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Enough Day 11 Humble King

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Read His Words Before Ours!

Genesis 3
Zechariah 9:9-17
Philippians 2:5-11
Revelation 21

Enough, Day 11

There is a God-shaped hole in our hearts.

Our family loves Kincaid paintings. Of course, we were never able to purchase a painting, so we did the next best thing; we bought, assembled, and framed puzzles. What an accomplishment to finish the gorgeous pictures by placing the last piece!

However, my husband enjoyed hiding away a puzzle piece so he could place it into the last open spot. It became a fun routine at our house and the kids went straight to Daddy to find the last piece.

One Christmas, however, he didn’t take a piece and yet, one was missing. Initially, the kids didn’t believe him, but eventually, the truth sank in; oh, what a disappointment to have a hole in the middle of the picture, leaving it incomplete! We framed the picture anyway, taking a piece from the unseen edges to try to fill the empty space, but our eyes were immediately drawn to the patched-up place every time we looked at the picture.

Just like the unfinished puzzle, there is a hole in our hearts in the shape of God. The piece was removed way back in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve sinned against God, separating us all from His Presence.

Oh, the ache we feel over lost fellowship with God! We know something is missing, but often, we are not sure what (or really, Who). So we might try to fill the emptiness with other pieces like family, love, success, drugs, alcohol. But nothing really fits.

God’s heart also aches to be in fellowship with us. So, He gave us a promise that one day, He would fill the lonely space in our hearts.

“Look, your King is coming to you;
he is righteous and victorious,
humble and riding on a donkey[.]
(Zechariah 9:9-10)

God’s people knew the promise of a King who would bring peace and hope. They watched and waited for over 400 years. But they looked for a powerful and mighty conqueror, someone to fight their enemies and restore political peace to Israel.

They heard Zechariah’s words, “your King comes to you, righteous and victorious”,
but they missed the next part, “lowly and riding on a donkey.”

They brushed past Isaiah’s prophecy, “He didn’t have impressive form, or majesty that we should look at Him, no appearance that we should desire Him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of suffering who knew what sickness was. He was like someone people turn away from; He was despised, and we didn’t value Him.” (Isaiah 53:3)

Rather than arriving in a palace among princes and kings, God’s Son was born to peasants, in a dirty stable. He was announced, not to royalty, but to shepherds. In fact, royalty missed the whole event until wise men from abroad pointed it out. (Lessons from the Words of Life)

Yes, one day, He will come as the “righteous and victorious” conqueror Zecharaiah described. (Revelation 19) In the meantime, the apostle Paul reminds us to live with the “same attitude as that of Christ,” who “emptied Himself by assuming the form of a servant, taking on the likeness of humanity.  And when He had come as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death– even to death on a cross.” (Philippians 2:5-8)

He came humbly, not just to teach us how to live, but to live as an example before us. He came so the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, could live within us and bring us true peace despite the unrest around us. This was another step to reuniting us in complete fellowship with our God. His Holy Spirit can perfectly fill that hole in our souls.

There is nothing like having the right puzzle piece. The following Christmas, as we brought out the decorations, we found the missing puzzle piece! It had somehow fallen off the table into one of the boxes and was stored away. How appropriate to have found the missing piece at Christmas! Just like our family, if we keep searching for God (our hearts’ missing piece), we will find Him. (Jeremiah 29:13)

All who accept Christ as their personal Savior have the Holy Spirit living within them, guiding and directing their lives. Indeed, God is with us now, but one day Christ will return to earth, righteous and victorious. He will set up His Kingdom, removing all evil.

We will hear a voice from heaven saying,
“Look, God’s dwelling is with humanity, and He will live with them. They will be His peoples, and God Himself will be with them and will be their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; grief, crying, and pain will be no more, because the previous things have passed away [… ] Look, I am making everything new.” (Revelation 21:3-5)

Are you ready for that day? Will you remove all else with which you have tried to fill that God-shaped hole, even good things? Have you humbled your heart to God and allowed His Holy Spirit to come in? I invite you to embrace God alone as your own humble king, so you can experience how perfectly the Holy Spirit fills the emptiness within.

