BIG Life Devotional | Daily Devotional for Women

When the time is right, God will make it happen. So, when will the time be right already? If you’re like me, you’ve been waiting on something. Waiting for that shift, waiting for that breakthrough, waiting to see the good God is going to do from the harm the enemy intended. But maybe right now, you’re just not seeing it. It must not be time. This can make us feel like our entire lives are just a big holding pattern. We’re waiting and waiting, wishing and wondering, and eventually we start dismissing ourselves from the promises of God. I guess I’m not chosen after all. I guess I must not be good enough. It will never happen for me. But Isaiah 60:22 God says “At the right time I, the Lord, will make it happen.” Who am I to argue with that? If he says he will make it happen at the right time, then I believe HE WILL MAKE IT HAPPEN AT THE RIGHT TIME. The 60th chapter of Isaiah is God speaking to Jerusalem about their future glory. He’s fully acknowledging the state of disaster and the darkness of their days, but he’s reminding them of what he is doing and what is to come. Sure your land has seen no progress, but success is coming! Yes everyone has left, but wow wait until I bring them back! You may have been torn down, but I’m about to rebuild you. You have been looked down on, but I’m going to shine down on you with my glory, and the world will now look to you. God knows what he’s doing. Verse 10 says “I will now have mercy on you through my grace.” I will NOW have mercy on you through my grace. The time is NOW. And when the time is NOW, God will make it happen. Your hard times have prepared you for this time … this time where things are about to change. I know you wish you would have never had to go through this time, but the truth is God doesn’t always remove the obstacles, he empowers us to go right through them. He could have completely evaporated the Red Sea for the Israelites’ journey to freedom. He could have said “sea, be no more” and no doubt, it would have been gone. But he didn’t. What did God do? HE MADE A WAY THROUGH IT. When did he do it? WHEN THE TIME WAS RIGHT. The Israelites faced sure death by the Egyptians chasing after them, or sure death drowning in the sea in front of them. And this is exactly when God said the time was right. That darned if you do and darned if you don’t moment. That hemmed in with nowhere else to go moment. That hopelessly stuck moment. AND THIS IS GOD’S DIVINE TIMING. And the funny thing about the timing is, God sure seems to wait until the breaking point, doesn’t he? He allows the delay. He allows the dilemma. He allows the destruction. He allows the desperation. Why? So we don’t miss the deity of his deliverance. DON’T MISS YOUR DESTINY BECAUSE OF THE DISASTER ON THE WAY. God is bigger than your disaster. He is bigger than anything standing in your way. He is more powerful. He is greater. He is the Almighty, and he’s working for you. Don’t you understand that? HE IS WORKING FOR YOU. He is working to make a way for you. A way right through this disaster. And the way, His way, will allow you to taste defeat. It will force you to dig deep to depths you never knew existed within you. There’s only one way you discover the power and strength he has put in you, and it ain’t the easy way. When you’re standing at your Red Sea, when you’ve come to the end of all you can do, this is when THE TIME IS RIGHT. When the time is right, you will walk right through. When the time is right, your obstacle will stand on it’s end and allow you to pass. When the time is right, you will be given exactly what you need to proceed. But until then, it will just look like a dead end.

Here in BIG Life, we gather to welcome and receive each new day of life as a gift. The simple shift in perspective to see the rising sun as the wrapping on the gift of a new day is truly life-changing. Receiving this gift with gratitude and anticipation sets our minds and changes our life experience. You know, if you’re looking for the color orange, you will suddenly start seeing it everywhere. But before deciding you were looking for orange, you likely didn’t even notice it. Orange was there, but it went unnoticed. But, seek and ye shall find. Anything you’re looking for, you will find. Good or bad. Positive or negative. So wouldn’t it make sense to intentionally set your mind each day to find the best of the best so you can experience it in real life? Why would you live any other way? Tomorrow, we wake up to a Saturday. A Saturday that is rare and precious and of tremendous value. This is a Saturday that only comes along once every 28 years! Yes, you’ve been waiting 28 years for what is coming tomorrow, and you may not have even known it. What is so incredibly special about this day? IT’S LEAP SATURDAY!!!!!! (Yeah, it’s a thing and I totally just gave it my own title.) This is a leap year, you get yourself the bonus day of February 29th and that happens every 4 years, but once every 28 years, that leap day falls on a Saturday!!!!! Your kids have been waiting their whole life for this day! I’m 44 and the last time I got myself a Leap Saturday, I was 16 years old!!!!!! This is totally EPIC!!!!!!! This is the bonus day. An extra day added to our year that’s a pure gift. You always get 365 days in the calendar year, but tomorrow you wake up to a day that is set aside as the rarest of days. February 29th! And because that special day falls on a Saturday, I mean Holy Balls, doesn’t this just call for a celebration? It’s a double whammy gift. It’s the jackpot of all days! I’m challenging you to seize this bonus day of life given to you and live it like no other day before. Soak in every moment, waste nothing and make it special in every way. Fit as much living into this single day as humanly possible. Ecclesiastes 9: 7-10 (MSG) says “Seize life! Oh yes, God takes pleasure in your pleasure! Relish life. Each day is God’s gift. Make the most of each one. Whatever turns up, grab it and do it. And heartily!” This is how God wants us to live every day of life, receiving it as a gift. But imagine what our response should be to a gift like Leap Saturday that only comes once every 28 years! Our pleasure should be intentional! Our relishing should resemble wallowing in the goodness! We should be grabbing all that comes our way to do, to see, and to enjoy with both hands and dive in head first! Because this won’t happen again for 28 years. Figure that up … how old will you have to be to ever experience another Leap Saturday. Well, that’s not guaranteed now is it? No, it isn’t … so let’s decide now we’re going to live this one like our last one. Seize life. Carpe diem my friend! To seize means to take hold of. Don’t let it pass you by. The day will come and the day will go, with or without your participation. But, God is inviting you to participate. He’s done all the work of creating. I mean seriously, think about it. Do you have to tell the sun to rise? No, you just get to enjoy it, he did the work for you. Do you have to control the photosynthesis of the plants to produce oxygen? Nope, you just get to breathe it, he did that work for you too. Do you have to make the Earth spin on it’s 23.5 degree axis, suspended in the galaxy, perfectly positioned 92 million miles from the sun so we’re neither frozen nor baked? No, you just get to enjoy the ride as we spin,

