WHEN YOU STOP EXPECTING PEOPLE

LOVE AGAIN

GUTS GRACE AND GLORY

Player: Danny Wuerffel, Heisman Trophy Winner, 1996

Former NFL Quarterback: New Orleans Saints, Green Bay Packers, Chicago Bears, Washington Redskins

Danny's Favorite Bible Verse: So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. — 2 Corinthians 4:18

After retiring from football in 2004, I elected to leave the world of the NFL and focus my energies and attention on serving the poor in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans through Desire Street Ministries (DSM). I became the Executive Director after Hurricane Katrina, and now the new DSM serves urban ministry leaders all over the Southeast. I’ve been excited to see the recent success of my friend and fellow Gator, Tim Tebow.

At a time in this nation when we seem to have lost decorum and respect, it is important to me to see mature athletes respectfully interact with community — especially teammates, family, and those people who look up to us.

For that very reason, it was a special honor that, in 2005, the All Sports Association of Fort Walton Beach created the Wuerffel Trophy to be awarded annually to the college player who best exemplified great character, good academics, outstanding play on the field, and provided service to their community. In 2009, I presented that trophy to Tim Tebow.

I really admire how Tim uses his platform in such a positive way. I believe there is no right way for evangelical players to use the platform of football. It’s really up to the individual. I chose to subtly fold my hands in prayer after a big moment. I’m really amused about all the media hype that happens when committed Christian men express their celebration by demonstrating a humble spirit through kneeling in prayer or pointing to God.

Also important to me is how we as Christians deal with the struggles life will bring to each of us.

Football, like other professions, has its hard knocks and personal challenges. The struggles I faced in football helped me in June 2011 when I was diagnosed with Guillain-Barre Syndrome, a disorder of unknown origin that turns the body’s immune system against the nervous system. This results in partial paralysis and prolonged muscle weakness until the body can recover.

As I fight this disease, I’m reminded of the battles each of us face every day in defending our faith and standing up for what’s right.

The Lord reminds us:

My peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. – John 14:27

For the LORD loves the just and will not forsake his faithful ones. — Psalm 37:28

Your Turn

How do you lift up your praises to God for his blessings to your life? If you're an athlete, do you have a favorite ritual, prayer, posture, or act of thanksgiving before or after your games? Leave your comments on our blog - we'd love to hear your thoughts on this! ~ Devotionals Daily 

Are You Under Attack? God is With You!

