Sunday, August 30, 2015

Where is God? Sunday Glimpses

by Nan Jones   @NanJonesAuthor


Blessed be the Name of the Lord! You are my Rock, my Strong Tower, my Safe Place in the storm. Thank You Lord for Your faithfulness, for Your steadfast love.

That's it, isn't it Lord? Your love is steadfast, never changing. I can depend upon Your tender and compassionate love that wants me whole again, that wants me to be filled with laughter again. I want that too, Lord and I know with You all things are possible. I yield to Your Holy Spirit as You shape me and mold me in the Refiner's Fire. Burn away the dross - the impurities, those things that are not pleasing to You. I want to be holy and acceptable to You O God, for You are my King. I love You Lord.

Father, hold my friends close. Allow them to experience the depth of Your love. Open the eyes of their understanding that nothing - no thing - can separate them from Your love, for it is beyond comprehension. Your love is everlasting. 

Help them understand that when we feel as though You have abandoned us, that is when You are the closest because You are drawn to our pain. Help each of us remember in those times when we are too weak and overwhelmed to pray, we only need to speak the Name of Jesus and You are there in all Your fullness. You are there to take away the hurt and the pain. You are there to soothe the restless heart, to fill Your child with hope and peace. Thank You Lord. 

May we never take You for granted and put You in a lovely box on the shelf. You are too magnificent to contain. You are the Great God, Lord of heaven and earth and we belong to You! We love You Lord and we praise You. Blessed be the Name of the Lord.

A Tweetable to Encourage Others

Where is God when the storm rages? @NanJonesAuthor offers a glimpse. (click to tweet)

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Please don't carry your burdens alone. I would love to pray for you. You may contact me directly at nan@jubilantlight.com

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If you'd like to enter the Goodreads Giveaway for a signed copy of The Perils of a Pastor's Wife, please click here.

~#~


 

Thursday, August 27, 2015

Finding God's Presence ~ Are You Stuck in the Wrong Story?

by Nan Jones   @NanJonesAuthor

Guest Blogger: Lori Roeleveld   @lorisroeleveld


I have the joy of introducing fellow Lighthouse of the Carolinas author,  Lori Roeleveld. I love how she thinks and I love how, through her writing, she wiggles in and out of our comfortable places and challenges us to think. In fact, this is her byline: a disturber of hobbits who enjoys making comfortable Christians late for dinner. Don't you love it? If only we could all step out of our comfort zones and embrace all of God's magnificence. Lori and I are praying that the words of her heart will touch you deeply and draw you closer to the One who loves you.

Welcome Lori!

Cinderella knew the truth. She was intended for greater things than sweeping ashes from the hearth.

Are you sometimes haunted by the notion that you were meant for more? You should examine that idea. It may be from God.

My daughter got me interested in a Sunday night television show called Once Upon a Time. It’s the story of a town inhabited by storybook characters trying to find their way back into the world in which they really belong.

But really, it’s the gospel.

That’s probably not what the writers intended, but Jesus, in an effort to reach His people, will even inject Himself into the primetime lineup of network television.

In the first season, Once Upon a Time was all about the characters awakening and remembering that they were once part of a glorious land. It features one child who still believes in their story and is willing to take drastic measures to remind everyone else of their former glory. Because of him, they are awake. Now, they remember they’re not just librarians or shopkeepers or waitresses, but they have “once upon a time” bloodlines with ancient stories full of magic and adventure.

Even though they’re awake, they are not yet back home in The Enchanted Forest. They remain trapped in a foreign place hostile to their former way of life. Dark forces oppose them. An enemy works against their return, trying to keep them in bondage to their everyday, ordinary, lesser selves—to rob them of their redemption.

It’s the gospel, don’t you see? Can you acknowledge the playfulness of our amazing Creator as He inserts His homecoming beacon into our modern culture and cries out for us to remember who we were designed to be?

Doesn’t your heart cry out after a long Monday, or in the face of another Tuesday, to be part of a greater story? Isn’t there within you a longing for a home you don’t remember ever knowing? Don’t you sometimes feel trapped in a minor role when all your dreams and passions create a force that threatens to destroy you if you don’t find the role you were born to play?

Jesus created everything. His story is in His Word, yes, but He roams, unconfined, across genres. He appears in the music we write, the movies we make, the art we create, and the stories we tell.

He is calling to us—calling to us from every medium—to remember who we are.

For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness. So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober. For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, are drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. (1 Thessalonians 5:5-8)

Feel stuck inside a lesser role than you were intended to play? Wake up. Like Sleeping Beauty, you need the kiss of true love. There is a High King and He will free you if you come to Him. There is a rider on a White Horse coming. Can you hear His hoofbeats?

Wake up, loved ones! You have a part in the greater story. Everything your heart whispers to you in the night is true. There is more, and you were meant to be part of it.

Once upon a time, there was a King who shed His blood to ransom His people back from the grave. It is the greatest and truest story ever told.

And it is the place where you belong.

A Tweetable to Encourage Others

Where is God when I want my life to mean more? Guest @lorisroeleveld offers a glimpse. (click to tweet) 


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Meet Lori: 

Lori Stanley Roeleveld is a disturber of hobbits who enjoys making comfortable Christians late for dinner. She’s authored an unsettling blog since 2009; a pursuit that eventually resulted in her first book, Running from a Crazy Man (and other adventures traveling with Jesus). Though she has degrees in Psychology and Biblical Studies, Lori learned the most important things from studying her Bible in life’s trenches. You’ll find her at her website www.loriroeleveld.com. If not, know she’s off somewhere slaying dragons. Not available for children’s parties.

Running from a Crazy Man 
(and other adventures traveling with Jesus)

My title, Running from a Crazy Man (and other adventures traveling with Jesus), comes from the story of King David. David knew God had anointed him king and had every reason to believe his path would lead straight to the throne. It must have created incredible confusion for David to find himself spending part of his life running from King Saul but we know God was present and active in David’s life even then.

In the seventies, the message communicated about Jesus was that He would make our lives better. That’s true but it doesn’t always look or feel the way we expect. Many of us begin our life with Christ with expectant hope, but not all of those hopes are realistic. When our lives detour down roads called disaster, disease, depression, or personal devastation, we’re tempted to pull off to the side of the narrow road and wonder what happened. I wrote Running from a Crazy Man for those moments in every believer’s life when following Jesus doesn’t make sense, to encourage us all to remain in the adventure.
 

Running from a Crazy Man is available for purchase on Amazon.