Devotions for Moms » Brokenness

Faith

CSAHM — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 04:37:54 +0000

Behold, as for the proud one, His soul is not right within him; But the righteous will live by his faith. Habakkuk 2:4

What does it take to walk by faith? This is a question I have been pondering for a couple of months now and with the New Year here I feel God strongly impressing on my heart that the word FAITH is my word for this year.

Last year my word was healing, and 2011 definitely brought healing in every area of my life. It seems a bit strange to go from healing to faith because in my mind it takes faith to bring healing. However seeing God’s faithfulness in bringing healing to my life will definitely be fresh in my mind as I learn to walk in faith this year.

Part of me is afraid. The fear that comes with walking in faith is there because of the unknown. Faith means I won’t have all the answers, and right now I would LOVE some answers. Or maybe I will think I have the answers only to have everything fall out of place again only to leave me with more questions than answers.

Faith means trusting God when you can’t see past two feet in front of you. It means walking down a winding road in the fog with confidence and boldness only because you KNOW that you’re here because that’s where God has brought you.

Walking in faith is not easy for me, especially since I am pretty comfortable worrying and being afraid of everything. I like to have control and I like to plan and set goals. But lately my plans and goals seem to be falling through the cracks and all I’m left with is my faith in God and His promises – which really seems to be enough.

So in 2012 I plan to walk by faith so I can also walk in His grace.

Faith brings us grace because when we walk by faith we find our self in a vulnerable place where we let go of control and surrender to Him. We can’t walk by faith if we have a heart of pride. Faith brings us to a place of humility because we finally find our strength in Him instead of what we can accomplish on our own.

Faith is enough. God is enough. His promises are enough, and He always keeps His promises.

Prayer:

Dear Heavenly Father,
Thank you for another hour, day, week, year. It is a wonderful blessing to be alive and well. Thank you for your provision and healing. So much has happened last year, and I look back on it with gratitude in my heart. Right now it’s difficult to find that gratitude, joy, and confidence simply because things aren’t going the way I had planned, and I have no clue where things are going really. I am grateful for the rainbows You send me, they remind me that You always keep Your promises. I think I can walk down the path You lead me with confidence and boldness this year if I can get a little glimpse of Your promises and a rainbow every once in awhile. Lord, even though it’s not easy to walk by faith, I also know it is a blessing because it keeps me focused on YOU and YOUR strength and provision in my life. And for that I am grateful. I pray this in your might son Jesus’ name. – AMEN!

Today I am linking up with “What is Your Word for 2012?“

Download TODAY! ==> Faith - A Four Week Mini Bible Study

Motivation

CSAHM — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 22:22:47 +0000

I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Ephesians 4:1-3

Often our heart and motivation to do something can be wrong.

A lot of times we can be motivated by our fear and desires, rather than our motivation to serve others and God. When we are motivated by our fear or our desires to do something the result often leads to control, anger, and frustration. We may even lose the trust of those around us. But what else can we expect when we ourselves do not trust in god?

Being a wife and mother takes a lot of faith. So often we feel the call to be perfect, but God never asked us to be perfect. In Ephesians 4:2 it tells us that in order to have the right motivation when it comes to answering our call we need to keep a humble heart. In other words it’s OK you’re not perfect, that’s the whole point!

Recently I have been noticing where I am weak. Often I like cling to my successes and forget my failures. But now I see where I fail God succeeds. If we are ever going to live a life where we are being led by the Holy Spirit we need to embrace the truth, and the truth is we are weak. However the good news is that when we are weak we are also humble, and the Holy Spirit is able to work in our lives. Then we are motivated to live a life that is pleasing to the Lord.

Sometimes our motivation isn’t always right, but humility comes when we are able to confess that our motivation is wrong. Humility doesn’t try to make things better or perfect, humility surrenders their weaknesses to God. Humility opens our heart to be motivated every day by the Holy Spirit…

Prayer:

Dear God, Thank you for bringing me to a place where I can recognize my weaknesses and surrender them to you. Even though I know bringing me to this point is never easy. Lord I will continue to seek You so that truth will always be revealed to me. Sometimes all I have is my love for You that brings me to the point of seeking Your truth, and I am thankful for You always being by my side, teaching me, and guiding me. Lord be my strength where I am weak. I pray this in Jesus’ name. – AMEN!

Download TODAY! ==> Faith - A Four Week Mini Bible Study

When You Feel Like A Failure

toshowthemjesus — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 19:42:08 +0000

“And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Christ Jesus.” Philippians 1:6 (ESV)

“And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.” Galatians 6:9 (ESV)

A brain fuzzy from lack of sleep, I try to handle a sibling conflict. Impatient, I speak harshly. I enforce unnecessary consequences. Later, I realize I had made matters worse. I wasn’t Christ-like in my interactions with my children. Instead of pointing them toward Christ, my behavior turned them away.

