Sometimes I’m stunned by one’s ability to sum up something so profound in so little words; and not only that, a statement that holds so much weight and truth. With twitter’s 140-character limit, I’ve slowly learned and had to work at summing up simple thoughts, which has been a wonderful challenge for me personally.

Comparison, if you think about it, really is the thief of joy.

Thank you, Theodore Roosevelt.

He was tweeting before twitter ever existed.

Comparison, over the years, has changed its game. Where as we used to compare ourselves literally in person and face to face, we now compare ourselves not only in face to face situations, but on top of that, we’ve added the wide world of social media to compare literally everything.

A few weeks ago before Beth posted this profound blog about doing the thing we’re called to do, she asked me if I had anything for the blog that day cause if not, she had a word pressing and wanted to share it. (We make sure not to double up. Awkward!) Of course I told her to go ahead because I was in the middle of working on a post, but it was far from presentable.

I actually didn’t read her post until later that night, but it stopped me dead in my tracks because, although she wouldn’t have known what I was in the middle of writing about, our posts were very similar. I shot her a quick text to tell her that her post was amazing and indeed, needed, and then explained that the one I said I had been working on but wasn’t ready yet, was one about comparing our lives to everyone else’s via social media. She was gracious as she always is and was afraid that her post might have in some way ruined mine, but I assured her that wasn’t the case.

Ironically, the longer I thought about it, I decided I might as well not even post this blog, because, you guessed it, hers was way better than mine and obviously fitly spoken, but then it dawned on me, that’s exactly what I was talking about. Comparing our lives via the ever so brilliant social media. If the Lord had given me the words to type, then I would be disobedient not to post for fear that it wasn’t as well received. Or for fear that, comparatively, hers was way better. What an ugly truth I kept telling myself.

What I was about to keep from posting was the very thing I felt like sharing.

I think it’s obvious that I need this word more than anyone.

Allow me to explain.

We live in a generation that is more connected than ever, and for the record, over-stimulated, yet lonelier than ever. I know that is old news to most of us, but it is our current reality and every now and then, I think it’s appropriate to revisit.

Not only do I see it in the young girls I work with, I see it as being prevalent among all generations. Most of us, if we were being honest, have been sucked into the vortex that is social media.

Before we go any further, you need to know that I’m game for all things social media. I love it. It is, in fact, a part of job title here at LPM. I don’t just love it, I’m swimming in the deep end.

With that said, a few weeks ago as I was getting a pedicure, I picked up one of the magazines sitting on the table next to me and happened to flip right to a short article explaining that those who spend more time perusing facebook tend to be more depressed than those who don’t.

I may have gasped audibly and even said under my breath, “Well, duh!” because to me, that made perfect sense.

What we otherwise would have known nothing about 10 years ago, we are experts on now.

Experts on what? On how other folks are living their life and what we’re missing out on.

For goodness sake, it can be even really good things that can become distorted to us.

Say for instance a string a tweets or facebook status updates that took place from a handful of members from a certain church. (Hear me loud and clear, I’m using this example because I have done it. I did it. I am doing it.) You may love your church, but reading those updates you may get a sense of discontentment from your church. All the sudden you may get the feeling that your worship isn’t good enough. The teaching is mediocre. Childcare is iffy. Your church will never measure up! What a lie! When in reality, our church could just have more tweeters than yours. (What a weird sentence to write!)

Maybe you become aware of a party or gathering that was blasted on social media that you didn’t get invited to.

Maybe you couldn’t attend a certain conference for one reason or another, so instead of enjoying your weekend, you spend countless hours on twitter reading every last tweet and throwing yourself a pity party. FOMO, the fear of missing out, has you handicapped.

Maybe you find out from facebook that your ex-boyfriend is not only dating somebody, but is now engaged and getting married in three months.

Or how about your twitter followers? How often do we compare our number of followers to our friends? Why is this person following so-and-so and not me? And boom, they unfollow me, so I unfollow them. You just got served. Or better yet, it becomes a popularity contest throwing us back to the middle school years. We start to evaluate who’s in the “in” crowd and who’s not. I don’t know about you, but I want to leave my middle school years in their rightful place, and that is in the past.

Forget followers, let’s just talk about twitter replies. Can I say something that gave me so much freedom? You and I have the right and freedom to respond to whomever on twitter. I think some of us feel an obligation to respond and converse with the millions on twitter, but can we all give each other a little slack and be free? Can we not get jealous when someone gets a reply and we don’t? Even typing that out sounds so unbelievably silly. But you and I both know it’s the sad reality and truth. If any of us have struggled with people pleasing (hand raised!), we can get stuck in trap where we now feel the obligation to people please online as well. Oh, the pressure!

