I’m honored to have a piece on Awake Our Hearts. Read a preview here and learn how God used the crumbling mess of my heart to create something new.

Ruins everywhere. As I walk the site of an ancient city in Israel, I sigh at the sight of destruction. I see nothing left but stacks of well-worn stone. Tumbled-down walls of rock. Debris from past lives. Remnants of greatness.

These disintegrating leftovers of a town provide a picture of all I don’t want my life to be. I hope for strength, for power, for influence. I’m ashamed to admit my drive for recognition. Although the desires for both success and servanthood compete in my heart, ambition usually wins. The quest for greatness often pushes the yearning for Christ-like humility right out of my soul.

Yet, as I look at the decaying walls, I remember—greatness never lasts. Here, what once thrived now disintegrates into unrecognizable mounds of dirt and rock.

Then, I stop.

I see signs of life even in the wreckage. On top of a pile of rubble, bright-red anemones spring up, green stems swaying in the chilly spring breeze. Traces of beauty dancing on top of a crumbling foundation.

And I think—isn’t that just like God? 

Read more here…

Have you ever wondered how to deserve God’s love?

I remember a time in my life when I felt anything but loveable. Anything but successful. Anything but deserving.

This dreary point in my life came after my kids grew up and left home. After fifteen years of homeschooling and twenty years of parenting, my kids no longer needed me in the same way. Who was I if not a mom?

Because I now had more free time, I wondered how best to spend it. I felt a call from God to start a speaking and writing ministry. But who was I kidding? I had a few–very few–speaking engagements lined up, but it seemed that no one wanted my writing. My inbox was filled with rejection letters. Who was I if I didn’t have a purpose?

Joseph as a Failure

Lately, I’ve been studying the life of Joseph and I marvel at how his early years in Egypt contained failure after failure.

First, Joseph went from being a favorite son of a wealthy man in Canaan to being a lowly slave in Egypt. He slowly worked his way into his master’s favor only to be falsely accused of sexual assault and thrown into prison. He saw a chance to get out of prison when he correctly interpreted the dream of Pharaoh’s cupbearer. But the cupbearer forgot all about him and Joseph was stuck in the pit.

At this point in his life, Joseph probably felt like a failure. He probably remembered the dreams he had as a teenager where his brothers’ sheaves of grain bent down to his. Where the sun, moon, and eleven stars bowed to him. How these dreams gave him hope of doing something great in his life.

Now he sat in a dark prison–a dismal disappointment. How did Joseph get through this time?

Although I’ve read Joseph’s story many times, this time I noticed something new. Genesis 39:20-21 says:

And Joseph’s master took him and put him into the prison, the place where the king’s prisoners were confined, and he was there in prison. But the Lord was with Joseph and showed him steadfast love.

While Joseph sat in prison, while most of the world didn’t notice him, while it seemed clear he would never do anything great–the Lord showed him steadfast love.

Isn’t that reassuring?

How Can We Deserve God’s Love?

True confession time–even though I’ve always known I could never earn God’s love, in the back of my mind, I somehow felt that I had to prove to God that I deserved it. That He didn’t make a mistake when He chose me.

Ridiculous, right?

How can we deserve God’s love? Short answer is: We can’t.

But I think many of us fall into this trap. Satan tries to make us believe that God could never love a mess like us and we start to believe it. In response, we might sink into despair. Or, if you’re like me, you try to prove Satan wrong, by working hard to show your worth.

That’s why those two verses in Joseph’s story comfort me.

Sure, Joseph goes on to become second-in-command in Egypt, but at this point in the story, he’s a nobody. A slave in prison. Can’t get much lower than that. Yet it’s when Joseph is a nobody that God shows Joseph unfailing, unending, unconditional love.

I hope this encourages you too. If you’re feeling like a nobody, remember that Jesus loves you as you are. If your life seems like a failure, realize that God still showers you with love. If you feel you don’t deserve God’s love, you’re right–but that’s good news because God’s love never depends on your performance or accomplishments.

If you feel you don’t deserve God’s love, you’re right–but that’s good news because God’s love never depends on your performance or accomplishments.

Whatever prison of doubt or dark place of apparent failure you find yourself in, God is still with you and continues to show you steadfast love.

If you’d like more inspiration to live in God’s relentless love, simply sign up in the box below. Once you sign up, you will receive my ebook, LIVE LOVED: 5 Practices to Fully Experience God’s Relentless Love which contains simple exercises to help you remember how very much God cares for you. In addition, you will get monthly encouragement in my Soul Rest newsletter.

