Upon Waking

God has called us to do much. It is a grace to be a laborer in a plentiful harvest, but there must be time given and rhythms created where we withdraw from the crowd, find a desolate place, and do nothing but pray.

what a mercy it is to be questioned by God. It is evidence of love. The all-knowing God wants us to know and be known.

A real spiritual attack, in the form of temptation, tells you that the way to endure sin is to sin.

Jesus is either Master or nothing. If at any point you believe “Jesus and some other thing” is a viable possibility, you’ve chosen the wide way.

How we think about ourselves in light of our gifts will determine how and what we use them for. Either our glory or the Lord’s.

The rest we resist is for our good. It’s a way to steward our entire selves. To sit down and just think. Or pray. Or meditate on grace and how it shows up in all the goodness we experience daily. Rest reorients us. Pausing makes room for memories. In silence and solitude, we can remember that man doesn’t live by bread alone.

To practice Sabbath is a disciplined and faithful way to remember that you are not the one who keeps the world running, who provides for your family, not even the one who keeps your work projects moving forward.8

doubt often feels more practical than believing God.

God knows this about us, that we need Him to become like Him. So in response to our need, He prunes the branches. A trial here. Some suffering there. So that we can be refined by the fire and made holy because of it.