Some days, my failures as a mother point an accusing finger straight at my soul. It tells me I am no good and a failure as a Christ-follower.

Do you have days where you feel like you’ve failed in your walk with Christ?

Scripture challenges those lies that I am a failure. Instead, it tells me that while I was yet a sinner, Christ died for me. (Romans 5:8) When I stumble in my walk, I remind myself that he bore those very sins on the cross. His grace covers me each time I fall.

Not only that, the Bible tells me that the path to holiness has already been paved. The righteous life Jesus lived is given to me. I just need to walk in it. He will complete the good work he started. Christ paid a high price for me, He will not allow me to fail.

I rest in that promise and it strengthens me.

On those days where I stumble in my flesh, He pulls me back up so that I may stand on the road of grace. And I remember anew the Love that died for me. It was His grace that paid for me, His grace that gives me His righteousness and His grace that helps me to continue my walk with Him.

Do you sense His grace today?

For further reading: Hebrews 4:16, 2 Peter 1:2, Romans 5:10

Download TODAY! ==> Faith - A Four Week Mini Bible Study

New Life, Dirty Clothes

CSAHM — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 22:24:22 +0000

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. 2 Corinthians 5:17

As a mom most of my daily, or weekly, chores includes laundry. Laundry in a family of five is never ending, there is always laundry that needs to be washed, folded, and put away. I spend a lot of time washing clothes because I want to make sure my kid’s have nice clean clothes to wear. I go out and spend money on new clothes because I want my children to have clothes that fit them, and again I want them to have nice clothes to wear.

I try not to complain about doing laundry, even though it really is never ending. I try not to complain because having a lot of laundry is truly a “side effect” to the many blessings we have in this house. Lots of laundry means I have a family, we have clothes, and I have a washer and dryer to clean them in. It’s hard to complain about laundry when you look at it from the perspective that a lot of clothes equal many blessings.

However with all of the many blessings, there is one thing that irks me when it comes to laundry. The one thing that upsets me the most about doing laundry is when my children put clean clothes in the dirty clothes hamper. They have a couple of reasons for doing this:

1.) They put clean clothes in the dirty hamper because they don’t feel like folding and putting away their clean laundry.

2.) They don’t “like” the item of clothing so they just keep throwing it in the dirty clothes hamper.

This is a huge problem with me when they do this. Whenever it does happen I get upset. I wonder WHY buy them new clothes and put myself through the struggle of separating, pre-treating, washing, and drying their clothes so they can have clean clothes to wear, if they are just going to put on the same clothes again and again?

I know that God doesn’t doubt His sacrifice of His only Son when I put on my old dirty clothes. You see just like my kids, when they don’t feel like taking care of their new, clean clothes, we sometimes treat the new person we are in Christ the same way.

We have been clothed with glory by the King of Kings when we become believers, but too many of us are living our new life in dirty old clothes. Too often we cling to the lies that were told to us long before we became believers instead of living a life glorifying God.

I will rejoice greatly in the LORD, My soul will exult in my God; For He has clothed me with garments of salvation, He has wrapped me with a robe of righteousness, As a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, And as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. Isaiah 61:10

Why as believer’s are we always taking off our robe of righteousness in order to wear the dirty old clothes? Why are we instead throwing our garments of salvation into the dirty clothes hamper?

One day I will learn to walk this earth wearing my robe of righteousness proudly all the while sharing the glory of God with everyone around me. I think for a lot of us we get comfortable in our old clothes. Everyone has that old t-shirt or sweatshirt that is soft against your skin. It may have holes in it, but it sure in comfortable.

Comfort and safety is what we seek when we wear our old dirty clothes. But the truth is comfort, safety, and the peace we seek only comes from the One who has blessed us with His grace and mercy. If we want REAL peace then we need to learn to wrap ourself with the robe of righteousness every single day, even if it is just a robe that hides who we truly are underneath. Only in Christ can we walk around this earth as royalty and a servant leader.

