Empty Shelf Challenge Book #1: Learning to Walk in Freedom

I finished my first book for the #EmptyShelf challenge. It’s a fantastic book! You should really read it.

It’s called Learning to Walk in Freedom 🙂

LTWIF.front.cover

 

 

 

 

You can go ahead and laugh 🙂 I needed to read the proof that was mailed to me by the printer. This time, I wasn’t meticulously reading to find typos (hopefully, those have mostly been found!). I was reading to make sure everything looked good on the page.

I was reminded why I wrote this book and why I believe in it so strongly.

Here are some of my favorite moments. If you haven’t read it yet, now is the time to get yourself a copy!

I believe Scripture teaches that freedom is both a one-time gift and a process. The moment we come to Jesus Christ, He gives us freedom through the Holy Spirit, so that we are no longer slaves to sin (Romans 6:17–18), but that freedom is something we need to learn to walk out in our lives.

 

If we expect a life free from temptation, then we expect to be more free than Jesus.

 

Free people do whatever it takes to become free and remain free. Whatever it takes. Jesus did whatever it took so we have the opportunity to learn to walk in freedom. He gave up everything as He hung from that cross, dying a criminal’s death, carrying the sin and the shame of the entire world on His back.

Learning to Walk in Freedom: Here What People Are Saying

Front Cover

 

Back cover

Read some new reviews of Learning to Walk in Freedom:

“Brenna has written a wonderful gem and a terrific resource. In almost 15 years of college ministry, I have witnessed students’ struggles with addiction, sexual brokenness, and controlling habits. This book provides an inspiring and holistic approach to helping us find freedom. She aptly encourages the reader towards intimacy with the Father, study of the Word, authenticity in community, and practical changes in behavior. I’m excited to use this as a resource with students on my campus.” Joseph Gavin, Chi Alpha Vermont

“I am privileged to have known the author since her college days and have seen the growth and maturity that freedom in Christ has developed in Brenna. This is a story of inspiration, rescue, and hope, but not just for the author. Like the traveler in Pilgrim’s Progress or Hinds Feet for High Places, Brenna leads the reader on a journey to meet the One who can help anyone learn to walk in freedom. Join her on the journey and find out for yourself.”
Mike Olejarz, National Chi Alpha Training Team

“This is a tremendous book, with so much depth and strength. It thrills the heart to read Brenna Kate’s testimony in the back of the book. Her journey in five steps is an easy read. God is so good to His children. We just haven’t truly let Him give us the freedom in our walk with Him, that He desires for us. This book will help the one seeking to walk in God’s freedom. Thank you, Brenna Kate. I will reread the book and will be sharing thoughts from the book at a local support group. Thank you for your obedience in writing this for the rest of us. For those who have not yet read the book, you’re in for a very special blessing. Again, THANKS.”
Nora S.

This excerpt is a continuation from yesterday:

Later that week, as I continued to cry out to God, He spoke clearly to me concerning some of my questions and struggles. Most of all, He called me to choose to trust Him, to rest in Him, and to allow Him to teach me. He beckoned me to go on a journey with Him, a journey to further whole- ness and freedom, choosing to believe He is who He says He is.

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. (Matthew 11:28–30)

Thus began this journey into my current understanding of true freedom. (You can read a full testimony in the back of this book.) I’m sure it’s not over. I invite you to join me where I am now.

Wherever you are on this journey, there is something to be learned from Him. Even if you’re not generally a praying person, I encourage you to pause. Pray the following for yourself as inspired by the Scripture above and prepare to dive into a new level of freedom in your life:

God, I come to You. I am weary, burdened, and I need Your rest. God, I lay down my heavy burden and take Your yoke upon my shoulders, whatever that means, because You say I can learn from You, in Your gentleness and humility of heart. Your yoke is easy and Your burden is light. God, help me to receive that, and prepare me to really hear from You as I read this book. I surrender to all that You have for me as I learn to walk in freedom. Amen.

Get your free copy of Learning to Walk in Freedom today!

Cover and interior design done by Rusty and Ingrid Creative

Freedom Friday: Get Learning to Walk in Freedom for Free Tomorrow!

Learning to Walk in Freedom is free tomorrow for Kindle!

Front Cover

It will be my and Roy’s 11th wedding anniversary! So I’m celebrating by giving you the opportunity to download my book for Free!