God has a plan beyond the reality you see today. He has a purpose specifically for you that reaches beyond the circumstances of this season. Beyond this pain, beyond this struggle, beyond this uncertainty, God has goodness for you. The enemy plays in the darkness of your uncertainties. Uncertainties that ask how much longer will I have to wait … how much more can I take … how will this ever be okay again? But remember my friends, we can boldly step into the unknown with our all-knowing God. You don’t have to be certain of timing. You don’t have to be certain of details. You may never know how and when until one day you’re standing in a new reality where you see with your own eyes this new purpose-filled season of your life. Make friends with the uncertainty on the way there my friend. Paul wrote in Philippians 1:6 “And I am CERTAIN that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns,” and you can now claim it as your personal truth. In a world filled with uncertainties, be certain of this … GOD’S NOT DONE HERE. God sees you and he is working all things together for good. His eye is on you. He has heard your prayers. He is moved by your petitions. AND HE IS WORKING. Let all the uncertainties remain uncertain because the greatest of all things is absolutely CERTAIN, GOD IS AT WORK. I rarely stop to recognize God at work when everything is going according to plan. It’s easy to assume it’s my harvest from the good seeds I planted with my hard work, my persistence and my will-power. I’m over here just reaping what I sewed and clearly I did good because ya’ll I’m living in abundance. Until I’m not. Until the same seeds with the same work, the same persistence and the same will-power bring no progress, no success, no harvest. You ever been there? When what worked before stops working. When you’re humbled to realize the absolute truth that without God’s mighty hand in it all, girl you ain’t getting no where. And maybe that success in the past was FIRST because God gave you the opportunity. But should you ever forget the power of partnership with the Almighty and try to run this show on your own power … get ready for the crash! And this is where our roll is slowed so we can once again see God at work in everything. Yes, he works in the hardship. He works in the delay. He works in the no just as much as he works in the yes. And he is all up in your current circumstances working to bring you to to a destiny better than you could have ever worked out on your own. Remember our friends the Israelites in the Bible? They were enslaved in Egypt, then God raised up a leader in Moses to lead them to freedom, but they got stuck on the way there. Stuck in the desert. They got stuck out of fear. They were too afraid to go forward, so they wandered in circles. Circles in the desert for 40 years. And God allowed it. He allowed the hardship. He allowed the delay. But he never forgot what he started in them and the destiny they had ahead. He was faithful even when they were not. And I promise you my sweet sister, God will be faithful to you even in your times of being unfaithful. Even when you’re wrong, he’s still lovingly guiding you to what is right. Even when you’re wandering down a dangerous path, he’s creating the Uturn sign for your journey back. Even when you’re ready to give up, he’s never calling it quits on you. You simply can’t outrun his goodness with your failure. You can’t outdo his love with your doubt. You can’t undo his certainty with your uncertainty. You’re simply not that powerful. You know what you will find when you’ve gone down the wrong path? Do you know what you will find when you’ve wandered around i...

Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent season leading up to Easter. Now I preface this devotional with the truth on this matter … just a few years ago I had no clue what Ash Wednesday was. Our family had moved to El Paso Texas and there we were surrounded by the traditional Hispanic Catholic families. I’m talking about people who NEVER missed church … ever. And one day while in line to pick up our kids from school, I saw a woman with a smudge of black on her forehead. I immediately assumed it was a huge makeup fail in the worst ways, or some type of bizarre bruise, nearly resembling a cross. And then another woman with a similar mark. What in the world was happening here? Soon most of the moms at the school were marked in the same way and I was clearly the weird one with a clean forehead. This was my introduction to Ash Wednesday. These women, who were Roman Catholic, had gone to services that day and had ashes rubbed on their foreheads. To me it seemed such an unusual anointing. The dark smudge on the forehead is ashes in the shape of a cross as a mark of death. And with a little research I learned it’s not just a mark of death, but a mark of true life. A reminder of Genesis 3:19 “you were made from the dust, and to dust you will return.” Life is short and fleeting, and soon this will all be over. You were given life today to live, one day your time will run out and there will be no more opportunities to live. But honey, you’ve got today … what will you do with it? It’s easy to forget the big picture when we’re puzzled with the placement of all the little pieces. It’s easy to be overwhelmed in the madness of the moment, forgetting moments are all we have and wasting this one with stress and worry will certainly not help us savor the next one any better. The ashes many receive today in honor of Ash Wednesday are the charred remains of the palm leaves from last year’s Palm Sunday. We remember the laying of palm leaves on the path Jesus walked before his arrest and crucifixion. Now those palms which were a sign of goodness and victory, are now burned and used as a mark of death. Ashes. What does God do with ashes? Isaiah 61:3 says he trades our ashes for beauty. All that went up in smoke, that which burst into flames, burned in destruction, all that fell apart and no longer exists … yes, this is what God turns into something beautiful. What are your ashes? Ashes are the evidence of a fire that destroyed. The remains of a dream that went up in smoke. The remnants of a woman who is burned out. These are ashes. We all have them. We’ve all been hurt. We’ve all messed up. We’ve all been scorched by the fires of life … but we don’t have to live as women who are just a pile of rubble after the destruction. No, God promises beauty for ashes. What does this mean? This means you can take your heaping pile of all you’ve ever given up on in life, all that seems too far gone and hopeless, all that appears to be ruined and EXCHANGE IT FOR BEAUTY. Something magnificent for something malfunctioning. Something beneficial for something broken. Something desirable for something destitute. Something worthy for something worthless. This is what Jesus did. This is what we remember today on Ash Wednesday. His life was given to save our life. Beauty for ashes. A beautiful life for a burned out life. That’s like trading in your 20 year old junker Honda that barely runs for a brand spanking new Range Rover with rims. If you heard that deal advertised on TV wouldn’t you drop everything you were doing and get yourself to the car dealership? Oh you bet you would. And listen to me here, God is offering something worth so much more than a car. Imagine the adds, TRADE IN YOUR OLD DISAPPOINTMENTS AND FAILURES FOR A BRAND NEW EXCITING PURPOSE FILLED LIFE.