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Enough Day 1 Creation’s Groan

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Read His Words Before Ours!

Genesis 2:15-17
Genesis 3:1-24
Leviticus 16:1-34
Hebrews 10:1-4

Enough, Day 1

One small act changed everything. Once Adam and Eve tasted the fruit, there was no way back to the innocence they had previously known.

At first glance, it seems like such a small transgression – just a bite of fruit – but at its heart, it was a rejection of God. It was “no” to Him, and “yes” to self, and in one brief moment, God’s “very good” creation was broken.

Before that dreadful moment, Adam and Eve had enjoyed an open and trusting relationship with God and one another, the sweet fellowship of walking together in the garden unafraid and unashamed. But their act of rebellion opened the door to fear and shame. Trust and intimacy gave way to hiding and separation.

The consequences were severe: ejection from the garden, and a curse of sin left as the legacy for all generations to come, ultimately leading to both physical and spiritual death.

“Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, in this way death spread to all people, because all sinned.” (Romans 5:12)

It is a tragic tale. How Adam and Eve must have wished they could turn back the clock and make a different choice, but there was nothing they could do!

But, even there in the garden, we see a faint glimmer of hope. Whereas God could have destroyed Adam and Eve, or abandoned them to the path they had chosen, instead He sought them out and gave them a tantalising glimpse of a day in the future when One would come, the offspring of a woman, who would crush the serpent’s head, defeating sin and evil forever.

Before they were banished from the garden for good, God also provided Adam and Eve with clothes made from skins. An innocent animal was sacrificed to cover their shame.

This was the first sacrifice, but it pointed ahead to God’s instructions given to Moses at Mount Sinai many years later. In the generations since Adam and Eve, the story of the Bible had been one of people’s sinfulness and God’s faithfulness. When we join Moses on Mount Sinai, God has led His people out of slavery in Egypt, and they are headed to the land He has promised them, but the issue of sin remains. Nonetheless, God still wants a relationship with His sinful people, and so a sacrificial system is instituted.

The book of Leviticus describes it in detail. There were burnt offerings, grain offerings, sin offerings, guilt offerings . . . all involved sacrifice, and most required spilled blood. A flawless animal had to be slaughtered to pay the price for the people. It was not a simple matter for a sinful people to approach a holy God.

“According to the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” (Hebrews 9:22)

Despite these regular offerings, there was still the need for the Day of Atonement once a year, when the High Priest would enter the Most Holy Place where God’s presence resided. First, the priest would slaughter a bull as an offering for his own sins and those of his family; then, he had to sacrifice a goat on behalf of the people.

A second goat was chosen to be a scapegoat. The High Priest would lay his hand on the goat’s head and confess the sins of the people, symbolically transferring their sins onto the goat. The goat would then be driven out into the wilderness as a sign of the people’s sins being carried away.

The sacrificial system provided a way to approach God, but it also presented a vivid illustration of the severity of sin and the separation it brought. Romans 6:23 states that “the wages of sin is death,” and the people were reminded of this devastating truth on a regular basis as they brought their sacrifices to God, again . . . and again . . . and again.

No matter how fervently they resolved to do better next time, they always sinned again, so the sacrifices reminded them not only of their sin and its consequences, but also of the inadequacy of the sacrifices to permanently cover their sin.

Sacrifices provided a temporary solution, but Hebrews 10:4 explains “it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.”

What then was the answer?
Where would this serpent-crusher come from, and Who would it be?

Creation groaned as it waited for God’s plan to be revealed and for His solution to come.

Join the GT Community and share your thoughts!

Embracing God’s fullness in our lives is rooted in scripture and memorizing His word is vital to our continued growth and depth with Jesus. Tap and hold from your mobile device to download this week’s verse and make it your phone’s lockscreen!

Thanks for joining us today as we journeyed into Enough Week One! Don’t miss out on the discussion below – we’d love to hear your thoughts!

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Blessed Day 6 Blessed Are The Hungry And Thirsty

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Read His Words Before Ours!

Matthew 5:6
John 7:37-39
Psalm 42
Isaiah 55:1-3

Blessed, Day 6

Tacos.
I pretty much need tacos in my life.
My daughter asked me if a Mother’s Day lunch of tacos was too casual.
Um, NO!
Bring the tacos, guac, and all the salsa!

