by | Faith Lived Out
What are you afraid of? Seriously… let’s skip past all the fluff of writing a catchy introduction paragraph to this post and just get down to the nitty gritty? What are you afraid of?
For me.. sometimes I can become so afraid of failure I can’t see straight. Other times I can become afraid of success, so I sabotage myself before I can get there. Jesus has been healing me from a deep fear of rejection for the last couple of years. I still find parts of it sneaking up now and again. And spiders.. Yes.. spiders. Stupid, stupid spiders.
What are you afraid of?
Really… what are you afraid of?
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by | Faith Lived Out
My little buddy Jackson and I have a special bond. He just turned 3 and we both often act the same age. He’s a blessing to the world and I am so honored to be in his life.
The other day we decided to go for a walk while his parents finished eating. He’s 3, so sitting for long periods of time isn’t something he’s great at. Me neither.
We were jumping off some “car stoppers” as I like to call them, because my little buddy is one brave guy. He would climb on the top, stretch his legs out and prepare to jump. When he would step up he didn’t need to hold my hand. He was strong enough to do it himself. I would stand on the stopper next to him and wait for his next move.
Something would happen, though, each time he was ready to jump. He would reach for my hand before he jumped. He wasn’t quite ready to make that leap by himself. He needed my help to stabilize him and make sure he kept his balance. As we did this over and over again, it reminded me of what relationship with God is like.
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by | Faith Lived Out, Spiritual Warfare
Meet my friend Jennifer. Well, kind of. She’s the one in the blue shirt and white shorts, leading Skeeter the dog, with her arm around me.
I wish you could’ve been there that day. They say ” a picture paints a thousand words,” and that’s definitely true with this one. I’ll do my best to bring the story to you.
It was June of 2010. I’d just finished running my first 5k race at the 2nd Annual Freedom Run. I was two months from completing a year-long residential discipleship program, where God had totally flipped my life upside down. And I was 145 lbs. lighter, both physically and spiritually. I was no longer wearing the weight of the world on my shoulders. For the first time in my life, I truly understood freedom in Christ.
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by | Faith Lived Out, Spiritual Warfare
I have a co-worker who loves to read policies and procedures for fun. For fun! Who does that? She will print them off and take them home for some “relaxing” reading. The very thought of doing something like that makes me nauseous. That’s just not my idea of fun.
But I’m grateful she enjoys it or else I’d have to read those policies. And if you don’t put it in picture form or make a music video out of it, I won’t make it past the first page. Instead, I am able to rely on my handy-dandy policy-reading peer to tell me what rules not to break. Now I know. Case closed.
My friend Marge is a paramedic. She can talk about blood and cuts and broken bones while she passes the mashed potatoes at the dinner table. I hear about someone breaking a tooth and I pass out. I’m not a big fan of seeing blood either. She gets a strange thrill when she’s riding in the back of an ambulance at the speed of light. Me? Not so much.
But I’m grateful she has a passion to save lives and talk about things that make my stomach turn, because when I call her thinking I’m dying of a tumor, she’s quick to tell me to stay off Google and to drink water. I don’t have a tumor. I’m just dehydrated.
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by | Faith Lived Out, Life Application
My friend got a new tree the other day – a Japanese Maple Tree to be exact. She showed me what a fully bloomed one looked like as we were driving one day and I now consider myself a trained biologist. Oh wait… that’s botanist? Anyway, the tree was beautiful and she now has a baby tree growing in her back yard.
I stopped by the other day and she was showing me that she had tied it to a post so it would grow straight up instead of bending over. She pointed out certain things she wanted to prune and I had absolutely no idea what she was talking about so she tried to explain again. As she talked, her eyes lit up with excitement and fervor. My heart was excited to see her so passionate about something. Just days before we were crying together over tragedy.
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by | Faith Lived Out, Vlog/Facebook Live
There are two words I want you to hear today. I want you to repeat them out loud over and over again. Everything hinges on these two words. And when I say everything I mean EVERYTHING about our freedom.
But Jesus….
As we unpack those two powerful words, let’s read Ephesians 1:7 to gain a better understanding. (If you’d rather skip the text and watch the video, you can click here.)
In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace.
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