Back cover

I’ll remind you again tomorrow! Help me spread the word 🙂

Here’s an excerpt from Learning to Walk in Freedom:

Freedom is my anthem—it has been my life’s theme. The questions that come with the word freedom are questions I continually ponder. The answers did not come easily.

I became a Christian at age 23. I came to Jesus with a lot of problems: an eating disorder, same-sex attraction, emotional dependency, self-injury, self-loathing, and chronic low self-esteem. My life was controlled by and revolved around my issues and trying to get rid of them.

I felt like I was drowning.

Why, if I had become a new creation in Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:17), did my life not feel all that changed? Why was I still dealing with the same issues? I had a crowd of people continually praying for me. I fasted for long periods of time. I devoured the Word of God and prayed my heart out, including interceding for complete strangers whose prayer requests I found on the Internet! I went to church, led Bible studies, and sang on the worship team. I was writing songs for God and serving Him every way I knew how.

And I was still drowning.

I remember the moment vividly. It was May of 2004 at a campus ministry conference. I was one of the leaders, the teachers, the ones with the knowledge—the answers. Still, I was gasping for air.

Drowning.

Is this it, God? 

I was walking around the old campus. There was a castle, and in the castle was a piano. I sat down at the piano to sing, to write, to think. (I sometimes think best while sitting at a piano.) I began to play, and this is what came out:

There must be more than this 

Over and over, I sang this to my Lord. Deep down in my soul, I expe- rienced God’s fingerprint. I knew He was real. And because I had already seen Him working in so many ways, I had to believe that there was more. I desperately needed to hear His voice tell me that all this striving, all this seeking wasn’t for nothing.

Freedom Friday: A Place for Obedience, Part 2

This is a continuation of a post from last week, A Place for Obedience, part 1.

Let me share another analogy. Imagine that a person who has walked with a limp his whole life finds out there is a procedure available to correct that limp. Because he has walked with a limp for so long, his muscles have actually conformed and adjusted to accommodate his limp. He has the procedure but still needs to undergo physical therapy to strengthen his weakened muscles.

He needs to relearn how to walk.

We as believers should not be surprised that we walk with a limp. All of humanity walks with the same limp. Yet, as believers, we have the opportunity to learn to walk in freedom through Christ’s work on the cross and the power of the Holy Spirit.

We can proactively make choices to act like the free person that we already are.

Here is the issue. This is what many of us might think it looks like to act like a free person.

We believe that God wants us to behave better than we are. We know God wants us to do certain things and doesn’t want us to do others. Thus, we gather knowledge, and with that knowledge, we try really hard to behave how we think God wants us to behave.

How does this pattern play itself out in our lives? Say you have a struggle with pornography. You know you shouldn’t view it. In fact, you get even further convicted when, after having an all-night Saturday porn marathon, you go to church on Sunday and the pastor preaches on the dangers of pornography. You go to the altar, you repent as best you know how, you might even ask someone to pray for you with some vague sharing like, “I just feel God speaking to me and need prayer.”

Then you go home and try harder. Maybe you even read some books on why pornography is bad, how the industry treats the workers, how the struggle enslaves a person, and maybe even some tips on overcoming. And you keep trying harder.

Then you likely fall again.

This is basically what I did, as described in Freedom Step Three. I would feel genuinely convicted about something. I would be truly grieved by my sin and exhausted by the insanity the cycle of sin produced in my life. I would gather materials to help me understand the struggles, and I would try and use that knowledge to inspire myself to better behavior.

I had sincere intentions, but I was going about it the wrong way.

How then would a free person act?

A free person actively overcomes life-controlling issues by becoming plugged in to the power source and remaining plugged in.

In doing a search in the New Testament for the word power, I noticed that Luke, in the gospel he wrote, talks about power more than the other three gospels combined. He talks about Jesus doing what He did under the power of the Holy Spirit.

Luke also wrote the book of Acts, often referred to as the Acts of the Apostles, or sometimes even the Acts of the Holy Spirit. In the beginning of the book of Acts, it is recorded that Jesus told the apostles to wait in Jerusalem because “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you.” (Acts 1:8) Luke had seen this power, the power of the Holy Spirit, up close and had experienced it intimately. He saw its importance. He observed the difference it made in the lives of the disciples, including Peter, who, on the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came upon them in Jerusalem, shared the hope of Jesus Christ with the crowds, and 3,000 people believed and were baptized.

God is meant to be our source of power.