Water, mixed with magical beans, is basically essential in my everyday life.
My rough mornings are dramatically improved by the promised hope of brewing coffee.
I jokingly need tacos and coffee for a happy life.

I’ve been hungry and thirsty, but never impoverished.
I haven’t gone days with only morsels of bread or only sips of water, wondering if I would live or die.

But the Israelites had.
Freed from Egyptian slavery and led into the desert by the very presence of God, they were utterly dependent on the kindness of God for food and drink.

The Jews, suffering under oppressive Roman rule, were also familiar with agonizing hunger and thirst. Would there be enough food for toddling babes to sleep without crying? Would there be enough grain for Jewish families after the Romans took their taxes and lined their pockets with Jewish harvested produce? Suppose the Romans took possession of their wells. Where would they get water?

Unlike my hunger for fried tortillas and cumin infused pork, these people knew exactly what it felt like to go to bed hungry and wake up again with a deeper gnawing of not enough.

The Jews longed to be filled; it was an ache so heavy it consumed their everyday moments of waking and sleeping.

It was set against this ragtag gathering of the impoverished, the overlooked, the diseased, the protruding bellies of malnourishment, the hungry and the thirsty that Jesus, in His gentle, commanding voice cried out with words that resonated deep into hearts,

“If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink!”. (John 7:37)

While I haven’t experienced a groaning hunger for food, my soul has been wrecked for other desires.

When the kind-hearted, God-honoring son of a friend of mine was bullied to the point of death threats at his high school because of his skin color, my angry, broken heart begged and pleaded for justice.

When my little boy was whisked to the arms of Jesus far too soon and grief and loss etched themselves permanently across my heart, I agonized with the Lord through tears to please, please return. “I just want to go Home with you, Abba,” I pleaded.

When another marital conflict exploded, leaving its shrapnel deep in the hearts of our children and each other, my wounded heart begged and pleaded for our world to be set right.

To be set right.
I hungered for righteousness.

It was like going to bed hungry and waking up with the same, unsatisfied gnawing of not enough.

Jesus saw the crowds quickly gathering as He and His twelve disciples drew near the familiar rocky terrain of the Mount of Olives. He ascended with intentionality, knowing His disciples and the gathering crowd would hear His life-giving words as the sound of His voice carried to the valley.

Midway through His teaching on The Blessed Life, Christ declared with authoritative boldness, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” (Matthew 5:6)

Everything Jesus did or said was cocooned with purpose. As the Son of God chose human Greek words to descend on the ears of His hearers, He used “peinao” meaning “intensely painful hunger”, and “dispaso”, meaning “painful thirst”. There were other words Jesus could have used, but He specifically chose ones associated with a longing so deep it inflicted pain.

As He spoke, the attention of the audience intensified, as if with one collective sigh, they all deeply related to Jesus’ point.
They knew the pain of bellies from lack of food and of throbbing heads from dehydration.
Deeper still, they knew the gut-wrenching agony of watching unrighteousness play out around them in their relationships, their families, and their nation.

Pain-filled hunger and thirst was palpable.
They could feel it.

Can’t each of us?!.
How we hunger for the wholeness only ushered in by pure righteousness!

In fact, righteousness poured out over our hearts, churches, families, and world would feel akin to standing beneath a powerful waterfall in the dry, dusty heat of a wilderness desert, wouldn’t it?

Fresh.
New.
Alive.
Thriving.

Four words flooded with promise closed out Jesus’ statement on hungering and thirsting for righteousness. “They will be filled.”

We are the empty, the broken, the completely unrighteous.
He is the righteous filler.

As God the Son hung naked and dying on a Roman tool of torture, His flesh beaten to a literal pulp, gasping for His final breaths as the weight of the world’s sin pressed down upon Him, He became separated from the goodness of God.
“My God, My God, why have You forsaken me?!” (Matthew 27:46)

In His separation from the righteous holiness of God as He carried my sin and yours, Jesus cried out, “I thirst!”. The water of Life had been cut off from its Source rooted in the goodness of Father God’s heart.