This article about a different kind of resolution first appeared on Patheos. Read the intro here and then click to read more!

It’s that time again. Time to make New Year’s resolutions. Every year we attempt to write down a list of goals we hope to accomplish. Some of my goals are to do more: organize my photos, read twenty books that I already own, finally clean my messy garage. Other intentions center around improving myself: exercise more, eat healthier, control my Netflix addiction.

Certainly, I am not alone. Every year the top resolutions people make include: lose weight, get organized, learn a new skill, or save more money. We strive to accomplish and achieve.

Yet, most of us never complete those goals or carry out our resolutions. One study showed that only 46 percent of people who made resolutions actually succeeded in accomplishing them. Maybe you’re among those people and have already broken the promises you made to yourself!

Perhaps we need a different kind of fresh start as a nation, a different kind of resolution. What if, instead of trying to be or achieve more, we resolved to simply be who we are—beloved by God?

Continue reading on Patheos

picture credit: Stocksnap

How do you view your relationship with the Lord? As a set of dos and don’ts with a judge? Or as a passionate love affair with God?

Satan, of course, doesn’t want us to see God as our lover. He wants us to look at God as the rule-giver, stern-judger, and fun-spoiler. He wants you to picture Him only as an angry deity. Satan hopes you will regard God as a harsh taskmaster. He works overtime to present this view of God because if he succeeds, religion becomes a duty. Faith becomes a list of dos and don’ts. Relationship with God turns into a taxing obligation.

God Wants Your Relationship with Him to Be a Passionate Love Affair

But the Old Testament book of Hosea demonstrates that God wants so much more. When you read about the godly prophet’s marriage to a promiscuous prostitute and hear the words Yahweh tenderly calls out to His wayward people, Israel, you can see that He wants you to see Him as your lover, your husband, your confidant. Jesus wants you to know Him intimately, even as He knows every little thing about you. He doesn’t want you to run away, but if you do, He won’t stop pursuing you. God desires your faithfulness, not because He wants to be your boss but because He wants to be your husband. He wants your relationship with Him to be a passionate love affair.

Each of us can experience this intimacy with Jesus. Whether you’re in a loving earthly marriage, a marriage that has disappointed, or no mar­riage at all, you can know the relentless love of Jesus. You can have the mind-boggling experience of knowing your Savior intimately and of being known.

This changes everything. Spending time in the Bible becomes an op­portunity to discover something new about our Husband and hear His declarations of love. Prayer becomes a chance to reciprocate that love. Because of the certainty of His affection, we know we can unburden our hearts and tell Him our secret fears. We no longer need to strive for recognition or compete for accolades because we live confident in the love of the King. Then we can drop our masks, assured that Jesus loves us for who we are and not for who the world thinks we should be. And worship becomes a time to receive that love in the celebration that is the Lord’s Supper and to praise our Husband for His sure and unconditional love for us.

“I Will Love Them Freely”

God didn’t have to take Israel back after all of her unfaithfulness, but He does. In some of the most beautiful words in the whole Book of Ho­sea, Yahweh speaks:

I will heal their apostasy;
    I will love them freely,
    for my anger has turned from them.
I will be like the dew to Israel;
    he shall blossom like the lily;
    he shall take root like the trees of Lebanon;
his shoots shall spread out;
    his beauty shall be like the olive,
    and his fragrance like Lebanon.
They shall return and dwell beneath my shadow;
    they shall flourish like the grain;
they shall blossom like the vine;
    their fame shall be like the wine of Lebanon.

O Ephraim, what have I to do with idols?
    It is I who answer and look after you.
I am like an evergreen cypress;
    from me comes your fruit. (Hosea 14:4-8)

 “I will love them freely”—what delightful words! Not “I will love them reluctantly.” Not “I will love them begrudgingly.” He doesn’t say, “I will love them but resent every minute.” God doesn’t love them at arm’s length. This is no forced wedding. God promises to love His people freely. Yahweh volun­tarily bestows tenderness, affection, and devotion on His beloved.

God’s Words of Love Are for You Too

Listen to God’s words—they are for you too. He whispers to your heart:

Stop striving to fit into the world and working hard to ap­pease the false gods of affluence and materialism. They can never give you what your heart desires. Come to Me and I will love you freely. You don’t have to twist My arm. You don’t have to jump through hoops. Your empty heart hungers for love, but even greater than your desire to receive love is My desire to give it. Come close enough to sit in My shadow. Come near enough to know My protection, My care, and My affection. I will love you freely.