Or, to throw it out there, how about “likes” on Instagram. That alone could throw us for a loop if we think we’ve posted the best or cutest picture ever and it only gets 18 likes. Or maybe we’re so in it for the attention that we spend more time instagramming and less time socializing.

Do you see how we’ve become hyper-aware of what we’re lacking, or what we think we’re lacking? We’re setting ourselves up for failure and rejection and the fact that we all know that social media isn’t going anywhere, and in fact, only growing, means that we have to learn what our personal balance is. Things we never would have known about, and nor probably even cared about ten years ago are throwing us into a pit of despair. A pit of loneliness. A pit of discontentment. Nothing will snatch our identity in Christ from us quicker than comparison.

One thing I’ve discovered, and maybe it’s just me, is that I tend to interact more on social media with those I’m not interacting with face to face. Now, in some cases that’s not true, like say for example when my BFF posts a picture of her baby, it’s everything in me not to like it 100 times and retweet it to the entire universe. And by all means, I love a good joke or word of encouragement to a friend on twitter, but most times, when I send a tweet, I am choosing to interact with a world of people I do not know personally, all the while expecting them to care and respond like we’ve been friends for 15 years.

As if rejection doesn’t take a serious toll on a human being as it is, we’ve now added another dimension. I’m almost tempted to call it imaginary rejection. Rejected by those we’ve never even met. Nor talk to on a normal, consistent basis.

With comparison comes jealousy and I’m not sure anything steals your joy quicker than feeling jealous.

I read a quote by Steven Furtick recently, the pastor of Elevation Church, that said, ““One of the reasons we struggle with insecurity is because we’re comparing our ‘behind the scenes’ with everybody else’s ‘highlight reel.’”

Although I’m an optimist and actually prefer to view the highlight reel, simply because that’s the fun of it, the problem is we start comparing everything good about their life to everything wrong with our life. Not only are we comparing our behind the scenes to their highlight reel, everything we desire is now magnified. Where 10 years ago we were doing it in person maybe at church or school, we’re now doing it among our 600 facebook friends, or 1800 twitter followers. All of the sudden, we’re the only ones and our every desire is magnified.

Facebook happened to be released my senior year of high school, so although I’m not of the generation that’s grown up on it, I’ve lived much of my adult life on it, so I think it’s safe to say that, starting with me, we have become a generation that is addicted to affirmation. We know how to manipulate the media better than anyone and it’s a serious distraction. Not only that, but it’s created us to be narcisitic monsters. It’s the cause of much despression in our culture.

Recently a friend told me she got off twitter because she was just feeling really left out. I think she’s wise.

Can we feel left out or rejected minus social media? Absolutely. We’re all human and in fact, it’s nearly unavoidable.

But the truth of the matter is, it’s our responsibility to take control of what we let rule over and own us.

Can we not take facbeook at face value?

Life itsn’t always what it seems, not matter how many posts suggest one thing or another.

Does it mean we quit facebook, twitter, tumblr, instagram and so on all together? No, it just means that those sites can’t be responsible for your happiness. Nor can they be your measure for reality. I think one wise thing we can all do is take a look back at our posts no matter where they are, and be sure we’re giving off a healthy balance and dose of reality. Are what we tweeting and saying true of us? How do we come across to the outside world lurking in?

The past year I’ve been thrown back into the stage of making new friends. Can we all agree that making friends is just plain hard? You inevitably face awkward conversations, and awkward dinner every now and then, and for lack of a better term, after much investment, you may just come to find out the chemistry (not romantic) just isn’t there. Also, for a sanguine girl who wants to be friends with everyone, I’ve realized that’s a far cry from reality. Because of this new season and revelation, I’ve found that reverting to the internet to bring me community and companionship is just as easy, but it lacks true intimacy and vulnerability, which to me, is no relationship at all. While making friends and creating community takes time, work, patience, vulnerability, initiation and so much more, the reality is, we were created for face-to-face friendships, not face-to-screen. We want to be known, loved and accepted, but we fear rejection, so we are more comfortable to correspond with people on twitter, as opposed to calling up a friend to meet for dinner.

Although I am guilty of it, when I’m among friends and family, I spend less time perusing social media. The “be with” factor is fairly effective. It’s times when I’m bored or lonely that I peruse and then fall into a pit because people are having fun, and do they know how boring my life is?

What a lie we’re trapped in.

Make a deal with me, will you? Let’s not let social media steal our joy. Let’s not let comparison get the best of us. Especially when we know that one day, none of those sites will even exist. Just like we knew middle school had an end, so does social media.

