BIG Life Devotional | Daily Devotional for Women

Today we’re whipping out the old King James version of the Bible and reading 1 Corinthians 15:58: “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.” Within this scripture are 3 keys to living well today. Let’s break it down sister! 1. Be steadfast. Steadfast comes from the root word sit. To be steadfast, we must be seated and be settled in the truth. We live very unsettled lives in an unsettled world. We are tense and uptight and anxious, always stirred up about something. God says sit down, settle down, be relaxed. Did you know you can be working and still be relaxed? God never intended for us to go through the days of our lives and be so unsettled. Don’t you know you are way too blessed to be stressed? Stress is the plan of the enemy. Have you fallen into his trap? As long as you are stressed and anxious, you can never be seated in truth. You can never be steadfast in knowing who you are and whose you are. Today, take a seat in what you know to be true. Resist the temptation to be constantly stirred up and upset. You are chosen. You are forgiven. You are blessed. Settle into that. Sit down into that truth today. 2. Be unmoveable. Like a solid rock. James 1:6 says “the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, being blown and tossed by the wind.” That’s what our doubt does, it causes us to be seasick. We’re constantly tossed around and stirred up on the inside. We stress over making the right decision, then we stress over the decisions we made, then we go back and forth, tossed around like a little boat on a big stormy ocean. And God says STOP IT. Be unmoveable. Stop doubting God. Stop doubting his plan for you. Stop doubting your ability to walk in his plan for you. Girl, your doubt is making you sick. Be unmoveable. Let your yes be yes, let your no be no. Have boundaries. I will do this, I won’t do that, and I will be unmoveable in my commitments. So, we are steadfast meaning we are seated in truth. We are unmoveable and no longer tossed around by doubt. And finally our scripture today gives us the third key to living well, “always abounding in the work of the Lord.” 3. Always abounding. Abounding means plentiful and abundant. So this is saying to be abundant in your work. For you today this means GO THE EXTRA MILE. Stop doing the minimum. I be there’s some areas in your life like there are some areas in my life that when I’m just doing the minimum work it piles up. That’s what creates a mess! We’re just doing the minimum. Then we’re so overwhelmed because we’re so behind because we’ve only been doing the minimum. We’ve just been getting by when God says be abounding in your work. Stop doing the minimum, go the extra mile. Colossians 3:23 says “whatever you do, work at it with all your heart as working for the Lord.” God wants to talk to you about your work today. Whether you go to an office, a factory, or a school. Whether you’re the boss or the employee, whether you’re punching the clock or running the shop, or the big boss of your house, you are working today, and God expects you to work for him. Everything you do, do it with all your heart as if you’re working for him. Because actually, you are. You are working for God. Everything you do today maters. Everything you do today leaves an impact. Will you go the extra mile? Will you do it right? Will you finish it today? Yes for the mama prepping the house and grocery shopping for Thanksgiving, will you ABOUND today as you work? Will you not only fold that laundry, but put it away? God has trusted you with a family, show him your gratitude by abounding in your work today.

Let me set the stage for today’s devotional. In the book of Exodus we read about the Israelites being freed from captivity in Egypt by Moses. They were on a journey to the Promised Land, but to get from where they were to where they were going, they had to go through the wilderness. Isn’t the same true for us? To get from where you were to where you are going, it is a wilderness, a desolate land with the unknown and it’s not always easy. Maybe you’re trying to lose weight. You left 260 pounds and you’re heading to 160, but this journey isn’t easy. In the beginning you’re like the Israelites leaving Egypt all excited saying “woohoooo we’re going on a roadtrip, we’re finally on our way. This is exciting! We’re doing it for real this time!” And shortly into the journey you realize this kinda sucks. You know if you keep going you will reach the land of 160 pounds, but nobody told you how tough it would be between 260 and 160. Maybe like the Israelites, you hate the journey so much that you almost wish you could go back to where you were. At least back there you weren’t starving. Maybe that’s what you have done in the past. You gave up on the journey and you went back to the bondage of being unhealthy and overweight because you hated the wilderness in between so badly. Or maybe it’s not about health and weight for you. I help people discover their passion and their purpose and often that means leaving the security of a regular paycheck and creating something. For most in the beginning it’s exciting, but on the 2nd month with no paycheck it seems the days of punching the clock at that miserable job were much better than the uncertainty of following your passion. It’s scary out here in the land of the unknown. How many of us will tuck our tail between our legs and hightail it back to where we were and forfeit where we were trying to go? That was the Israelites. They were miserable on their journey through the wilderness. They had left where they were, they were heading to the promised land, but the land in between of the wilderness is where they had no food. Scripture says they wished they would have never left Egypt. Although they were slaves back there, at least they weren’t starving. It’s easy to feel that way in the wilderness, the place between where you were and where you are going. The place between blowing and going, and racking up the debt … and living completely debt free. Where are my girls at who have decided to be financially fierce and become debt free? You remember the days of walking in the store and buying it because you wanted it and just charging it. You were in bondage back then, but at least you got what you wanted. Now here you are in the wilderness and you’re growing tired of saying no. You just want to shop and eat out and go to the movies. But no, you’re saving money and it’s just plain ol’ no fun. And then you think, oh my gosh, I have 5 more years of this! Yeah, that’s what the wilderness in between where you were and where you’re going looks like. So what do you do when the journey from where you were to where you want to be seems too long? Will you give up and will you go back to where you were? Or will you trust God on this journey through the wilderness. Look what God did to provide for his people and know he will do the same for you as you go. On their journey to the promised land there was nothing but wilderness. It was dry desolate ground. There were no plentiful gardens along the way. There were no meat markets. There were no fruit tress. There were no WalMart supercenters. There was nothing. And the Israelites had nothing. They were traveling on foot, and had ran out of the food they had packed. They were starving traveling from where they were to where they were going.