Prayer:

Dear Father God, Thank you for this beautiful day. God I am tired of wearing old dirty clothes. God, I am tired. Every day instead of putting on my robe of righteousness I put on my old dirty clothes. But not now. From now on I will wake up and put on my beautiful golden robe of righteousness, the gift you gave me through the sacrifice of your Son Jesus. I will walk this earth, imperfections and all, with confidence because I know that wherever I am weak Your grace will cover me. When there is less of me, those around me see more of YOU! Lord cover me in your grace. Today and tomorrow, and the next day, I will walk through doors and open my heart up to the life you have set for me. It won’t be easy, but I know you are right there with me. I pray this in Jesus’ name. – Amen

Download TODAY! ==> Faith - A Four Week Mini Bible Study

Breaking Pride

CSAHM — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 14:26:49 +0000

To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. 2 Corinthians 12:7-10

For the longest time I often wondered what the point of God showing me my own personal brokenness. I knew I was broken and I didn’t know why God had to show me this over and over again. I was trying to get past my brokenness…you know, move on from it. I didn’t want to stay in my brokenness, I was always searching out victory! Why victory? SO that I could one day say that I’ve overcome my brokenness…

Often God breaks us for many reasons, but lately I have come to the realization that our brokenness is there to accomplish one thing, to break our pride. Pride runs deep within our souls, and it takes a lot to break us from it’s grip on our soul.

When our brokenness is revealed to us we go to God and ask Him to remove these things from us. “God make me more patient with my kids.” “God take this anger away from me.” “God take this desire away from me…”

But everyday we are reminded of the things that makes us weak. Through this our pride is broken and we are taken to a place of humility. To often we get caught up in what, or who, we should be and we work to portray that to the world. We put on our masks so that people see what we want them to see, and when our true self comes out we feel shame because we feel feel as if these weaknesses make us unworthy to be HIS. We fear our weaknesses will put people off, scare them away, or they won’t love us anymore.

Through our pride we feel the weight of the world on our shoulders and think that the WE are the only ones that can lead those around us to find Jesus. We hide our feelings, body, guilt, anger, and shame in hopes that some how we can prove ourselves holy to the world.

But you see only when our pride is broken are we truly made holy. When we embrace the truth about our self, including all the shameful brokenness, that is when we finally learn to accept God’s infinite grace which is what makes us Holy in His eyes.

It’s difficult to see that humility is truly the key to Holiness. When we admit our weaknesses and accept them, that is when God, the Holy Spirit, is given the opportunity to work in us. The Holy Spirit can’t thrive in a temple that is filled with pride. Humility is where the Holy Spirit begins to produce fruit in your life.

Humility is knowing you need God’s help. When we are constantly trying to “fix it” our self then we are embracing pride.

If you were stuck in a hole 6 feet deep with no rope, no way to get out, and there was a person standing at the top of the hole with a rope and a harness, would you ask that person for help? What if that person sent down the harness to you without you even asking, would you grab hold of it or would you try and climb out of the hole yourself?

We are all in a hole, and Jesus is the one with the rope. If we can’t admit our sin and brokenness, and if we can’t stop trying to fix our brokenness, we will never be able to truly experience life the way God intended.

It’s not our sin that is keeping us from having a relationship with God, it’s our pride…When we let go of our pride and open our eyes and heart to how truly broken we are, we are then forced to turn to God every single day. Our reliance on Him comes when we stop relying on our self….

Prayer:

Dear God, forgive me for being so prideful. Pride is truly a struggle for me, and I’m grateful that you had made this revelation to me. Thank you for breaking me so that I can truly experience YOU. I pray for your grace and mercy on my everyday because Lord I need it. I need You. Only in YOU can I find the strength I need to get through every single day. Only in YOU do I find the answers that I need. Lord help me to stay focused on YOU. I pray this in Jesus’ name. – Amen

Download TODAY! ==> Faith - A Four Week Mini Bible Study

The Sovereignty of God

CSAHM — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 18:43:53 +0000

“For He says to Moses, “I WILL HAVE MERCY ON WHOM I HAVE MERCY, AND I WILL HAVE COMPASSION ON WHOM I HAVE COMPASSION.” So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy. Romans 9:15-16 (NAS)

God’s glory is shown through our trials by simply reminding us that we are at His mercy. Sometimes we need to be broken in order to be fixed again.

A lot of times we simply do not understand “why” something is happening. However we must understand that God is the one in control, in the end it is all about HIM!

“Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements? Surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it?” Job 38:4-5 (NKJV)

To often we forget how powerful God is. We end up taking for granted the vast UNIVERSE He created! We forget that the air we breath and the life we live have all been ordained by Him. He gave us life, an earth to live on, and food to eat. He can certainly take it all away if He so pleased.

When will we stop and realize that God is GOD, and we are NOT? Trials are great reminders that we cannot do this on our own. We have what we have because God said have it. We lose what we lose because God said lose it.

Then Job answered the LORD and said: “I know that You can do everything, And that no purpose of Yours can be withheld from You. You asked, “Who is this who hides counsel without knowledge?’ Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, Things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. Listen, please, and let me speak; You said, “I will question you, and you shall answer Me.’ “I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, But now my eye sees You. Therefore I abhor myself, And repent in dust and ashes.” Job 42:1-6 (NKJV)

How many times do we judge God simply because we do not understand Him? How many people do we know that do not believe in God because they do not understand His ways? Is it really fair to judge God? Why do we feel righteous enough to question God?