Instead of letting it make a fool of us, let’s be the first to reign in it. If we don’t do it, then I fear all hope is lost for those coming behind us. Let today be the day we put on a different thinking cap.  Instead of comparing, let’s start affirming those around us. Speak life, not resentment to somebody.

I don’t really know how to tie this post up with a pretty bow. But I feel so strongly about it, so I’m just going to ask the Lord to prove us different. Prove me different, Lord.

After all, as my pastor always says, joy is our birthright. To that I say amen! Let’s not let something, or someone steal it.

I love y’all.

Wow, Siestas! Thank you, thank you so much for your participation in Beth’s recent post: For You in Your 20′s and You Who Will Pray For Them.

Our Siesta Mama is hunkered down in Eugene preparing for her group tonight but asked if I would put up this brief post asking for your prayer help again. We were shocked and unprepared for that many of our 20-somethings requesting prayer.  We still have a sizable group left needing partners. (A good many of them beginning on page 13 to the end.)  If you would be so kind, reach out to some of your prayer warrior friends that usually aren’t in our community to come alongside these 20’s with us. We are so grateful. Your prayers matter. We love you like crazy!!

Ladies! Today Beth and the Living Proof Live team head to Eugene, Oregon for Living Proof Live this weekend. Are any of you headed that way? I know they’re all looking forward to serving the ladies there this weekend.

For this coming weekend, we have 20 scholarship tickets to giveaway to those of you that would love to attend, but just cannot financially swing it at this time. We hope and pray that it will be a blessing to some of you.

If you fit this description, and have been waiting for this post to go up (grin!), please call the office and ask for Kimberly. You can call 281-257-3344 or call toll free at 888.700.1999. She will get you squared and away and good to go! If you happen to call during the lunch hour, please leave a message and we’ll get back to you ASAP.

Also, for those of you ready to get your praying on, our Siesta Mama has a request for you:

Dearest Siestas, at our last Living Proof Live two weeks ago, we had two more members of our praise team miss Saturday in Greensboro over one having to go to the emergency room. That makes two for two with our first 2013 LPL’s. If you would, please cover us a little extra in prayer this weekend because of added spiritual warfare in the Eugene area.   Agree with us that all sickness and emergencies will be bound for the remainder of 2013! Now, off to Eugene I go!

**UPDATE: We are just so happy to have all of you 20-somethings flock to requesting prayer! Our faithful God surely hears, and cares to His core! If you do not see a specific partner reply to your request, know that the LPM Staff have adopted you. We will pray for each of you, joyfully!

One of my favorite things about Twitter is that we can come to really love someone we wouldn’t have even known to like. Someone from an entirely different part of the country or the planet. Someone from a totally different tradition of our faith. Someone in another generation who serves God in a way that is fresh and exhilarating to us. I have a whole mental list of those and just this morning prayed for a number of young women that I’ve gotten to “know” there on that ridiculous stream of social media that I love. It is a young man that I’ve come to appreciate so much, however, that prompted this post. His name is Jefferson Bethke. I didn’t know anything about him until 6 months ago when Melissa, my youngest daughter, told me she enjoyed following him on Twitter. He is a great communicator God clearly has His hand upon and a poet who creates fantastic thought-provoking videos. I’m glad to have the privilege to tell you about him but that’s not why I’m bringing him up today. A week or so ago on Twitter he mentioned sitting on the airplane, moved with emotion over various testimonies he’d been reading of lives dramatically changed by Jesus Christ. It hit me right then that one of the things I loved best about him is that the young man simply has a pure heart. He just flat-out loves Jesus and loves people. It’s consistent in everything he says and writes. I felt an urgency right that moment to ask God to protect that holy passion and sustain it the length of his days.

And that’s when I thought of all of you in his same generation who really do want to honor God and fulfill the purpose for which He planted your feet on this earth.

Here’s what I want to say to you: you really can maintain a pure and fiery heart toward Christ and His mission on earth but make no mistake: you will not do it by accident.

If you want a pure heart, you better be willing to fight for it. You will not keep it any other way.

The first big relief is that we can’t conjure one up on our own. God alone can create in us a pure heart and renew a right spirit within us. (Psalm 51:10) He alone can set it ablaze with holy passion. But out of God’s sovereign wisdom, He determined that guarding the heart He formed and lit within us would, in many ways, fall to us. We’re to own part of that job.

Above all else, guard your heart,
for everything you do flows from it. Proverbs 4:23

Our second huge relief is that we can have a pure heart whether or not we have a pure past. Thank You, Jesus. If not, I and many others would be stuck for a lifetime with dark distorted hearts and deformed desires.

