by Travis | Dec 10, 2018 | God's Word, Just Me
Somewhere in the past two years, I started writing down the things God spoke to me.
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The single word whispered into the stillness of my heart.
The song lyrics that seemed suddenly, unexpectedly profound.
The words texted by a friend to say that while praying for me God had given her a message for me.
The verses that kept popping up everywhere like I just couldn’t get away from them.
The truths that weighed deeply on my heart while studying God’s Word.
The stories from friends and strangers alike that encouraged and challenged me to my core.
The words of conviction and rebuke spoken into my life by trusted counselors.
The promises God wrote into His word that I needed to remember.
I wrote it all.
Anything that stirred my soul or burned in my heart or would not stop showing up in the unexpected places.
And as I began to write these things, I began to change.
I began to remember more. I began to hang onto truth and courage in a whole new way. I began to remind myself of the truth in a way I hadn’t been able to before, because honestly, before I couldn’t always remember the truth when I needed it most.
As I wrote down when He speaks, and looked back at it when I needed reminding, I began to learn to notice and discern His voice more clearly than ever before.
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When the day wore long and overwhelming, I flipped that journal ragged, going back to remember what He had spoken that morning from His word.
When pain stayed open and raw for days and weeks and months on end, I found myself hurrying back to worn pages to reread and reremember what He had said in the past.
When I lost hope of feeling joyful and free and full again, I opened the journal to remind myself of the ways He had been enough for me.
When dark lies clouded my reason, I turned to the places I had recorded how He had come through in the past, the places I’d written His goodness to me before.
When I kept trying to take situations into my own hands, to control and manipulate, I turned to the words He had spoken directly to me, the challenge to let Him be God.
When the guest preacher taught from that one book of the Bible and it reminded me of something, I dug through to find the words I’d hesitantly written a year before.
I’d written down what I thought He was saying. I’d told my husband. But I’d also hesitated. Did He really say what I thought? Did it mean what I’d thought?
So I wrote it down and left it. Waiting. Testing. Unsure if I’d heard correctly. But there it was. Him speaking again through this same book of the Bible, adding clarity and confirmation to words from a year ago that I surely would have forgotten had they not been written down, but that I surely could not have fully understood when they were spoken into my heart.
I would cry if I ever lost this journal. It feels weighty and precious and so very important.
And it is.
This one small journal contains over a year of all the things God has spoken into my heart and life.
All the promises. All the encouragements. All the truth. All the corrections. All the moments that have stirred my heart and brought tears to my eyes and ushered peace into my soul.
I call it my When He Speaks journal.
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Maybe you should start one too. A log of all the ways He has spoken. A place to help us remember that He is good, He loves us, and He speaks. If you do, I hope it changes you like its changed me. I hope we can be changed together to be more aware of God’s voice, more sensitive to His Spirit, and more trusting of His goodness.
Be blessed
by Travis | Dec 3, 2018 | God's Word
It’s easy to sit in church on Sunday and believe.
It’s the going home and wrestling that belief out into our hearts, actions and our everyday lives throughout the week that is the challenge.
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It’s easy to hear truth preached loud and shout our amens with passion.
It’s the painful and broken amen required of us that is the challenge.
It’s easy to sing the words proclaiming desire for God to build our faith.
It’s the actual taking those steps of faith when everything feels unsure and unstable and unsafe and unseen that is the challenge.
It’s easy to love God in the moment of blessing and rescue.
It’s loving God in the moments right after your world has crumbled to pieces, after God’s promises seem to have come up short, after all hope seems lost, that is the challenge.
It’s easy to plan and prepare for some hard obedience, full of faith in God’s care and call.
It’s the crushing moments of isolation and discouragement as you walk in your obedience day after day after day that are the challenge.
It’s easy to live out our faith in our heads.
It’s the actual speaking of words and reaching out of hands and committing to actually following through that is the challenge.
It’s easy to see a problem from a safe distance.
