I Surrender-- Again

Confession Time

I haven't written in days. The mini vacation was nice. Yet, I find myself reluctant to get back into the swing of things. I have used the down time to finish reading a book or two and start a new one.

I spent time with the kids, worked at the church, and found out I have time-management issues. I have heard this before but now I see it in a new way.

Dishes, doctor's appointments, tire buying, clothes washing and many other little chores did not get done in a timely manner. Perhaps it is the time of year. I want to slow down and surrender to the quiet family time this time of year brings.

Perhaps it is more to do with the fact that I am just being lazy.

I used to joke about there being a hidden tattoo on my body that said "Inherently lazy", but I was too apathetic to look for it. Yet, out of the mouth, the heart speaks.

So what am I going to do? I do not know. I do know that I have a song on my heart. Hillsong's new album "Cornerstone" is on my heart, but in particular is this song: "I Surrender".

The old hymn "I Surrender All" played as God dropped the idea of this blog into my heart almost a year ago. It seems appropriate that as the anniversary of this blog's beginning approaches that a similar song is stirring in my heart.

Lord have your way in me.

I just wanted to share this with you today and I hope that it will stir you to surrender to what God has for you and what He wants to do in you.

Join the Conversation: 

How can I pray for you today?

Endless Love

There was a time I ran from God. It was a long dark wasted space of my life. Thank God for His faithfulness. He chased me and He is chasing you.

Today I want to share this video. It is of a song called You're Never Giving Up, by Johnathan David Helser. The spontaneous worship is real. This is what God feels for you. He loves you beyond measure. He waits for you. He will never give up on you.

You were made for a purpose. You were made for Him.

Break open your alabaster jar. Pour it out on God right now. Let your worship rise before our Father. Love on Him.

Let the chains fall. Let God's love wash you clean. He will not leave you. He will not forsake you. God is faithful.

Shut off all the other things. Turn your phone off for the next 11 minutes and 45 seconds.

There is no ceiling, no walls no floors on God's love. At the end of the song, enjoy the pure joy of musicians moved by the largeness and perfection of an endless God.

Be blessed.

Follow the Leader

Original Photo:CC. Edits by Dayna Bickham

"You're Doing it Wrong!" 

Remember the playground game "Follow the Leader"? 

I do. I always wanted to be the leader. I did not like following. I was strong willed and always thought I knew best. My favorite phrase was "You're doing it wrong!" I was not a gracious child....

How upside down and inside out Jesus turned my world. Now I follow Him, trying to be exactly like Him, and somehow, I am always falling short. 

The good news is His grace covers the gaps. 

Trust Issues

My need to control, to be the leader, points out a very real issue I have had to deal with many times and in many ways: trust. 

When we do not trust, we fear. There is no way around it. Trust and fear are opposites. I do not want to be ruled by fear. I have had enough of the dark days of "what if" and "Oh no". I want to live in the light. I want to be free to completely trust that if I obey God's voice, then He will never let me down. 

So when God prompts you to go speak to someone, will you obey? What if He tells you to give your last dollar to the woman who lives under the overpass, would you do it? What if He told you that person was not "the one" for you, would you walk away? 

God wants our whole life, not just a part of our lives. He wants our whole heart, not just a piece on Sundays. 

"For the Lord thy God is a consuming fire, even a jealous God." Deuteronomy 4:24

This jealousy is not just about God controlling everything. This jealousy is about relationship. God wants you to trust Him with every part of you. Your heart. Your body. Your finances. Your future. Your past. Your hopes. Your dreams. Everything! 

Before Fear Comes Intimidation

Bullies on the playground are not really feared until after they have done a little intimidation. The intimidation factor is an important component to any enemy's strategy. Too little and they will not achieve the desired effect. Too much intimidation and it may cause the powers that be to notice and take action. 

Isn't this exactly how our enemy deals with us when it comes to obedience to the Lord? He brings the intimidation factor and we fold under the pressure and do not obey. 

"If you do that, people will think you are weird!"  

"If you give your last dollar, what will you do later?"

"If you do not hold on to this guy, no one will ever love you again!" 