Are You Under Attack? God is With You! by Jennie Allen, from Anything There are always doubts. We doubt because God, while He gets louder, is still invisible, because of the people questioning your sanity and the difficulty of just following a wild invisible God into uncomfortable spaces. We doubt because of the risk, the cost, the abandonment of rights and comforts, the disapproval of people you really love, and then on top of it all, because you have now officially picked a fight with the devil. Yep. Fun. The devil is real, and nothing ticks him off more than people waking up from the numb stupor he has crafted to keep us harmless. My husband Zac and I were awake and running and single-mindedly chasing God, and that got the devil’s attention. We’ve served God long enough to experience attack. In fact, we came to expect it in the early years of church planting. Zac and I eventually would stop whatever irrational fight we were having and laugh, blame it on the devil, and call a truce. But we were in new territory. The devil stepped up his game. In a matter of months, on top of all the new change coming and the weight of it all, we experienced: - the worst fights of our marriage - friends betraying us; - one of our other kids going through uncommon behavior issues at school; - out-of-the-blue temptations that had never previously been issues; - our church going through more conflict than we had ever seen; - and other things that are not mine to share. Every day Zac (when we weren’t fighting) would look at me and hug me and then he would say, “Are we right with God?” If the answer was yes then he would ask, “Then how do we obey Him in this new hard thing?” And the answer was usually clear. Honestly, I could handle all of the hard stuff until we were at odds with each other. Zac had been my rock in all of this. I leaned on him to support me through the weighty callings on our lives. He and I were unified until this point. Losing that unity made me question everything. I had just spent the hardest week of my life pouring my guts out on camera for the Stuck study. It was one of the scariest and most intense things I’d ever done. One night, it felt as if the attacks had come so hard for so many weeks that I locked myself in my bathroom not to cry . . . but to cuss. I was mad. I punched the air as though the devil was so real I might hit him. And I begged God for reprieve. “Do you see us? We are getting our butts kicked! Can You get in here, please, and issue some backup? We are dying!” We were pouring ourselves out and getting attacked from every side. I needed it to let up. I was losing perspective and I needed to breathe. I just had it out. It should not surprise us if life is hard, especially if we love Jesus. We are at war — not in heaven. And yet it always does surprise us. Braveheart Fantasies Jesus prayed before He died, asking God to use us here. He sent us on God’s mission to redeem and love and pursue and protect and heal. Jesus said that He was going but He was leaving these men, and the ones who would believe in Him because of them, to continue His mission . . . but there would be attack. He said, I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. — John 17:15 When you are truly about the things of God, there is always attack. So Jesus prayed for us, not that we would be kept from hardship or suffering but that we would be kept from the evil one who desires to take us out. How many times have I kicked and pouted to God because life was not going how I wanted? How many times have I thought to myself, That is not fair! While I may have read in my Bible that we are in a spiritual war, that truth had not fully adjusted my expectations of this life. To accept that life is supposed to be hard is the beginning of joy. There is freedom in understanding that heaven is coming and we are not there yet. We’re called to live, instead, aware that we are at war with a ruthless enemy who is trying to destroy us if we are living surrendered to Jesus. Continue to our blog to read the rest of today's devotional (it's a long one, but a good one!) by Jennie Allen from her book, Anything. * * * Your Turn Are you under attack? Maybe even the biggest one of your life? Take a moment to be reminded by Scripture that you are not fighting flesh and blood. Remember who you are fighting and that God is with you! Please share your comments on our blog! We would love to hear from you! ~Devotionals Daily

hOW IS IT THAT sTEPHEN cOLBERT gETS iT, bUT mOST cHRISTIAN dON'T?

We Are Not Good, But Jesus Makes Us Beautiful

We Are Not Good, But Jesus Makes Us Beautiful by Jennie Allen, from Anything

Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in My hand. - Jeremiah 18:6

"Jennie, do you think my dad is in heaven?”

My heart stopped and my brain raced to find the answer. I scanned through my memories of his mess of a life and found myself doubting.

Kathryn had recently lost her dad to a heart attack. Her dad, Mike, was one of the most joyful, screwed-up men I knew. He had broken his marriage and could be seen more in bars than church. His life did not at all resemble the steadfast Christian men I knew.

But something about Mike was alive and full of joy. Every time you were around him, you felt it. He befriended every person he ever met. The man loved well.

There are a lot of things about God and Christianity that are a worthwhile debate, but the fact that we all sin is typically not one of them. I have never met a person so brave as to say he was perfect, but I have met a lot of people who think they are good people. I get the impression when they say that about themselves, they are saying, “God thinks I am okay.”

On a core level, are we really as “good” as we think we are?

I’ve always thought the epic war in our universe was pretty simple — good versus bad. But if you read about the war in the Bible, it was always more complicated than that, even from day one. Adam and Eve chose evil, but then they found themselves in a place without church or Bibles or pressure from their priest. On their own intuition, they ran from God and tried to cover themselves and their shame with fig leaves (Genesis 3). These were leaves of pretending, the same leaves we call religion or perhaps morality or maybe being good. They tried to cover up just how bad they were.

I’ve done this. I do this. I impress the world with passionate, visible morality while avoiding God altogether. There is something to humility that is costly... something resembling humiliation... an outright declaration of the wreck we are without God rather than composing a beautiful existence that barely needs a savior.

We’ve often run to pretending, to covering ourselves with religion or the fig leaf of appearing good. It was the biggest fight Christ picked, and yet it is still our biggest problem. We think we can appear okay... okay to God and to each other, and that if we construct really pretty coverings out of our leaves, no one will know.