Listen to the Lord’s words: “I will love them freely” (Hosea 14:4). Jesus’ love knows no bounds. Live in the relentless love of Christ.

This post is adapted from my new book God’s Relentless Love: A Study of Hosea. Delve into this unusual story of the marriage between a godly prophet and a wayward prostitute and discover how God continually courts you, pursues you, and desires to have an intimate relationship with you. Find out more about the book and download a free chapter here. Or order your copy at CPH.org or Amazon!

If you’ve ever felt bound in chains of shame, the Old Testament book of Hosea has good news for you.

The book of Hosea certainly has some confusing elements. Maybe you’ve read it and scratched your head, wondering what it all meant. The book starts out with God asking Hosea, a godly prophet, to marry Gomer, a promiscuous prostitute. And you wonder: Am I reading this right? Yes, that’s what it says.

Perhaps even more puzzling are Gomer’s actions in chapter three when she leaves Hosea and goes back to her old life. Why would Gomer run out on a man who promised love and faithfulness, especially if she had been passed around as a human commodity in the past?

Did she leave because she felt too confined living with one man when she had become accustomed to many lovers? Did she miss the fringe benefits—money and jewelry and a fancier lifestyle—that other lov­ers gave but a humble prophet couldn’t afford? Or perhaps she returned to her old life because she acutely felt the shame of her past or sensed that everyone in Hosea’s circle judged her. Maybe Gomer simply wished to go where she fit in—even if it meant going back to a sad and depressing life.

When We Act Like Gomer

Perhaps you have had similar feelings at times. Although you’ve ex­perienced God’s goodness, maybe following Him has felt stifling. The world around you offers many seemingly attractive options, and at times you think, Why should I limit myself?

Or maybe you follow the Lord because it’s the right thing to do. From your time as a child in Sunday School until now, you’ve been taught to obey the Ten Commandments and go to church—so you do. But would anyone characterize your relationship with God as passionate?

Or perhaps you come from a not-so-stellar past. When you attend church and sit with the people who know the hymns and where to find the Bible passage the pastor is talking about, you feel out of place. Satan pushes the shame button in your heart and tells you that you don’t be­long. You think, Maybe I should go back to my old life.

Rescue From the Chains of Shame

We don’t know why Gomer left Hosea, but we do know that she got herself into some trouble. She needed rescuing. Thankfully, Hosea obeyed the Lord’s instructions and came to Gomer’s rescue and got her out of debt. Scripture tells us Hosea bought Gomer for the price of “fifteen shek­els of silver and a homer and a lethech of barley” (Hosea 3:2). Just in case you haven’t had to convert shekels and homers and lethechs late­ly, this amounted to about six ounces of silver and nine or ten bushels of barley, altogether about thirty shekels of silver—a significant amount, since this was the value of a human slave (see Exodus 21:32).

We’ve all had times in our lives when we’ve acted somewhat like Gomer. We’ve ignored God’s Word and His reassurances of love and we’ve gone off looking for something more exciting, more tangible. Along the way, we’ve become involved with the wrong people and gotten en­tangled in projects or businesses we know wouldn’t meet our Lover’s approval. We’ve hurt people, said things we wish we could take back, and stormed off in a huff. We’ve lost it when we’ve argued with our hus­band, our friends, or that horrible clerk at the big box store. Maybe we’ve crossed the line sexually, fudged an IRS form, or lied to a boss.

It’s then that we wonder, How could God love me again?

Like Gomer, who needed to be bought for the price of a slave, we can become enslaved by disgrace. Sure of our worthlessness, we may replay shame’s accusations: “You will never amount to anything.” “You’re a lousy mother.” “No one could ever love you.” So we try to free our­selves from the constant loop of blame playing in our mind by improving ourselves. But every time we take a step forward, shame snaps the chains and pulls us backward. Shame tells us that we could never deserve God’s love.

God Will Not Abandon You When You’re At Your Lowest Point

The wonderful message of Hosea is this: God will not abandon you when you’re at your lowest point.

You may have walked away from Him and given your heart to someone or something else. You may have ignored your most important Lover to seek excitement in an­other, but Yahweh won’t leave you there. He tells you, tells me, “You don’t need to wallow in your past, in your mistakes, in your shame.”

His relentless love means He paid the high­est price possible to win you back. He paid the price with His own Son’s blood. His faithfulness means He will continually pursue you, seek your attention, and strive to bring you back to Him when you’ve walked away. Let’s all reject Satan’s lies and embrace the truth of God’s unceasing affection for us.