Through His Holy Spirit given to us as believers, we can be empowered to make better choices. Rather, what we often do is take our knowledge and will power and try to make these things our source of power for overcoming our struggles.

Bob Hamp gives this analogy. It’s like taking the ethernet cable (which connects your computer to the internet) and plugging it into the spot for the power cord. We try to take data, the knowledge we have gathered, and use that to fuel us into obedience in hopes that we will derive power from that data.

I quoted 2 Peter 1:3 earlier, that “His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness.” Imagine that we, as believers in Jesus, are like a lamp. That lamp has everything in it that it needs in order to function as it was created to: electrical wires, functioning light bulbs, and a switch to turn it on, but if I do not plug in the lamp to the electrical outlet, it won’t work.

In the Garden of Eden, not only did we become disconnected from our source of life, we became disconnected from our source of power. That power enters back into us when we become believers, as every believer receives the Holy Spirit, but we need to continually reconnect.

That doesn’t mean the Holy Spirit comes and goes completely as it often did in the Old Testament stories, where we read about the Holy Spirit coming upon people so they can prophesy or be empowered for leadership or an event. The Holy Spirit always dwells in believers. Yet Paul commands the Ephesus church to be “filled with the Holy Spirit.” (Ephesians 5:18) Why would Paul be telling believers to be filled with the Spirit? They already had the Holy Spirit in them. We can gather from the passage, then, that we are implored to “keep being filled.” The passage shows us that the filling of the Spirit is something we need to continually seek and ask for.

We need to continually be reconnected with our power source.

continued next week

Freedom Friday: Responding to God’s Discipline

God is doing a work in me
He’s walking through my rooms and hails
Checking every corner
Tearing down the unsafe walls
And letting in the light

Sara Groves Help Me Be New

I’ve been practicing living a lifestyle of hearing (mentioned last week). A lifestyle of waiting on God.

“My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning.” Psalm 130:6 (NIV1984)

I was hoping through all this waiting and listening to hear some sort of massive revelation about what’s next in our lives. Or to catch a glimpse of some grand plan that God has for me.

Instead, what I’m receiving is correction.

I wish I could say my response to correction is always thankfulness and receptive humility. Not usually. Instead, I respond as my children often do to discipline: I alternate between wanting to lash out in anger or denial and trying to hide in shame.

I mostly just mope. It’s not fun to have your imperfection revealed to you. Isaiah knows what this feels like.

“It’s all over! I am doomed, for I am a sinful man. I have filthy lips, and I live among a people with filthy lips. Yet I have seen the King, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.”

It’s easy to write, speak and sing about how I desire to be all God wants be to be, how the cry of my heart is to be more like Him, how I want to learn to walk in the fullness of all He created me to be. But the reality of correction is that it’s painful and challenging.

When God puts His finger on something in our hearts or lives that needs to be changed, how should we react?

1. Gratitude. God is speaking to us and doing what a good father does: discipline His children. Discipline is not a dirty word. It simply means to disciple or correct. Discipline is how we grow. So we can thank God for caring enough about us to speak to us about things that are keeping us from living in the fullness of who He created us to be.

“If you reject discipline, you only harm yourself;
but if you listen to correction, you grow in understanding.”
Proverbs 15:32 (NLT)

2. Humility. False humility, overwhelming grief, self-punishment: these are all forms of pride. Pride declares that the cross is not enough. Pride says I must hide in shame, just as in the garden. Pride says I mist somehow punish myself or make up for the fact that I’m not perfect. To punish myself is to deny the cross.

“The punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
and by his wounds we are healed.” Isaiah 53:5b (NIV1984)

We can choose to accept God’s correction without moping or denial, but rather with true humility and thankfulness. True humility exercises our surrendering muscles and declares to God, “You are able to take care of me, to shape me, and I trust You to do just that.”

“Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.” 1 Peter 5:6

3. Prayer. We can go to prayer with the thing God has shown us. Sometimes, we need more guidance and direction. Other times, we need His peace to confirm what we’ve heard. Mainly, I think we just need to experience His love & acceptance in that moment and gather the strength and grace we need in order to accomplish whatever He has asked of us.

“But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.” Isaiah 40:31 (KJV)

4. Action. Whether the thing God speaks to us requires a simply tweaking or a complete overhaul, we need to act on what He has said. Write it down. Tell a friend. Pray with someone. And act. Hearing and responding to God takes practice. You may not always get it exactly right. Remember that God is a good father. Good, healthy parents never expect their children to be perfect. Their kids are not mocked or shunned for trying to be obedient, but making a mistake. As we try to be obedient to what we thought we heard, God will give us grace and rejoice over our effort.