Can you be trusted with FAVOR? Favor for things to go your way. Favor for the breakthrough you’ve been seeking. I think of favor as God taking a personal liking to you. He chooses you, picks you out of the crowd and says “you, I like you.” And when God blessings you with favor, whew world watch out! I want to be trustworthy of his favor, don’t you? The story of Joseph in the book of Genesis gives us the perfect example of how to be trusted with favor. No doubt, he had God’s favor on his life and it came in the form of other people liking him. Other people continually chose Joseph and put him in charge. Genesis 39:21 says “The LORD was with him; he showed him kindness and granted him favor in the eyes of the prison warden.” Yes, Joseph was in prison and God granted him favor and made the prison warden like him. Maybe you’re stuck in a bad situation right now, maybe not prison, but a situation where you feel you can’t do what you want to do and everything is against you. Well I want to tell you God can give you favor right in the middle of it. The right people can take a liking to you and the tables can turn. That is favor. But first, you must be able to be trusted with favor. Joseph was betrayed by his brothers, sold into slavery, wrongly accused, and thrown into prison, but Joseph NEVER GOT BITTER. He never set out to get even. In fact in Genesis 50:20 he said “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.” He could look at what was intended for harm and find the good in it. Can you do that? Can you find the good in your bad situation? This is how you prove you can be trusted with favor. When you can give your best effort even when nobody is watching, then you can be trusted with favor. When you keep doing the right thing even when you won’t receive praise for it, then you can be trusted with favor. When you love and give without strings attached, then you can be trusted with favor. And here’s the thing about favor, when God takes a special liking to you, you not only get blessed but everyone around you gets blessed. In Genesis 39 we read about Joseph working in his master’s house. His master saw that God favored him and caused everything in his hand to prosper, so he began to favor Joseph as well. Oh, let’s stop right there. God caused everything in Joseph’s hand to prosper. Don’t you want everything in your hand to prosper. For everything you touch to multiply. For everything you set out to do to be successful? Now remember, that certainly didn’t mean Joseph’s life would be easy. Remember all he went through. But time and time again God repaid him for everything he lost, and when he did he gave him even more. Why did everything in Joseph’s hand prosper? Because he had God’s favor. Why did he have God’s favor? Because he proved he could be trusted with favor. How did he prove he could be trusted with favor? He always did the right thing. Time and time again, he did the right thing. Whether anyone was watching or not, whether it would benefit him or not, he did the right thing. And he kept a good attitude. He intentionally looked for the good and refused to get bitter. Let’s keep reading in Genesis 39 verse 5 and it says the master made Joseph overseer in his house and over all that he owned (yes, Joseph was promoted and put in charge) and the Lord blessed the Egyptian’s house on account of Joseph. Just because Joseph was in the house, the entire house was blessed. Business was booming because the right man was put in charge. A man who could be trusted with favor. If God is for you, who can be against you. God is watching you closely today. He wants to know if he can be for you. Can he pour his favor on your life.

[Guest Host Rebecca Casey] Today I want to talk about HERO’s. Let’s start with the definition of “HERO” – A Hero is someone who uses whatever they have for the benefit of others. Heroes have all different abilities and powers and resources but what makes them heroes is not what they have but how they use what they have. We all have different abilities and resources and whatever you have God gave it to you so you could become a hero. If you use what you have no matter how big or small it may seem, if you use it to benefit others, then you are a hero. And you were born to be a hero. Now I am sure there are many of us out there who just don’t feel like heroes. We want to be. We want to do things that matter, find meaning and purpose, do something of significance, change peoples lives but we just don’t feel like we are. I feel you. I’ve been there. So how do we change that? What is stopping us or holding us back? ONE WORD – FEAR. Fear suppresses us, it holds us back. More than anything else I think fear keeps us from being the heroes we were born to be. We are afraid of all kinds of things. Loss. Death. Failure. Loneliness. Rejection. Ridicule. What’s even worse is that FEAR not only keeps us from being the heroes we were born to be- it keeps us from living the lives we were meant to live. Fear keeps us living little, living safe. Staying inside our comfort zone. How many relationships have been ruined, careers spoiled, opportunities wasted, experiences avoided because we were afraid? We miss out on so much of what is good in life because we avoid it. Now fear isn’t always a bad thing. You see a bear, you are afraid and you run. Good fear. When fear takes over, it becomes destructive and controls us and has us running from everything, not just bears. Example, your kids or your friends invite you to the lake or to swim and you aren’t in love with your body so you decline. Girl you don’t have to love your body but you need to love yourself and others enough to not let fear ruin you from a great time splashing with your kids or your friends. They will remember the fun mom who splashed and got wet with them, you will have photos and great memories of that water fight because you said yes. Or your friends will say, No, she never comes so I’m not asking again. GIRL – Say no to fear controlling your life. It is robbing you. So lets talk about this within reference to the bible – this is a devotional after all – I’m getting there. Let’s talk about Jesus being God in the flesh, lets talk about his fear. In Mark chapter 8, the story of his life slows down a bit as Jesus begins to prepare his followers for what is about to happen next, his death. They think he is going to become a new king. He knows he is going to be betrayed, arrested and killed and he tries to tell them and prepare them. They don’t believe it. Chapter 14 , the moment has arrived, they have just finished Passover. Jesus takes his closest followers to Gesthemane. Mark 14:32-34 They went to a place called Gesthemane, and Jesus said to his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.” He took Peter, James and John along with him and he began to be deeply distressed and troubled. “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death, he said to them. “Stay here and keep watch.” Jesus is overwhelmed. He knows what is coming. He feels human emotions, like we do. He is overwhelmed so he leaves his followers and goes off to pray. Mark 14:35 Going a little further, he fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour might pass from him. He falls to the ground and begs. Don’t make me do it. Let this hour pass. Mark 14:37-38 Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Simon, he said to Peter, “are you asleep? Couldn’t you keep watch for one hour? Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.