There are many other things more effective voices could tell you about guarding your heart toward Christ, toward people He’s sent you to serve and toward His mission on this planet. Ask them and learn from them. My purpose today is to pitch into the mix a couple of things that I’ve learned – and keep learning – in case any of it resonates with you. I also want to pray for you and call others to do the same. Here goes:

*Your heart will cool off if you do nothing to guard it. Jesus warned us in the 24th chapter of Matthew that “because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold.” (V.12) We’re exposed to so much suffering and violence, pain, pretense, and wrongdoing in the world that, even as a defense against feeling so much, we’ll naturally thicken up. I’m certainly not suggesting we be less informed. Uninformed Christians can be a waste of light in the darkness. What I’m suggesting is that, if you want to keep a warm, feeling heart, you better be prepared to fight like mad for it.

*Over time, you can get really cynical. For one thing, cynicism can be really funny so we get drawn to it. It also tends to be cooler. You have to be willing to be one of those that the cynics could make fun of.

*You have to realize that guarding your heart means guarding its willingness to love and be exposed out there where it can get wronged or wounded. A couple of years ago I was researching God’s self-disclosure in Exodus 34:5-7 and stumbled onto something that totally changed the way I looked at guarding my heart. Here’s the segment so you can see it for yourself:

5 Then the LORD came down in the cloud and stood there with him and proclaimed his name, the LORD. 6 And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, 7 maintaining love…

See that word “maintaining”? It is a form of the same Hebrew term used in Proverbs 4:23  for “guarding” our hearts. In other words, a huge part of guarding my heart is maintaining love. It was a total game changer for me because somehow I had associated guarding my heart with keeping it sheltered. Try to fathom that God actively maintains His love toward us. He guards it. Using that same concept, He calls us to maintain our love toward other people. If I want to stay in love with my husband, for instance, I better actively practice maintaining it because, left to its nature, it will grow cold.

One of the things that God keeps teaching me to do is pray with everything in me and on an ongoing basis to love Jesus more than anything I can see or touch in this human realm. He promises in Scripture to grant us everything we pray in His will and in His name. (1 John 5:14-15)  Since His greatest command was that we love (Mark 12:30-31), you can pray for it with absolute confidence that He’s going to do it. In fact, every time you ask God for it, go ahead and thank Him in advance that He’s going to accomplish it. He will. Then when He starts doing it, you start guarding it with all your might.

Ask Him continually to stir fire in your bones for His Word and for His mission. Ask Him to sustain it in you and teach you how to guard it through every inch of your lifespan. Only put up with a sense of spiritual flatness for a matter of days. That’s completely normal. But when it begins to turn into weeks, go face-down on that floor and ask God to give you insight into what seems off and to revive your heart. Don’t just accept coldness. Fight for love.

What is it you want from God? Pray for it feverishly! “Pursue love and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts.” That’s what 1 Corinthians 14:1 says.

Also ask others to pray these things over you. That’s what I am hoping this blog post will be about today.

Here’s what I’m asking all of you to do if you’re willing:

*Those of you in your 20’s, tell us at least your first name, where you’re from, and a little bit about you in a comment so that we can personalize our intercessions for you.

*The rest of you choose one of them to pray for (or two, if you have the time), let them know in a reply under their comment that you are adopting them for intercession for the next 14 days. Tell them where you’re from as well. I think they’ll like knowing that, too. As long as every 20-something gets signed-up for, it doesn’t matter if a number of you are praying for the same individual. If they’re like us, they’d be ecstatic to have the extra prayer covering. Pray as you feel led by God but, within that intercession, pray particularly for God to stir up and sustain a holy passion in them for Himself, His mission, and for people on this planet, and that they will be alert and proactive in guarding their hearts to last a lifetime. Ask God forthrightly to deliver them from any area of bondage, strengthen them in temptation, and deliver them from evil. Love them with all your might through prayer.

Let’s partner with this generation and intercede powerfully for them. They are the rising future of the church of Jesus Christ at this tumultuous time on the Kingdom calendar. Let’s pray them out there.

Now may our God and Father himself, and our Lord Jesus, direct our way to you, and may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, as we do for you, so that he may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.  1 Thessalonians 3:11-13 ESV

PS. To our regular blog community: I put this in a comment but I’m afraid many of you may not see it.