“No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.” Hebrews 12:11 (NIV1984)

Sarah Groves puts it well in her song:


I am working hard
To clean my house and set it straight
To not let pride get in the way
To catch an eternal vision of
What I am to become

True freedom is learning to walk in the fullness of all God created you to be. We can accept the Lord’s discipline with gratitude, humility, prayer and action because He is a good father.

How has the Lord been disciplining you lately? How have you chosen to respond?

Freedom Friday: Jealous God

When it’s time for Freedom Friday, I will be out of town for the death of a family member. I will be 20 country miles from the closest Starbucks, with no access to WiFi.

So I’m going to leave you with a few classic posts that are on my heart.

He is Jealous for me
This theme is so heavy on my heart. This used to make me feel as if I needed to shape up and behave better. Now I recognize all His jealousy requires of me is that I open my heart fully to Him and allow His fire to consume all of me.

Do You Really Know God?
This was the top viewed post of 2011. I ask this question: how do you envision God? Who do you imagine Him to be?

“Talitha koum!” Expelling the Laughers
Is anyone discouraging you in your journey of freedom, telling you that your goals are not possible? This post is for you.

I’ll be back next week 🙂

Freedom Friday: Are Your Dreams Asleep?

“Once upon a time there was a funny dog named Crispin’s Crispian. He was named Crispin’s Crispian because – he belonged to himself.”


This is the beginning of one of our favorite children’s stories, Mister Dog: The Dog Who Belonged to Himself.

My husband discovered this book at the grocery store when my oldest was just a toddler. My kids loves this book. Love it. Ideally, they would like for me to read it 15 times a day.

In the book, Crispin’s Crispian meets a little boy in his travels. They cook dinner together and the boy moves into Crispian’s little house.

The final pages of the book describe them cleaning up after dinner and heading to bed. “He [Mr. Dog] curled up in a warm little heap and went to sleep. And he dreamed his own dreams.”

I couldn’t help but think of Mr. Dog as I watched Bob Hamp’s “A Kingdom Parable” teaching this week. He tells the story of how a young man discovers who God created him to be (he’s an acrobat). At the end of the parable, Bob describes how people react to seeing this young man’s acrobatic feat.

He describes the audience as people whose hearts have gone to sleep, and are coming alive as they witness someone who is stepping into exactly who they were made to be. The people go home, and tie ropes to trees. They pick up those music lessons that have been forgotten for too long. Others simply go back to what they used to do when their dreams were still alive.

Has this ever happened to you?

Sometimes, I go to a show, I hear good music, and it inspires me to write. I’ve written some of my most honest and powerful songs this way. Other times, I hear an inspirational speaker talk about something that exhilarates me, and I go home and write a blog post.

I walked away from this Bob Hamp teaching and felt God put a question on my heart.

Are your dreams asleep? Is your heart asleep?

In the acrobat parable, the young man’s father says to him something that struck me as a profound truth. There are some things hidden in your heart that you will never discover if you don’t push yourself enough to find it.

I’ve written elsewhere on how to keep your dreams alive. I’ve also written about how God refines us and gives us the desires of our hearts. Those posts might be helpful resources.

Part of learning to walk in freedom, part of learning to become the person God created you to be is fanning those dreams that He has given you. It’s infusing hope into them when there is no visible reason to hope.

“He is so rich in kindness and grace that he purchased our freedom with the blood of his Son and forgave our sins. He has showered his kindness on us, along with all wisdom and understanding.” Ephesians 1:7-8 (NLT)

Ask yourself today: are my dreams asleep? What dreams are hidden in my heart, things I’ve seen glimpses of, but have been afraid to dig deeper and discover their fullness? Have I, or the enemy, squelched and buried the dreams and hopes God had conceived in us? Is it because they seem too big, too wild, too unrealistic?

“Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.” Ephesians 3:20 (NLT)

Do I believe that God is able? Do I believe that God is not only able, but willing? Not just willing, but that He has a deep desire to bless me and love on me and see my dreams come true?

Unlike Mr. Dog, we do not belong to ourselves. We belong to God. And we find out who we are by staring into His eyes and seeing ourselves reflected in Him. We discern who He created us to be by diving into His heart and resting in Him. We discover the power to keep our dreams alive in His presence.

