Conversations with God

It’s Thanksgiving. Every commercial, billboard, and ad in the mail is assuming you are super-excited about the holidays and making great plans with your family. But what if you aren’t? What if you are struggling with something you can’t just shake off, whether it’s something happening right now or memories of past times? One of the biggest traps around all the hype of the holidays is focusing on the things that are not how we want or need them to be. In our attention to missing loved ones, sickness, or financial needs, we forget what we do have. We have a God. Not just a name we invoke before we feast on turkey and pie or an entity we hope will eventually one day make things a little more tolerable. We have GOD –  A King who takes care of His subjects. A Savior who left Heaven to come to where we are to makes things better now . A Master who offers all of Himself to those who give all to Him. A Creator who knows the end from the beginning, and who promised not to le...

Today, Lord, I am grateful for You. I am grateful for Your promises and Your faithfulness to fulfill them. I am grateful that You are completely trustworthy. I am grateful You take Your time with Your children, shaping us with care and precision, not leaving our lives up to chance. You don’t overlook things we think are unimportant. You don’t shy away from things we think are too unlovely to consider or remember. You call us to come closer when everything in the world around us screams to run away. You stand beside us, crouch by our side, and even lay down beside us when we are too weak to stand. You reach out and cover us with mercy, compassion, and strength. You call us out of the dark into the life and light of who You are. As You pull us to our feet, You allow us to give You our old garments of fear, shame, and unworthiness and clothe us in Your uprightness, strength, grace, and love. You teach us a life lived for You doesn’t mean closing our eyes to the ugliness...

I had the opportunity to speak to a small group recently about my experiences working with children. I had several fun stories and testimonies about how God comes down into the lives of even the youngest kids. What I want to talk about today, however, is something I added almost as an aside. “Let me tell you a secret,” I said. “I’m really not that good at this naturally. What I am, for whatever reason, is anointed for it.” And that’s the truth. I enjoy working with kiddos, and have had a desire to work with kids with special needs for a long time. But simply liking an activity doesn’t make you good at it. I have struggled with paperwork, classroom management, organization and other aspects of teaching. Yet I've had several people remark on my skills as a teacher. The difference is that, as much as I’ve loved kids, I’ve loved God more, and continued to put Him first. As I've done so, He's given me the ideas, insight, patience, and understanding I need to excel at thi...