Today's post is reblogged from Elyse Fitzpatrick's Counseling blog


I woke up this morning troubled by yesterday’s failures. In fact, I spent most of the night last night, trying to drown out the voice of my inner slave driver who incessantly told me that I’m still the same and that I might as well give it up. More confessions: The truth is that I wasn’t primarily troubled this morning about my sin before God. Yes, of course, there was that, but I was mostly concerned about my reputation before others. The question, “Why did I say that?” led as it always does to, “I might as well give up.” It was this refrain that had repeated in my head all night long. “Nothing ever changes. Everything will always be the same. You’re no different now then you were decades ago…Just give up.”

    Of course, I knew that the ways that I had sinned by not loving my neighbor, by trying to impress others, was ultimately tied to the gospel but I was having trouble getting there. The first impulse of my heart was to “get my act together.” I determined what I needed to do to demonstrate that I really was going to be different today. Honestly, I wasn’t drawn to prayer and Bible reading. I felt agitated and was drawn to list making. But God in His kindness inclined my heart to start my day back where I needed to. In my reading through Romans, this was my portion for the day; this was how God spoke to me:

In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, "So shall your offspring be." He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah's womb. No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. That is why his faith was "counted to him as righteousness" (Rom 4:18-22 ESV). 

    God made a promise to Abraham that he would become the father of many nations, that his children would number as many as the stars in the heavens. The promise had been given twenty-five years before but still he had no children. He considered his own body and the barrenness of Sarah’s womb – their inability to fulfill their part of God’s promise should have crushed his faith. But Paul tells us that he “grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God.”

    I know that you’re familiar with this story and that you know that its ultimate fulfillment is in the promised Messiah. But this morning this story spoke to my heart in this way: I could look at the weakness and barrenness of my life. Those were, indeed, true realities. In response, I could get out my list, my sticky-notes, and devise ways of feeling better about myself. To switch back to our patriarch’s story, I could go visit Hagar. Or I could give glory to God knowing that even though I am still so very weak, so very barren of true love for my neighbor, God had already promised me that I would be fruitful and that my life would somehow count. How? Only through faith in the righteousness of another. It was in this process of rehearsing God’s promises to me, of giving Him glory for His wonderful mercy, grace and kindness, that my heart was changed and I walked out into faith again.

    Every morning…every moment of every day…I have a choice to make. I can trust in my heart’s default position: Work it out, work harder, prove I’m better, show that I do love my neighbor, engage with Hagar and my sticky-notes. Or, I can rest in His promise that even though I look at myself and realize that for me it’s been nearly forty years since I first believed the promise, the One who is able to speak into existence things that don’t exist, has declared that I am righteous now and that this faith is enough now. It must be enough or I can’t breathe. That was the choice for me today and it’s the choice we all face every day.

    Don’t get nervous. I’m not saying that now I’ll cavalierly spend my day being rude and popping bon-bons. No, this transformation means that I have faith to fight the war again – this time with a smile. I have the courage to get up again and seek to love my neighbor and love my Father because I know that for Him…it’s enough. My belief in His grace is enough for Him. May it be enough for me today, Lord.

Today's post is reblogged from The Purple Cellar a blog by Lydia Brownback.

Overwhelmed. That's the word that several of my friends have recently used to describe themselves. Their circumstances are different, but what they have in common is a torrent of difficulty in one form or another that doesn't seem to let up. Life is hard for them, just as life is hard for all of us to one degree or another. As difficulty piles upon difficulty, hard decisions that need to be made are left lying undone like last week's laundry. The Christian life seems like one joyless trial after another. Caught in this whirlwind, flight seems like an easy option.

Whether we choose to flee or stand our ground isn't a decision that we make in a moment. It's a product of the habits that we have cultivated before the moment of decision comes. It's the fruit of our theology applied to our circumstances, for good or for ill. Are we tempted to flee when the thermostat of trials is turned up? Perhaps our view of God is wrong, and we have given into the subtle error of believing that past perseverance earns us a rest from difficultly. We may have become so busy in "doing the Christian life" that we've traded the excellency of knowing Christ for a hectic Christian lifestyle.

David responded to the same temptation:

In the LORD I take refuge; how can you say to my soul, "Flee like a bird to your mountain, for behold, the wicked bend the bow; they have fitted their arrow to the string to shoot in the dark at the upright in heart; if the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?" The LORD is in his holy temple; the Lord's throne is in heaven; his eyes see, his eyelids test, the children of man. The LORD tests the righteous, but his soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence. Let him rain coals on the wicked; fire and sulfur and a scorching wind shall be the portion of their cup. For the LORD is righteous; he loves righteous deeds; the upright shall behold his face. -- Psalm 11, ESV

God's reign, wisdom, and sovereign rule never change. Circumstances never get the better of him, because everyone and everything are subject to his rule. Because God in unchanging and always faithful, we can run to him when the temptation is strong to run away and hide. He is there, he is available, he is good, and he is in control. Even when all of the foundations of our lives seem to have been ripped apart by the whirlwind, God is there, and he is ruling our lives with his sovereign love.

"For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed," says the LORD, who has compassion on you.

Isaiah 54:10

Hi there!  Since I am on this site everyday, updating the page, trying to make it look snazzy and putting up the guest blog's, I thought that I might write a little something.  Last night my husband and I went to a meeting at our church, where we heard more about the persecuted church.  I have to be honest, just a few years ago I was the one in the audience when speakers came to speak about the persecuted church that was thinking, "That is really sad, I'll pray for those people."  I never thought that I would ever be in a place where I could really be persecuted and suffer.  Now that we have found ourselves at SEBTS and in the 2+2 program with the IMB my mind is being blown daily with the reality of the suffering of Christians around the world.  You could definitely say that my heart has changed, and with that my prayers have changed for the churches around the world that are persecuted.

One of the main points that the speaker said that really hit me last night was that we don't necessarily need to pray that the suffering will go away for the persecuted churches in hostile areas, but we need to pray for perseverance for the Christians to continue to plant seeds.  At first thought, I hear this and I think, NO!, that doesn't make sense.  I need to pray for their suffering to go away.  However, the more I really think about what my prayer should be my mind goes to scripture.  In scripture we see over and over again that the Gospel spread through suffering.  Even throughout history the Gospel spread rampantly through the suffering of missionaries, their families and the natives of the land.

It is my hope that our prayers would be prayers of perseverance for the laborers to continue to plant seeds.

"...we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us." Romans 5:3-5

Laura works in the Women's Life Office at SEBTS.  Laura is married to Lee and they are expecting their first child in September.  Laura and Lee are from south Alabama, and are in the 2+2 program at SEBTS.  She is a member of the Summit Church and attends the North Raleigh Campus.