Wake up your dreams today. Get out your journal and remind yourself of what they are. Position yourself in a warm little heap in God’s lap and allow Him to redeposit those dreams into your heart (I envision this involving hot cocoa with marshmallows for some reason).

“Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you your heart’s desires.” Psalm 37:4 (NLT)

Two resources that might be helpful in assisting you in this exercise: The Kiss of Heaven by Darlene Zschech and Holy Discontent by Bill Hybels.

Dream your own dreams, the ones God has given you. You are dear to God, and your dreams are His gift to you. Nurture those dreams as you would care for delicate gift from a dear loved one.

Freedom Friday: Take It To The Next Level

I’ve been “a serious runner” since about June. I decided I could call myself “a serious runner” after I had run 25 miles in a week and ran over 8 miles at once.

Since then, I’ve run a 5K race (3.1 miles), 2 10K’s races (6.2 miles) and a half marathon (13.1).

My longest run has been 17.3 miles.

I recently decided to find out if there were any running clubs in my area. I found one local to me that has early morning runs twice a week.

Honestly, the thought of joining with them made me nervous. Would I be able to keep up? This fear was warranted, as I already knew they ran faster than me. Would I even like running with other people (something I’ve only done once since I took up running again)? What if I looked goofy? What if they weren’t nice to me? Yes, even I have these thoughts 🙂

I went, despite my fears and insecurities. We ran. We ran fast (by my standards). In fact, we ran the 5.26 mile route at a pace that was an entire minute per mile faster than I had previously run on a really good day.

I made it through. I even talked during the run without gasping. It was challenging.

For the rest of that week, I decided I would continue to push myself on my personal runs. I ended up running about a minute per mile faster for all of my shorter runs (5 miles or less).

The next week came. I was nervous again. I went anyway (even though the run starts at 5:30 AM). The person I ran with last week, who runs a bit slower than the others, wasn’t there. I ran anyway. We ran a whole minute faster than the week before. And it was cold.

My running had been going well. I was happy with my race times and the completion of a half marathon. I had been doing what was comfortable (well, as comfortable as running is for someone who is not a natural). Then something came along to shake me up from my comfortable place, challenging me to take it to the next level.

As I pondered this, I came across this blog post, Why You Should Embrace Discomfort by Michael Hyatt, Chairman of Thomas Nelson Publishers, the largest Christian publishing (and a fantastically challenging blogger!). Ironically, the two examples used are running examples.

Michael Hyatt references a Wired magazine article about Dean Karnazes, a long distance runner. It describes an experience where he put on his shoes and started running one night, after coming to the realization one night that this was not the life he’d imagined for himself. At the end of his run:

He had covered 30 miles. In the process, he’d had a blinding realization: There were untapped reservoirs within him. It was like a religious conversion. He had been born again as a long-distance runner. More than anything else now, he wanted to find out how far he could go.

 

When I started running, I hoped to be able to finish a 10K someday. I certainly never even considered running a half marathon. This was only made possible because I made a choice to push past what was comfortable and take it to the next level. Now I’m looking forward to the next one, as I hope to improve my time significantly.

I have begun to relate this concept to my spiritual life. Have I become too comfortable in my spiritual habits? Are there reservoirs within me, or within God, that I have yet to tap into?

I read the Bible most days. Being that I’m the director of a faith-based ministry, rarely a day goes by that I don’t read the Bible for ministry purposes. But most days, I read 1-2 chapters of Scripture for my enrichment. Sometimes, I journal. Sometimes, I read a devotional. I take a chunk of time to pray, though this is something I often do while I run.

This has become a fairly comfortable routine for me. None of these things are bad, and nothing in particular jumps out as needing to be changed. But the question I’ve been asking in prayer is this: God, is there something You want me to do to take it to the next level?

As I refine my running schedule, I have decided to also refine my devotional schedule. I am aiming to run 5 days a week. The other 2 days a week, I will try to get up extra early to read the Bible, pray, listen, and read from some books and devotionals (I did this on Monday and today). I have already been doing this about 1 day a week, except I usually sleep in. I’ve decided to stop that. If I can get up at 5:30 to run, shouldn’t I also be able to get up at 5:30 to spend purposeful time with God?

I have a goal to finish several books that I’m in the middle of, as well as finish editing the booklet I’ve written, by February.