God is clear. The state of our invisible hearts takes precedence over all the good behavior, over all the bad.

We judge children on their behavior or performance from the time they are born. People just flat-out like us better if we are... good.

Everything in this life seems to hinge on our external behavior. When Jesus came, He went to the most broken, the least good. In fact, it was always the most sinful He ministered to. He touched them and healed them and loved them, and they loved Him back. They needed Him.

I remember the first time it occurred to me that my life looked more like the lives of the people Jesus rebuked than the people Jesus drew near to. I was reading His words to the religious in Matthew, “So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness” (Matthew 23:28).

Ugh. I felt that way. I knew deep down I was screwed up. I also knew nobody really knew it, and I liked it that way. I did not want to be facedown in the sand like all the sinners Jesus healed. I wanted to stay bright and shiny and good, and comfortably on my feet.

When I read the words of Christ, I felt this call. A call to fall on my face.

It physically hurts to see our pride, to see our sin, to quit playing good, to feel broken and to need God. And it hurts even more to let others see it. So we run from falling; we choose large fig leaves to cover up with and not God. We run from that vulnerable feeling that we may not measure up, all while aching to measure up.

I love the song “Beautiful Things” by Gungor. It says, “You make beautiful things out of dust. You make beautiful things out of us.”

God’s people have always been good at running from Him. Jeremiah was one of the people God sent to remind them that God was real and that they needed Him, and that he wanted them back. So he sent Jeremiah to the home of a potter. When Jeremiah arrived, the piece of clay in the potter’s hands was misshapen and ruined. As Jeremiah watched, the potter reworked the same clay into something beautiful, an altogether different vessel.

As Jeremiah walked away, God asked him,

Can I not do with you as this potter has done?... Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in My hand. — Jeremiah 18:6

Christ kept drawing close to broken people while He was here. For the woman caught in adultery, about to be stoned in John 8, her face in the sand, Jesus protected her from stones. And to protect her from eternal judgment, He whispered the same thing that He whispers to us: Repent, because you are not good; you are not okay. Come back to me. You need me. He says, Go and sin no more (John 8:11), which is impossible apart from the righteousness Christ offers to those who come to Him in faith. He is what makes us right.

There is something so beautiful about people aware of their sin and their need for God. That is beautiful to God. He can work with that, enter into that. Jesus’ first command after nearly every encounter with a needy person was for them to repent. He promised these broken people hope and healing. He promised to make a way for them. Often, after these encounters, He would turn to the religious people who seemed to have it all together and confront their sin of pride and pretending. Yet with every opportunity, for the most part, they never repented. They thought they were fine without Jesus. They did not need Him.

God is reaching out to us, wanting us to see we need him. But since He is God, we think He wants some song and dance from us — in other words, behavior modification. He actually just wants us. He longs to set us free. And yes, to accomplish all that, He wants us entirely. God is home to us. He is where we were made to be. He is what we were made for. We just forget all that while we are trying to be good and independent.

Pretending to be good halts God’s movement in our life. Legalism or religion helps us feel better about ourselves, puffs us up, gives us the posture to be critical and judgmental and prideful. Oh, and everything human about us loves that. It feels better to live that way.

We want to not need God.

I was visiting a halfway house filled with men who had all recently been released from prison. I hadn’t known what to expect, but my heart instantly began melting. I saw an older man with his worn shirt tucked in pouring lemonade — the grainy kind that you add water to and stir — and putting out cookies that looked store-bought but were arranged in a pattern on a plate. The other men greeted us with smiles as if they were welcoming the president. I had rushed to get there that night — I was dealing with sitters and car pools and honestly I felt a little cranky, but at the sight of these humble men my pulse slowed and I didn’t want to be anywhere else.

