goodness out there, even in the midst of grief, tragedy, and pain. People are reaching out, crossing difficult borders, bridging differences, squashing down awkwardness in order to make beautiful, brave attempts at real community and connection.

Here are two such stories I read on Instagram yesterday and this morning – just regular people doing ordinary things with extraordinary courage and kindness.

Friends, let’s not get tired of doing good. In doing so, we will reap a harvest of blessing. That’s God’s guarantee.

I had a day recently that looked a lot like this. I felt overwhelmed, lost, and alone. The way forward was unclear. The path was obscured. It was, in short, a little bit depressing.

A couple of days later, when the clouds were beginning to lift and the waters were beginning to recede, I read these words from Isaiah 64:4:

“No eye has seen, no ear has heard and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him.”

Those verses are actually referring to Jesus Christ – they are Isaiah’s prophecy of the Savior who is to come. But they also apply to us, too, in the here and now. We already know Jesus. He has already come to save us. Yet sometimes, in spite of that fact, we still doubt; we still succumb to despair. We wonder where in the world we are headed and whether there really is a plan in place for us.

Today I choose to believe Isaiah’s words. I choose to trust that truth. As my friend Deidra says, “God is always working upstream” — even when, especially when, we can’t see the results of his work just yet.

I can’t wait to see what God is preparing for us.

Peace and joy for your weekend, friends.

“Let God transform you into a new person
by changing the way you think.” (Romans 12:2)

Or, as Propaganda so succinctly put it:

“Caterpillars who fall in love with their own cocoons…lose.”

I may have written about this verse for Weekend One Word before, because every time I read it, I’m struck by the word “let.”

Let God transform you.

That one little three-letter word speaks so clearly to the fact that God gives us free will, doesn’t it? He doesn’t force us to transform. He doesn’t transform us against our will, even when he knows it would be in our best interest. Instead, he gives us the free will to decide whether we will let him transform us or not.

It’s our decision. Will we persist in our stubborn, worldly ways, in our old, broken patterns of thinking and acting? Or will we let God transform us by changing the way we think?

It all begins with our yes, the turning over of our will into God’s hands.

Let’s not fall in love with our own cocoons – our same-old, comfortable way of doing life. Let’s let God break us free.

Peace for your weekend, friends. 

I’ve been mulling over this verse lately, namely because I have to write a devotion on it for my church next week. I’m not quite sure what I’m going to say yet, but I do know this: It’s a tall order.

It sounds lovely when you first read it, doesn’t it? “Accept others as Christ accepts you.” In fact, it sounds deceptively simple. But think about this verse as it applies to your real, everyday life for a moment.

Jesus accepts us exactly as we are – flaws, sins, foibles, missteps, beauty, selflessness, selfishness – the whole beautiful but frankly pretty messy package. This means we are asked to do the same with every single person who crosses our path — from our closest loved ones to the most irritating coworker to the person whose lifestyle and choices are vastly different from ours.

Accept them, Paul tells us (and the Romans).

Not, “Ask that they confess their wrongdoings first and then accept them.”

Not, “Accept them on certain conditions.”

Not “Accept them if they change this, this, and this.”

But simply, “Accept them. Period.” The whole package deal. Exactly as they are right this very second.

Like I said, a tall order.

But here’s the good news: we have a good role model. In fact, we have the very best role model ever in Jesus. We can’t help but feel the deepest gratitude when we reflect on how much Jesus loves us, how he accepts us, in spite of our worst flaws. And thus, we carry that gratitude over toward others. Because of the way Jesus accepts us, we can then accept others, flaws and all, exactly the way they are, right this very minute.

Grace and peace for your weekend, friends.