I also set some running goals for this winter:

1. Run in the freezing cold. I have never been a consistent runner, and I have not yet run through a winter. I decided to make that a priority this year. The coldest weather in which I’ve run had been 20 degrees F, feels like 8 degrees. I ran 14 miles on Sunday in this weather. See my attire below.

2. Run at least 100 miles a month. In the months of August through October, I ran 124 miles, 132 miles and 148 miles. November, due to illness and 2 races, I dropped down to 90 miles. I’d like to keep it above 100.

3. Find another half marathon to run and shave at least 30 seconds off my pace.

What about you? Is God challenging you to take it to the next level? Are you feeling too comfortable? Or possibly feeling stuck? This is the perfect time to evaluate any goals you had set for 2011 and reassess for 2012 (this post might help).

 

“Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: 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 heavenward in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 3:12-14, emphasis mine

 

Press on. Embrace the discomfort. Ask God what it means for you to take it to the next level.

If you’re disappointed that I didn’t talk about Christmas, you can read last year’s post 🙂

Freedom Friday: Dealing with Disillusionment

DISILLUSION
transitive verb

: to free from illusion; also : to cause to lose naive faith and trust

Disillusionment: the state of being disillusioned.

Have you ever experienced disillusionment?

I have. I went through an extremely painful time in the early years of my faith. I’ve mentioned it here in bits and pieces.

I doubted everything. I questioned everything. And my doubts and my questions tore me to shreds.

Recently, I heard Alicia Britt Chole speak at a conference. I had been looking forward to it for quite some time. Her DVD series Choices was one of the first things we studied in Bible study after I became a Christian, and it was eye-opening and heart-changing.

She spoke about disillusionment, particularly as it relates to the disciples and Jesus. The disciples were incredibly disillusioned with Jesus at times, despite the fact that they walked with Him. They were disillusioned with His timing, disillusioned with His ways, and disillusioned with His words.

One example of this disillusionment is in John 6. Jesus had just done a miracle with a young boy’s lunch, and the crowds were following Him around to see what else He could do, as well as to see if He might feed them again.

In the midst of this, Jesus shared this:

“I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you cannot have eternal life within you. But anyone who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise that person at the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Anyone who eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him.”

Imagine how you would have replied to this, had you been one of Jesus’ disciples. I think I would have stood there, thinking, “Huh? Jesus, that doesn’t even make sense!” Let’s read further to see what the response was.

Many of his disciples said, “This is very hard to understand. How can anyone accept it?” Jesus was aware that his disciples were complaining……..At this point many of his disciples turned away and deserted him.

They complained. They were disillusioned. This isn’t what they were expecting from Jesus. They wanted a meal, and maybe a miraculous sign. They wanted a concrete explanation of what on earth Jesus was talking about. When they didn’t get any of those things, they left. Not everyone, but the passage says “many”.

Then Jesus turned to the Twelve and asked, “Are you also going to leave?” Simon Peter replied, “Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words that give eternal life. We believe, and we know you are the Holy One of God.”

What is the difference between the two groups of disciples in this story? Why did some turn away? Why did some stay?

Some responded to this difficult command by grumbling among themselves. They turned to each other for wisdom, and complained about this strange leader of theirs.

But others react to this statement of Jesus’ quite differently. They chose to look to Jesus. They knew enough about Him to chose to believe that there was nowhere else to go. They chose to take their questions to Him.

They asked their questions while looking into the safety of their Savior’s face.

So often when we start asking questions or having doubts in our faith, our tendency is to take our questions elsewhere. We turn away from God – out of fear, anger, hurt, or general disillusionment.

I did this. I did not take my questions to Jesus. I stopped reading the Bible. I stopped praying. The questions felt overwhelming, suffocating.

There is nothing wrong with questions and doubts. That’s something I love about the disciples’ example. They weren’t afraid to ask questions, even questions to which the answers seem obvious to us today. Jesus wasn’t afraid of or offended by their questions. He just wanted the disciples to bring their questions to Him.

Sometimes, Jesus would answer them right away; other times, He shared that His words would make sense eventually.

He says the same thing to us.

I’ve heard disillusionment described as gaining a reality. Through this period of questioning, I gained a new reality. A reality that trust is a choice. A reality that not everything is going to make sense in the moment. A reality that God is good, He is on my side, and that His plans are for my prosperity and hope.