We went around the room, and each man shared a little about his life. With tears and true ownership, each man confessed his weaknesses and mistakes. Their hearts bled for the damage they had brought to those they love, and they gushed at how they lived forgiven because of Christ. There was no air about them, no pretense. Christ had moved into their wrecked lives and restored them. They spoke with peace, and I sensed they possessed hope.

I found myself longing to be like them, these men recovering from the consequences of sin. I wanted to need God as they did and feel broken as they did and be transparent as they were. It was as if they were already exposed... already caught. “Screwed up” was written on their foreheads — no need to act like it wasn’t. And something about that brought freedom. It made God the hero, not them.

My soul resonated with that. Even though I’m a blonde, mom-of- three pastor’s wife connecting with criminals fresh out of prison, I am a human, and we humans arrive with “screwed up” on our foreheads. We come that way, but somewhere between toddlerhood and being a grown-up we learn to wipe off our forehead signs. To sit up straight. To be good.

But before God I am no different from these men. My forehead is clean; my soul certainly is not. That day on an old, beat-up sofa with some old, beat-up guys, I rethought the things I valued in people and the types of people I valued, and I realized that God shone more through those accused and hurting men than through me.

We are all hiding from each other with big fig leaves, but God says, “You could stop because I am a way better covering. I have an actual payment for all the sin you are hiding. But it will take coming out from behind your leaves. It will take humility to see that you need me” (John 11:25, 1 John 1:8, paraphrased).

The irony is that Jesus' blood takes the least good and makes them the most good. It's beautiful.

We don’t want to fall. We like to see great testimonies of God’s grace, but we don’t want to be the testimony.

Even though I was bright and shiny—I was full of sin and pride. Eventually I fell, dramatically, face-first, crying because I had lived like a Pharisee in all my pride and arrogance. I actually have learned to fall a lot. I fall because I can’t keep pretending I am okay when I know deep down I’m not. But I also fall because I find God in the sand. I find God with my face in it. And then He gets to be the Lifter of my head, rather than my pride.

About the same time my more acceptable sin was bringing me to my face, my friend Kathryn called about her more blatantly sinning father. Everything I had thought God wanted from me was in question. When you only look at Jesus, what He did, what He said, who He loved . . . there is only one thing needed. One.

Anyone can get to heaven—no matter how messy his or her life. And by the same token, anyone can be kept out— regardless of all his or her fancy goodness.
I needed to answer Kathryn.

“I know this, Kathryn . . . It is the work of Christ that saves any of us. Our behavior here is really all the same — we all screw it up pretty bad without God. Some of us are just better at covering our sin up. When we get to heaven, a whole heck of a lot of people we never expected are going to be there, and a lot of good people we thought were going to be there won’t be. God deals with the heart, the unseen spaces in us, and while your dad never mastered church or his marriage, he had something inside of him that poured out on everyone who came in touch with him... Did he know Jesus?”

Kathryn had never asked her dad where he stood with Jesus Christ, so that night she got on her face and begged God to somehow show her that Mike was in heaven... she was desperate and pleading for proof so obvious that it couldn’t be denied.

The day after pleading with God and with no knowledge of Kathryn’s prayer, her aunt, with whom she had never had a spiritual conversation, reluctantly called. She nervously told Kathryn that a voice that she knew to be God woke her up in the night and told her that Mike was with Him, and that Mike had given his heart to Jesus a few years earlier when Kathryn’s father-in-law passed. Her aunt hadn’t even been at the funeral, but they all agreed, as they thought back, that her dad had experienced a sudden shift toward spiritual things. She remembered that something was different in him following that time — not perfect or “good” or showy, but something deep and real had appeared.

Grace is scary insane.
Grace says you have nothing to give, nothing to earn, nothing to pay. You couldn’t if you tried!.. Salvation is a free gift. You simply lay hold of what Christ has provided. Period. And yet the heretical doctrine of works goes on all around the world and always will. It is effective because the pride of men and women is so strong. We simply have to do something in order to feel right about it. It just doesn’t make good humanistic sense to get something valuable for nothing.