How comfortable is your life? Were you created for a comfortable life? Were you ever intended to seek such comfort? In today’s world we have an opportunity to be entirely too comfortable EVERY WHERE. Movie theaters now have reclining chairs and waiters, because my goodness, it just wasn’t comfortable enough to sit in the regular chairs and get yo own popcorn. Our cars have heated leather seats and engines that start by remotes because dang it was hard going out the garage and starting that car yourself. Have our entire lives become about comfort? Seeking to make everything easier, cushier, fluffier? And what have we sacrificed in our lives of comfort? Deuteronomy 1:6 says – “You have stayed long enough at this mountain. Turn and take your journey.” Perhaps God has been saying, “girl, you’ve stayed here long enough. It’s time to go now. Let’s go on a journey together.” But you’ve set up shop on this mountain and leaving would be so painful. You’ve bought all your pretties and made it ever so comfortable, permanently cementing yourself to a mountain that was only ever intended to be temporary. We’ve created a little bubble we live in filled with comfort … and it is trouble! When we won’t move out of them ourselves, God has only one choice … POP THAT BUBBLE. We lose that comfortable job and while it seems our world is falling apart we’re suddenly face to face with the opportunity to start the business we’ve always wanted to start, but were always too afraid to take that leap. The trouble was comfort kept us in that bubble, a bubble filled with boredom and little life living. And now the bubble is popped, we’re highly uncomfortable, AND TOTALLY FREE TO LIVE. Maybe it isn’t a job that has served as a comfortable bubble for you, maybe it is where you live or where you go to Church or your circle of friends. Maybe it’s your daily routine. While it is comfortable, let’s face it, it is BORING. It isn’t stretching you or growing you. In fact, you’re losing some of your talents and passions because you simply haven’t been using them. Don’t you want to break free of that? Don’t you want to wake up and be excited about living? God is saying “take that journey … come on, let’s go”. Here’s the trouble with comfort. We become so comfortable that we can’t see the trouble on the horizon. We can’t see where our choices will lead us in 5 more years. Think about the path you’re on right now. Will what you’re doing take you to where you want to go? If you repeat the actions of the past 7 days over and over again, where will you be in 5 months? How about 5 years? Oh what a reality check. Comfort never leads us to the life we want, does it? So the question is, are you willing to be uncomfortable today to live a bigger, better life tomorrow? Have you been on your mountain long enough? Is it time to turn and take your journey? Will you be bold enough to take the next step? We can do better. We can take off the rose colored glasses. We can quit sweeping it under the rug. We can break the chains, step out of the norm, loosen the grip on all our pretties, and dare to LIVE. And living often means going. Going to new places. Starting new things. Wandering through desserts and getting lost along the way. Adventures. Changes. You don’t want to live in a bubble. You want to live the wide open spacious life Jesus came to give you. The life described in the Message translation of I Corinthians 6: 11-13: “I can’t tell you how much I long for you to enter this wide-open, spacious life. We didn’t fence you in. The smallness you feel comes from within you. Your lives aren’t small, but you’re living them in a small way. Open up your lives. Live openly and expansively!” Are you ready for it? Ask yourself today where you need to step out of comfort and live bigger. Step into the wide open,

God is calling you forward. He’s calling you boldly onward to your destiny. A pursuit of your purpose is ahead, will you go forward? They say fortune favors the bold, therefore those who sit and stew, those who get stuck in their own head, those who delay and defer are often passed over and left behind. How very unfortunate. How unfortunate to miss the favor that has been planned for you. Did you know God has favor not only available for you, but planned for you? Psalm 5:12 says “you bless the righteous; you surround them with your favor as with a shield.” Before you dismiss yourself from his favor because you believe you will never be righteous, understand the meaning here. The Message translation describes the righteous as a “God seeker”. Isn’t that you? Isn’t that what you’re here doing? You’re seeking God. You’re seeking his will. You’re seeking his way. As a God seeker, you are surrounded by favor. Knowing this favor is planned for you, won’t you be bold today in moving forward? Will you take the next step on your journey? For some listening, you’ve already felt the stirring of God’s calling in your life. You’ve already been given a whisper of his plans. A seed has been growing within you and you’ve seen a glimpse of what God is preparing you for. And perhaps it scares you. You have a long list of why you can’t and why it won’t work, and yet you still feel a pull towards a destiny that seems out of reach. Here is your word today: FORWARD BOLD ONE! Dare to give life and breath to this dream. Dare to tell others about it. Will you be so bold as to present this idea, this plan, this vision you have been given that still seems quite ridiculous? Will you be so bold to speak into that which God has been stirring within you? Will you go forward? That’s what God wants of you today … forward motion. It takes no courage to stay where you already are, you know what that looks like. Yes it may be comfortable, but it’s sucking the life out of you! FORWARD BOLD ONE. Not everyone is so bold. Many have sold out to the easy way. Many have settled into the rut of the ordinary. And they have allowed the favor which had their name on it to pass by them. BUT NOT YOU. No, no, no, not you. You are no longer satisfied with the rut of the ordinary. You are no longer seeking easy. You’re a God seeker. You desire the destiny you were created for. You’re hungry for the life available to you. You are ready to move forward. You are grabbing for the favor destined for you. Stand up and get it sister. Chase after what you missed before when you were hunkering down and playing little. Now, warning to my fellow forward moving, bold God seekers … this journey will not be easy. But the good news is we already said we were no longer seeking easy, right? This journey will not be straight nor quick. You will endure many storms on this journey. Storms which beat you down and weather you. You’ll come out soaking wet and stronger. You will endure the hot flames of the fire on this journey. Fire which feels absolutely miserable in the moment, unbearable heat that pushes you back. You’ll come out smelling smoky and refined. This process is often painful, but the wheat must be separated from the chaff. Layers peeled back to reveal the treasure within. For others listening, if you’re being honest, you’re straight up confused what God is trying to do in your life. There have been no whispered plans. You feel no seed growing within, no glimpses of preparation from God. I’ve been there. That still, quiet season of life where you feel God has gone silent. Maybe he’s given up on you? Maybe it’s too late for you? Maybe he found someone else better for the job he had planned for you? No! Let me tell you what is happening here … ...