It’s the going all in with your heart, the letting yourself be broken over sin, the actual confession and repentance and change that is a challenge.
It’s often easy see and feel.
It’s the doing, the living, the walking out the truth day after day after week after month after year and
never
giving
up…
that is the challenge.
And that is the goal.
So often we make our goal the moments of feeling or seeing or hearing the truth, instead of the long work of living and doing the truth.
I’m guilty of this kind of thinking.
So are you.
We all are.
Will we read these words and nod our amens and move on with our lives? Or will we do the work to press these truths deep into our soul?
Will we do the work to put reminders in front of our hearts and our eyes day after day?
Reminders to keep on.
Reminders of the what and the why.
Reminders of the Who.
Reminders to dig in and press in with our whole hearts, not just with our ears.
It’s easy to hear and plan and think and know.
It’s the doing and the living that’s the challenge.
Be blessed
by Travis | Nov 12, 2018 | God's Word, Just Me
I’ve gotten pretty good at doing for God.
At going when He says go.
At doing when He says do.
At working when there is work He has placed in front of me.
But I’ve found myself in a season where God has been asking me to do something new. Something more challenging than I would have imagined. Something that is stretching my faith past what I thought possible.
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He is asking me to do nothing.
Nothing. To wait on Him. To be still. To stop trying to do anything or even to think about doing anything.
Now hear me: He’s not asking me to lay in bed and eat chocolate. He’s not asking me to abandon my cooking or housekeeping or mothering. He’s not asking me to throw up my hands and ignore all the hard parts of life. The hard parts of my own soul. Rather, in a few key areas of life…
He is asking me to let Him be God.
He’s asking me to let the Holy Spirit work, not my mouth. He’s asking me to focus on my heart and get still and quiet and close to Him. He’s asking me to stop planning and preparing and preaching what I think is best and instead to pray. He is asking me to wait when it feels like waiting will be pointless, even harmful. He is asking me to stop planning and be still. He is asking me to stop fixing and let Him work.
He is asking me to let Him be God.
These words had been spoken into my heart and life several times already when, on an average weekday afternoon, elbow deep in hot, sudsy dishwater, I found myself facedown on my kitchen floor praying. I had been standing at that worn stainless steel sink, dumping my anxieties out on Him and scrubbing out my frustrations at the expense of my dishes. I kept going over and over the same things: begging Him to show me what to do, begging Him to move, begging for change, begging for guidance.
In the midst of that anxious, sudsy pleading, I felt an overwhelming urge to be still before Him.
So I found myself there, facedown before God during a rare moment of quiet, doing my best to just be still and listen.
I could sense His presence so deeply in that moment. And as I waited and listened and focused on opening my heart to Him, a few words came to my mind. A phrase I knew from the Bible, but couldn’t tell you the exact location. So I pulled out my phone to google it’s exact location and wording. This is what I read.
“And Moses said to the people, “Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will work for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall never see again. The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent.”” Exodus 14:13-14 (ESV)
Emotion poured palpably through me. Once again, God was affirming what He had said to me.
Do nothing. Be still.
Let Me act. Let Me be God.
“You need only to be still.” (NIV)
Tears and relief and joy and gratitude followed. But only for a moment. Because it’s not easy to lay our lives in God’s hands, especially when things feel hard, desperate.
Don’t miss what I am saying. This was not the first time He had told me this. But rather…
In His kindness, He spoke to me yet again, to reaffirm the things He had already said to me.
I wish I could say I haven’t wavered since this kitchen floor meeting with God. But I have. Even five minutes later I found myself wrestling again.
But I keep coming back to this moment to remind myself of what I know is true.
To remind myself of what He has told me.
To confess and repent of my sinful tendency to take things into my own hands.
To place myself back in a posture of surrender to Him once again.
I think perhaps, God has asked this of me more times in my life than I realize. Maybe now, I am finally getting better at listening to Him when He does.