He took on our thirst for righteousness and paid for our sin in full, in order to lavish us with the flood of His own abundance so we can stand before the Almighty God spotless, holy, and blameless.

In the closing words of all of Scripture we hear this wide invitation,
“The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come.”
And let the one who hears say, “Come.”
And let the one who is thirsty come;
let the one who wishes take the water of life without cost.” (Revelation 22:17)

His full righteousness is here for the taking.
In the middle of our broken, our pain, our ache for wholeness,
Jesus cries out, “Come! Be filled!”.

Trust Him with the weight of your life, and let Him fill you to overflowing with His righteousness!

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Thanks for joining us today as we journeyed into Blessed Week Two! Don’t miss out on the discussion below – we’d love to hear your thoughts!

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Redeemed Day 3 The Lord Is Against Me

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Read His Words Before Ours!

Ruth 1:6-14
Joel 2:18-32
Romans 5:6-11

Redeemed, Day 3

No access to food.
Out of work.
Uprooted from home.
Three family deaths.

In a post-COVID-19 world, these descriptions are more easily relatable for all of us.
As we watched our entire globe shut down from a virus we couldn’t stop, stealing away commonplace freedoms, our jobs, our toilet paper (!!), and threatening the lives of those we love most, our world was upended. The life we’d enjoyed before phrases like “shelter-at-home”, “quarantine”, and “shortage” became everyday idioms seemed to quickly fade away and we wondered when, or if, “normal” would ever return.

For those who lost precious loved ones, nothing would ever be the same.

Ache.
Loss.
Broken.
Empty.
Bitter.

These words filled the pages of Naomi’s story.
Her tagline had become, “My life is too bitter for others to share.” (Ruth 1:13)
She was alone, and had resigned herself to seek out her existence in the lowest position possible of loss and defeat.

“The Lord Is Against Me!” her heart screamed.

One day, Naomi would dandle grandbabies on her knee. (Ruth 4:16)
One day, hope would shine brilliantly where her tears now flowed without end.
One day, Naomi would witness the unimaginable happen before her eyes as her daughter-in-law remarried and restoration was reborn. (Ruth 4:10-13)
One day, Naomi’s great-great grandson would be King David, the man after God’s own heart, through whose line would one day come the King of Kings, Jesus Christ. (Matthew 1:5-6)
One day, happiness would dance in all the places where brokenness now resided. (Ruth 4:17)

But for now, all her heart could feel was empty, bitter, and broken.
Though she frequently repeated what she felt to be true to others, “the Lord is against me”, it wasn’t true.

The Lord God hadn’t left her.
He was, and always had been, infinitely closer than she imagined. (Isaiah 41:9-10)

The Lord God saw every loss she’d experienced.
And He carried her tears in His own bottle. (Psalm 56:8-9)

The Lord God had not glossed over her emptiness with the callous heart of an all-powerful Being.
He was intent on her restoration and her filling. (Joel 2:25-27)

Despite the true reality of the Lord’s ceaseless presence, His purposeful call on her life, and His tender-loving compassion as He carried and guided her,
all Naomi could voice was, “The Lord Is Against Me.”

Oh my heart, I am right there with you, Naomi!
It’s so much easier to allow the immense weight of feelings and circumstance wrap around us like a heavy knitted blanket, than to shirk the comforter, pick up the armor of God, and sink our fingers into the tightly woven rope of God’s truth.

With gritted teeth and streaming tears, we CAN cry aloud….
You ARE near to the brokenhearted, God! (Psalm 34:18)
You DO see my painful circumstances! (2 Chronicles 16:9)
You are NOT oblivious to the widespread devastation I feel in my heart (Psalm139:1-5)
You have wiped my tears before, and I KNOW You will do it again. (Psalm 56:8-9)
You are a God of FULLNESS. (Ephesians 3:19)
You are LOVE! (1 John 4:16)
You hold all HOPE, and You, You cannot lie. (Titus 1:2)

So, here, in the shadows of my heart’s jagged edges, I will choose to cling to truth over deception. I will lift a tongue to praise You, one slow word at a time. As tears continue to streak my face, I will repeat, “You are my God, and there is no other!” (1 Chronicles 17:20)

We stand generations far removed, and deeply benefited, from Naomi’s story, easily tracing the handiwork of the Lord over her remarkable life. We can quickly point out the flag of redemption wildly waving amidst the rubble of her seeming defeat.