If you have a hopeless situation in your life right now, you are meant to hear this. You are not listening by accident, this is by the design of a mighty God who loves you and will stop at nothing to reach you. So gather around my friends with heavy hearts and hopeless situations, this one is for you. Have you ever heard the story of the valley dry bones? We will be reading in Ezekiel chapter 37 today about a man named Ezekiel, a follower and prophet of God who was in a hopeless situation. God had led him to a valley of dry bones. Scripture says they were not only dry bones but they were VERY dry bones. Whew, who has not only a hopeless situation, but a VERY hopeless situation. A relationship that has no life left in it. A dream with zero breath remaining. A clock that has fully run out of time. Oh yes, those are very dry bones. God led Ezekiel through this valley of very dry bones, skeletons without life and he said, “son of man, can these bones live?” Ezekiel responded “Sovereign Lord, you alone know.” My sister, God is asking you if your hopeless situation can be brought back to life today. Can God breathe life into your dead spaces? Your broken spaces? Your ‘too far gone’ people. God alone knows and God alone IS ABLE. We pick up in verse 4 – Ezekiel says: “Then he said to me, Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life.’ So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them.” And then in verse 10 it says “breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army.” Imagine what Ezekiel was seeing. A situation that looked utterly hopeless. A valley full of skeletons, just a reminder of where life once was. And then the breath of God brings life into this dead, hopeless situation and it comes alive. This is exactly what God wants to do for you today. And he can! Will you invite him into your valley of dry bones? The enemy is called a snake. Understand that he comes in like a python and wraps hopelessness around your life and your relationships, your hopes and dreams, your purpose and destiny, and takes the breath right out of you. You have been squeezed tight, maybe even unable to breathe for quite some time and all that is left is dry bones, really dry bones. There’s no sign of life in your marriage. There’s no sign of life in your dreams. There’s zero hope left in your valley. AND IN COMES GOD! God wants to breathe life into that which is dead in your life. Imagine God is literally doing CPR right now. He is reviving and restoring. He is bringing back that which was gone. You thought it was hopeless. It was too far gone. But God says, “I’ve got this. This is not impossible for me.” If God can bring an entire valley of dry bones into an army of people on their feet, God can bring life back to your hopeless situation. Let his breath enter you to come back to life and help you stand on your feet. See him doing CPR, fighting for you, fighting for your marriage, fighting for that relationship, fighting for your health, fighting for your children, fighting for your breakthrough, fighting for your dreams, fighting for your destiny. He’s not giving up on you. He’s pumping your chest and he’s breathing air into your lungs. RECEIVE IT. Come back to life again. You may be in a situation that ONLY GOD can fix. Great. He is able. Fully able. This is not too hard for him. It may look and feel really darn hopeless to you, but this is not hopeless to God. This is just a valley of dry bones that he can breathe life into again and oh how he alone will receive the credit!

Our high school football team is currently undefeated and in the state final four. Their average score per game is 40 with their opponents average score of just 3. When these boys walk onto the field, they play to win. They EXPECT to win. Their opponents know their record and know the odds. The other boys are playing not to lose. And there’s a tremendous difference here. Did you wake up this morning thinking of winning this day, or just hoping not to lose? The picture you have in your mind is making an impression, creating a groove or a rut. The expectations you set for yourself impact everything you do today. Will you play to WIN? How often do we wake up defeated before our feet have even hit the ground? We lay in bed, counting the hours of sleep we had, already determining it wasn’t enough and we’re going to be dragging butt. Losing. We rehearse the day ahead in our minds and it’s filled with images of having to go here and having to go there. Having to do this and that with not quite enough time to pull it all off. Losing. You envision yourself coming to the end of this day exhausted and disappointed. You didn’t plan it that way, it’s just how the scenario plays out in your mind and it’s all become so normal you don’t even notice it. Deep down, you’re expecting to lose this Monday and the entire day is a battle of you playing not to lose. I Corinthians 15:57 says “But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Have we forgotten we’re on the winning team? God the Head Coach and Jesus the quarterback have never been beat. You’re part of the undefeated team for eternity my friend. Your life is the game, this day is the field … show up for it with confidence knowing YOU’VE GOT THIS! Expect to win today. Play to win. Scripture tells me you are MORE than a conqueror in Christ Jesus. If you are more than a conqueror, that means you’re a champion. You win, that’s just what you do. Jesus wins. Every time. And he’s leading your team. He’s throwing the passes in your life. Show up and expect to catch them. Expect to make your touch down today. Expect to conquer every challenge that comes your way today. Expect that you’ll have exactly what you need to win today. What will playing to win look like for you on this Monday? It means making time for God with your devotional and prayer to seek and love God, not to avoid his disapproval. There’s a difference. Playing to win means showing up this morning knowing that you are loved and desiring to sit in his presence because he wants to speak to you, he wants to guide you, he wants to pour out his blessings on you. On the flip side of the coin, playing not to lose looks more like showing up for prayer and devotional this morning because you’re afraid God will be disappointed if you don’t. You fear his disapproval. What if God punishes you because you didn’t make him a priority? Playing to win is grounded in truth. Playing not to lose is from a place of fear. The truth is you are the treasured and chosen, most precious creation of God. He’s not watching your every move to punish you. He’s studying how he can help you. How he can set you up and move you up to the next level of living. How he can help you reach your full potential and live a life beyond your wildest imaginations. That is his plan for you. And when you come to him with this truth, you’re expecting to win. You have a holy confidence that changes how you walk and talk. But when you’re coming from a place of fear, that place of believing you are sometimes lacking, somewhere broken, somehow unworthy, you tip toe through the day just hoping not to upset God. You shrink back and play little. You sit it out. You envision failure. You play out the scenarios of losing time and time again.

