When The Battle Is Fierce

Leave a comment December 29, 2019 Laurie

Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. (Ephesians 6:12-13)

I don’t know about you, but my battle feels fiercely physical. The pain that I struggle against every day. The flare-ups I live with on a regular basis. Trying to cope with symptoms that never go away. It’s an intense physical battle, and it’s easy to give up altogether.

Yet, God says our struggle is not against flesh and blood.

I had to think about that for a minute before I realized the incredible truth buried within these verses. Even though my physical battle feels intense, it’s my spiritual, emotional and mental battles that I have to fight the hardest to win.

When You Need Real Hope

Why Does God Allow Suffering?

When It Hurts Too Much

3 Comments January 15, 2017 Laurie

When we think of “sad,” we think of tragedies happening, people dying, hope being lost. I want to tell you a story about a different kind of sad, perhaps the most tragic of all, which is found in Matthew 8: 28-34 in the Bible. Bear with me as we explore a story of sadness on our journey of hope.

In this story, Jesus goes to a place called the “region of the Gadarenes.” I confess, I don’t know much about this place, but I do know that there were two demon-possessed men who immediately came out to taunt Jesus. They knew who Jesus was and asked why He was there, “to torture us before God’s appointed time?“

They knew Jesus had power over them and that He was going to order them out of the two men’s bodies, so they begged Him to send them into some pigs nearby. Jesus did so, and the demons caused the pigs to run away, plunging to their death over a steep hillside and into a lake.

You would think this is a good thing. You would think that the people would be celebrating the release of two men who are now free of demon-possession. You would think the people would beg Jesus for more of His healing power.

But not these people. Instead, they begged Jesus to go away and leave them alone.

And I asked myself, “Do I ever do that?“

When You Need an Eternal Perspective

6 Comments September 18, 2016 Laurie

When you need hope, you’ll grab at anything to get it. It’s a vulnerable place to be. And it’s definitely not a fun place to be.

I feel like I live in a place of needing constant hope. Chronic pain will do that to you. It would be tempting and easy to say, “Look to God for your hope because that is where all our answers are found!”

And that’s true, but I would like to be a little more practical than that. I’d like to show you one way God is helping me find hope, so you can learn to find it, too.

Hope is elusive because it seems to be closely tied to our circumstances, which can change from minute to minute. Our circumstances can easily dictate our emotions, which can easily “boss” around our hope, making it hard to find as our circumstances shift and change.

So, our hope has to be grounded in something different than our circumstances. Our hope has to be grounded in the Word of God.

The Bible can give us so much hope, if we will look there! But we don’t always remember to go there, so let’s go there now and remember what beautiful hope God can give us.

And the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will Himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. (1 Peter 5:10)

Faith