In one act God did what no amount of effort on our part could do. He sacrificed His perfect Son, placing every sin on Him.

It’s not just those in prison who are far from God; often it’s those of us sitting in pews, deciding where to go to lunch after this guy finishes talking about a God we barely need.

“I will not boast in anything.” I’m getting more comfortable with imperfect forehead signs.
Here is mine:
I am crazy screwed up. And my only hope is my Jesus.

* * *

Your Turn

What does your imperfect forehead sign say? Join the conversation on our blog. ~ Devotionals Daily

(Editor's Note: We heard such a great response to yesterday's devotional by Jennie Allen from her book Anything we decided to give you another excerpt - and extend our sale on the book. Jennie is the winner of the 2013 New Author of the Year Christian Book Award and her writing has been praised for its honesty, passion and authenticity in communicating God’s truths. We hope you are blessed by today's devotion! Please share it with your friends).

WHEN YOU STOP EXPECTING PEOPLE TO BE PERFECT, YOU CAN LIKE THEM FOR WHO THEY ARE

WHEN YOU ARE TEMPTED

"No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, He will also provide a way out so that you can endure it." — 1 Corinthians 10:13

The premise of the 1983 hit movie Mr. Mom is what happens in a family when the husband gets laid off and becomes a stay-at-home dad and the mother of the family’s young children reenters the workplace. It’s a funny film that also includes a powerful lesson about temptation.

The temptation scene comes at the end of the movie. Due to a whole series of misunderstandings, the stressed-out husband and wife are barely speaking. To make matters worse, both are being seduced — she by her annoying boss, he by a sultry neighbor. Jack, the husband, is clearly torn. Given the sad state of his marriage, the forbidden fruit is very tantalizing. The grass on the other side of the marital fence definitely looks greener. But after wrestling with his options, he reminds himself of his love for his wife, which keeps him from giving in to temptation.

Notice that the Bible assures us that temptations will come. They are a fact of life in a fallen world. Notice also that we’re not unique in the kinds of temptations we experience. Others wrestle with the same kinds of messes. The key verses today remind us that God is faithful. He will never allow a temptation so strong that we are unable to resist. In every inducement to evil, God will show us a way out, a way of escape.

The best escape, as we’ve already noted, is love.

When we love Christ above all else, when He is the great desire of our lives and the One we want most to please, it becomes much easier to say no to sin.

Prayer Father, increase my love for You as I face the temptations in my life . . .

* * *

Your Turn

Are you facing temptation? Saying no to sin is a challenge, but not an impossible one. Pray the prayer above specifically to the situation you are facing and ask Him to show you the way out or give you the grace to endure faithfully. Please leave your thoughts on today's devotional, Love Conquers All, on our blog! We would love to hear from you! ~Devotionals Daily 

A Race of Rest

A Race of Rest I have placed your feet on a fast track, says the Lord. I have given you this sports car and you have enjoyed the ride so far, my child. However, the danger of a race car is that you go really fast, but not only that you go fast, but also that you start racing in competition with other cars around you. My child, this is not why I have placed you on this road and why I have given you this car. It is not so you can race in it and make a whole competition out of it with those that are travelling on the same road as you, my child. No I gave you this car and all these features so that your road would become easier. You should still rely on my power and on what I can do. I still want you to rest in my arms and in my direction and not in what you can do using the tools I have given. So just let go of the striving now and lay aside those things of the flesh. For my walk is not a walk of competition. My walk is a walk of rest and each one has been given a clear track to run on. For each one of my children my track is a bit different and unique. So just place your trust in me, use what I have given you and enjoy the ride, says the Lord.