Romans 8:18 “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.” So, let me get this right … suffer here through misery, just survive all the days you can until you reach heaven. When you get to heaven things will get better. And it will be so good once you get there, you’ll totally forget what you had to go through to get there. Yeah, I’m not buying it. In no way do I believe God’s intention is for you and I to just “get by” while on Earth. I don’t believe he gave us breath so we could breathe shallow and just skim our way through life. I mean look around. Did he create all this beauty here on Earth to leave you miserable, only wishing for Heaven? Why would he make Earth so beautiful if his intentions were for you, his most beautiful and magnificent creation, to merely survive the experience for 80 or 90 years. When will we stop treating life as something we must GET through? What if this scripture is more about what God is growing in you right now? Look at these words, don’t miss it … Your present sufferings, meaning all the struggles and frustrations you’re going through right now, are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in you. Revealed IN you. Well isn’t that interesting. There is glory that will be revealed IN you. We’re not talking about some destination you will pull up to at the end of your life. No, we’re talking about the glory, which means magnificence and great beauty, that is IN you. There is something glorious and beautiful growing in you right now. You may not see it. You may not feel it. But it’s happening. And it’s happening through the hard stuff. God allows life to touch us so we can learn and grow and reach our potential. Understand, that is what’s IN you. This is what God wants to reveal in you. Your potential. The potential he placed within you when he created you. The vision he had for your life from the beginning. He knows what you’re capable of. He knows the life available to you. He knows just what you could do with the days offered to you. The legacy you could leave, the impact you could make, the possibility you could create. But often times you can’t see it. You can’t see your potential, you just see your present sufferings. You see the fire and fail to see how he is refining you. You feel the hammer and chisel and fail to understand he’s knocking off the lumps to reveal what’s always been inside of you. All you know is it hurts to be chiseled away it. It burns to be so close to the fire. The process of reaching your potential is not an easy one, that’s why so few make it. One day we will stand before our creator and he’ll reveal to us what his vision for our life was, and we’ll see the distance between what we did and what we could have done. The comparison of where we went and where we could have gone. The divide between who we became and who we could have become. And in that moment it will all make sense. With the perspective of heaven, we will understand how what we saw as suffering was the refining fire, we will see the hammer and the chisel were freeing us. Oh my sister, what you have WITHIN you is so magnificent and beautiful. There’s glory inside of you and it’s called your God given potential. How bad do you want to live up to it? How bad do you want to taste the life truly available to you? You see, I want to get to heaven and have my creator show me his vision for my life and it be parallel to the life I chose to live. I want the gap between the two to be so minimal you have to use a magnifying glass. Don’t you want the same? I don’t have time for regret here on Earth and I don’t want an ounce of it in Heaven. I know you feel the same.