Be blessed
by Travis | Feb 10, 2017 | Family, Just Me
I stood on the threshold of her kitchen and said again how I feel like the trial of this year is the same one we’ve gone through five times before. And it’s getting exhausting.
A few days later, I was standing, hands all sudsy in my own kitchen sink, glancing over a text from her, completely unrelated, but it pointed my mind back toward that night.
“How many times have we gone through this, really?” I wondered to myself.
And I began to count backward.
…right now, new business still too new to fully support our family which is growing by one…
…this past summer, starting a new business…
…two summers ago, quitting my husbands part time job two weeks before our son was born…
…the year before that, starting a different business one month before we found out I was pregnant…
…and the year before that, moving across the country with no jobs and no home and only the knowledge that this was where God wanted us…
…and again, the year before that, getting married one week out of college and trying to get a job and a home before graduation…
…finally, ten months prior to our wedding day…the frustration and fear…kneeling on the floor of my parents living room…the phone call…that overwhelming awe at God’s answer, His provision…
And as I counted back, I hesitated to count those earliest two memories. They seemed so simple, so small compared to where we are today. Even the move to Florida seemed almost too small for the list. But that thought, from a reasonable perspective is laughable. Of course they count! They just feel small now, compared to the depths God has brought us to.
….
That first memory, the memory of that day Travis called from college, down to just a few dollars in his bank account due to a shiny new ring on my finger, to tell me that none of his references were returning her call and she never hires without references, was burning into my mind. I remember so plainly the fear and frustration I felt. Even more plainly, I remember kneeling down in front of my parents brown leather couch to pray, pouring out my heart and frustration, begging God to work.
I hadn’t yet finished when my phone rang again. While I was still on my knees, she had called him back and hired him, against her own policy, without any references.
I was shocked. I was awed.
That God would answer so quickly and completely, amazed me. I was ecstatic.
….
And the memory of that day burned strong as my hand swirled a soapy dishcloth across sticky plates and silverware. But something else burned strong in my mind along with the memory: awe and gratitude.
Because there is a pattern to our lives that we would be foolish to overlook. There is a theme to the how and what and where God is taking us. And as that memory from six years ago played again and again in my mind, I realized how deeply kind God is.
The stakes were so small back then. The real risk we were facing was so little, but in that moment it felt like our whole world.
Now, over six years, one move, and one child and one-on-the-way later, the stakes seem so much higher. The risks of following God, the risks of obeying, feel so much greater.
But the truth is, God power is the same today as it was six years ago.
His grace and provision is just much at work on our behalf today as it was that day kneeling in front of the brown couch.
And the often repeated saying echos in my mind.
“God will not guide where He will not provide.”
He will not take us somewhere that He will not take us through.
He will not call us to a task that He will not provide the ability for us to accomplish.
He will not direct us to a place where He will not be with us.
He will not call us to a mission that He will not empower us for.
He is not going to leave us alone or stranded or hopeless. He is not going to forget us or abandon us or fail us.
Even when it feels like we are running in circles or spinning our wheels or hopelessly stuck, He knows. He is with us. He will provide.
He knows. He is with us. He will provide.
And yet, in all this I must remember…
He cares as much about the process as He does the destination.
To get me from A to C, He might not go through B. He might take me up and around and off to the side and what feels like backward for a long while, because what He desires to accomplish in and through me along the way is just as important to Him as the final destination.
Let me say that again. Because, oh! My own heart needs this reminder so often.
What He desires to accomplish in and through me along the way is just as important to Him as the final destination.
As I look back on the past six and some years, I realize how very tenderly gracious He has been.
He has taken me through the same set of fears, the same struggle to trust, the same hard spot in life, over and over again, not to prepare me for some ultimate test, but rather to draw me closer and closer to Him.
He keeps allowing the stakes to rise, the situations to feel more desperate, so that each time, my faith is stretched a little further and I learn to rest my hope on Him a little more fully.