Before Jesus went to the cross, he went to the desert. For 40 days he withdrew from all distractions and prepared himself for the path ahead. Now, as followers of Christ we are invited to remember his sacrifice and go into a season of reflection and preparation ourselves. Lent is your personal invitation to experience Easter beyond a new flowery dress and eggs in a basket, by first doing as Jesus did, offering an intentional sacrifice. The 40 days of Lent, marking Jesus’ withdrawal to the desert before the cross, begins tomorrow with Ash Wednesday. 40 days of personal sacrifice. 40 days of focus on Jesus as a result of our chosen sacrifice. The traditional sacrifices for Lent are objects we crave such as coffee, soda, sugar, chocolate, alcohol, TV or social media. What will you choose as your intentional sacrifice to honor the sacrifice of Jesus for you personally? What will you offer as a holy exchange to prepare for Easter this year? How about your STUFF? Yes, the stuff you own, the stuff you bought with your hard earned money that is now sitting on a shelf, in a drawer, or piled in a corner. The stuff you no longer need, but for one reason or another, you’ve been holding on to. Would you be willing to sacrifice a bit of your stuff every day for the next 40 days to remember the greater sacrifice of Jesus? Would you intentionally make more space in your life for God with a simpler lifestyle? Ya’ll know, I’m a fully reformed former addict of stuff. Pretty stuff. Stuff I could wear and stuff I could fill my home with. Stuff that said “I’m somebody” and “look at all I have”. I spent my years accumulating more and more and you know what I found … it was never enough. I always wanted more. And then I read a book with a challenge. The challenge was to give away one material object you most loved to someone who had admired it. I had a big ol’ house full of pretty things, but one of my favorite things was a wrought iron 4 tiered serving tray with beautiful white plates. It sat prominently displayed in my kitchen and I just loved it. And I knew I was to give it away. Yes, while I still used it and while I still enjoyed it, let go of it. But dang I didn’t want to. My friend Laura always commented on my serving tray when visiting my house. So I showed up at her door by the end of the day with my treasured material object and I gave it to her. It’s space on my kitchen counter sat empty as a reminder of this challenge and I began to notice how good that felt. Space. That was 10 years ago. I visited her house last month for the first time since I moved away and guess what was sitting on her table … the tray I loved, but gave to her. This was the first tangible exercise in letting go of things for me. It created a domino effect that soon lead to my very first 40 Bags in 40 Days Challenge. 40 days of letting go. 40 days of sacrifice. 40 days of declaring simplicity over show and clarity over clutter. 40 days to remember the things we own shouldn’t own us. And we begin tomorrow! Who is in for the Lent 40 Bags in 40 Days Challenge? An intentional sacrifice of ‘stuff’? Yes, this is de-cluttering with a purpose. This is a declaration of cleared space and availability for more of what God has for us. I just wonder if God has been trying to take you somewhere and give you divine direction, but girl you can’t go because of all your stuff. You aren’t available because look at all your baggage. What could God do with a life like yours that was fully available? A life like yours with a complete surrender? A life like yours with open space and less crap to drag with you? Let me tell you what he did with mine … he showed me the adventure of a lifetime. Once I let go of all my stuff and declared my life fully available,

