by Stacey | May 31, 2018 | Devotionals, reflections, and encouragement
We’ve all heard the popular saying, “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.” It is a caution against risking everything on one plan or one endeavor. It’s an encouragement to diversify and learn many skills. In many ways, this is good advice, but when it comes to eternity, our faith, and our hope for the future all those eggs belong in one basket: Jesus Christ.
The church is in a crisis much like the church in Galatia when false teachers added back old rules and restrictions to salvation. They were trying the blend an old system of belief with the new system of belief. In Galatia, false teachers were telling the believers they needed Jesus PLUS circumcision.
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Acts 4:12, “Salvation is found in no other, there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”
John 14:6, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father except through me.”
Ephesians 4:21-24, “assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.”
Jesus PLUS a checklist?
I spent some of my early ministry years trying to justify myself before God by following extra rules. They were weighty and exhausting and I was unable to keep them. I tried to do everything perfectly, trying to earn the favor of demanding people as if pleasing them was congruent to pleasing God. Here is a sample of the checklist I tried to follow to earn God’s favor:
- Sing loud enough for people on the other side of the church to hear.
- Teach in Sunday school
- Play the piano
- Lead women’s craft nights
- Be a best friend to anyone who desired it
- Become a counselor
- Be a great problem solver
Believers in Jesus already have God’s favor
Your hope for the future is not connected to your ability to lead a craft night or deliver a meal. Just like the hope for the people in Galatia was not in circumcision. Your hope is in one thing: Jesus resurrected. When God looks at those who have trusted in Christ, he sees Christ, who is the perfect image-bearer of God.
When you believe in Christ, He covers your sin with his holiness, and God sees you as holy. For God’s chosen ones, those cleansed and made pure by the blood of Christ, our present identity in Christ is holy. Col 3:12, “Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved…” 1 Pet 2:9, “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation…” We are holy, not because we have earned it or completed a checklist, we are holy because those adopted into the family of God are made holy by Christ.
Put your eggs in that basket.
by Stacey | May 10, 2018 | Devotionals, reflections, and encouragement
You probably saw it somewhere on social media today, another loaf of homemade bread. It was perfectly golden and swollen to impossible heights of fluffy goodness. Scrolling down the website page makes you feel worse. Picture after picture of perfect living spaces with bare counters and fresh flowers are arranged in spring colored palettes. Recipe after recipe boasts images that would make Martha Stewart salivate.
Most of the days I’m trolling social media, I’m looking for recipes tagged easy and quick with five ingredients or less. I need directions I can follow while navigating the minefield of Lego covering our not-so-bare counters and floors. All those stylish outfits and home staging images on Pinterest make my closet and house look like a second-hand store after a 50% off sale.
Combat being overwhelmed by being overwhelmed.
Consider something like fear. I fear lots of things, especially when it comes to putting myself out into the world through teaching, speaking, or writing books. Most of those fears can be listed under the subheading of fear of man.
I don’t fight against the fear of man by inflating my self-esteem or by convincing myself that I am all that and a bag of chips. (Great, now I want chips…) I fight fear with fear. The only way to defeat a sinful fear of man is by cultivating a right and healthy fear of God. Only then, will God’s opinion of me matter more than man’s opinion. Yes, there is space to correct poor biblical thinking regarding who I am in Christ, but ultimately fighting a fear of man is not about feeling better about myself. It’s about knowing who God is, what God has said about me, and believing His word to be true.
Be overwhelmed by the right things
Fighting against feeling overwhelmed is quite similar. I don’t fight being overwhelmed by throwing everything “extra” into the trash, although there may be space for that kind of application in my life. Ultimately, I combat the feeling of being overwhelmed with life by cultivating a heart that is overwhelmed with God. When I know who God is, what He has done for me, and what He has promised me for the future, pleasing Him captivates my heart. Suddenly, I want to pursue Him, obey Him, and walk in submission to Him. I want it more than I want to post a social media snapshot of my so-called perfect life. I am always overwhelmed when the pursuit of image or status overcomes my pursuit of God.
Keep the first things first
When my heart is fixated on the many blessings already received from God, on following His direction rather than the direction in which culture points me, listening to His voice rather than the voice of doubt, the other things fade away.
So bake bread from scratch, if you want to bake bread. Decorate with a minimalist flair, or layer nick nacks and pictures and doilies and lace. Stay caught up on your laundry with daily loads, or work through the wash one day a week. Find the rhythm that works for you in regards to how you manage your responsibilities, but even more important than that, find God.