This internal dialogue happens all the time. Even Jesus had it. What do you think His time in the desert was? 

He battled with the enemy and He won. Because He trusted what God said in His word, and because He knew, that like any bully, Satan is powerless in the face of truth and courage. 

Before Trust Comes Surrender

Surrender. Abandon. Total trust. These words and phrases are easy enough concepts to understand, but difficult to live out. Why? Because our free will gets in the way. When Adam and Eve sinned in the garden, what "broke" was more than a way to fellowship with God, even more than sin. The fall broke our focus. We no longer look to God as our source for everything. Now we look to ourselves. This creates it's own set of issues. 

We can never be the solution to our problems because we are our problem. 

We have to give up our selves. Turn ourselves "in" to God and surrender our rights, our will, our emotions, our fear, our heartache, our hopes, our fears, all of it. Without total surrender there cannot be total trust. 

As I wrap up this post I want to remind you of the "trust fall". If you have not seen this done, a person turns their back to another, then falls with complete abandon backwards, trusting that the person behind them will catch them. 

Jesus has us. He will not forsake us. 

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How Should We React to Tragedy?

Photo Credit: Creative Commons

One Reaction

In the wake of the tragedy of the theater massacre in Colorado, it can be so easy to fall into fear.

After the news Friday, my husband and I sat and talked about precautions theaters can make to keep people safer.

Immediately we jumped to problem solving. Why? Because senseless acts make us feel inadequate, powerless and small. In some small way we grasp at anything that can give us back power and make us feel more in control.

We complain. We plan. We blame others. We litigate.

We seek justice and we seek solace and sometimes we get that. Sometimes we get peace after a tragedy. 

Sometimes we are just left with questions. 

It is okay. 

It is okay to feel inadequate. It is okay to feel small. We are. Without God we are without any power. The ruler of this earth uses the twisted and broken to maim and kill where he can, and along the way his ultimate goal is to sow seeds of doubt. To get us to turn from God.

He wants us to doubt God's love. He wants us to doubt God's mercy and justness. He wants us to rail against God and blame Him for being distant.

The truth is God does love us. He is merciful and just and He is closer than we think. Tragedy, senseless or not, does not change that.

When bad things happen what should we do? 

Stand on the Promises

We should stand on every word God has said. His promises are yes and amen. We believed God before tragedy and we should believe after. God does not change. He is the same. The world changed. Circumstances happened. That is the world we live in.

God promises that in this world we will have trouble. Jesus said “I have overcome the world”.

Press into God's presence and let Him comfort your heart. I have put a song here by one of my favorite bands. Listen to it. God has a plan for everyone of us. He reveals Himself in unique and individual ways because we are each unique individuals. 

Promises Lyrics 

By Parachute Band

I have decided I believe it
The clouds cannot defeat the sun
The truth remains
Your words won’t fail
So I rise again believing every one

Our conversations I remember
And I hang on to every word
Cause I have faith you’ll light my way again

I believe your promises are yes and amen
I believe your promises are yes and amen
I know you said it once and I believed you then
So I still believe it

You showed the lowly to the prophet
Revealed the plan among the stars
You say the things that I can see
Alone

I believe your promises are yes and amen
I believe your promises are yes and amen
I know you said it once and I believed you then
So I still believe it

I want in, I want in
Oh I, I want in, I want in
I want in, I want in
Oh I, I want in, I want in

I believe your promises are yes and amen
I believe your promises are yes and amen
I know you said it once and I believed you then

So I still believe it 

How did you react to the news of the violence in Aurora?  Leave your comment below. 

Freedom, Fireworks and Jesus

I Surprised Myself

I am always trying to learn new things. On the fourth we celebrated America's Independence Day. 


I did not plan attending this fireworks display. I was actually dragging the family to a local grocery store to coupon...think Extreme Couponing but with less savings and less crazy- hey, I am a beginner! 


Anyway, the kids wanted to hang around for the fireworks and so, bug spray and soda in hand we found a great vantage point and waited for the show. 


One thing about fireworks, love them or hate them, they are pretty much the same every time. (Unless you live in San Diego and got the 20 second version this year!) 


