We are the most entertained people in history, and we are also the most bored. The average American has more stuff, more free-time and more conveniences than most of our ancestors before us, but I’d bet we’d agree anxiety keeps close company.

I’d suggest five reasons our peace could be lacking today:

– We keep prayer on the back burner.

We hear about prayer, talk about prayer and may even believe in prayer. But when’s the last time you sank deep in a chair, put down your phone and gave God five minutes? 

We will often think it out, talk it out with friends and then determine to fix our own problems before we go to God.

In Phillipians chapter 4, Paul tells us that God’s peace will guard our heart and mind after we pray. 

It’s the praying that releases the weight. Burdens are shifted and peace is found. 

What if you stopped right now and gave God what you’ve worrying about?
– We are rolling the wrong tapes.

I’m guilty of this. We let our minds turn to all the things we can’t control, have to do or wish we had. We roll over the same tapes in our minds until they unravel. The more we think on something negative, the more energy and joy it steals. 

So right after Paul says to pray & have peace, he adds something very key in Phillipians. Paul gives us a tunnel of adjectives through which every thought should filter. He knows we will begin to believe what we think most on.

If we pray one way, but think another, are we really trusting?

It takes a deliberate choice every time we notice a habit of turning our thoughts to what worries us. Change your thoughts and change your life.

-We are trying to be & do what only God can.

We have limits for a reason. We are limited by time and space. We want to be everywhere at once and have more time than the next guy. We rush so we don’t miss out and we try to be in relationship with a thousand people at once through social media. 

God invites us to rest in His omnipresence. He is not bound by space or time. He can do what we cannot. 

It can be very freeing to accept our limitations and let God handle the timing of our circumstances. 

– We are not leaning on the indwelling presence of God.

We can spend our whole lives trying to find peace in various ways and places. Jesus said He offers a peace unlike what the world will offer. That peace is found only through a personal relationship with Christ. 

You can give Him your life today and the peace-maker will come to live inside of you. If you have a relationship with God—maybe He’s whispering today, Lean into my strength and peace and let me lead again.

——-

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing – 

Rom. 15:13

The apostle Paul wisely stated, “who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.” Romans 8:24-25

Waiting is the school of hope. But that word patience is HARD. So I heartily welcomed a new word during study. Through study of the original Greek, I found the word “constancy.”

That’s something I can grab ahold of! I may have a long way to go in my faith walk, but I can get up again tomorrow and grab ahold of hope. I can come after Him with a constant hunger.

Here are four ways to cultivate that hope in your daily life:

• Call it to Mind
  • Lamentations chapter three is known for the beautiful text about God’s mercies being new every morning.  But let’s step back to see that the writer had to literally call that to mind to encourage himself.  What is on the forefront of your mind? Call to mind what God has done for you. Call to mind His steadfast love!
• Cultivate His presence within
  • Colossians 1:27 tells us that Christ within us is the hope of glory. We press in to the power of the Spirit and spend time with Him to lean on the hope he offers. Are you talking to the One Who is for you? Look for Him. Speak to Him. Turn your face to the Giver of Hope.
• Profess
  • The writer of Hebrews calls us to hold unswervingly to the hope we profess. It’s a hope we share with others that comes most alive within us. Has your hope or faith been weak? Begin to testify again. Paul said, “I believe, therefore I speak.” There is just something about speaking out faith and letting our heart catch up!
• Give it Away
  • This is powerful! Sometimes the best thing we can do is sow what we want to reap. Turn your focus to what others need and often your own needs get smaller.

Have you lost hope? Do you see people around you who just seem hopeless? Friends, sometimes we just have to stir up our own hope. That’s what I want to help you do with my latest podcast series on hope! Head over to your podcast app and check out After Sunday today!

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope!” Romans 15:13

I’ve been working on a commentary for Romans 8. And when a verse you are studying makes a head on collision with life, things become real clear in a personal way.

It’s such a beautiful and hard verse.

“God works all things together for the good of those who love Him.”

God works.

Just rest there for a minute. Just put that on the fridge today. For the striver, the worrier – for all of us – what would we do, if not for Him? Before we ever were, He worked. Before our current problem, He was at work. In the midst of the Bermuda triangle when everything around you is spinning – He works.

All things. Each thing. Each person. Individually. On our time table. He works. He works all things together. For our good.

It’s the good that makes it beautiful and hard.

It’s the defining and understanding and questioning of that word. It’s the living it out. It’s the trusting.

We see in its study the word compared to its usage in Luke when the writer is talking about fertile ground. The hard stuff is fertile ground. We don’t want to be tilled, but we must be to prepare for a planting.

And I remember what I said to my daughter yesterday about the flower she picked for me.

“No, baby, it won’t grow. It doesn’t have roots.”

We have to choose what we allow to take deep root in us.

Often a seed of hurt goes deep, deep down. We can’t nurse it. Too much attention, too much water and it rots. Ignoring it causes the dryness. So what do we do? Where do we go?

The word good here actually denotes something that is inclined towards goodness. Of course; I get it. Where does all goodness come from? Only the Lord. He allows and uses circumstances, trials and joys that our neck would turn in one direction.

That’s the working out of it. All things draw us to Him.

We want a person to say a certain thing. We imagine a certain puzzle piece locking into place. We go back a thousand times and rehearse the scenario. What if…..

And you eventually find out that no person, no pill, no scheme can touch that hurt you have. And you realize there’s got to be something more. There’s got to be something bigger.