I am grateful beyond expression for your participation on this post. Please move at the same pace that you see our 20-somethings sign up. In other words, if at our first moderation there are 15 of them, see that all 15 are spoken for then, instead of doubling and tripling up on the same small group, watch for others to be posted and claim those. Assume in about 48 hours that we’ll probably have around 80% of the 20-somethings that will end up participating. Still, check every couple of days for about a week to make sure everybody gets covered if you don’t mind. Sisters, this woman right here KNOWS how powerfully you pray. I’ve seen it. I’ve felt it. You are solid gold in the Kingdom of God! Pray for these young people like you’d want somebody to pray for your own children, whether or not you have any. Take them on as blood. Pray with faith and holy fire. Pray like the near future of the church depends on Jesus revealing Himself through them. They are so worth it. JESUS is so worth it.

I love you guys madly.

Beth

Every night my phone sits perched on an iHome dock that sits on my bedside table a mere two feet from my head. Besides the fact that the iHome speakers can get very loud (which I love when I’m listening to my music), it also doubles as my phone charger and my alarm. I’m not one who wakes up very well to a blaring beeping sound (I find that so disturbing), but I do love a good song to wake up to. I can either set the song I wake up to, or it grabs the last song I was listening to. Does that even make sense? This is really too much information, but bear with me. Anyway, I found it so appropriate when the other morning my phone woke me up by singing Sara Grove’s He’s Always Been Faithful. It had been a long time since I had actually listened to the song, but I must have pressed snooze and it just kept playing the next song, then the next one, and so on and so forth.

So, this is what I woke up to:

Morning by morning I wake up to find 
The power and comfort of God’s hand in mine 
Season by season I watch Him, amazed 
In awe of the mystery of His perfect ways 
All I have need of, His hand will provide 
He’s always been faithful to me. 

I can’t remember a trial or a pain 
He did not recycle to bring me gain 
I can’t remember one single regret 
In serving God only, and trusting His hand 
All I have need of, His hand will provide 
He’s always been faithful to me. 

This is my anthem, this is my song 
The theme of the stories I’ve heard for so long 
God has been faithful, He will be again 
His loving compassion, it knows no end 
All I have need of, His hand will provide 
He’s always been faithful, He’s always been faithful 
He’s always been faithful to me.

I love it so much. I don’t know a more appropriate song for the week that we have had. Y’all. I think we can all agree that it has been a heavy, bizarre and fearful week for so many people. It just reminded me all the more that we live in a very broken world with very broken people (including me and you) and we need Jesus in the worst way. And not only do we all need Him for the blatantly obvious evil around us, we need Him in our own day to day lives. (And the truth is, we DO have Him, but sometimes we act like we don’t.) We need Him to show up in the details we’ve feared He’s forgotten or pushed aside. Every now and then we need a reminder that He has always been faithful. To me. To you. To us.

As I was getting ready to head to work this morning, I thought what a better day than to share with each other the ways the Lord has specifically been faithful to us this week? Sometimes we just need to reflect, or really look and know that He indeed, has been faithful yet again. Even when we’ve been faithless. Maybe He’s answered an obvious prayer request. Maybe He provided for you in a way you didn’t even know how to ask for. Maybe you got a bit of encouragement from someone at the right time you didn’t know you needed. Maybe He spared you from a hurt. Maybe He protected you from what could have been a huge disaster. Maybe He rekindled an old relationship or friendship you’d been praying about. Maybe He sent you a new friend. Maybe He led you out of an area of tempation and gave you victory for one week in what you thought was nearly impossible.

I don’t know. We shouldn’t be able to count the ways He’s been faithful to us, because He always is, but sometimes we just miss it.

Last week I was feeling really needy in my love tank. I know that’s not necessarily a good thing, but it’s the truth so I was telling the Lord about it and just simply asked Him if He’d show me He loved me through one of my love languages. I realize that may sound really cheesy, and even though the cross was His ultimate sacrifice and love for me, and I know that, I just needed a little affirmation that I had not completely fallen off His radar. Listen, I’m just being completely honest. I didn’t know how He’d go about showing me, but I knew He could if He wanted to and if I’d just open up my eyes and see. My love tank happens to fill up pretty quick with quality time and words of affirmation, so imagine my delight when I got to work Wednesday morning only to receive a hand written letter from someone who didn’t know me from Adam. A letter of encouragement that only the Lord could have known I needed. Lest you think He’s not into the details, be encouraged that He is SO into the details. And if He can work out the small details and requests like that one, don’t you think He has the big things worked out, too? I love Him for that.

He is faithful, Sister.

He always has been and always will be.

So let’s hear it! Let’s build each other’s faith!

How has He showed Himself faithful to you this week?

Happy Friday, y’all!