If I keep the first things first, the rest tends to sort itself out. The most important decision I make every single day is the decision to enter into the presence of God, to seek Him first, to understand His call on my life, and to respond to Him in obedience.
And sometimes, after that, I bake bread. But most days, I do the laundry.
The most important decision I make every single day is the decision to enter into the presence of God.
by Stacey | Apr 26, 2018 | Devotionals, reflections, and encouragement
Lie #1: Marriage is about my happiness.
My husband delights me. He really is my best friend, and we have a happy, happy life. But if my joy in life rests entirely with him, I am setting myself up for disappointment and setting him up for failure. Marriage takes compromise and compromise is not always pleasant. Marriage requires forgiveness, and forgiveness is hard. Marriage is about working together with the end goal of a union that brings God great glory. So marriage isn’t about my happiness, although it may bring me much. Marriage is about God. It is, in part, about making me more like Christ. It is a sanctifying journey that requires me to love someone like Christ loves me, with endless grace and patience.
Lie #2: I have to feel love to show love.
We have been married for 20 years. My love for my husband has grown and changed over those years. Our marriage could not sustain those electrifying moments of courtship for two decades. No marriage can.
But, my ability to love my husband does not hinge on those feelings remaining or on him reciprocating my gestures of love. It is entirely up to me whether I will act lovingly toward him. The decision to love, even if he is unlovable, glorifies God and sustains a marriage. And his decision to love me, when I am unlovable, glorifies God. When I serve my spouse instead of complaining about him, when I acknowledge and praise the things he is doing to provide for our family, when I pray for him and with him, when I work on becoming the woman God has called me to be, I am showing the world that love is a choice. I choose to never give up on my marriage because Christ never gave up on me.
And if I’m honest, I’m glad we didn’t stay in that crazy, tingling, wonderful dating phase. Our relationship has evolved into something much deeper and far more real than it was when we promised forever. The transition from infatuation to intentional and committed love can be hard for some couples, but marriage is worth fighting for.
Lie #3: My spouse should meet all my needs.
No person will ever meet all your needs perfectly, only Jesus Christ can do that. At some point, my spouse will fail or disappoint me. At some point, I will fail or disappoint him. And when we hurt each other in our brokenness, we can find rest in the One who will never fail to love and understand us exactly as we require. I must find my identity and worth in my Saviour.
Just as no one can eat your food for you, or accept the truth of the gospel on your behalf, no one can love your spouse for you. You are in charge of that decision. Will you decide today to love the partner that you promised forever?
*none of this implies a spouse in an abusive relationship should remain in a dangerous situation. If your partner is harming or threatening you, it is imperative that you find a safe place and seek biblical counseling.
**from the archives
by Stacey | Apr 12, 2018 | Devotionals, reflections, and encouragement
For the one buckling under bad news, for the one who tugs her sleeves over the track marks of her past, for all of us limping barefoot down the broken and narrow road, this post is for you. This post is for me.
God invites the wretched to come. He takes all that is true in the enemy’s taunts and places it upon Jesus. In the greatest exchange known to mankind, He takes our sin and gives us Christ. We can’t earn it, we don’t deserve it, but He does it anyway. He is for you. His plans are good, even when this busted world makes the opposite seem true. His Word promises that beauty will rise from the ashes of disappointment and heartache.
The Gospel for Every Day
The gospel truth is life-changing not only in that first moment of salvation, but in every moment that follows. The gospel truth matters today because we need God today just as much as we needed Him yesterday and just as much as we will need Him tomorrow. The gospel is good news for the guilty, good news in the mundane, and good news for the shamed. It is good news for every day.
The gospel truth declares us clean, holy, righteous, and able to stand before the Lord because Jesus makes it possible. We can approach His throne with confidence knowing He hears our prayers, has gone before us and walks beside us even now.
Enough
He is good even when life is not. And when the shame of sin, the weight of guilt, the hugeness of needs overwhelm, God remind us that he is enough. He is more than able to cover sin, remove shame and meet every need perfectly. We praise the Lord. In all the earth there is none like Him.
The end of the story
When you don’t know how this trial ends remember how this story ends. God is victorious. Nothing can steal victory from Him and from all who believe in Him. If you belong to Him, you are cupped in the palm of his hand and no one can steal you away. Thank you, Lord!
*from the archives
by Stacey | Apr 6, 2018 | For Writers
Today, author Katie Clark visits to give some writing advice and tell us about her new novel, The Rejected Princess.