In a movie, there are certain parts you wouldn’t dare leave and go to the restroom. In a book, there are pages you just can’t put down. What are those parts? Think about it. What are the best parts of the story? The parts where something is about to happen, but you don’t know what that something is. And whatever it is, it will change the rest of the story. This is in the mystery. In the unknown. In the middle of the story where you still don’t know the ending, but you know every part of this story is building up for something. And my guess is, this is where you are … you’re in the middle of this thing and how it’s going to come together is a mystery. The outcome is unknown. And my sister, here’s what we miss in the middle of it all … in the middle of the messes and the chaos … in the middle of the monotony of a season of life that seems so long and without progress … we are in the middle of the mystery and this is the best part! This is the part of your movie you don’t want to leave from. Ahhhhhh, the enemy fooled you into believing you wanted to skip this part. You’ve been wishing this away, but girl now is NOT the time to leave and go to the restroom. Now is the time to stay right where you are and see how this all works out! This is the part of your story you gotta keep reading through. The part where you keep turning the pages knowing this isn’t over! This is not where you stop and wish for a different book! Not here, not in the middle of the mystery. That’s what this is honey, this is your great mystery. This is the story of your life and day by day it is unfolding. Too many times we’re ready to give up on the story right before the breakthrough. James 1: 2-4 says “Consider it pure joy whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” Let God finish what he started in you. Let this story play out! The great author of your life wants to know if you won’t give up this time. If he has a way through this mystery planned for you, will you keep going? Will you trust that every detail unfolding in this moment has the fingerprints of God on it, and when his fingerprints are on it, you can trust this mystery is leading somewhere ridiculously good. You’re just in the middle. The place where it’s no longer new and exciting, and yet the place where you’re still so dang far from the finish you sometimes forget why you even started. The honeymoon is long over and you’re somewhere in that 7 year itch period where everything is just annoying. For some of us that 7 year itch lasts 25 years. We’re covered in hives at this point trying to remember why we married him. Oh yeah, because we are in love and this crap ain’t easy. Ahhhh yes, that’s what the end of February often feels like, right? You started something this year, have you forgotten why? The excitement of those goals you wrote at the beginning of the year has totally worn off, and now the reality of the daily grind is mind numbingly monotonous. What you really want is to just coast for a little bit. To not have to try so hard. To not fight it. I get it, I really do … but girl, have you lost sight of where you’re going? Remember that life you imagined? Remember the potential you dared to believe was still within you? Remember the person you said you wanted to become? IT’S ALL STILL THERE. And this is NOT the part where you coast. This is the middle of the mystery. You can’t check out here. No bathroom breaks. No putting down the book to come back to later. Heck no sister … you don’t want to miss this!

What should do you do when someone is on the wrong path in life? How can you genuinely help them get back on track and live well? Well, I can tell you what doesn’t work … nagging. Nagging never works. I’ve never seen a changed person as the result of nagging, pushing, or complaining. Never. Yet, isn’t that what we try? We start wars on social media with those who vote different than us. We are passive aggressive with our judgement towards those who live in a way different than our own. And at home, we nag. Whew, we nit pick and poke at stupid things that ultimately make no difference and all we do is drive a wedge between us and the person we’re trying to “change”. Sure your way might be better and your intentions may be good, but girl your delivery is all wrong. God is calling and equipping us to be better and do better. We have been changed so we can lovingly guide others in change. How do we do that? We do not condemn. We do not belittle. We do not argue. We do this … we call out their potential. Oh yes, every single person you come in contact with today is filled with potential. Potential to live well. Potential to be used by the almighty. Potential to make a difference in this world. Some people are simply living below their potential and all they need is one person to believe in and call out that potential. We see this example in the story of Saul’s transformation to Paul. God used one person to call out his potential. Oh this is good, check this out! Acts 9: 1-19: Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples. As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” “Who are you, Lord?” Saul asked. “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” he replied. “Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.” Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing. For three days he was blind. In Damascus there was a disciple named Ananias. The Lord called to him in a vision, “Ananias!” “Yes, Lord,” he answered. The Lord told him, “Go to the house of Judas on Straight Street and ask for a man named Saul.” “Lord,” Ananias answered, “I have heard many reports about this man and all the harm he has done to your holy people. But the Lord said to Ananias, “Go! This man is my chosen instrument to proclaim my name.” Then Ananias went , placing his hands on Saul, he said, “Brother Saul, the Lord—Jesus has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” Immediately, something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes, and he could see again. He got up and was baptized. As we know Paul, formerly Saul, was no doubt an instrument to proclaim the name of Jesus, he was chosen to write the majority of the New Testament we read today. All while he was doing all the wrong things, on totally the wrong path, there was this potential within him. I wonder who you’re frustrated with right now, a real jackwagon making life difficult for you, and what you don’t see is their potential. Their potential for good. Their potential to impact lives and perhaps even change the trajectory of yours. I wonder who you know of that’s totally on the wrong path. It’s as if they have a mission to royally screw up their life and they are wildly successful so far. You’re frustrated because you don’t know how to save them. Well, take a load off sister, your job was never to save them … you’re not Jesus. That’s his job. But maybe, just maybe your job is to remind them of their potential. Maybe your role in this is to show them there’s one person in this world who hasn’t given up ...