“So let us seize and hold fast and retain without wavering the hope we cherish and confess and our acknowledgement of it, for He Who promised is reliable (sure) and faithful to His word.” Hebrews 10:23 (Amplified)

Girls! It’s Wednesday morning! Which means you’ve made it through half the week! Honestly, I don’t know how time flies so quickly.

BUT, we didn’t want the week to pass us by without sharing the Greensboro LPL recap video!

I’m speaking on behalf of the team since I wasn’t there in person, but I think they’ll agree when I say THANK YOU for your prayers on their behalf. They were heard! We’ve heard nothing but people testifying of God’s faithfulness from last weekend. So, thank you so much! And by all means, please don’t stop now. We’d love nothing more than for you all to press in all the harder with us.

We love y’all so much and appreciate you more than you know.

Enjoy this really fun recap!

Living Proof Live | Greensboro from LifeWay Women on Vimeo.

Good Thursday morning, lovely ladies! Shockingly, it’s a dreary, rainy and slightly cold day here in Houston, but that’s not going to stop any of the team from heading to Greensboro today for Living Proof Live this weekend. In fact, I think of all weekends, this is the one you’ll want to be at.

So, I think it goes without saying that we have 20 Siesta Scholarship Tickets to giveaway! We’re so pumped!

If you have the desire to attend this weekend, and are anywhere near Greensboro, but just don’t have the financial means to do so, then please call the office and ask for Kimberly. You can call 281-257-3344 or call toll free at 888.700.1999. She will get you squared and away and good to go! If you happen to call during the lunch hour, please leave a message and we’ll get back to you ASAP.

We love y’all so much. Really. And if by chance you didn’t see Beth’s post yesterday asking for prayer, please, go back down and read that one. Be blessed!

Happy Thursday, y’all.

Hey, Everybody! We are super excited about this year of ministry both on the road and off the road but it occurred to me in Phoenix two weeks ago that it might be time to ask you prayer warriors to really press in if you’re willing.  I know your plates are all full just like ours are. I also know that your intercessory list is probably a mile long. None of us can cover everything but, if God makes room on those knees of yours for our Living Proof staff and the ministry He’s assigned to us, and for my family and me, we would try not to let a single second of it go to waste. We would actively receive with gratitude and humility and with much praise to God for you.

Things have really heated up around here. We were blessed out of our minds to have a fresh sense of God’s presence in Phoenix at our last LPL but, boy, did we ever have some obstacles. It truly was uncanny and caused us to realize that we can’t just approach the coming year like the previous year. At our last LPL, many of us on the team got sick almost instantly upon arriving. It’s one of the few times in all these years that I taught so hoarse that I was afraid I’d lose my voice completely before the event was over. Just so you’ll know how unusual that was, I literally have not been to the doctor in over three years for any kind of sickness. God has really blessed me in this season will wellness but my experience in Phoenix reminded me not to take that for granted. One of our praise members ended up in the emergency room twice that weekend. It was just nuts. Add to that the warfare and we were truly in the hornet’s nest. We LOVED the group! They were fantastic and God was gloriously faithful but He called us to vividly fight for the victory at that event.

My beloved family and I could also use some added prayer right now. Please know that God is showing such faithfulness to us and revealing Himself in multiple ways. He reminds us continually that He is committed to us. Where would we be if He were not?? I don’t want anyone worrying. I just want to make sure I’ve humbled myself and asked for a solid prayer covering. As James 4:2 says, we have not because we ask not. The first thing on the prayer docket this week is the Greensboro, North Carolina Living Proof Live. We are ecstatic to be heading there and ask that you request such a revelation of Christ’s presence and power among us that we never forget it. Two weeks later we will be in Eugene, Oregon for Living Proof Live and we can hardly wait. I have a feeling Jesus has something special for us there. In mid-May I have the LifeWay taping for the next Bible study series (won’t be on the shelves for a year though!) and trust me when I tell you that we will be getting VERY specific with you about prayer mobilization for that week. For now, just get that on your radar. We will be desperate for your prayers and very dependent upon them.

I love you so much that I always feel a little reluctant to ask something more of you. You are the most giving, serving community I’ve ever experienced. I do not take one moment of your time for granted. Every time a sister tells me that she prays often for me, I am moved to the core. Faith-driven intercession takes effort. You could give us no greater gift. We deeply want to please God and have pure hearts and clear minds and servant-attitudes. And above all else for me personally, pray that I will love Jesus more than anything in this entire world. Pray the same for my whole family and for this ministry staff as a whole. Pray that for Travis Cottrell, my co-laborer and spiritual son. When you don’t know exactly how to direct your prayers for any of us, PRAY THAT! All else hinges on that one thing. We want to love Jesus.We NEED to love Jesus. Loving Him is the only thing that cleanses our hearts and makes them whole enough to love others well.