When we step into Christ’s relentless and redeeming love, the shackles of guilt and the chains of shame fall to the ground.

This post is an excerpt from my new book God’s Relentless Love: A Study of Hosea. Delve into this unusual story of the marriage between a godly prophet and a wayward prostitute and discover how God continually courts you, pursues you, and desires to have an intimate relationship with you. Find out more about the book and download a free chapter here. Or order your copy at CPH.org or Amazon!

When you hear the phrase “spiritual work,” what do you think of? Attending church? Reading the Bible? Spending hours in prayer? It might surprise you to find out that our true spiritual work is actually something much different. Let me explain.

When I was a young teenager, I saw a tract that pictured Judgment Day as a court setting. Like the court scene in Hosea, presenting Israel’s crimes of unfaithfulness, this tract’s cartoon drawings pictured one person before God as judge. All of the defendant’s sins played on a movie screen above the Judge. This idea terrified me because not only did it make me think I would relive all my worst mistakes, but, according to the tract, everyone else on earth would see the replay of my door-slamming argument with my mother, the cigarette I smoked at a Girl Scout campout, my murderous thoughts toward the girl who got the high school honor I felt I deserved. Of course, all these years later, the film of my sins would be much longer and more horrifying. The movie might not be X-rated, but it would certainly be a long double feature.

God’s Mercy

We can be thankful that the Bible tells us that Christians will never
experience that dreadful courtroom scene. In the second chapter of Hosea, God acts as judge and jury to the people of Israel. But instead of declaring everlasting punishment and separation to the nation that sinned against His love, He offers love and mercy. In the same way, God declares to us, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). Instead of raising the gavel and convicting us of all our offenses and failings, Jesus got down from the bench and accepted our punishment for us. And when we trust in His atonement, Jesus courts us in a different way. Like Yahweh calling out to Israel, He says:

Therefore, behold, I will allure her,
and bring her into the wilderness,
and speak tenderly to her. (Hosea 2:14)

Unbelievable. God desires me so much that He takes time to court me, romance me. He will arrange my circumstances so I spend more time with Him. He speaks gentle words of love.

Jesus Courts You

Christ relentlessly courts me. He never forces Himself on me, yet He always lets me know He is near, waiting for me to come to Him. He offers gifts of food and drink, clothing and shelter. He gives times of celebration. He offers the heady scent of lily of the valley, the azure shade of the twilight sky, the warm embrace of a friend, and the sweetness of a white-flesh nectarine as gifts of His love. He woos me, inviting me closer.

But sometimes I am more enamored with the gifts than I am with the Giver. I give credit to the gods of hard work and productivity for my possessions and forget about the true Provider. That’s when God may call me to spend more time alone with Him. Heartache, illness, or financial distress may enter my life so I realize my desperate need for the One who loves me. I finally become aware that the gods of productivity and materialism can’t supply what I truly need and they never did.

Then I go to God’s Word for His tender, loving words. I hear His Gospel message in Sunday sermons. I kneel to receive His Holy Meal and to be refreshed by it. The Holy Spirit may make me aware of my sinful ways, but He does this only so I repent, release the burden of sin, and hear Christ’s loving words of forgiveness. I quiet my heart and hear Him say, “I have loved you with an everlasting love” (Jeremiah 31:3), and “You are precious in My eyes” (Isaiah 43:4). He whispers, “My steadfast love shall not depart from you” (Isaiah 54:10), and “[I] rejoice over you with gladness” (Zephaniah 3:17).

Our True Spiritual Work

Theologian Henri Nouwen wrote, “My true spiritual work is to let myself be loved, fully and completely.” We tend to think our spiritual work looks like a long to-do list: read three chapters of the Bible, spend at least ten minutes in prayer, serve on the church committee, and volunteer at the homeless shelter. These are all good and wonderful things, but God wants each of us to call out to Him, “my Husband,” and open our hearts to intimacy with Him. The One who created us in His image and gave Himself up so we could live with Him forever asks us to simply receive His love. When we do that, all of the wonderful spiritual practices and works of service will come spontaneously.

God continually pursues you with His relentless love. Live like you’re loved, fully and completely.

This post is an excerpt from my new book God’s Relentless Love: A Study of Hosea. Delve into this unusual story of the marriage between a godly prophet and a wayward prostitute and discover how God continually courts you, pursues you, and desires to have an intimate relationship with you. Find out more about the book and download a free chapter here. Or order your copy at CPH.org or Amazon!