Irrevocable Trust

“When I am afraid, I put my trust in You.”

Psalm 56:3

My father stood across the living room in his purple, cotton shirt. The ceiling of the Quonset hut curved behind his wavy, black hair. His bleary eyes stared at my mother who was dark with anger. Sitting upright on the Naugahyde couch, she cradled my sister and me on either side of her. I could feel her thin build stiffen next to me as she narrowed her eyes. There was vomit on the green, shag carpet from a guest who had passed out – the catalyst of the argument. Earlier that evening, the house was full of laughter as colorful people drank and talked in our living room. Cigarette smoke swirled overhead while ice clinked in glasses and the reel-to-reel boomed songs by Sinatra and Martin. I was young. Four or five. Alcoholism was not in my vocabulary.

“We’re leaving!” my mother announced as she ushered us into the bedroom.

My sister was older by two-and-a-half years. Her taller frame stood next to mine on the bed as my mother briskly tied our puffy kimono-like robes around our thin, tan frames. My mother’s short, black hair did not move. Everything about her was efficient, clean, crisp. She was an R.N. and worked in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) on base.

“You’re not leaving! I won’t let you!” my father said as he entered our bedroom. The gun was obvious, but my mother didn’t flinch.

I loved my father. When he was sober and wearing his Air Force blues he seemed safe. But, I couldn’t trust him. He was unpredictable. Scary. In my heart that night I vowed that I would never trust a man.

“Go ahead. Shoot us!” my mother blurted as she scooped us up and walked briskly outside before plopping us in the car. We drove away to the sound of locusts screaming in the trees.

For many years this event, and others like it, colored my relationships, even my relationship with God. To cope with the instability I withdrew, surviving through a world of fantasy. Fear defined my inner life. Fortunately, many years later, God revealed the vow I made as a little girl, “I will never trust a man.” This vow was like a seed that germinated behaviors like self-protection and distrust, enabling me to shut myself – my real self – off from the world. But, God rescued me at the age of twenty-eight and brought me into a love relationship with Him that forced me to question my normal. Intimate relationships were terrifying, painful and not worth the effort. Eventually, through prayer and counseling, God revealed several deep-rooted lies that had been hiding in my heart for years. The lies, like weeds, choked out the roses of security, love, patience and trust that God longed for me to experience. He spoke these tender words to me from Isaiah 43:1-3…

“But now, this is what the Lord says—he who created you, Jacob, he who formed you, Israel: ‘Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.’”  

An unstable childhood is a reality for many of us. Like me, you may have struggled with reconciling the truth of your past with God’s character. When I was a young believer God’s personality was morphed together with my father’s. It was a distortion; a Holy God I couldn’t trust. A God that may not be there when I need Him most. A God who loved me but wasn’t always delighted in me. A God who would abandon me…someday, just like my father. It took many years for me to see how I was dishonoring God with these lies. Fear and anxiety took over as I tried to protect myself and failed. The pain crept in and I felt…abandoned. Forsaken. Betrayed. In a pit of self-pity God showed me my sin saying, “I am not a man that I should lie. I am not your father.”

He is not my earthly father. He is trustworthy and always patient. He will not love me one minute and dismiss the next. He will not abandon me. He is Love. I can trust Him…irrevocably. It has taken many years of walking with God to come to a place of owning these truths. I still struggle with trusting men in general and have lapses where I forget I have a Godly husband who loves me. The trust struggle also continues with God as I recognize the familiar feelings of fear and anxiety in situations where I feel helpless. However, I have learned to accept these moments as gifts of reflection. No one likes to have their faults exposed (ouch) but God gives us the gift of a holy mirror, allowing us to see the smudges of sin on our faces. Only then will we allow Him to gently wipe them clean with His blood.

“The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.
He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
he refreshes my soul.
He guides me along the right paths

for his name’s sake.
Even though I walk
through the darkest valley,[a]
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
Surely your goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord
forever.”