God is taking you somewhere. The enemy is trying to hold you back from going. God has a great plan for your life. The enemy has the opposite plan for your life. You’re either actively seeking God’s plan, or you’re passively settling for the enemy’s. This morning we will look at a story in the bible of a man being unleashed and set free and we’ll apply 3 lessons from this story to the chains which bind us today. Peter was the apostle who walked on water with Jesus. He’s my favorite because he wanted more out of life, he wanted to experience it all, however he was always getting himself in trouble by talking before thinking. Anyone else relate to Peter? In Acts chapter 12 we read about Peter being in jail. In verse 6-8 it says “The night before Peter was to be placed on trial, he was asleep, fastened with two chains between two soldiers. Others stood guard at the prison gate. Suddenly, there was a bright light in the cell, and an angel of the Lord stood before Peter. The angel struck him on the side to awaken him and said, ‘Quick! Get up!’ And the chains fell off his wrists. Then the angel told him, ‘Get dressed and put on your sandals.’ And he did. ‘Now put on your coat and follow me,’ the angel ordered.” And there they are, 3 steps for you and I to follow today to break free of that which holds us back: Get up, get dressed, go. And before you dismiss this as elementary and way to simple for the serious chains you’re dealing with, I promise this applies to you. 1. First, Peter is told, “quick, get up!” and the chains fell off his wrists. Notice Peter was told to get up while the chains were still binding him. Ahhhh, he had to get up first. He had to put some effort in. He had a responsibility in his freedom. Quick get up, then the chains fell off. How often we lay around and wallow in our mess saying, “God, please help me – pick me up – set me free” but we aren’t willing to first get up. What if the chains holding you back will only be broken after YOU get up. Get up when you don’t feel like it. Get up when it’s not fair. Get up when you fear you’ll be knocked right back down again. Get up. Chains don’t fall off when you’re just laying there. You have a responsibility in this freedom you seek. It’s not just going to magically happen for you as you do nothing. Will you be willing to get up BEFORE you feel better? Before you feel there is a change? Before you know for sure you can stay up? Over the past week I’ve received messages from my podcast listeners who are undeniably incredible women. Strong, capable women filled with potential. But these women are chained to something that is hindering that potential. For one it is her bottle of pills, for another it is her bottle of wine. Another it is marijuana, while another it is pornography. Some are in toxic relationships or deep dark life-threatening depressions, or struggling with haunting details of the past. And for each one, there is help. And let me be real clear, that help most often comes in the form of Jesus working through a professional. There are others just like you and you need to know that. You’re not alone. The enemy wants to convince you that deep dark nasty little secret of yours will isolate you and leave you alone, and it will, if you listen to him. Understand the voice that tells you you’re beyond repair, no one could ever understand and you’re without hope or help … that’s the voice of a defeated liar and he doesn’t know what the heck he’s talking about. He’s talking straight out of his butt ya’ll! The truth is there are groups of people struggling with the same thing you’re struggling with. They are gathered to encourage one another and offer accountability.

Luke 5:12-13 “A man came along who was covered with leprosy. When he saw Jesus, he fell with his face to the ground and begged him, ‘Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.’ Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. ‘I am willing,’ he said. ‘Be clean!’ And immediately the leprosy left him.” Back in this time, leprosy was a disease which declared you dead while you were still alive. They were given the label of leper. This disease became their identity. Their skin was covered in boils, they were in pain and agony, often losing their limbs as their body began to rot. Lepers were judged as being punished by God for their immorality and treated as “less than”. Leprosy was highly contagious, transmitted by touch, and therefore they were forbidden to live in the city, forced to live alone in the wilderness. When a leper walked through a crowd, they were required to yell “unclean, unclean, unclean” as a warning for everyone to stay a safe distance away. Unclean, unclean, unclean. This disease was this man’s identity. Unclean is who he had become. He believed he was being punished. He was still alive, but not living. And isn’t this us sometimes as well? Something that has happened to us has become our identity. We’re living in our own wilderness, cut off from the life once available to us. We are alive, but we’re not fully living. What is separating you? What have you taken on as your label, limiting you? Just as the leper was yelling “unclean” as people were near, are you yelling “unworthy”, are you screaming from the inside “unimportant”? The label of your identity is self-proclaimed “quitter”, “loser”, “slacker”, “misfit”, “awkward”, “stupid”, “weak”, “damaged”, “broken”. Somewhere along the way maybe something happened that caused you to feel this way and you took that on as your identity. It became who you are. And it has separated you from the life God created you for. God’s desire is NOT for you to live one more day of your life believing you are too little of this or too much of that. Not one more day. Not one more moment. The world may offer it’s labels but you don’t have to put them on as yours. There’s a healing available to you today. A healing that will remove the layers of unworthiness you have felt for years. A healing that will restore your confidence to exactly who you were made to be. A healing that comes from one place, and one place only. We believe if we lose 50 pounds we will be restored. We believe if we wear the right clothes, work at the right job, have the right person, we will finally be whole. But we won’t. You won’t. The guy won’t fix this. The shoes won’t make it feel better. No amount of makeup or jewelry can cover this up. The leper knew the ONE who could restore him. That ONE is Jesus. When he saw Jesus he fell on his face and begged him, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.” Notice, he knew exactly who Jesus was. It was against the law to bow before anyone but God. Many didn’t recognize Jesus as God, but this man did. He knew exactly who he was and he had complete confidence in his power. Lord you CAN make me clean. There was zero doubt in that statement. You CAN. God CAN restore what has been broken in you. He CAN heal what is sick. He CAN provide where there has been lack. The question is, are you bold enough to stop yelling your own version of “unclean” and cry out to Jesus? This man was trained to only say “unclean, unclean, unclean” in the presence of another person. But he didn’t. What would have happened if he would have walked by Jesus and continued telling his sad story of his disease...