Katie: Writing—or writing well—usually takes time, just like growing a garden. As an early writer, I participated in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). I pounded out a complete novel in 30 days! I thought it was perfect, but a few honest critique partners quickly let me know that is wasn’t. Frustration set in and I just didn’t understand why my story wasn’t any good.
After three years of learning, rewriting, and learning some more, I finally realized my issue was editing. There had been no plot revisions, no cutting or adding, no polishing my sentences or rearranging scenes to make everything flow more smoothly. I had cut out the editing stage completely.
Okay, so how does all of this relate to growing a garden? Let me tell you!
One of the first things you do when planting a garden is taking a seed and putting it into the ground. You find the right spot, prepare the dirt, lovingly place your seed inside, then cover it with soil. Writing your first draft is like planting a seed. You pick the right setting, do a little pre-plotting to figure out what your story is about, then put words to paper.
Now, this is where I made my mistake. I felt that once the seed went into the ground, I was finished! But we all know putting a seed into the ground isn’t the end of growing a garden. There is watering, weeding, and pruning to be done. This is when the real work begins! In the writing world, we call it editing.
It took several manuscripts before I got into my editing groove, but now I’ve streamlined my process to a place of comfort. Editing is my favorite part—the part where I can prune my plants into masterpieces (ahem, masterpieces might be a stretch, but we’ll go with that)!
Drafting
I don’t edit as I draft, but I do often realize I’m on the wrong track with something, and so I make myself notes in the manuscript as I go.
Big Plot Problems
Once I’ve finished the entire draft, my next step is to go through these notes and make all the necessary changes. This might include plot holes I’ve noticed or places where I can tie certain subplots together. When this is complete, I read through the entire manuscript again to check for other big changes that need to be made, and I make them.
Pruning and Shaping
After I get the plot worked out, I do another complete read-through. This is usually the stage where I do a lot of pruning—cutting, shaping, and filling out. I check to make sure scenes or paragraphs are in the best possible order. Sometimes I realize that what makes sense to me won’t necessarily make sense to others, so I need to rearrange my descriptions and actions.
Voice
My last step is to read through the manuscript for voice. I want to make sure I’ve used the words my characters would use. In one manuscript, my main character was a baker. I went through the manuscript and changed a few expressions to reflect this. For instance, instead of saying Kayla was going to have a nervous breakdown, I wrote that Kayla was about to invade the baker’s chocolate. I love raking through my manuscript, looking for little changes like this that can bring the story to life!
Unlike a garden, unfortunately, there is no Miracle-Gro for your manuscript. Editing takes time and hard work, but in the end, you will have yummy fruits and veggies to share. And the best part? People will be glad you shared—unlike if you tried to saddle them with a first draft, because really, who wants to eat a seed?
KATIE CLARK started reading fantastical stories in grade school and her love for books never died. Today she reads in all genres; her only requirement is an awesome story! She writes inspirational romance for adults as well as young adult speculative fiction, including her YA supernatural novel, Shadowed Eden, and The Enslaved Series. You can connect with her at her website, on Facebook, or on Twitter.
Katie’s Book:
When Princess Roanna Hamilton’s parents arrange a marriage with a prince of Dawson’s Edge—the mysterious and backward kingdom to the south—Roanna reluctantly agrees, accepting that peace must be put ahead of her lifelong relationship with Prince Benjamin of Lox.
But when Roanna is introduced to Dawson’s royal family, strange mind-bending anomalies are awakened within her, and she discovers the Dawsonian royal family holds secrets of their own.
Roanna becomes locked in a battle between kingdoms. Rebels wish to eliminate people who possess powerful anomalies. With threats growing daily, Roanna comes to realize the danger she is in—not to mention how her own family, and Benjamin’s, would react if her anomaly was revealed.
Tensions rise when Lox is attacked. If Roanna is to save herself and her future, she must stall her marriage and squelch the growing rebellion—all while discovering how deeply her power runs. But will Prince Benjamin and her family accept her when the truth of her heritage is finally revealed?
You can buy The Rejected Princess on Amazon
KATIE CLARK started reading fantastical stories in grade school and her love for books never died. Today she reads in all genres; her only requirement is an awesome story! She writes inspirational romance for adults as well as young adult speculative fiction, including her YA supernatural novel, Shadowed Eden, and The Enslaved Series. You can connect with her at her 
When Princess Roanna Hamilton’s parents arrange a marriage with a prince of Dawson’s Edge—the mysterious and backward kingdom to the south—Roanna reluctantly agrees, accepting that peace must be put ahead of her lifelong relationship with Prince Benjamin of Lox.