Psalm 23:1-6, NIV

Originally written by Marlene McKenna for havhope.

Do unto your children as you would have them do unto you

The Lord has been convicting me from this verse for a few weeks. I am long familiar with The Golden Rule, yet it’s only in the last month that I’ve thought of it particularly in terms of my children—not treating them as they ARE but as I would have them TO BE. As often is the case, God used my son’s little secular hippie preschool to bring this home for me. At a parent meeting, the speaker asked parents what were their main concerns for their children’s behavior right now. Parents yelled out things like sibling rivalry, angry tantrums, hitting, general snotty attitudes and so forth. Then she asked what character qualities we hoped they’d have when they headed to college. The group suggested empathy, perseverance, and self-confidence, among others. As a believer, I would add grace, service, and love. I really want my boys to have personal confidence in who they are in Christ that equips them to extend grace to others. I want them to love as I Cor. 13 defines it – with patience, with a long fuse, not rude, not keeping a record of wrongs, giving the benefit of the doubt, and so on. I want them to serve like Christ.

Then the speaker led us in an exercise. She said, “Put your feet squarely on the floor.” She did it, and we did too. “Sit up straight.” She modeled, and we did it too. “Touch your thumb and first finger in an OK sign.” We did it with her. “Put the OK sign on your chin.” But she put hers on her cheek. And every last one of us in the room without thinking put ours on our cheek too. She had made her point effectively. We say we want one thing with our kids, but so often we model something else. And they will always pick up what we MODEL over what we SAY.

God got my attention. My son has an anger problem because I have an anger problem that I have well modeled for him. And when I get angry at him because he got angry and threw a toy, I’m not helping anything. Apart from Scripture, my default belief system is that when he sins I need to get really angry in proportion to the seriousness of the offence, that the angrier I get the more effective it will be at deterring him from doing it again. The only problem is that my anger is NOT a deterrent to him doing it again. It just models anger for him and educates him in more sophisticated ways to act on it. That’s not how God transforms me, and it’s not how He intends me to disciple my children.

Here are Jesus’ instructions from Luke 6.

31 And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them.

32 ″If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. 33 And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. 34 And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to get back the same amount. 35 But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. 36 Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.

As I wish that my boys would do to me and others, I should do to them. Not do to them in a reactionary response to what they just did. It’s my job to break the cycle of act and react. I should just ACT. Stay on course. Love. Grace. Compassion. Endurance. Act on my vision of what I want them to be and model consistently for them my end goal. My angry little boy sure can make me angry. But my job in Christ is to stop the cycle, correct him, and model for him with my life as well as my words a new and better way through gospel grace to deal with conflict.

Of course, the Golden Rule transcends child-rearing. I had just never thought of it in those specific terms. It applies to my children, my husband, my friends, and my enemies. Do to them not in reaction to what they just did to me, but do to them with a vision of where God is calling them. And THAT is the essence of being salt and light in the places God has called me to function.

Originally written and published by Wendy Alsup of Practical Theology for Women.

Women, We Need His Word: A Plan for the Hungry and Busy

The idea was so simple it almost doesn’t count as one. Let’s eat God’s word. Together. At a fast but reasonable pace. Let’s encourage one another to get over whatever obstacles stopped us in the past. We want to become women of his word, not women who dabble in it occasionally.

Last fall, we settled on a pace of six chapters a day — some Old Testament and some New Testament, pairing books like Leviticus and Hebrews together, and matching psalms we could to the historic context in which they were written. We wrote catch-up days into the plan (because we have regular lives with regular interruptions). We would get through the whole Bible in the academic year with around 20–30 minutes of reading each day and none on Sundays.

We prayed that God would use our plan to ignite a love of his word in other women too. The project has grown beyond all of our ideas — spreading quickly far beyond our own community and even into other languages. Thousands of women have joined in over the last year. We like to say we are a theologically diverse group, but literally on the same page.