And there is.

God.

He is. He is bigger. He is better. Only God can do this for me. Only God can turn me around when I’m running hard in the wrong direction. Only God can mend a broken heart. But it’s more than that. God isn’t just a mender. He’s a Maker.

He makes new from nothing. He creates hope. He enables us to do what we are convinced we cannot do. And it changes us. When we offer grace we didn’t think we had. When we see ourselves in the lineup of people deserving judgment and see Him pronounce us released.

They say trials bring out the heart of a man. I’ve seen mine too often. But recently, I saw the heart of a man I know and it changed me. In the thick of the fire, his heart came forth as gold. He loved those who slandered him. He reached out to those to hurt him. He listened to those who disagreed with him. And he still loved them. And he told me so. He told me how much he loved them. And it really, truly did something in  me. It was the changing point.

I’d never really seen the love of Christ lived out like that.

Christ was humiliated, and He still loved them. They spat on Him, and He still loved them. Deeply. Dearly. He lived through the hurt because His heart beat for people.

And everyone was wondering how this cruel act could cause any good. His followers were overtaken by a mob, and they scattered. Meanwhile, the seed of Christ’s pain was burying deep into the story of the world. The ground had been tilled with the truth of the gospel. Long hard days of truth-telling and miracle-working. God always works.

Christ really can make us a different kind of people. And it’s a miracle. Like the Sunday morning when the seed took root, sprouted and Christ overcame the world.

Doesn’t mean it’s not hard. To love people. To overcome. To believe for something good in every hard, confusing story. It means we can.

We turn our face towards Him. We allow His work in our heart. He waits for us. He sees the hurt. He doesn’t rush. But He offers a different way. Different than the world. Different than the direction we’ve been moving. And though we thought our way felt the most right, we feel relieved. The hurt can move on….because we’ve got Him. He really is enough.

The circumstances are trumped. Because the something good coming forth is found inside of us.

That’s His best work.

I have a friend from my school days who has a son on the heart transplant list. Her family is on my heart so often these days. I’m sure I need to tell her more often how much I have been lifting her up to the Lord.

She’s been waiting 14 long months. Within that- many long days. Away from home. Hoping for a new thing.

I spoke about new things to a group of ladies yesterday. Lunches in front, small high school library, in between student testing.

I told them it’s how God defined Himself.

“Behold, I make all things new.” Rev. 21:5

Not just a hope. Not a slogan.

It’s what He does.

And I remembered a season when I needed a new thing, hoping for good news. Discouragement sat heavy and I leaned on the prayers of others.

Then I ran across a section in the book of James, while asking “how much longer Lord?”

“Perseverance must finish it’s work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” James 1:4

Perseverance wasn’t done in me. My faith was strong until the trial hit home. And just like the Lord told Peter, there is a faith each of us will need in the final days….and what we have now just may not cut it.

There is a work inside the believer toward the characteristic God means to observe. He doesn’t cause trials, but He uses them. If we can trust with faith — in the waiting – we attain the reward that ends up strengthening us. For what do we get when we persevere in faith? Character. And through character, the forming of our spirit after God – we gain hope. Because who knows the promise of hope more than those who have desperately needed it and found it in Him.

The winter will soon turn to spring, new life brimming with scents and colors we’ve missed in the waiting. I’m long from that season of struggle, years ago now. I have not seen the answer to my prayers in their fullness. Only part. But seeing the pieces come together slowly over time has grown patience in me. Quick answers never do that.

So for those fresh in the season of waiting and persevering, I’d offer hope. Hope that doesn’t come easy but lasts forever. Hope in the promise of God doing the making.

The verb used in the Greek for “makes” is a prolonged verb. It denotes a long passage of time. We each have our own time table. Our own story.

And I remember Paul, chained in prison, saying something about “all things” working together for the good of those who love Him. There, in the Greek, it speaks of individual things. Each circumstance, each trial, each person a part of the whole story.

They work together. Like winter, spring, summer and fall. Every season is part of our redemption story.

So we look for spring in the midst of winter. We call a friend and admit to a testing of our faith. And we hope. Mostly for the day when we are found complete in Him.

For now, we let perseverance do it’s work as we choose to believe. Something new is springing up. Even something new inside of me.

“But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.” John 16:7

Imagine the despair of the disciples. The only One you trust is leaving. Suffering. Dying. They scatter and feel alone. It is here and only here, in suffering and solace that we are invited into a level of intimacy with the Comforter of our souls we had never known before.

Paul proclaimed that as we “share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.” (2 Corinthians 1:5) Who would rejoice in sharing abundantly in suffering? Yet, here we see what it leads to.

When you read this literally through the eyes of the Greek language, it actually says that an increase in suffering equals an increase in comfort. We get more of Him.

Because He knows we need more strength, His strength is poured out in greater measure. So to experience more of His power, we actually need to be in a place where we recognize how much we need Him.

If you are acutely aware of your weakness today, you are in the perfect place for God to show up. The word comfort actually means “to call beside.” He is calling, waiting. It is a calling near. To lean into Him and rest.

Does God allow suffering so you will draw near? It seems so. The God of all comfort knows just what our personal disposition will require for finally letting go and falling into His grace. You can fall into Him today. He is holding all things together. That includes you.

Lord, you are more than able to hold all things together. There is nothing you cannot do. I’m resting in your promise today that where I am weak, you will be strong. Thank you for never letting me go.