Dear friend: what is faith?
Dear Suzie,
I get it. Faith is not entitlement. It’s not demanding from God what we want, or trying to make scripture conform to our wants. But what is it really? Is it spouting words that don’t match the condition of my heart (because of unbelief or doubt)? Is it believing in the impossible when all around you reality says it’s not going to happen?
I want to be a person who has faith, but how can I do that when I don’t even know how to define it?
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Posted by Suzie @
12:25 pm |
Dear friend…
Dear Suzie,
I’ve been following your blog and your FB page. If you were to describe me I’d say I have religious leanings, but I usually fall to the other side in my day to day life.
I’m not like you. The truth is that I probably won’t fit, not in the way I dress, talk, act. But I want God.
You’ve been talking about being in the crossroads. I guess that describes me, right? So, what now?
DM (more…)
Posted by Suzie @
12:52 pm |
holy discontent
Have you ever felt it? You want something, but you don’t know what it is. It’s right under the surface and it won’t go away, so you do other things to cover it, or you push it aside.
It’s holy discontent. You might feel stuck spiritually. It may have been a very long since you felt God.
Oh, Suzie, don’t give me that emotional stuff. You don’t have to feel God to follow Him.
I do. I have learned to trust Him in the times that I don’t feel Him. I have learned to dig deep into the experiences of the past that remind me of God’s faithfulness. I have learned to lean on Scripture and the promises within.
But I need to feel God, His presence, His strength.
I want to feel Him, and there have been times (many) that I’ve had to stop and find the source of that holy discontent.
That’s exactly what happened the day I stood in the ballroom of the hotel at the She Speaks conference as my friend and Proverbs 31 Ministries founder, Lysa TerKeurst spoke.
(To see the original devo that started this crossroads discussion, click here.)
I was discontented. I had been for a while. Like King David in Psalms 51:12 I was praying, “Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me”. I needed Him. I had allowed some really meaningless things to take the place of intimacy with God. I still talked to Him. I still loved Him. But I knew there was more because I had experienced more. I had misplaced something very valuable and I needed it back.
I remember standing there in a room of 700 and it was as if I was alone with God. I held back, waiting for the final amen so I could escape to the prayer room. I didn’t care who was in there. I didn’t care if people saw that I was part of the team. All I knew is that I needed to get alone with God.
It was a course correction of sorts.
Holy discontent is a beautiful gift. It’s the Holy Spirit, the One who knows you and the heart of the Father drawing you closer, stopping you in your tracks and reminding you that there’s more to being a child of God than church, more than committees, more than writing books, more than teaching, more than being just being moral or good.
Maybe you are connected. Maybe you are right in the heart of His plan, and you still feel holy discontent. This is a prayer today for you and for me.
I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will give you mighty inner strength through his Holy Spirit. And I pray that Christ will be more and more at home in your hearts as you trust in him.
May your roots go down deep into the soil of God’s marvelous love. And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love really is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is so great you will never fully understand it. Then you will be filled with the fullness of life and power that comes from God.
Now glory be to God! By his mighty power at work within us, he is able to accomplish infinitely more than we would ever dare to ask or hope. May he be given glory in the church and in Christ Jesus forever and ever through endless ages. Amen.
Ephesians 3:16-21 (New Living Translation)
Posted by Suzie @
6:23 am |
when you can’t fix it
Dear Suzie: I have a daughter who will not talk to me.
The blessing I do have is that she lets me talk to my grandchildren. We live several states apart, so the only communication we have is that I talk to the children.
It is so hard, I love her so very much, but she just rejects me. The last time I saw her was at her sibling’s wedding. I hugged her, told her I loved her, she said nothing. I just want to fix it. I’ve asked if hopefully she and I could go somewhere alone and try to get things sorted out. Her answer to me has been complete silence. I don’t know what I have done, because no one will tell me.
Of course I made mistakes when she was growing up and I will assume all responsibility for that. But I really feel its time for us both to forgive and to just love each other. Please help me, I am at the end of my rope. I love her so much and really need her in my life.
Any advice? I hope so.
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Posted by Suzie @
6:55 am |
Dear friend: we can’t fix anyone else
I get a lot of e-mails from women who were raised in a dysfunctional past. Some are obviously hurting. Others have learned to hide it well. They look put together, composed, maybe even perfect. But the common desire is, “I want to get past this”.
This week I received this note:
I am 62 years old and I really don’t know where to start. I have been mentally and emtionally abused by my Mom. I am a Christian and I have tried turning the other cheek and forgivness and she still is always doing her stuff. Now my oldest daughter has called me a hypocrite and I am a mess.
Dear friend, I love your honesty, and I think your first question is the most important: where do I start? (more…)
Posted by Suzie @
11:49 am |