God has a purpose and a plan for everyone in this world and He will do whatever it takes to fulfill that purpose. God knows pain, and He certainly knows trials. He is God, but He also loved us so much that He chose to sacrifice His only Son for our sins. His sacrifice is greater than any sacrifice we could ever make simply because God is in control of everything.

He is the creator of this world. It all belongs to Him. Everything will be used for the glory of God. In the end it’s all about God and HIS purpose for this life and for this world!

Prayer:

Father God forgive me for questioning your sovereignty. Forgive me for judging you simply because I did not understand. I pray for the ability to accept Your will in all circumstances. Lord have mercy on me. Have mercy on my heart and my soul. Sometimes Lord life is just too difficult, too painful. I often just don’t understand. Lord help me to trust You when I don’t understand. I am at the mercy of Your will and purpose for my life. I am here because You allowed me to live. Help me to never forget this. You are the Creator, I am the image. Help me to be Your image, Lord. Forgive me for not respecting Who You Truly are, and the power You have over my life. I pray this all in Your MIGHTY Son Jesus’ name – Amen!

Download TODAY! ==> Faith - A Four Week Mini Bible Study

Brokenness

CSAHM — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 16:17:48 +0000

Therefore thus says the LORD: “If you return, Then I will bring you back; You shall stand before Me; If you take out the precious from the vile, You shall be as My mouth. Let them return to you, But you must not return to them. And I will make you to this people a fortified bronze wall; And they will fight against you, But they shall not prevail against you; For I am with you to save you And deliver you,” says the LORD. “I will deliver you from the hand of the wicked, And I will redeem you from the grip of the terrible.” Jeremiah 15:19-21

What is brokenness?

Broken is little pieces of glass. It is a broken plate you put in the trash and then you go buy a new one. Items that get broken can either be fixed or replaced. But broken bones, or the broken body, can heal itself. Broken means never again the same. No matter what breaks, it will never be the same.

How does God break us?

God breaks us by allowing trials in our life.

Recently my 4 year old broke her arm by simply taking a walk. We were walking and she tripped and fell. This isn’t the first time she fell while walking. But for some reason this time she just fell on her arm wrong. I couldn’t do anything to protect her, it just happened. Then was when I realized that God is the One who is in control. Through my daughter’s broken arm I was broken.

God is in Control

Lately I have also been going through a moment in my life where it seems like everything is breaking. Everything that’s broken is not something I can control, it just happens.

That’s really how life is, isn’t it? Things just happen, sometimes it feels like there really is no reason for certain things to happen. But we need to remember that God is in control and know that there is a purpose and a reason for everything!

Why are we so controlling?

Often we try to deter any negative events in our life by trying to take over complete control in our life. When we try to control our life we are not surrendering to God’s will for our life.

Being controlling is like saying you trust yourself more than you trust God.

You can bring in the money.
You can protect your children.
You can guide your children spiritually.
You can keep you marriage together.
You can change your husband’s heart.
You can keep yourself healthy.
YOU. YOU. YOU. YOU.

What about GOD?

Can God provide for you and your family, financially? Sure He can. God can open doors, we have to do our part and work, but God can provide opportunities and so much more to help bring the money into your home.

Can God protect your children? Yes, He can! We can’t protect our children from everything that comes there way. We simply need to do our part and have faith that God will do His part. God can protect our children from things we can’t see.

Can God keep your marriage together? God invented marriage so I think He knows a thing or two about what it takes to be married. Let’s turn to God to help us be the wife He created us to be.

Can God change your husband’s heart? If God can change your heart, God can change any heart. Think about where you were before you knew God. Remember what He has done in your life to give you hope in what He can do in your husbands life.

Can God keep me healthy? Our health, our life, is 100% in God’s hands. We can’t change our destiny. God knows the date of our death. All we can do is our part; eat healthy, exercise, and get regular check ups. Outside of that God is the one in control, and we need to trust that if our health is threatened then God has a plan.

God always has a plan….

Once we are broken, and finally surrender our life over to God, we will never be the same…

Prayer:

Father God thank you for the opportunity to learn Your word. Forgive me for not trusting You and for not giving You the credit You deserve. Too often I forget You are in control. Lord help me to trust you more. Help me to know when I need to act, or when I need to trust You. Thank you Lord for the great blessings in my life. I pray to follow You, and Your will every day of my life. I pray this all in your might son Jesus’ name – Amen!

Download TODAY! ==> Faith - A Four Week Mini Bible Study