Thank you, dear sisters. You are so dear to me.

Here are a few links that will connect you to mobilized prayer here at LPM for those of you who are willing or interested:

This link will take you to our interactive prayer board on our website. It is very user friendly and an encouragement to the many people who use it.

Then, if you feel led by God to do so, you can click here to sign up to be a part of our prayer team. We are so grateful.

Sisters, in closing, I’d be so honored to pray for each one of you. I hope you’ll enter into it individually and take it personally. It is heartfelt.

My faithful, most holy Father and my God,

With tremendous love I lift my sister to you. You know what stirs in her heart, what awakens her at night, what causes her to shudder, and what seeks to devour her. You have seen her in the secret place and you know her longings and her questions and her dreams and her hopes. You know the very place that doubt seeks to swallow her and deceit desires to seed in her. Spring her eyes open to cleansing, delivering Truth. Minister to her in such a personal way throughout the coming days that she is floored once again by Your all-knowingness and complete attentiveness. Sprout signs of harvest in a field where she has sown so faithfully and seen so little. Help her to see that her labor is not in vain. Soak the fleece in such a way that she’ll know You are with her.  Send someone to encourage her in such a specific area that she’ll know You alone could have prompted it.

Grant her a heart to love You with an abounding affection that could only be supernatural and cause her to feel her heart teeming with love toward someone who is loveless toward her. Protect her heart and heal her mind where it may be bent or twisted. Take all shame off of her and cast out her self-loathing once and for all and lift her chin to see her redemption drawing near. Give her faith enough to believe that she has truly been forgiven and that You who began a good work in her will most assuredly complete it. Put a new relationship in her life that brings much joy to her in You and revives her faith-walk and makes her laugh. Healthy friendships, Lord! Help her to finally release a relationship that You have clearly brought to an end and to do so without resentment or bitterness, trusting You entirely with the future. Be radiant upon her face. Tell her forthrightly how lovely she is to You and how significant. Quiet that part of her that seeks to perform for acceptance. Give her joy in a more honest version of herself. Reveal Your gorgeous self to her, Lord Jesus. Let every false Christ in her life bow to the One and Only True so that she can see it is You. Make every competing voice hush to Yours.

In Your beautiful, saving, redeeming Name, Jesus, I bring these earnest requests.

Amen

Saturday shortly after noon, I filled up the dog bowl on the back porch with water and pitched dishes in the dishwasher so that I could head out with Melissa for a bite to eat and maybe a little shoe shopping. She’d spent the night with Keith and me in the country and we’d had a lazy Saturday morning over coffee and conversation. I’d set out my purse and keys and decided to wipe down the kitchen counter before we walked out the door. Just as I sprayed the cleaner and grabbed the dishtowel, Melissa walked in staring at the screen of her phone with the oddest expression.

“Mom, I don’t know if it’s true or not but I’m seeing references on Twitter to Rick and Kay Warren losing a son.”

She was ashen. My stomach flipped and, over the next few minutes as she read to me bits and pieces of breaking news, we feared the worst. I felt a hot sickness in my throat. My relationship with the Warrens is the same as most of yours. I have simply been served and led well by them. Although I had the joy of ministering to women on the Saddleback campus some years ago, my stay was brief and our schedules were wrapped entirely around the event. I have not had the opportunity to get to know the Warrens in the way that personal friends know one another but I always knew in my heart that I’d like them so much. We’re similar ages and in similar seasons with our families. Meanwhile, I have  loved them and esteemed them in Christ as faithful and mighty servants of the living Lord Jesus Christ. And quite possibly, among the mightiest to ever serve this generation.

Within an hour of Melissa walking into the kitchen with those first pieces of news, someone very close to the Warren family confirmed the tragedy on Twitter. We were heartsick and not for media personalities or even public servants. We were heartsick for a family of real people with breakable hearts. And we wept. Many of you undoubtedly did as well.

An odd mix of feelings overtook me with increasing force through the afternoon and into the early evening. The sadder I got, the madder I got. Mad at an astonishing satanic force that stoops viciously and swoops in unscrupulously to attack children and to prey on their weaknesses as they grow up, shooting so relentlessly at one spot that they can barely get to their feet between arrows. I’ve been that child and many of you have, too. Madder still that the devil in all likelihood delights in nothing more than targeting the children and dearest loved ones of true servants of God. Nothing tries our faith like the suffering of our children. At the end of the day, our faith is what the devil is after most. Without it, it’s impossible to please God. This is why Paul could say with relief nearly palpable on the page of his final letter, “I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith.”