What do you do when you genuinely don’t know what you want? What do you do when you’re unsure what your purpose is, where your passion could possibly lead, or where your path begins? Hey sometimes, you just don’t know. You’re unsure of God’s desires for you and uncertain of your dreams right now. There are many reasons we become uncertain of our dreams. After a season of great success, we can look around in sheer contentment and genuinely not know what we want next. What an absolutely beautiful problem! However, don’t confuse contentment with settling. Often times God is calling us out into the deep, beckoning us to a bigger life, but we’ve settled with what we have and where we are, totally thrilled with our boat and we miss the opportunity to walk on the water with Jesus. Don’t allow your contentment to cause you to settle. Yes, take a big old deep breath of gratitude and fully recognize where life is ridiculously good, then let your next breath be in knowing there’s still so much more! That beautiful boat you currently find yourself in isn’t the end, it was just meant to get you out on the water so you could walk on it! Another cause of uncertainty in our desires and dreams is the overwhelm in choices. God has presented you with so many opportunities in your life, so many possibilities of what is next, you sit frozen in indecision. You genuinely want to do the right thing and not mess this thing up, but you’re not sure what that right thing is. So the clock ticks, time passes and you ain’t getting any younger as you sit in indecision. What if God isn’t stressed over you making the perfect choice, he just wants you to choose something and get started? What if he already has a prepared plan to get you exactly where you need to go, regardless of what you choose first? Ahhhhh, of course he does. Think about it, if he created the entire universe, I’m pretty sure he can create a path to get you to your destiny my sister. What he needs you to do is get moving. And of course, sometimes we’re not living in God’s greatest desire for us, and we’re not fulfilling a single dream because we’re stuck in what we know, what comes easiest, and where we’re comfortable. Please never forget we may call it a comfort zone and it may include a lazy boy recliner, a bowl of popcorn and Netflix, but honey that is your cage. You are stuck in this cage, chained to old habits and patterns, and while you may have made it comfortable in here and lovingly decorated the walls with your finest excuses, every darn thing you have ever REALLY wanted is outside of this cage. You were never created to be stuck in this cage of little life living … if you were, why would Jesus have come and said I give you life and give it to you to the full? Why would he give you an abundant life if he intended for you to be stuck in a cage? Sometimes you have to just look at the facts and admit, that don’t make no sense

I’ve decided when my time is up, I don’t want to arrive to Heaven pristine and perfectly preserved in proper condition. You see, I don’t want to have an ounce of living left in me when I step on those golden streets, because I used it all up here on Earth. I want to come skidding through the Pearly Gates sideways, with wild hair, worn the heck out,/ screaming “wooohoooo what a ride!” The point of life is not to arrive to the end with piles of treasures you’ve accumulated, there will be plenty of treasures in Heaven, God doesn’t need you to bring your own. The point is not to have your name in lights, but rather your name in the book. The point is to have lived every one of your days to the fullest, as if each were your last, because one day you’ll be right. To treat each day as a precious gift of living, because isn’t it?! Isn’t today a priceless gift filled with once-in-a-lifetime opportunities? Why do we forget that? Why did we wake up to a Monday morning with a list of things we HAVE to do instead of a list of things we GET to do? This is life, and you get exactly one. How well are you living it? Jesus told us in Matthew 10:39 “If you give up your life for me, you will find it.” There are many commentaries and theories on this verse, but here’s what it means to me: If I will fully surrender my life and live in the unknown, the all-knowing will give me the reward of a life beyond my dreams. There’s a plan for your life. A big picture of what it can be. A greater purpose by design. There’s only one way to step into it … surrender. GIVE UP YOUR LIFE, THEN YOU WILL FIND IT. When God says in Psalm 32:8 “I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go”, it means there is a way to begin with. God has a way for you and his intentions aren’t for you to wander around lost in your life, he wants to show you the way to get to the life he has for you. He saw your entire life before you ever lived a single day of it. GOD IS NOT SURPRISED BY THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF YOUR LIFE TODAY. He saw this coming and I promise he didn’t freak out. Loosen your grip on how you think things should be. Are you like me, and you get caught up in how you thought your life would all work out, and you maybe miss what God is trying to do instead? I thought I would stay in the same small town I grew up in. I thought my husband would go to work for my Daddy and build houses just like all the other men in my family did. I thought I would have green eyed little girls that looked just like me. And I thought that’s exactly what I wanted. But when God started revealing his bigger plan to me, I decided to go for it. I lost every image I ever had of what my life would become. None of it happened the way I thought it would. But what I found was what Jesus promised … MY LIFE. My true life. The life I was created for. But first, I had to give up life as I thought it would be. When I let go, then I find life. God is calling you to a life of the unknown with the all-knowing. This is faith. And honestly, faith is scary as heck sometimes. It’s a jump, and God if you don’t catch me, this is gonna be real messy. And you know what I’ve found, sometimes he teaches me to fly after I jump, and sometimes he lets me hit the ground. Yes, sometimes he lets me fail. Sometimes dreams go up in smoke. Sometimes my leap isn’t met with soaring eagle wings, it’s met with free fall and kersplatt. Kersplatt, that didn’t work out. Kersplatt, it all fell apart. Kersplatt, this is a huge mess. Let me tell you, the enemy sure works in the kersplatt doesn’t he? His slimy whispers of “you’re just not good enough” convince you that you should shrink back and play little.

