Bread of Life

I've recently been given the privilege of writing for our church's devotional! Here is my contribution on John 6: 

Read: John 6

Reflect:

I have a confession. I am a carbohydrate junkie. My go-to comfort foods are pasta and bread. There is nothing like a slice of fresh baked bread slathered with butter, or ribbon noodles tossed in a velvety, creamy sauce. It can be so satisfying to mop up that leftover sauce with a nice hunk of crusty bread. But as satisfying as that is in the moment, the flavors fade. Very quickly after that last bite, I start to get hungry again. My favorite comfort food are not ultimately satisfying. Nothing on this earth is. The good news is that Jesus is.

John 6:35, Jesus tells the group that has been following him that He is the Bread of Life. He says, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst”. We are constantly bombarded by messages that promise satisfaction: “Buy this car, take this trip, get this job and you’ll be satisfied!” I don’t know about you, but there have been times in my life that I’ve bought into those claims. The thing is, when I’ve bought that new car, taken that trip, or gotten that job, any satisfaction I found in it quickly faded.

In this passage, we see a large group of people gather to hear from Jesus, he feeds them in a miraculous way, then leaves them, and then they gather to hear from him again. In this conversation in verses 22-59, Jesus tells the people that the signs they were looking for- like the manna from heaven that their forefathers ate- would not satisfy them either. Even the good gifts God gives are not fully satisfying. Only He is. In verses 54-56 Jesus says, “Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him”. When we “feed on his flesh and drink his blood”—that is, believe and trust Jesus as our Savior and have a relationship with him, he abides in us. We have this hope in Jesus: that he is our ultimate satisfaction. He alone sustains, remains constant, and satisfies.

Apply:

            If you have a relationship with Jesus, you can trust that he will sustain you. In those moments when you’re tempted to look to other things for your satisfaction, ask God to show you how He alone is your satisfaction.

Macaroni & Cheese Faith

Eating lunch with my daughter today reminded me of what faith looks like. 

This girl loves macaroni and cheese like no one else I know (and that's saying something because a love of cheesy pasta runs deep in this family). Even at 2, she knows how to savor something good. She murmurs "mmmm" and other appreciative noises as she closes her eyes and takes another bite. She is not at all concerned that the macaroni and cheese will run out before she has had her fill. She has faith that more will appear when she needs it, 

I envy this ability she has, and I want to cultivate it in my life. 

See, I know that God will provide all of my needs (Philippians 4:19 "And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus), but I don't live like it. Instead of savoring the good gifts God gives me, I tend to either hoard them in fear of losing them, or I don't even pay attention to them. I'm blinded to his provisions because I'm focused on my will and desires rather than His. 

So, how do we cultivate this macaroni and cheese kind of faith? How do we learn to savor God's good gifts? I think there are several ways. 

First, begin our days with thanksgiving. When we get into the habit of identifying and verbalizing the things we are grateful for, our hearts and minds will being to be more focused on God's provision than our perceived lack. 

Second, spend time studying and meditating on God's Word. Throughout Scripture we see evidence of God's gracious provisions, and we can trust that just as God provided mana for a bunch of ungrateful Israelites, so too will he provide for us. We may not always get the same amount of macaroni and cheese that we want. In fact, we may not even get any, but we can always trust that whatever God gives or withholds is for our good and His glory.

Rainbows

Our church is having VBS this week, and I've had the pleasure of being there to help with registration and other various tasks. Last night, while the kids were all in their assigned stations, a gorgeous rainbow appeared in the sky in front of the chuch. It was probably the most perfect rainbow I've ever seen in my life-- vibrant enough to see every color, visible from one end to the other, and a double! Several other adults and I went out to take pictures and remarked on how infrequently we have had the pleasure of seeing such a perfect rainbow. It was a beautiful reminder of God's goodness, which incidentally, is the theme of VBS this year (if you visit us any time soon, you will hear my boys recitinv some version of "When life is ____, God is good!").

Shortly before the rainbow disappeared, Davyd's group went outside to see it. By this point only part of it was visible and it was very light, but they were still astounded by it. On the way home, the boys and I talked about rainbows being signs of God's promise to never again destroy the earth by a flood, like He did in the time of Noah. They both thought it was "super cool" for God to make a promise like that. Later, while we recounted all of this to Matt, Davyd told us that seeing the rainbow assured him that God is real (no, my 6 year old did not use the word "assured", but I can't remember his exact words, so I'm paraphrasing). 

As I reflected on that conversation later, I was touched by the way that God came close to Davyd last night and revealed Himself to him. He does this for all of us in one way or another. The thing is, He doesn't have to. He doesn't need us, or anything for that matter. He is all-sufficient, lacking in nothing, but He desires to be near His people. What a blessing it was to witness my son recognizing God's presence! May I pause often and long enough to do the same. 

The Goodness of the Lord

Lately I’ve been struggling to believe that God will continue to give me good things in this life. Intellectually, I know the ridiculousness of this. God has given me many good things, and continues to do so daily. 

The issue is that there are some specific things that I really want— things that I believe to be good desires. I currently can’t see any indication that these things will happen and that’s where I’m getting tripped up. My focus is on myself, and this life, rather than on eternity. 

The truth is, in this life, there is uncertainty, pain, and disappointment. We can never be sure that we will get the specific things that we want— even if they are good, holy desires. But we can always see God’s goodness in every circumstance if we choose to see it. 

Today I’m asking God to give me a heart that sees the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living, because even (and especially) when I’m not getting what I want when I want it, I know that God is working for my good (to make me more like him) and His glory (Romans 8:28).

This is Not Your Own Doing

“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” -Ephesians 2:8-9

I grew up in the church. I went to a Christian school from Kindergarten through 12^th grade. I can literally remember memorizing this verse at Awana as a kid.