But Naomi could not.
And God still walked beside her.

Sister, friend, ME, hello!
How deeply the Lord God loves the journey of walking with us!

He is not repulsed by our lack of faith, our bitter tears, our slowly plodding feet, or the misnomers with which we title our stories. He smiles, holds out His hand, wipes our tears, and invites us to take just one more step. “Trust Me.”

The Almighty is not offended at our painful, angry jabs back at Him, nor is He threatened by our dismal decision to wrap ourselves in emotion rather than truth.

But He does want to move us forward,
into truth,
into fullness,
and into redemption.

As we move forward with Him, He faithfully provides in the most unlikely ways, at the most unlikely times, but that is just like the Lord our God to take our impossible and draw out God’s glory! (Matthew 19:26)

As Naomi, bitter, hurt, angry, and grieving, determined to return to her homeland because “she had heard the Lord had paid attention to His people’s need by providing them food” (Ruth 1:6), the Lord provided by giving Naomi the gift of Ruth.

Ruth would be a physical reminder to Naomi that God had not abandoned her.
Ruth would live out loyalty and love that mirrored God’s heart to her.
Ruth would wrap her arms around Naomi’s, weep with Naomi, and walk every step beside her, loving Naomi as God loved her.

And herein we see the beauty of the Lord’s provision to us in the middle of our gutsy, rash decree that “The Lord Is Against Me.”

No, Sister, He isn’t.
He never has been.

When we pushed the Lord away angrily, He drew near and sacrificed Himself for us, spilling His blood and providing the payment for a debt to Death we owed, but could never pay. He provided then, and He provides for us now. (Romans 5:6-11)

Hope.
Forgiveness.
Renewal.
Redemption.
Give Him your pen, Sister; let Him finish your story.

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Embracing God’s fullness in our lives is rooted in scripture and memorizing His word is vital to our continued growth and depth with Jesus. Tap and hold from your mobile device to download this week’s verse and make it your phone’s lockscreen!

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Awaken Day 1 A Prayer For Mercy

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Read His Words Before Ours!

Psalm 6
Psalm 13:1-6
2 Corinthians 1:3-7 

Awaken, Day 1

One of the beautiful things about Gracefully Truthful is the vulnerability required to write each Journey studies. From the beginning, we have strived for authenticity, as our desire has been for other women to know we are walking the reality of the Journeys we write.
Rarely do I write from distant experience,
I write what the Lord is revealing in my heart moment by moment.
It is messy, I cry many tears as I write,
and I trust that the Lord will somehow use my scattered words to bring Him glory.

With that transparency I tell you, sisters, I am walking through an incredibly dark valley.
My future is uncertain.
My dreams are shattered.
My heart is broken.

In the midst of this valley, the Psalms has brought comfort, putting into words prayers I haven’t known how to pray. I’ve spent days sitting in one Psalm drawing as much truth and comfort from it as I can hold before moving onto the next.

It is beautiful to see how the Bible has so many dimensions!

The same verses I clung to as a little girl learning the Lord is my shepherd, are the same verses God used to makes me lie down in green pastures.
Today, those same verses remind me I will never walk alone.

The Bible never changes.
But I change.
Because of that, the Bible will always be relevant.

God spoke through Psalm 6, meeting me exactly where I am.
But His word is ready to meet each of us in every circumstance
because His Spirit makes it come alive!

Women trying to conceive can pray these words back to the Lord.
Mamas grieving loss can read these words as the Spirit ministers directly to their souls.
Soldiers could feel as if this psalm was written just for them, finding solace in His rescue.
God’s Word is relatable, bringing us life!
His Word is for each of us!

“Be gracious to me, Lord, for I am weak;
heal me, Lord, for my bones are shaking;
my whole being is shaken with terror.
And you, Lord—how long?”
Psalm 6:2-3

My heart echoes amen and amen.
And countless hearts down through the centuries do the same.
Our beings shake.
Be gracious, Lord!
And Lord?! How Long??