Be blessed
by Travis | Feb 10, 2017 | Family, Just Me
I stood on the threshold of her kitchen and said again how I feel like the trial of this year is the same one we’ve gone through five times before. And it’s getting exhausting.
A few days later, I was standing, hands all sudsy in my own kitchen sink, glancing over a text from her, completely unrelated, but it pointed my mind back toward that night.
“How many times have we gone through this, really?” I wondered to myself.
And I began to count backward.
…right now, new business still too new to fully support our family which is growing by one…
…this past summer, starting a new business…
…two summers ago, quitting my husbands part time job two weeks before our son was born…
…the year before that, starting a different business one month before we found out I was pregnant…
…and the year before that, moving across the country with no jobs and no home and only the knowledge that this was where God wanted us…
…and again, the year before that, getting married one week out of college and trying to get a job and a home before graduation…
…finally, ten months prior to our wedding day…the frustration and fear…kneeling on the floor of my parents living room…the phone call…that overwhelming awe at God’s answer, His provision…
And as I counted back, I hesitated to count those earliest two memories. They seemed so simple, so small compared to where we are today. Even the move to Florida seemed almost too small for the list. But that thought, from a reasonable perspective is laughable. Of course they count! They just feel small now, compared to the depths God has brought us to.
….
That first memory, the memory of that day Travis called from college, down to just a few dollars in his bank account due to a shiny new ring on my finger, to tell me that none of his references were returning her call and she never hires without references, was burning into my mind. I remember so plainly the fear and frustration I felt. Even more plainly, I remember kneeling down in front of my parents brown leather couch to pray, pouring out my heart and frustration, begging God to work.
I hadn’t yet finished when my phone rang again. While I was still on my knees, she had called him back and hired him, against her own policy, without any references.
I was shocked. I was awed.
That God would answer so quickly and completely, amazed me. I was ecstatic.
….
And the memory of that day burned strong as my hand swirled a soapy dishcloth across sticky plates and silverware. But something else burned strong in my mind along with the memory: awe and gratitude.
Because there is a pattern to our lives that we would be foolish to overlook. There is a theme to the how and what and where God is taking us. And as that memory from six years ago played again and again in my mind, I realized how deeply kind God is.
The stakes were so small back then. The real risk we were facing was so little, but in that moment it felt like our whole world.
Now, over six years, one move, and one child and one-on-the-way later, the stakes seem so much higher. The risks of following God, the risks of obeying, feel so much greater.
But the truth is, God power is the same today as it was six years ago.
His grace and provision is just much at work on our behalf today as it was that day kneeling in front of the brown couch.
And the often repeated saying echos in my mind.
“God will not guide where He will not provide.”
He will not take us somewhere that He will not take us through.
He will not call us to a task that He will not provide the ability for us to accomplish.
He will not direct us to a place where He will not be with us.
He will not call us to a mission that He will not empower us for.
He is not going to leave us alone or stranded or hopeless. He is not going to forget us or abandon us or fail us.
Even when it feels like we are running in circles or spinning our wheels or hopelessly stuck, He knows. He is with us. He will provide.
He knows. He is with us. He will provide.
And yet, in all this I must remember…
He cares as much about the process as He does the destination.
To get me from A to C, He might not go through B. He might take me up and around and off to the side and what feels like backward for a long while, because what He desires to accomplish in and through me along the way is just as important to Him as the final destination.
Let me say that again. Because, oh! My own heart needs this reminder so often.
What He desires to accomplish in and through me along the way is just as important to Him as the final destination.
As I look back on the past six and some years, I realize how very tenderly gracious He has been.
He has taken me through the same set of fears, the same struggle to trust, the same hard spot in life, over and over again, not to prepare me for some ultimate test, but rather to draw me closer and closer to Him.
He keeps allowing the stakes to rise, the situations to feel more desperate, so that each time, my faith is stretched a little further and I learn to rest my hope on Him a little more fully.
Be blessed
