Devotions

Brandon Flowers, the lead singer of The Killers, included a beautiful lyric in one of his songs, "The World that We Live In." This is the world that we live in, and I feel myself get tired. Boy, is this ever true. I just started a new job this summer, which is so exciting, but in all of that excitement I have been so busy adjusting to working life that I really haven't had time to poke my head out and look up at the world around me.  In some respects, that's a good thing. I have been able to temporarily shield myself from state of our nation and the hurtful rhetoric being used against the least of these. However, when I do have time, or if there is something that is just too big to ignore, it hits me like a train. I am suddenly, instantly aware of just how broken our world is, and how deeply we need our Lord Jesus to come. Maranatha . And, when I get overwhelmed… When my thoughts are too vast and too incomprehensible and I have a hard time sleeping at night,...

Tonight I had a great conversation with a friend who doesn't believe in God. We talked about hardships and some of the darker parts to our lives, and I proudly proceeded to tell Him that God is the only way I get out of hardships, period. And for the record, I meant it. But as I dropped him off and was driving away, I couldn't help but think about how STUPID I must have sounded to him. To someone who doesn't understand Who Jesus is or how He works in my life, I probably sounded like a mindless, thoughtless dreamer. "God gets me through hard times! He is the only Hope I have!" It probably sounded like I was just blindly repeating back the Christian rhetoric that is taught- like a one of those parrot stuffed animals with the recording box inside. "God is all you need! God fixes everything! Jesus is the answer!" And the Truth is, God is all I need. He can fix everything. Jesus IS the answer. I believe these things, not because they're lyrics fro...

Hello. It's Christmas Eve and I have a lot on my mind. Time to vent. WARNING: This isn't a fluffy Christmas post about hot chocolate and snowmen. It may challenge you to rethink your behavior and may encourage you to make some changes. It sure did for me. Recently I've just been in this weird, disillusioned stupor. Nothing really makes sense lately, which I know is a really vague statement, so I'll try to give you some specifics. 1. I turned 20 years old. And it does NOT feel like I should be in my 20's. People get married when they're 20. People have babies. They get jobs and pay bills and live in their own homes and pay mortgage and move away from their families and it's FREAKING ME OUT. 2. It's Christmas and it does NOT feel like it because of the temperature. (Climate disruption, perhaps?) It's 60 degrees and last night my grandma's power went out because of a violent rainstorm. Not snowstorm. Rainstorm. 3. It's Christmas and it...

So today I've been thinking pretty deeply about things. Not sure why, and it's kind of annoying when I overthink, but that's beside the point. I've been pretty happy lately, and for some reason this last week has been pretty up and down for me (hormones, perhaps?) and I guess I just wanted to know why . Oh, "why?" The age-old question. "Why am I unhappy? Why aren't I fulfilled? Is there something more to life? Why haven't I found it yet?" I've been feeling a little neglected, I suppose. Coming home from college will do that for you, I guess. And I don't know if "neglected" is the right word, either. I have a lovely family who loves me very much and my mom even washed my sheets for me so I could sleep in my old bed with nice, clean sheets. I don't have any practical reason to feel like no one cares about me, but sometimes, when I'm laying awake going over the previous day in my head, I wonder, "Why don't ...

Do you have those friends that you could literally not talk to for a year, and then you run into them and talk for hours like nothing happened? These are the good kinds of relationships-- those that produce fruitful, edifying conversation and are sustained by God's grace and not our own efforts. (How could they be a result of our doing? We haven't talked to that person in a year!) I have a few friends like that. They're the good ones-- the ones I can go to for anything, and the one's whose connection is effortless. So effortless, in fact, that I forget about them sometimes because I don't have to constantly work to maintain their affections. I know they'll be there, and I'll always be there for them, and that's that. But I feel bad sometimes. I feel like I don't give these people enough credit. I don't tell them I love them enough, and sometimes when I do tell them "HEY I LOVE YOU!" out of the blue, it seems random and disingenuous...

Sometimes life gets so hard I just need to vent about it to the worldwide web. I need to process things because I can't make sense of it all. Today is not one of those days. In fact, today is fabulous. I love it very much. And instead of trying to organize my scattered, broken thoughts about a hurting world, I will try to process the goodness of the Lord, even though I won't really be able to experience its fullness until I'm in His courts. I've been exploring the concept of waiting for the "right" kind of person before getting too emotionally involved in a relationship. (And, by "exploring," I simply mean trying... failing... learning... repeat. It's quite the process.) Anyway, I've had my ups and downs, but overall God is teaching me that there are  really great, wholesome, honest, God-fearing men out there that love people how Jesus does. They open doors for you, and not out of obligation or societal standards but because it's a wa...

Recently a friend of mine asked if I could pray for peace for her. That was all she said, so I'm not sure what specifically she needed peace for, but it got me thinking about peace and surrender.  Because if we go to Scripture, it's pretty clear about God's peace, given freely: «The Lord gives strength to his people; the Lord blesses his people with peace.» Psalm 29:11 NIV Jesus himself said: «Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.» John 14:27 NIV He's basically like "stop being afraid and just let me give you peace, please! I want to!" And yet-- it's hard for us, for some reason. It's difficult for us to rest in His peace-- hard enough that we ask for people to pray for us to be able to accept it. Why is that? Why can't we just be like, "Okay, Jesus! I believe you. You offer Your perfect peace and I will take You up on that fabulous offer....