Psalm 37: 23-24 “The Lord directs the steps of the godly. He delights in every detail of their lives. Though they stumble, they will never fall, for the Lord holds them by the hand.” My first encounter with God was in the Fall of 1990. I was a 15 year old freshman in high school and my best friend Sarah had invited me to her church for a lock-in. If I’m being honest, I’ll tell you I went for the boys. But God met me there. Or more accurately, I met God there. There was a man in his late 20’s who spoke to us that night. I’m sure he said many wonderful things, but I only remember one thing. He told a story of being in college and having a professor who didn’t believe in God. He was singled out in the class and challenged. He was the only believer in the room, or at least the only believer bold enough to stand up to the professor. The professor held a raw egg in his hand and said, “is your God strong enough to keep this egg from breaking if I drop it on the floor?” The student said yes, my God can keep the egg from breaking. So the professor dropped the egg. The egg didn’t even crack. The next day, my friend Sarah and I were picked up from the Church lock-in by my parents and all we were concerned about was if my mom had eggs in the refrigerator. We went through an entire dozen of eggs that day, each one meeting the fate of a hard tile floor. We would say, “we believe, we believe, we believe” then it would shatter and we would say, “darn it, I knew it would break.” I never could drop an egg without it breaking. I’ve never tried again. Do you know why, because a few months after that first introduction to God, I met his son Jesus. I asked him to come into my heart and change me and save me. And since that day, life has never been the same. I’ve had plenty of quote-unquote “eggs” break since then. Plans blow up in my face. Major let downs and setbacks. Hardships I never imagined came our way. Yet, the one thing remained. My God, the same God who didn’t let that speaker’s egg break, was guiding my life. He could be trusted. All this time, God has been delighting in every detail of my life. Did you know God has been not only watching over your every detail, but he has been taking delight in the details of your life. What you see as a mess, God sees as an opportunity to make himself known. All the times you have stumbled, God has picked you up and held you in his hand. I want you to look back over the last 10, 20 years of your life. Can you see how God has guided you? Can you see how He has used every broken egg to sustain you? Can you see scrambled eggs? We want the unbroken egg. The egg that survived the fall without a crack. But God wants to break that egg wide open … do you know why? So you can be fulfilled. Have you ever tried to eat an egg still in it’s shell? I didn’t think so! God breaks your life wide open so that you can EXPERIENCE it. So you can be filled. So you can grow stronger. God gives us scrambled eggs. The question today is, do you trust God? Do you trust him with your dozen of eggs? Your hopes, your dreams, your goals? Will you trust him even when they get scrambled? I don’t always understand God’s ways. Quite honestly over the past few years I’ve had my moments of questioning him. I’ve had my fair share of shouting matches with God. Then I’ve given him the ol’ silent treatment. Have you ever given God the silent treatment? Maybe that’s where you are now. You’re so angry at him, so confused by his ways that you’re just not going to talk to him until he straightens up. I’m so glad God can always out wait me. Through it all I’ve learned I don’t have to understand, and honestly this side of heaven there are some things I will never understand this side of Heaven, and when I get there I want to have a talk with him about a few things.

So far this week we’ve talked about screwups and moments of stupid, so I feel it’s necessary to switch gears and talk about rainbows and butterflies, you know feel good things that give you the warm fuzzies. We’re not always screwing up, right? Every moment isn’t a moment of stupid. Some days we kinda nail this thing called life. Some days we get it right. Some days we wake up on time, our pants zip (now I’m not saying that as a measure of success on how much you weigh … I’m saying we actually put on pants with a zipper, not stretchy pants! Yeah, who knows that’s a special day when the pants have a zipper on them!) Some days we show up, we give our best effort, and we go to bed with that ‘good tired’ feeling of accomplishment, without any major quarrels or melt downs. What if you woke up to that kind of day? Yes, a rainbowey butterflyey kinda day! I believe you did. I believe today is a Psalm 42:8 kinda day for you “But each day the Lord pours his unfailing love upon me.” Now line up and receive that unfailing love he wants to pour on you. See God doesn’t want to sprinkle his love on you. He’s not just throwing it up in the air, hoping a bit falls on you, no no no, he wants to pour it on you. For someone to pour something on you, you need to be close and you need to be still for a moment. That’s what we’re here to do today. A moment of closeness to our God. We are gathering here at his feet to receive his blessing. We are stopping everything else in our busy lives and we are getting real still in this moment. God pour out your unfailing love on your girls today. As you bow in reverence at this moment, may you feel his love pour over you. May you know his love is unfailing. It will never fail you. Ever. His love will follow you into the pit with lions, it will go before you on the mountain climb, and it will cover you on the stormy seas. Psalm 36: 5 &6 “Your unfailing love, O LORD, is as vast as the heavens; your faithfulness reaches beyond the clouds. Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains, your justice like the ocean depths.” This is the kind of love we receive from our Creator today. An unfailing love. A love that is handcrafted to meet your every need. A love that is faithful, righteous and just. A love that covers any area of lack or shortcoming and makes you MORE than enough. A love that changes everything. This is the love God is offering you today. He’s ready to pour it out on you today as you come close to him in this moment of stillness. We receive. We are grateful. May nothing separate you from Him today. I don’t know what you have going on today, but I bet there will be a pull of either busyness or a pull of boredom. May neither of these separate you from God today. As you come in close to him this morning, may you remain close to him throughout this day. May you stand strong in him today. May he anchor you and hold you steady. When the world wants to toss you around and when circumstances want to get you all stirred up, may you be strong and steady in him. May your eyes be fixed on Jesus today. May you see him in everything and everyone. May you be aware of his presence and his power. It’s all around you this morning. It’s being poured out on you at this moment. Get you some girl. Don’t dismiss yourself from this goodness. Get all up in there as God is pouring out his unfailing love this morning. There’s enough for everyone and you don’t have to sit it out! Psalm 30:5 says “Joy comes in the morning.” Ahhhh, that’s why the enemy fights so hard to convince you mornings suck … because the mornings hold the precious gift of joy. And we know from Nehemiah 8:10, “the joy of the Lord is your strength.” This is where your strength comes from. Joy.