We’ll all finally make it to our finish lines but the cliffhanger along the way will be this: will we keep our faith? That isn’t the same thing as keeping our salvation. I don’t believe my salvation is something I can give back. I received it by grace through faith from Christ Himself and my works don’t secure it no matter how my woes obscure it. His grip never loosens. Nothing can snatch us out of our Father’s hand. What’s at risk is our active belief in who God says He is, what He says He is like, and what He says He can do.

Is He good? Is He faithful?

So the enemy sets out to knock the feet of our faith out from under our walk. And there is nothing more effective toward that end than targeting the ones we love most on this planet.

I don’t say that to scare you. I say it because I believe it is the hair-raising truth. No, we are not abandoned here as victims on this damaged sod. We are not abandoned at all. Our God is with us. The Spirit of His Son is in us. We are more than conquerors through the One who loves us. We are not at the mercy of Satan. We are at the glorious, life-breathing mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, a mercy that leads, as Jude 21 says, to eternal life and will ultimately spill like a river into a sea of reality where no sufferings of our past will compare with the glory of our present. In the meantime, greater is He who is in us than he who is in the world but make no mistake. This is a vicious world we’ve been left to serve. One God still loves or we would not still be here.

And then, in that mixture of emotions Saturday afternoon, I got madder and madder at the bullies in the Body of Christ. I thought how much it turns out that the Warrens have been through personally and, if they are like most leaders, all the while putting out fires and putting up with a bunch of trash-talk from people who would call the same Jesus Lord.

God help us. In the words of James, These things should not be so, my brothers and sisters.

I don’t believe one of us here in this community thinks that leaders should be immune to questions, constructive criticism, and accountability.  That’s not the kind of thing I’m talking about here. I’m talking about bullying. There are Scriptural means for going to a brother or sister to reason with them about matters we genuinely consider to be off base, misleading, or in error. You and I both know that much of what happens out there in public forums is the furthest thing from biblical.

It is slander.

I went on a walk through the woods Saturday late afternoon and did something I don’t often do. I cried angry tears. I got so mad that I could have hit somebody. I kept thinking how believers attack one another and sling stones at each other like the other can’t bruise or break. And all the while that person may be in so much personal pain that it’s nearly unbearable. I’m not transferring this to the Warrens. I do not know them personally. I’m telling you what I know to be true about most people out there. Most of us are in significant pain of some kind. That doesn’t mean defeat necessarily. It just means pain.

Life is hard enough without hatefulness rife in the Body of Christ. We are called to carry one another’s burdens, not pile relentlessly on top of them. We can still hold one another accountable. We can still ask questions. We can still disagree. But we can do it with respect.

I’m sick of the bullying. The mud-slinging and the meanness. I’m sick of careless, idle words thrown out there in the public square and professing believers in Christ standing on the necks of their own brothers and sisters to sound smart and superior. As if it’s not enough that we are surrounded in this culture by Christian haters, we’ve got to have our own hater-Christians. It’s insane.

When we turn people into caricatures, everything’s game. The moment we depersonalize them, our consciences harden and we can mock and slander at will and have a blast doing it. Snide blogs and tweets and Facebook posts about various leaders can also be effective ways to jump in their spotlight. Bullies aren’t just mean. They’re self-serving. They’re platform-hunting. They have to borrow one to perform.

No, I don’t think that saying all of this will change it much but some things still need to be said. Sometimes we need to speak up and call something wrong. There’s a bigger issue in the Body of Christ than immorality. It’s hatefulness. If the greatest priority Christ assigned to us was love, the gravest offender is hate.

Just about the time cynicism threatens to overwhelm us and turn us into the very people we can’t stand, genuine love – the real thing – erupts right here on this earth like concrete breaking open to a spring. Compassion and tremendous affection are pouring forth from the Body of Christ for the Warrens right now. It is right and it is lovely. We have been served well by them and have learned so much from them. To respond with expressions of love, comfort, and intercession is our honor and privilege. We must and we will.

But even now at the hardest moment of their lives the Warrens can teach something vital if we are willing to learn. Their heartbreak demonstrates what has always been true but has never been more profoundly overlooked: these who serve us publicly also suffer privately. They are not caricatures. They are not just personalities. They are people living on a painful planet with the rest of us.

The Warrens will come forth like gold. The enemy will not win. They will fight the good fight. They will finish the race. They will keep the faith.

I love the Body of Christ. I don’t want want to get cynical. I don’t want to sit around and hate the haters or I become one. But this morning I just want to say this. We can love each other better. Let’s do. People have enough hurt. Let’s be careful with one another.