So I wanted to put the last few minutes to music. Which I have NEVER done before. The thought of video makes me so nervous it is kind of gross. (Sweaty hands were involved--)


Anyway, this was the result. 

The Message Behind the Video

Real freedom shouldn't be celebrated one day a year, but everyday if you are in Christ! 


The freedom the Father provided is real and tangible. In Christ there is no fear. I am no longer afraid of what the world thinks. In Jesus I live, I breathe, I have my very being!

I will live an extraordinary existence because God created me to be extraordinary! In fact, He created me to live so opposite of the world and their ordinary ways that I look alien to them! 

In Christ the freedom I have prompts me to share personal stories so people will look at Him and to Him in ways they never have before. 


In Jesus there is freedom from sin, from pain, from heartache, from depression, from doubt, from oppression and from death! 


In Jesus there is power. There is power to become more than what you can be on your own! In Jesus there is more. 


So I made this video to remind you that there is more. More than what you know right now. More than you feel right now. More than you think.

Jesus is the "more" you need. 

Cry out to God and ask Him to make Himself real to you right now. God hears the cries of his creation. He longs to adopt you into the family. Call on Him in the name of Jesus and you will be saved. 


Now... yes, now, you have a reason to celebrate. Fireworks cannot compare to the celebration in heaven over you right now! You are FREE! 


What do you like most about your life in Jesus? 

Do we Really Appreciate God's Word?

This ten minute video brought me to tears, and it is a few years old, but I had to share it. This made me wonder, do we take advantage of the grace God has so richly bestowed on us by making His word so readily available? I do not think we do.

The word is a weapon, the Sword of Truth. We have not wielded it well. We must treasure it, must get it inside us like the Living Bread it is. It needs to be our substance.

We need to believe that it is full of God's words, and since God is not man that He can lie, we must believe every word that has proceeded out of His mouth and been written within it.

Believe it and act on it. Take it in like air and breathe it out like unbridled fire, passionate, alive, glowing, life sustaining fire.

John 1 says in the beginning was the WORD and the WORD was with GOD and the WORD was GOD! Jesus is the embodiment of the Word of God, and now we have the WORD of GOD in our hands, in our homes, in the back window of our car, in our bedrooms, and our living rooms, in the drawers of our hotel room bedside tables and we do not read it. We do not see it. We pass over it with our eyes and ignore it with our hearts.

How can we cry out to God, but deny that His word is true? How can we separate who He is from what He said?

We cannot!

I see this video and I cry out to God to forgive me. To give me this kind of passion for His word. To eat of His table, and to share the word with all men, that they might come to know the love of God and all He has to say about them.

It is for this time, this day, this moment that you see this video and read these words. We are called to pray, we are called to give, we are called to go. To find out more about the organization that made this possible, go to http://www.worldteam.org/.

Have you read the word today? If you get God's words inside you, you get God's Life inside you!


This video is available in Spanish and in German

Real Love: the Lyrics Matter!

We will be looking at what Real Love is tomorrow. Listen to the lyrics of this song. Real love does not mean living a fantasy-like love. Romance novels don't have any idea what real love is. Proverbs 14:12 says there is a way that seems right to man, but in the end it leads to death. 


The world sells a bill of goods about love, and the stuff of movies has built a false ideal and held that ideal out there like a dangling carrot. Women and men believe love is just a feeling, when Love is so much more. Let's let go of the fantasy and hold onto what is real!

This video is the property of Carl Dylan from South Africa. He is a singer-songwriter that performs in the U.S. You can find him on iTunes. No copyright infringement is intended.

That's My King- by Dr. S.M. Lockridge

I had to share this. It moved me so much. This is my KING! Do you know Him? Please feel free to share, pin on Pintrest, and tweet all about it, because He came for me, He came for you, He came to conquer death, hell, and the grave, and His name is JESUS!




Visuals set to the audio of the famous sermon "Seven Way King" (aka That's My King) as spoken by Dr. S.M. Lockridge. The audio is slightly edited for a better flow in the video. Copy-writed materials are used, and no infringement is intended.