Have you ever said something in the moment and regretted it? Have you ever made a decision you know was so utterly stupid? Yeah, me too. What does God do with people who have moments of stupid? Oh I know exactly what he does. Listen up my fellow impulsive, bad decision makers! The bible is full of stories of people who had moments of stupid. I feel as if looking at their stories, stories of good people who loved God and were even highly favored by God, yet really excelled at being ignorant at just the wrong moment, well that will give us some confidence in our own story. Abraham was a man whom God had promised to bless with children. But you know sometimes God’s timing and our timing doesn’t quite jive and in our own head we think we can speed up the process a bit. In Abraham’s opinion God was taking entirely too long to fulfill his promise of giving he and Sarah a baby, so he has his epic moment of stupid. He’ll sleep with his wife’s servant and she will have his baby. You know what’s even worse, it was Sarah’s idea in the first place! So the servant has Abraham’s firstborne child, and shortly after God does exactly what he promised he would do, he does the impossible … Sarah gets pregnant too. As you can imagine, this creates chaos and turmoil for their family. Ahhhh, it was that moment of stupid! A moment of stupid sponsored by impatience. That lightbulb moment of “I have a bright idea” without a holy pause to run it by God first. Jonah was God’s chosen one to speak to and work through. A man created for a mission, and when God clearly gave Jonah his mission, scripture says “he ran away from the Lord.” He not only ran away, but he went in the exact opposite direction from where God told him to go. That was a moment of stupid. A moment of stupid sponsored by his fear. Not only his fear, but he just plain ol’ didn’t want to do what God had clearly told him to do. And so he goes in the wrong direction, avoiding his mission and he’s swallowed up by a whale. Well that sucks. Talk about a coming to Jesus moment when you’re in the depths of the sea, in the belly of a whale! Or perhaps the most famous moment of stupid, Peter, a close friend of Jesus. One of the 12 who walked so closely with Jesus, who knew him best, who saw first hand his miracles. Not only saw his miracles, but was invited to be part of the miracles. Peter was a man who had walked on water with Jesus. But then, when under pressure, he denied he even knew who Jesus was. This moment of stupid was sponsored by impulsiveness. Speaking before thinking. Peter was always the impulsive one. The first to jump up and go. The first to volunteer. But now he was so quick to speak and he knew what he had done. Imagine that sinking feeling of knowing you had just done the very thing you said you would never do. And there we have it, impatience, fear, and impulsiveness all bringing about moments of stupid. We’ve all had them. And for those of us raising the next generation of human beings, we have a front row seat to watching our offspring’s shining moments of stupid. Just yesterday I was speaking to a few women I mentor, each sharing with me separately how their young adult child seems to be screwing up their life in the most epic of ways. “You’ve been dating for 2 months, sure it’s time to move in together. Absolutely!” “You have no job, you’re looking for no job, so let’s just lay around this week too and assume a job will somehow come magically knocking on your door in the future. Great!” “You were where … doing what … with who? Brilliant. I know I taught you so well.” I wish God would just come in and save us from our moments of stupid. Keep us from ever making that bad decision, going down the wrong path, and creating a mess for ourselves.

In the first 4 chapters of Exodus we read the beginning of the story of a man named Moses. This was the man chosen by God to lead an entire nation of people to freedom. A man whom God chose to do miracles through which we still talk about today. Remember the parting of the red sea, yeah … God did that through Moses. It’s easy for us to hear about this chosen man and believe he really must have been something special. He must have been so favored, so richly blessed, so talented, to have been chosen for a task such as this. How quickly we dismiss ourselves from being the person God has called to do something through. We slip back, we hunker down, we play little, assuming God could never do something big through us. He’ll choose someone born into a more prominent family. He’ll choose someone who doesn’t have the past we have. Someone who hasn’t screwed up as much as us. Someone who has confidence and courage. Surely there’s someone much more talented than us, and that’s who God will use to do his work and make a difference in this world. But that’s not how our God works at all. No, God comes into the most humble of beginnings, the most unlikely of families, cuts through every shortcoming, overcomes every mistake and failure and says YOU ARE THE ONE I HAVE CHOSEN. Why have you dismissed yourself from the calling of God? There’s nothing in your family history, nothing in your past, not a single shortcoming which you worry about that has dismissed you from a mighty purpose set apart by God. Moses was born into chaos. A hidden pregnancy, an illegal baby put into a basket to float away on the river, then found and adopted by a young Egyptian woman who loved him. He grew up under disguise, unable to reveal who he really was, because who he really was, was an Israelite. Moses was a “less than” among the “better thans”. Have you ever felt like that? Like you’re somehow less than everyone else and you have to pretend to be somebody you’re not to be accepted. You carry this deep dark secret, fearful if others really knew who you were, they wouldn’t like you. May I remind you God knows exactly who you are, he knows every detail about you and he still chooses YOU. It’s not about who you are … it’s about who HE IS, and who he is making you through his power at work within you. But what if you’ve failed? I mean really, really screwed up. Can God use a screw up? Moses made a big mistake. He killed a man out of anger, then he hid what he had done by burying the body in the sand. But he didn’t get away with it. Rumor started to spread of what Moses had done, so he ran to the wilderness and hid. Ashamed of what he had done, knowing it was wrong, he couldn’t go back. All this time, God had his eye on Moses. Read his story and see how God provided for him at every turn, even in the wilderness, even after he had done so wrong. God didn’t give up on Moses. He was using everything in his life for a purpose … the purpose of bringing him closer to being the person he created him to be. We assume the process of being more like who we were created to be will look more like success. We’ll rise up, we’ll get the promotion, we’ll be highly favored and richly blessed. We’ll be recognized and praised. Oh, perhaps for a select few it happens that way. But most of us are like Moses. God works through chaos and failure to forge us into the full potential of who he had in mind when he created us. We assume because we have failed we are disqualified. Nope, because you have failed, God has rescued you. And if God has rescued you, it’s for a purpose. His efforts will not be wasted. He wants to do something in your life and THROUGH your life. Moses ran away from his problems and created a new life for himself. But God called him to the fire.

