Bless Your Heart and Home

by his grace, through his word, for our joy, to his glory.

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Three Truths for When We Don’t Feel God’s Faithfulness

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Is God really faithful? Is He going to take care of us? Does He love us? What do I do when my feelings tell me that God is not intimately involved in my life today? Or when the early-morning-crazies make me feel like I don’t want to face another day? Or when well-deserved mommy-guilt makes me feel like I’d better get my act together if I want God to keep up His end of the bargain? What do I do when my feelings question God’s faithfulness and dismantle my doctrine? I preach God’s word to my feelings.

The fight for “feeling” is a fight for faith. Our feelings betray us, and our hormones deceive us, and our emotions doubt and drift from truth, so we recount to our feelings the promises of God and choose to believe His word rather than trusting our hearts’ doubts and fears.

God IS faithful, and here are three truths to hold on to when you wake up tomorrow and need to be reminded that He really is faithful….

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The Daily Inconvenient Path to Joy

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My five-year-old and I recently started some seeds indoors that we will transplant later this season into our garden. Every morning, he wakes up and goes to check on his seeds to see how they are doing.

After we first put them under the soil, my son told me he didn’t know where his little seeds had gone. He had buried them away underground the week before, and now he wasn’t quite sure what had become of them. Now we can see the little shoots, and we anticipate a bountiful harvest in the coming months. But for a while, they were nowhere to be seen.

God designed the seed’s cycle of death and life in such a way that he could demonstrate the gospel to my young son. The plant cannot live and bear fruit unless the seed is first buried away to die. Then, once the seed relinquishes its life, a plant can emerge with the promise of yielding fruit….

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Living Out the Beauty of the Gospel Together

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Last spring, a couple of friends and I had gotten our kids together a time or two for play dates, and we talked about how much we would enjoy using our time together to fellowship around the things of the Lord and his word. After tossing around several ideas, we decided to read through a book over the summer and discuss it when we could get together….

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Learning to Hear God Speak

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Do you long to hear God speak? The Bible tells us that God does speak to us, and that His children recognize His voice and follow His leading.

There have been times I have longed to hear a “special” word from God — an audible voice, some ordering of circumstances, a change in situation, a prophecy from another Christian, even just a sense, or an unction — something of personal significance to feel close to God, assured of His love and our relationship, or to give me special guidance and wisdom.

And yet, in the Bible, we possess EVERY authoritative word of God, all that is necessary both for being born into His kingdom as well as living in a manner worthy of His calling (2 Peter 1:2-4). God’s Spirit speaks to us through His written word….

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God Is Our Helper

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When I was little, I would often pray and ask God for help: “Help me have fun today at the park,” “Help me be kind to my brother and sister,” “Help us have a good day.”

As I got a little older, I really didn’t like to pray that way. It sounded condescending for me to suppose that God was my Helper. It sounded like I had a running wish list or to-do list and wanted a butler to come alongside and help all the conditions to be just right for me to play outside or have fun or be nice.

While the little-girl-me didn’t have a full Biblical understanding of what the Bible meant that God is my Help, I think that the grown-up-me has a lot to learn from seeking a God who helps me….

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