Time to Eat

We need God’s word more than we need food. We are strengthened by it. We are equipped for every good work through it. We can trust that where God sends out his word in our lives, it will not return to him void. It will accomplish the thing for which he sent it.

We’ve simply come to feast. We have all been invited. There is a place prepared by a loving Father for each of us. The food is abundant, endless, nourishing, restoring, perfect, and occasionally confusing. The task is simple. Eat it. Be filled. Do it again. Do it forever. Enjoy the bounty before you — enjoy what your Father has done for you and said to you. Trust the Master of this feast, and enjoy the table fellowship.

But many of us are not in our chairs. We’re under the tables, scavenging for crumbs dropped by the “good eaters” at the table — famous bloggers, Christian teachers, great preachers. We can find enough crumbs at their feet to survive, maybe even live well, but we wouldn’t be obeying God. There is a place with your name on it, a book for you to eat. Get up and eat. Do not be satisfied with crumbs, because your Father is not satisfied with that for you.

Why We Don’t Read

Many Christians are not eating at all. They are busy. They don’t have a quiet life. Often they are not eating simply because they are on a streak of not eating and breaking it seems hypocritical. I cannot eat dinner when I did not have breakfast or lunch! Many Christians quit reading their Bible when they feel like they have failed in some way.

Lost track, fell behind in a plan, didn’t understand, not good enough, forgot. Better wait for a new year, and try to be a better person then. Whatever reason you have, it isn’t good enough. Lay down your pride, and take up your fork. This is the continuing feast. The feast you should never leave, and that is yours to enjoy forever. You are never behind if you are eating today.

Others think you have not taken a bite unless you understand everything about it. As though the word of God is only powerful when we have weighed and measured it, attempted to label all the ingredients, taken voluminous notes, and gone to several lectures about it. We don’t approach this meal that way. There is a time for food science, but it is not at the dinner party. This is our time to simply eat.

Still others have been persuaded that the only way to eat is first thing in the morning in silence. They will not eat unless conditions are perfect, and conditions in this life are rarely perfect. But we always need to eat. We need to learn to take bites with crazy background noise, a squirming baby on our lap, and raucous laughter at the table.

Learn to Eat

It isn’t complicated, but it can be hard. We all face resistance from three directions. The world distracts, the flesh is weak, and the devil accuses. “Do anything but eat!” says the world. “Do something easier! Try Netflix!” says the flesh. “You aren’t good enough anyways and will never succeed! Just remember last time you tried,” says the devil.

Your answer to all three should simply be, “Watch me eat.” We are a scrappy group. We listen on our phones, jump in on the current day’s reading when we get behind, read while standing at the stove making dinner or while nursing babies. We encourage one another to confess sin but despise lingering guilt. When we don’t understand what we read, we do not worry about it — we will be back soon.

The Bible Reading Challenge is a movement of thousands of hungry women enjoying God’s word together. The challenge begins tomorrow, September 11, and runs through the school year. If you are ready to eat, you can learn more information or download the reading plan.

What we are becoming through the grace of God is an enormous party. Women laughing together, eating together, rejoicing in our God together. Cheering when our favorite courses come in again, and rejoicing with one another as we see the results of this perfect food in our lives. This past year we celebrated with many women as they read their whole Bible for the first time, some of them thirty or forty years into their Christian walk. It was time to learn to eat.

Is it your time to learn? Whatever strategy or plan you choose, find a couple women and decide together that you will refuse not to read the Bible this year.

Originally written by wife and mom of seven, Rachel Jankovic, for Desiring God. Used with permission.

Three Secrets to Learning He is Enough

Dear Mom:

He who promised is faithful. You can’t even imagine how many times over the past thirty-five years of walking with the Lord that I refused to believe those words. Instead I chose to believe a lie and it was a simple one: If I was ‘good’ then the Lord was obligated to give me my heart's desire.

I figured it worked with child-rearing and since He was my Father it only made sense that if I behaved and followed all the rules He’d give me what I wanted. Amiright???