The older I get, the more I realize how incredibly messy life is.
Even in the beautiful seasons, there will always be trials to face.
Every single person reading this page has faced a trial of some kind,
so we can all draw comfort from His Word.

“Save me for the sake of your steadfast love!”
Psalm 6:4

Oh sisters, how weak I have felt in this valley!
How deeply I’ve begged, “Save me for the sake of your steadfast love!”
I’ve never experienced the shaking of my bones quite like I have lately.
Often, I find myself crying out to God,
“How long? How long will this season last? Surely this valley can’t be any deeper?”

Are you weary from your groaning?
Is your pillow drenched every night?
Do you wait until your kids are in bed, then let the tears flow?
Do you hold them in for as many days as you can, until they just burst while you’re driving?
Me, too.

Take comfort in this, Dear One, the Lord sees every single tear that falls.
He catches those tears in a bottle (Psalm 56:8); He knows the source of those tears.
He knows the heartache, the grief, the loss, the suffering, the anger, the disappointment.

Are your eyes swollen from grief?
Does your head throb from the overwhelming thoughts running through it?
Does your body ache from exhaustion as you long to sleep just one night without the interruption of horrible dreams or racing thoughts?
Does your jaw hurt because of the constant clenching?
Me, too.

He sees.
He knows each thought, each dream, and your aching body. (Matthew 11:28-29)
He longs to give you rest.

As I sat in my counseling session sharing with my therapist the anger I was feeling, he explained that my grief will come like the tide, sometimes it will roll in and come further up on the shore before descending back down, but like the tide, it will surely come.
The beauty of grieving, he explained, is that I am able to understand even more deeply the devastation caused by sin, and therefore, grasp the need for a Savior even more than I ever have before.
But I do not have to walk through grief alone.
As I enter into a new phase of grief I can bring it to the Lord,
transparently asking Him to walk with me.

The Lord has heard the sound of my weeping!
He hasn’t turned a deaf ear to my pain.
He hasn’t blocked out my mourning or allowed it to become like white noise mixing with the sounds of weeping across the globe.
He has heard each individual cry.
Yours. Mine. Your neighbor’s. Your child’s. The hungry child in Honduras.
The mourning father in Guam. Each and every wail is heard by the Lord.

And the Lord accepts my prayer.
Not only has He heard.
He listens. He accepts.

I look forward to the day I can write a Journey like this from the other side.
But I’m not there yet, and I won’t be for a while.
So, I sit in the peace that is offered in Psalm 6 and throughout the rest of Scripture.
The Lord knows my pain. He knows my tears.
He knows exactly how long this season will last.
And He will walk with me every step of the way.

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Embracing God’s fullness in our lives is rooted in scripture and memorizing His word is vital to our continued growth and depth with Jesus. Tap and hold from your mobile device to download this week’s verse and make it your phone’s lockscreen!

Thanks for joining us today as we journeyed into Awaken Week One! Don’t miss out on the discussion below – we’d love to hear your thoughts!

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Misunderstood Day 13 On Death and Butterflies

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Read His Words Before Ours!

Romans 1:18-25
Ecclesiastes 3:9-15
2 Corinthians 5:1-10
I Corinthians 15:35-49
John 3:16-21

Misunderstood, Day 13

Loss hits each of us in varying degrees.
Financial, emotional, relational, and of course, physical.

The ache of physical loss is so deep, we naturally long for something more.
Something to wrap us up, assuring us that everything will be okay, that death wasn’t the end.
We ache for hope.

When I lost my son, the brokenness was like waves, rising and falling, each crashing mercilessly on my unspeakable hurt. I found myself repeating,
“This is the new normal. I will always carry this loss. There is no “going back” to before now.”  

How to breath.
How to keep living.
Loss intensified my need for hope.

I am not alone, am I, sister?
You’ve been there, too.
Different stories, but the same need.
We each share it, this desperation for hope.

Someone I love was walking through loss, and one afternoon, she pointed to a butterfly and whispered through tears, “There she is”.
She wasn’t referring to the butterfly, but rather the loved one she’d lost.
She longed for hope.