 Today we’re whipping out our bibles and doing a little study together. I’ve chosen a scripture which has always confused me. Matthew 5:3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” I want heaven, but this scripture is telling me I must be poor in spirit. So lets get this straight right here, I have no desire to be poor in anything. I’ve been poor, it wasn’t fun. There was a time we parked our truck in the garage because we knew the repo man was on patrol. There was a time we received a coupon for a free Chic-fil-A sandwich, and my son and I split it and savored every bite. Somehow that single sandwich filled both of us fully, to the point we couldn’t eat the last bite. It was like a real life scenario of Jesus feeding the crowd of thousands with 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish. I remember that Christmas we couldn’t afford to buy a single gift, so we made crafts for each other. Hmmmm, somehow thinking back being poor wasn’t always bad, some of our most precious memories were made then. But what’s worse than being poor financially is being poor in attitude. I’ve been that girl plagued with PLOM Disease. Have you heard of it? PLOM Disease. P-L-O-M. It stands for Poor Little Ol’ Me. It’s a sickening disease of playing little when we were created to live a big life. It’s a disease of attitude that causes us to wallow in pity and dwell on worst case scenario. And let me tell you, it can make the prettiest of women straight up ugly. There’s nothing more unattractive that a strong case of being pitiful. Do you think Jesus died for you so that you could be pitiful? Do you think he rescued you from sin and shame, sacrificed his everything, so that you could play little? A poor attitude is worse than a poor financial status any day. When you’re playing “poor little ol’ me”, you’ve sacrificed all your power, the power offered to you by God almighty, and resigned to pity instead. Then like the disease it is, it steals your joy, rots away your potential, and leaves you a shell of the person you were created to be. You can never be pitiful and powerful at the same time. PLOM Disease: Poor Little Ol’ Me. The disease of feeling sorry for yourself, seeking sorrow, wallowing in worries, and refusing to get better. And let me warn you, that PLOM Disease is contagious. Don’t hang around with pitiful people. What they have will rub off on you. In the presence of complainers and wallflowers, you too will begin to grow pitiful and powerless. Protect your power. You are not pitiful. A poor attitude is the ugliest and most undesirable thing you could possibly put on. So, why does this scripture tell us blessed are the poor in spirit? Is there a difference between a poor attitude and a poor spirit? Yes. Let’s dig in deeper. The Message Translation of our scripture reads like this: “You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule.” Ahhhhhhh, there it is. Poor in spirit is when there is less of you and more of God! Poor in spirit is recognition of our inherent need of God. Poor in spirit is our confession of “God, this won’t happen without you.” Instead we get a puffed up spirit. A spirit that says “I’ve got this God, I’ll let ya know when I run into trouble.” Don’t we often treat God like our ‘get our of jail free card’? We’re running full steam ahead under our own power, until we get knocked to our knees and then we’re like “oh God, I need you!” Blessed are the poor in spirit. Those who fully acknowledge God’s hand at work in every detail of their lives. Those who know without a doubt every good thing you have in your life is as a direct result of the Almighty.

This month in BIG Life Mentoring, our series is called “Changed”. If you’re a new listener, BIG Life Mentoring is our online mentoring program where I mentor 300 women from all across the country to live the BIG life they were created for as the woman they were created to be. You can get all the details and even grab your spot at biglifementoring.com In November we’re diving into CHANGE. What if you are a few tiny changes away from a radically different life? Would you be willing to change for a changed life? Our God is the same forever and always, he never changes, but he is the God of change. He changes the seasons and he changes lives. And listen up, he’s about to change something in your life. Perhaps it’s something you’ve been praying for for years on end and it’s finally coming your way, or perhaps it’s something you don’t even see coming. You are about to be CHANGED! Lonnie and I have lived all across the country. From the East coast to the West coast and 3 states in between. We are wanderers and adventurers. We move on a yearly basis because we have learned to love change. And here’s why … we don’t want to miss a thing. We want to wake up every day and look around us in complete awe. We want to live in a way that we come to the end of our lives and be able to say “we did all we could, and we LOVED IT!” So we move often. We are always the “new family in town”, so our perspective is slightly different than the local who has lived there their entire life. We often see what others don’t see. Why? Because it’s different for us, but all the same for them. We have fresh eyes where the 5th generation local has become a little glazed over with the repetitiveness of life. As much as you may think you want a predictable, predetermined, safe life where nothing ever changes and all things are guaranteed to stay the same, YOU REALLY DON’T WANT THAT. Your soul is craving change. Your eyes are desperate for new and exciting. And yet we cling to what “has been” with a death grip and fight change like the devil himself. Let me tell you something, the very change you’re fighting may not be a work of the enemy, it may be the design of our almighty God to keep you fully alive in this life. To open your eyes once again, to snap you out of robotic living. To give you days you will actually REMEMBER instead of weeks, months and years of your life passing in a gradual decline. It is time for change. And oh how we serve the God of change. We serve the God of curveballs. Have you ever been thrown a curveball in life? Things didn’t go the way you imagined? Yeah, me too. What does it mean when life seems to get out of control? What does it mean when the bottom drops out of your plans and you’re striking out? How do you receive change? Do you flip out? Do you panic? Do you begin imagining your ultimate failure and demise immediately? Do you quit? Or do you TRUST? Do you trust that change is God’s curveball to keep you IN THE GAME. It’s not to strike you out; but rather so you can hit it out of the park. Change is God’s curveball to give you fresh eyes, to wake you up, to keep you from growing so comfortable that you just drift through this week, this month, this year with that ever so gradual decline. CHANGE IS FOR YOU. For your benefit. What is your curveball? What is your unexpected change? What is your disappointing pitch right now? Life isn’t in control, God is. Let me say that again. Life isn’t in control. Your life is totally out of control. All your planning and work will NOT control your life. God is in control. Complete control. Proverbs 19:21 “You can make many plans, but the LORD’s purpose will prevail.” Make your plans. Your plans are not a bad thing. In fact God wants to conspire with you.