And all I wanted was another baby. A good thing, right? We were given one beautiful daughter two and a half years earlier but then I suffered an ectopic pregnancy which caused a miscarriage and one blown out fallopian tube and the other one damaged beyond repair. All the fertility experts were telling me and my husband we were done, no more babies were happening for us unless we adopted. And our attempts at adoption fell through. Three times.

Three freaking times!!!

I thought God was obligated to His word and, darn it, He owed me another baby. I do good, He has to bless, isn’t that how this thing works?

Not so much. I wrongly believed God was obligated to me. To me!! Can you even imagine? But in my immaturity, (I didn’t come to know the Lord until I was twenty-nine) He taught me some huge life lessons.

I learned the hard way that His ways are not my ways and I learned that, “Sometimes it’s necessary to go a long distance out of the way in order to come back a short distance correctly.“ From The Zoo Story by Edward Albee. During those hard, hard years He helped me come around to three realizations, three truths that helped me learn He is enough:

1- He isn’t interested in my happiness as much as my highest good. He knows me far better than I know myself and He alone knows my future. No one knows exactly what I need more than the God who created me and my job is to trust Him even when it doesn’t make sense. It’s the hardest part of maturing in Christ but oh-so-necessary if we’re ever really going to
be able to trust Him.

Anything in life I think can satisfy more than Him simply won't. He will have nothing less than my whole heart, full of Him and empty of all else including every worthless idol rattling around I feel compelled to bow down to.

Sweet friend, nothing you desire, not the baby, not the relationship, not the job, the raise, the husband, the influence or recognition, none of it compares to one real moment in God's presence. As John Piper famously says, "God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him."

And God is most satisfied when He can look into our hearts and see His own face reflected there because our hearts are so full of Him.

2- God wants us to want Him for who He is not for what He gives. This one took me forever to learn! He is so much more than anything this world could offer. I wanted another baby way more than I wanted Him because I couldn't see God's why. All I could see was the huge hole in my heart, the empty place He couldn't fill. The hurt and the hollow, the bleeding need.

It took some years before I was able to understand God’s why. He had very make-sense reasons for my husband and me to raise an only child. When I look at our daughter’s life now, I get it and it makes complete sense, but it made no sense at the time. The perspective of years makes a huge difference!

3- His greatest mercy is sometimes wrapped in His deepest test. Oh it was hard to learn His mercy is so much bigger than our happiness. But know this: God is faithful. He promises and He follows through.

Every. Single. Time.

It may not look the way we think it should but we aren’t the ones who get to pick. He chooses our future and our job is to ‘hold fast our confession of hope without wavering...’

Are you believing God for something you desperately want or need? What is He teaching you right now? Do you intensely want to avoid the lesson?

I know, I totally get it. But mama, the best thing you will ever have is Him. Whatever good thing you want, no matter how good it seems right now, can't ever compare because good is always the enemy of the best. He's so much more than you think. Let Him peel back the layers and get to your heart. It's part of the maturing process. I know it’s hard. I know, but don’t give up.

As you allow Him access to your heart and submit to His painful lessons steeped in His great love for you, you will gain intimacy with Him. As He takes you through and you find He comes through, you’ll gain firsthand knowledge of His faithfulness, you'll hear His heartbeat and He will send you out to bring comfort, healing and hope to other bleeding souls.

And you’ll find, just like I did years ago that He is Enough.

"Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful." Hebrews 10:23

Written by Kate Battistelli, author of Growing Great Kids-Partner with God to Cultivate His Purpose in Your Child’s Life, published by Charisma House. Her newest book, The God Dare, published by Barbour Books, will release in 2019. She’s mom to GRAMMY award-winning artist Francesca Battistelli and Mimi to Francesca's 4 children. She’s been married to her best friend Mike for 35 years and lives just outside of Nashville. Kate loves to cook and blogs about food and faith at www.KateBattistelli.com. You can follow her on Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, and Facebook.