Maybe you’ve wondered the same thing at some point.
A beautiful, fluttering butterfly. The soul of the one we love?
The coin on the street. Sent from Heaven with love from those gone before us?
The feather whispering through the air. A sign sent to us from above?

This life with all of its obvious brokenness and ugly,
gut-ripping hurt,
creates an ache for something
to staunch the flow of throbbing agony.

Butterflies are an amazing design.
Feathers hold stunning intricacies.
Money holds value.
But these created things were never meant to be an end,
they were intended to point us to the Creator. 

As I began my research for writing, pulling up website after website of what it meant to
“find a feather” or “see a butterfly” after loss,
the most blaring discovery wasn’t found in what was said, but rather what wasn’t.
Every website was full of emotional statements worded as facts, but none of them gave reasons for why they believed what they did.
Folklore, tradition, emotional feelings, these were the basis for their beliefs.

The questions hounded me as I read more stories,
“Wouldn’t you want to know? For sure?
Wouldn’t whatever truth you uncovered be better than a feel-good falsehood?”
Lies, no matter how wonderful they feel,
hold nothing more than a vanishing morning mist.
Life can’t be built on mist.

I’ve had questions about life and faith countless times.
What if life after death is a fantasy?
What if Christianity was just created to make us feel better?
I wanted the truth.

What we believe matters,
but what the truth is matters even more,
because it doesn’t change,
whether we believe it or not.

Through a lengthy process of investigation, I came to a place where I could solidly stand on the claims of the Bible.
The deeper I studied, the more I came to know the Bible was real,
not because I wanted it to be,
not because I was raised that way,
or because it made me feel good,
but because it was true.

And Sisters?
The Bible doesn’t sugar-coat our pain.
In fact, our pain has an explanation.
And so does our longing for hope.

Loss happens because we live in a world broken by sin and death.
It was a choice Adam and Eve made in the Garden of Eden when they chose to trust their own desires over God’s design. The sickness of Sin travels to each and every one of us from the babe whose heart stopped beating before he even took a breath, to the eyes of those who have seen 100 years pass before them.
Sin affects us all; always bringing death, brokenness, pain, and heartache.

So, yes, we all hunger for hope.
Because we are all irreversibly broken.

But God…
God in His love,
God in His goodness,
God in His mercy,
brought Hope.

Hope that says the grave is not the end.
Hope that says broken can be healed.
Hope that says our sinful hearts can be bought back.
Hope that says Love Wins.

What does the Bible say about Death and Souls?
It says that souls are eternal and life after death is real.
The Bible says that when we die, we will either spend our eternity
delighting in relationship with God,
dancing out the life we were always intended to live in real, physical bodies,
with significant purpose and meaning,
OR
we will forever be bound in Hell.

Hell, where real people live in real, physical, broken bodies experiencing eternal separation from the Creator. It’s a physical place of forever heartache, suffering, and pain.

Heaven and Hell.
Both are eternal.
Both are real.
Our destination is our choosing.

Rather than returning as a soul embodying a butterfly,
God designed our souls to be made perfect,
to indwell perfect bodies, free from sickness and pain.
He designed us for a full life!

For those left alive on earth, He brings us comfort.
Not from butterflies, feathers, or random coins,
but from the sure and certain, solid truth of His word.
Comfort much more satisfying than glossy butterfly wings.

The next time you stand amazed at a monarch, look past the creation, and see the Creator. Know He loves you.
Know He has a plan for life after death.
Know that in Him is found Hope.
Hope for those who admit their sin-filled hearts and accept the free gift of Righteous Life held out through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ as He took the punishment for our sin on Himself.
Know that this Hope is solid and sure,
able to stand up under the heartache and joy of our everyday life
because Jesus Christ is our Hope!

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Embracing God’s fullness in our lives is rooted in scripture and memorizing His word is vital to our continued growth and depth with Jesus. Tap and hold from your mobile device to download this week’s verse and make it your phone’s lockscreen!

Thanks for joining us today as we journeyed into Misunderstood Week Three! Don’t miss out on the discussion below – we’d love to hear your thoughts!

Looking for other journeys from this theme?
Here’s a link to all past studies in Misunderstood!