Now I take my questions to my Savior. Not always in a timely manner, but my doubts no longer cause me to run. My questions no longer feel like abandonment. They no longer send me spiraling to my default setting. I am able to simply take them to Jesus and trust He will show me the answers, with time.

If you’d like to hear more about disillusionment, I highly recommend the CD “Real Life, Real Pain, and a Real God” from Alicia Britt Chole’s resources. You can also find many of her books on Amazon.com (I’m loving the book anonymous right now!).

Your questions are OK with God. Just remember to ask them to Him, to His face, and in the safety of His arms.

Freedom Friday: Fear of the Unknown

I became a Christian halfway through my 3 years at Second College (I went to college elsewhere for 2 years, took 2 years off, and transferred to a new school to finish).

Initially, I was amazed. God revealed Himself to me, daily, in big ways and little ways.

He came through.

He showed Himself strong.

He was faithful.

Then life happened. I made some bad choices. I didn’t ask God for His help in certain areas. And I found myself in a destructive, and yet familiar, relationship with a woman who “needed my help.”

It’s no secret that I was gay-identified for almost a decade. By the time I came to know Jesus, my identity was firmly planted in being gay. It was who I was, and it was what I knew. It was familiar. It was comfortable in its discomfort (as I talked about last week).

I didn’t know anything else but being gay. So when this relationship began, it simply stood to reinforce my fear: the fear of the unknown.

The fear of the unknown is a powerful force. It keeps us in unhealth because the unhealth we know is familiar. It’s a known pain, a known chaos.

It also keeps us in situations that aren’t necessarily unhealthy, but are not God’s best for us. They are not the next step in God’s plan.

Fear of the unknown keeps us chained.

It keeps us from moving forward.

It keeps us from our Promised Land.

Exodus 14 begins with the Israelites camped by the Red Sea. Pharaoh decided he made a mistake in letting the Israelites go and began to follow them.

We pick up the story in verse 10:

As Pharaoh drew near, the sons of Israel looked, and behold, the Egyptians were marching after them, and they became very frightened; so the sons of Israel cried out to the LORD. Then they said to Moses, “Is it because there were no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? Why have you dealt with us in this way, bringing us out of Egypt? Is this not the word that we spoke to you in Egypt, saying, ‘Leave us alone that we may serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.”

People stay in or run back to miserable situations because of the fear of the unknown. The above quote from the Israelites is a perfect example of that.

I was a perfect example of this. The woman I was in a relationship with had a lot of problems. I had a lot of problems. Even in the best of circumstances, we would have made a horrible match! Underneath that rebellious choice to enter into a relationship that I knew to be wrong was a broken child crying out to her heavenly father, “Are You really enough for me? Can I leave behind everything I’ve known and built my life upon for the unknown that is a relationship with You?”

I have to remember, as I read the above passage, that the Israelites were just beginning to walk out of generations of slavery. It was all they had ever experienced. It was all they knew. They had no context for the Promised Land.

Continuing on in Exodus:

But Moses said to the people, “Do not fear! Stand by and see the salvation of the LORD which He will accomplish for you today; for the Egyptians whom you have seen today, you will never see them again forever. The LORD will fight for you while you keep silent.” Then the LORD said to Moses, “Why are you crying out to Me? Tell the sons of Israel to go forward.”

Moses raised his hand over the sea, and God opened a path through the water for the Israelites. In my case, my girlfriend dumped me, and I decided, painstakingly, one-step-at-a-time, to choose to trust God, not only in the area of my sexuality, but also with my whole life.

When God calls us to something new, it’s not surprising that we will experience fear. Like the Israelites, we have no context for this new journey; all we have is context for the old one. The “what if’s”, the questions, the obstacles – they overwhelm us. They keep us standing still.

But in those moments, you have a choice: stick with the pain you know, or choose to trust God and forge ahead into the pain you don’t know. The latter is a choice to trust that God is who He says He is and He will do what He has said He will do. It’s a choice to believe that He must have something better for you, that this can’t be all there is, that if He’s asking you to move forward, then He will carry us through.

If you are overcome by a fear of the unknown today, surrender it to God. Give Him your questions and hesitations; He’s not afraid of them. Then, stand by. Wait and see how God will fight for you and what He wants to accomplish for you. And “do it afraid”, as Joyce Meyer says. As God commanded the Israelites, go forward, despite the fear. Do not let fear of the unknown paralyze you or keep you from living in the fullness of all God has for you.

I’m praying Romans 15:13 for you today: “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”