Today is the designated day of love. But how many of us know, the high expectations of today often lead to major disappointment? Valentine’s Day is not a globally celebrated holiday, so just in case you’re listening from a country where all of this is new, let me explain. Today is a day most men dread because they feel whatever they do to show their love for their lady will not be enough, and it’s a day most women get their hopes built up for the ultimate demonstration of love, however she speaks in code, never really asking for what she wants. He says “do you want flowers?” She says “no, I totally don’t need flowers.” What he doesn’t understand is she is saying “yes, I want flowers!” It’s woman code. “Nahhhh babe, you don’t need to buy me anything to prove your love” translates into DUDE YOU SHOULD TOTALLY BUY SOMETHING AND MAKE SURE YOU WRITE SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL IN A CARD. Today is the day kids exchange Valentine’s cards and young love is professed. I remember my girls coming home in elementary school and bragging when the cutest boy in school clearly gave them the largest card in the pack. I also remember my 13 year old son spending every penny he had saved on the biggest teddy bear he could find, chocolates and flowers and balloons for a girl he had been talking to for a week. He didn’t know which she would like most, so he bought it all. She stopped talking to him 3 days later and he was sorely disappointed over all the money he had wasted. Ahhhh, the day of love sure has become fussy hasn’t it? Before I dive fully into our special Valentine’s Day devotional, let me give all my lady friends, my gal pals, my girl gang, my sister tribe the best possible advice I have for today: DROP THE EXPECTATIONS. Expect nothing. Be grateful for everything. And let this day be more about you lavishing love on others than receiving it yourself. Girl, you are loved every darn day. You are highly favored and greatly treasured. Today is no different. You are always the recipient of the unstoppable, relentless, powerful love of the almighty. Now just let his love flow through you and let it soak every one you come in contact with today. You know how a dog shakes when he’s wet, successfully soaking everything around him? Yes, let that be you. You are saturated in God’s love, shake it onto others today and share what you got! Let no one walk away from you today untouched by what God has covered you in. LOVE. As a little girl, my Aunt CC always bought me a box of chocolates for Valentine’s Day. It was the mixed chocolates where every one was a bit of a mystery until you bit into it. There was a dilemma in that box of chocolates. I loved the caramel ones. I knew they were always square. But the orange cream ones were also square. It was like a trick to get you to bite into the worst one, thinking it was the best one. You never quite knew what you were going to get. Forest Gump said it well, “Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get.” Isn’t that life? Some days you get your favorite, and other days you feel like you get the worst. And somehow this loving, all knowing, all powerful God of ours is the giver of them both. You know, if I were in charge of the Russell Stover’s candy company, I would have never made orange cream chocolates. That stuff just ain’t right. And while we’re at it, I wouldn’t really make the strawberry cream either. Just the caramels and toffee. That’s all you would get! And guess what, my box of chocolates would be kinda boring wouldn’t it? Oh you would be guaranteed to get the good stuff, but where’s the excitement in that? Have you ever played bean boozeled? It’s the cruel game of jelly beans.

What happens when we get too comfortable in life? What happens when we resist the change God is calling us into? What happens when we settle for where we are instead of going where God is leading? What happens when we are no longer moved by the desires God places within our heart? We miss the opportunity of a lifetime. You have no idea what God has in mind for you if you would follow him fully. But we miss it because we’ve settled, we’re comfortable and we avoid the unknown. Here’s the kicker, we not only miss the opportunities God has for us, but we create an opportunity for disaster in our life. Our delay of obedience is an opportunity for the enemy to stir up trouble, and we all know the enemy is eager do some stirring in our lives! In 2 Samuel chapter 11 we read of King David and his mighty fall. Now let’s remember who David is. David, the little shepherd boy who boldly fought the giant Goliath and because of his mighty faith and willingness to go, he won. Eventually little David worked himself all the way up to becoming King. David, always with a willingness to go. God loves our willingness. He’s looking to bless the one who will boldly step up and say, “choose me, I will go.” That was David and we see how through his life God showed him favor and provided in supernatural ways in response to his willingness to go. But now little shepherd boy David is King David and power has gotten into his head. Now, let’s not be too quick to judge, I’m pretty sure we all struggle with properly handling power. Remember when you were the new girl in the office willing to happily do any job that needed to be done with no complaint and now with your seniority you’ve gotten a little lazy and there are jobs below you. Your willingness to go, to work, and to serve has lessened. Remember when you were a newlywed and you danced through the house like a Disney character smelling the fresh laundry? Uhmmmm yeah, when’s the last time that happened, right? Now laundry is a dreaded chore that you HAVE to do. That willingness in you that God so loves has grown a little dim, hasn’t it? You’re now too busy. There’s too much stress and pressure in your real life to listen to God’s prompting and just go. Our attitude of “choose me God, I will go” has turned into a “oh, please not me, I’m so busy.” Or even, “no thanks God, I’m pretty happy with what I have now, I’ll just stay here.” We hunker low, hoping God will skim right over us and choose someone else for the work he has. But perhaps this is what we have forgotten – our willingness to go creates an undeniable favor over our lives and supernatural provision. Our UNwillingness to go leaves the door open for the enemy to creep in and do his nasty stirring. I know where you are may be comfortable. I know you may be real busy. But if God is calling you to more, you can’t afford to ignore it. David’s people were at war. David should have been with his soldiers. His place was with them. 2 Samuel 11 verse 1 says “In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king’s men and the whole Israelite army and David remained in Jerusalem.” David was no longer willing to go. He lost his willingness to show up. He lost his fight. All the things that first set him on the path to his destiny, and now he has lost them. No longer willing to go. No longer willing to show up. No longer willing to try. Is that you this morning? You once had so much passion in you. You woke up at the first sound of the alarm ready to conquer the day … and now … not so much. You were once excited and seeking what God had in store for you, now you’re hoping he’s about wrapped up his business with you.