But recently, it began to hold a new meaning for me.

Have you ever felt the need to work for the approval of someone? What did it feel like when you didn’t feel like they were happy with your work? How did that affect your thoughts about yourself? How did that affect your thoughts in general? What was your focus? How did it affect your behavior?

When I am focused on gaining the approval of other people, what I’m really focused on is myself. How I measure up. How I can work better, harder, faster, etc. This causes insecurity, because I can’t please everyone. In fact, I can’t please anyone all the time. What a relief it is to know that I don’t have to work to earn God’s approval.

As a wife, mother, friend, employee, etc. I have so many things to do, so many things to keep track of: laundry, meal-planning, diaper changes, monitoring homework, grocery shopping, school drop-off, school pick-up, meetings, projects, teaching—the list goes on.  If I had to add to that trying to gain the approval of a holy God, I’d be sunk. I can’t do it. None of us can.

God has been reminding me lately of the relief and freedom of that truth of the Gospel. As women, moms, humans we tend to work for the approval of other people. With God, we don’t need to do that. God doesn’t ask us to work for his approval. In fact, he tells us that we can never earn it. Apart from Christ, we cannot be approved. It is only through the work of Jesus on the cross that we can come to the Father and accept His ultimate approval.

God gives us this free gift so that we can have fellowship with him, and ultimately, so that He can be glorified, so that we cannot boast in our own works or abilities, but only in the work of Jesus and the glory of God the Father.

Early in my career, I was hired at a counseling agency in  an administrative role. I was so excited to begin! After working hard to receive my Master’s of Social Work, I was thrilled to be in a supervisory role. I was excited to lead and influence a team of people working with children with mental health challenges. Unfortunately, I quickly learned that my supervisors were not exactly supportive, and the agency was pretty dysfunctional. I wasn’t able to reach the standards that the administration expected of me, which I knew were impossible, but still made me feel like I was deficient in some way. My dream of being in a leadership role quickly became a nightmare, and I began to sink into despair and insecurity. I began feeling anxious all the time. My thoughts were focused on myself and what I could do better. I would daydream about being offered some amazing job somewhere else and excelling at it, and then running into my old bosses and bragging about how great I was. It was gross. I tried to do the “right thing” and kept telling myself to work for God and not for man, but even in that my focus was on myself and what I was doing. Thankfully, God quickly provided a way of escape, and I moved on to a different type of position at a different agency, but even though my working environment is much better now, insecurity still follows me. I think it follows all of us if we focus on ourselves and not on the God who gives us the gifts and talents to do the work He has for us.

Praise God that I don’t have to live up to anyone’s expectations in order to gain salvation. We can never be good enough to stand in the presence of a holy God without the saving grace of Jesus. That doesn’t mean that we should act however we want. As Paul says in Romans 6:1-2, “What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?” It means we must and can only depend on the grace and mercy of God through faith in Jesus for our redemption and restoration. What a relief!

We're Going to Get Married.

On Sunday during Life Group, we talked about how we met our spouses and the early days or our relationships. Matt and I told the story of how, after only 2 weeks of dating, I told him we were going to get married. If you’re reading this and you knew me back then (and have somehow never heard this story), I’ll wait a minute for you to pick yourself up off the floor before I go on.

Ready?

Yeah, I was not one to readily and easily express my feelings for other people, especially the guys I dated. As is the case for most young people, I had been hurt plenty of times prior to meeting Matt, and in previous relationships was of the opinion that I would not, under any circumstances, share my feelings about the other person unless they made a major expression of love and undying commitment to me. Looking back, I realize how unlikely that would be given how guarded I was in those relationships. Of course, it was also a good thing that I was that guarded in those prior relationships because I was not meant to be with those people, but I digress.

I still remember looking at Matt in the car parked at the Pequea boat launch on the Susquehanna river (we had gone for a drive and were discussing our relationship) and telling him that we were going to get married. I only vaguely remember his reaction because my brain was fighting with itself:

“What in the world just came out of your mouth? Are you insane”.

“Eh, whatever. When you know, you know, right?”.

I don’t actually remember what Matt said in response to this declaration, but we’ve been married for 7 and a half years now, so I’d say it worked out alright.

Whenever we tell this story I’m reminded of the way I felt in that moment, telling him that we would get married. I was completely at peace. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was right. We were going to get married. At the time I didn’t really think much about this phenomenon, but in the years since I’ve realized just how completely in control of my actions I was not. As I said before, this is NOT something that I would normally do. I can’t even tell you how earth-shatteringly uncharacteristic this was for me. What I’ve concluded is that God took over my heart and my mouth that night so that I would say exactly what Matt (who didn’t know it at the time, but has since realized it to be true) needed to hear to begin to overcome his fear of commitment (that’s his story to tell, so I won’t explain the reasons behind that here).

Now, please don’t think that I’m taking any credit for allowing God to have control in that area. I was not there yet, so I give all credit for this situation turning out this way to the people who were praying for my future marriage for many years (my parents actually started praying for me and my future spouse while my mom was still pregnant with me).

What telling this story also reminded me of is how all these years later, I would do it all over again without question. In fact, I might not even wait 2 weeks. Marrying this man was the single best decision I’ve ever made in my life. I had no idea at the time how much more I would love him almost 8 years later, or how much more I would be proud of him for who he is, how he loves me and our kids, how he parents our children, how he leads in his job, & how much passion he puts into all of this work.  Because he chooses to put Jesus first in his life, the people he interacts with are better off, especially me and our children.

I’m so thankful for the prayers of the faithful people in my life and Matt’s, and that God has blessed us with each other (I’m pretty sure Matt would agree that I’m a blessing in his life… most days. 😉).



Here we are about a month into our relationship... 2 weeks after I told him we were going to get married. 😂