Live. Love. Lead.

     We have ALL been part of relationships that did not work out the way we planned. We've experienced the hope of possibility, the brokenness of unmet expectations, and struggled with the realness of unforgiveness it leaves.       Why does unforgiveness hit us so hard in relationships?       I believe part of it is because the person did not become what we wanted and the relationship did not materialize the way we believed it should. And simply put...it hurts...and somebody was on the other end of that hurt. Intentionally or unintentionally the person hit us with the dizzying blow of disappointment.       As I work through my own wilderness journey of faith that includes such a tough part of unforgiveness, I was reminded of a few thoughts. First, "forgiveness is between you and God" (T.Hegg). I don't typically feel like forgiving. I have to work at it and...work some more. Struggle. Fall. Succeed. And when ...

     Growing up in church, teaching about God's love was limited. I believe, there could have been a fear of speaking about God's love because some thought it might somehow diminish His grandiosity, His otherness, & perhaps make Him too human. Or maybe teaching about His love was limited because we, the humans, could not wrap our minds around it especially in a world that has so misused so rich of a word--love.      I struggle trying to comprehend God's love because my sight is often made cloudy by my sin, my all-too-often smallness of faith, & honestly a perspective that limits who God is because it's so focused on my shortcomings.      Recently, the Lord has been working on my heart specifically regarding His love. It started as I was reading through I John.  John writes "We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us" (4:16). As I read through the entire epistle, I was struck by the notion of "coming to...

     This week I have been studying the book of Exodus. This study has refreshed my heart and reinvigorated my passion for seeing God work in ways that have His signature all on them. In Exodus 14, the Children of Israel had just been released from the grip of slavery and were just tasting their new freedom accomplished by God's "outstretched arm". Only a little into their new life free from the chains of Pharoah's whims, they face a trial begging them to enter the slavery of fear again. They see that all of Pharoah's army was coming after them and the Scripture says, "...they were very frightened..." In this crisis of faith, they believed that the "ease" of past slavery was better than the beauty of the promise. And they say it, "...it is better for us to serve Egypt that that we should die in the Wilderness..." The Wilderness was part of their journey to realizing the promise that God made generations before. But, it that moment the...

     You know that pull in your gut and the lump that grows in your throat when you finally realize that a particular man is not for you?  Especially one of those ones that you prayed really hard for and he just seems to be so right.  I mean the way you met was unforgettable and surely all those "signs" you thought you saw were his way of pursuing you...this must be God's man for you right???      I can remember recently asking the Lord to show me whether a particular man was for me or not.  The funny thing is that I already had what I thought should be God's answer to my question. Which of course was "YES!"  So I allowed my emotions to cultivate and move forward in hopes of a relationship that the Lord had not created for me.  Finally, when I realized God's answer to my prayer was a resounding and loving "No" my heart had to catch up with that truth...and it hurt.      How do I move past the frustration, disappoint...

     An advisor once told me, "If you focus on everything then you're focused on nothing." Over the past year and half I have thought about that statement...a lot.       Many times it is easy for us to get caught up in so many dreams of how to make things better.  In and of themselves those dreams are not bad, but they can become problematic if we lose our focus on the G-D who created and empowers us to fulfill a purpose that He lovingly made for us.      The L-RD is working His plan via all the people, circumstances, struggles, and triumphs that He intentionally places in our lives in order to instigate transformation. Yet, all too often we lose focus when we zone in on all the things around us to such the degree that we analyze them as individual events; rather than significant strands of a unified cord called----purpose.       There is nothing random that happens in life; every spec of our existence is uniq...