Perspective can change everything. Seeing things from a different perspective will take the hardest of circumstances and make them bearable. A shift in perspective helps us make sense of the nonsense. Just like the perspective from an airplane window shows us streets that all intersect and rivers that connect, getting a glimpse of God’s view on our life will reveal a greater picture. A picture where all things are leading to something good. A picture greater than we could possibly imagine standing here on the ground today. My friend Rachel just buried her 16 year old son Luke. I watched his celebration of life on Facebook over the weekend. This family has shown tremendous faith and strength in this unfathomable loss. God has allowed them a glimpse of his perspective. He has allowed them to imagine how he welcomed their sweet Luke home to an eternity in paradise, and he has also allowed them to imagine the impact his story will have on the lives of countless others. The lives his life will be used to save. The story of a red headed 16 year old boy who loved life and pranks, created hysterical laughter everywhere he went, made a poor choice of taking 2 Percocet the Sunday before last, and it took his life. Percocet potentially laced with something lethal. A risk every single person takes when they buy a 2nd hand pill. Now my friend Rachel and this family will undoubtedly do the work of the almighty, spreading his story to save the lives of others who could so easily make the same choice. This perspective has given them purpose in this pain and they will be able to get out of bed today because they have a mission. Blessed with a mission. Blessed with perspective. Yesterday my Mama had a hard day. She’s an incredibly strong woman who has been nothing but faithful in the loss of her sweetheart, my Daddy. Yesterday would have been their 48th wedding anniversary. It was the first February 11th they weren’t by one another’s side in 48 years. She spent her day yesterday remembering. Remembering how blessed she was to have had all those years to share with him. How God has been so generous to give her a husband that loved so well. Enough love to last a lifetime. She has been blessed. Perspective. Can we see our blessings, or do we need a new perspective? Can we be trusted to know exactly what we have today, even while having it? Oh, what if we could have that perspective today? To know that we are undoubtedly, undeniably, unequivocally blessed! To open our eyes and realize we are surrounded with an abundance of answered prayers and favor every moment of our lives, including this moment. Let me prove it to you. Do you have someone in your life that you love? I bet you once prayed for them didn’t you? And you got them. But have you forgotten they are a blessing? Have you forgotten they are an answered prayer because now they’re messy and moody and slightly demanding? How quickly we forget the gifts we have received when the gifts grow a little old. At 15 years old I literally prayed for my husband. I was looking for some new boys to come to my little country town of Ava, Missouri, stat. It was a serious matter because by about the 7th grade every boy in my school was either my cousin or I had already dated him, or worse … he was my cousin and I had already dated him. So I prayed. I prayed to the God I was just beginning to know and I asked him to bring some new boys to our school. As a result of my prayer, and some other extenuating circumstances I never took the time to learn about, a family was uprooted from Dallas, Texas and their UHaul showed up on a little farm outside of my hometown. This family included a 17 year old male. We just called him “new boy” and he was an answer to my prayers. We began dating immediately, I married him 6 days after my high school graduation, and 3 kids and 25 years later, he’s still mine.

In the 1500’s Captain Cortes led a fleet of ships to a new world for discovery. Upon arrival, he commanded his men to burn the ships. Yes, destroy that which brought you here and the only thing which could take you back to where you came from. BURN THE SHIPS, and once you do, there’s no turning back. It was the ultimate act of commitment. We are here and we’re here to stay. How many of us know the comfort and familiarity of our old lives can sometimes lure us back? No matter how good we’re doing now, if the way back is available, sometimes we’ll crawl back on that old ship and return to familiar home shores, even if they were miserable. We need a Captain Cortes up in here who says “NO GIRL, WE’RE BURNING THE SHIPS! YOU’RE NOT GOING BACK!” Well, guess what girls, we’re in luck, we have someone better than Captain Cortes, we have Captain Jesus. He will not only burn the ships, he will walk on the water. At his command the winds and the waves obey him. If he says we’re not going back, then girl, we’re not going back. The truth is, there are things we would change in our lives, but we’re not willing to even start this time because we fear we would just turn back. We lack the confidence in our willpower to follow through. We are afraid of a little progress, then a lot of backslide. One step forward, then two steps back, and the dizzing dance has us not even willing to try again. We’ve taken that bold stance before, declaring this is it, we’re changing and we’re never going back to the old ways … then what happened? Shamefully we did return. We slipped right back into old habits and patterns and maybe today we find ourselves no better off than we ever were. The effort feels exhausting, and useless. We’re just like Paul in Romans 7:15 when he says ” I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.” What’s the answer? What’s the answer when we keep going back and doing the things we know we shouldn’t do? What’s the answer when we can’t seem to break the habit or change our ways? BURN THE SHIPS AND PRESS ON Paul also writes in Philippians 3: 13-14, “Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me…” God has a big beautiful life available to you, but the ship you arrived on will only take you back to where you came from. Forget what is behind you sister. Burn that ship. Don’t let it take you back. Step into a new day on this new shore and explore what God has for you here. Press on sister. No turning back. If you follow the BIG Life Mornings playlist on Spotify, you’ll quickly find a large number of my favorite songs are by For King and Country. One of their best is called “Burn the Ships” … and yes, that song played this morning. We’ve got to Burn the ships, cut the ties Send a flare into the night Say a prayer, turn the tide Dry your tears and wave goodbye Step into a new day We can rise up from the dust and walk away We can dance upon our heartache, yeah So light a match, leave the past, burn the ships And don’t you look back Now, let’s put action to this. It can’t just be a warm fuzzy feeling imagining God giving us this new beginning. It must be more. Warm fuzzies don’t last. Struggles and temptations soon return, and that’s just the truth of it. Whew, I’m gonna be healthy and lose this extra 60 pounds, just watch me I’m doing it this time for reals ya’ll! I’m inspired with my warm fuzzies and I know God is going to strengthen me! 2 hours later, oh dang those brownies smell good, just one bit won’t hurt.