YOU'RE NEVER SMART AS YOU YOU ARE

COME TO ME

Come To Me Come to Me. — Matthew 11:28 There are none of us so close to Christ but that we can’t come nearer, and the secret of our daily Christian life is all wrapped up in that one word of invitation from Jesus: “Come.” That nearness is what we are to make daily efforts after, and that nearness is one capable of indefinite increase. We know not how close to His heart we can lay our aching heads. We know not how near to His fullness we can bring our emptiness. We have never yet reached the point beyond which no closer union is possible. Pray About It Prayer is, in its most basic definition, a “coming” to God. Before words are spoken or thoughts organized, the fact that we have come unto Him has established prayer. Each time we enter prayer, there is this same coming to God. “Come unto me” are the sweetest words of Christ to echo down through the centuries. Can you imagine a finer invitation? Today, as you pray, realize just Who it is that invites you to come. It was He who first loved us. God is always near you and with you. Leave Him not alone. ~Brother Lawrence * * * Your Turn Have you considered before that just coming into the Presence of God establishes prayer? Pause now and respond the Lord's invitation to come to Him bringing your emptiness and enjoying His nearness. You're invited to leave your comments on our blog.

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RESENTMENT IS LIKE TAKING POISON AND HOPING THE OTHER PERSON DIES

My Loving Presence

My Loving Presence My presence is like a gentle stream that brings with it the feeling of security and well-being. When you step out of it you become dirty and contaminated with the world and everything you fill yourself with. So many times you wonder where the anointing went because you cannot feel it anymore. My child, it is still there, but it is buried underneath all that you have accumulated in your day. You try to find my presence in the world, when all you have to do is quiet down your spirit and come into my peace for a moment. I have not left you, nor forsaken you. I’m right there by your side waiting for you to stretch out your hand and take mine. I want to wash you again with my love and cleanse you from all the impurities that you have picked up during your day in the world, but unless you come into my loving arms, I cannot do it. My spirit is gentle like a dove child, and I will not force myself onto you, but instead I wait for you to come and just fall into my arms so that I can assure you of my love and wash you clean. Do not hesitate, but run into my arms now, allow me to show you how much I love you and how precious you are to me, then all the insecurity and the loneliness will fade away and soon you will have the strength to push through again, says the Lord. Amen.

How CS Lewis feel about homemaker

ABANDONING THE APPROVAL OF OTHERS

Abandoning the Approval of Others 
by Jennie Allen, from Anything

The Lord is with me; I will not be afraid. What can mere mortals do to me? — Psalm 118:6

It was pretty late. Most of the lights were out. I had gotten tied up with friends and packing and forgotten that my parents kept 10:00 p.m. bedtimes. But they were still up waiting for their oldest daughter, the first one to have left the nest — a freshman now at the University of Arkansas — to come home for the weekend.

This night I went into their room  and sat on the corner of their bed, home from college with something important to talk about. I am sure that night I looked to them like their little girl who hadn’t really grown up that much, like I might be asking if I could go to a dance with a cute boy or spend the evening out with a friend.

But I wasn’t asking to go to a dance.

After the wooden crosses at camp, God kept getting bigger to me.

I was hearing Him and God was real and speaking and moving in me. I was hearing Him and obeying — but was I obeying Him in every way, no matter the cost?
Was I willing to do anything He asked?

When God began awakening in me, He started awakening me for the things of Him. I wanted to be about building His Kingdom, not only at the University of Arkansas but throughout the world. I was feeling led overseas. It was not clear where, but I could go for a year or two and serve through a ministry I was involved with in college.

As I sat on their bed I told them, “Mom and Dad, I feel like God is calling me to go overseas. I don’t know all the details, but I feel sure of this calling in me.”

I looked at them expectantly, waiting to hear what they had to say.

Every conscious person has thoughts, feelings, and passions streaming through him or her. These streams never stop, and they’re rarely filtered. They flood us with messages, and out of those thoughts we live, we make decisions, we create — we even regress as a direct result of these streams moving to and from our hearts and minds.

The obvious streams are our preoccupation with food or sex, or more likely, returning e-mails or building grocery lists. But the deeper streams, the ones that control our lives, those are where we doubt and dream and feel afraid or insecure. Typically we just leave them all there, streaming through us, controlling us.

God often speaks of the heart, or our souls. Nothing about me matters more than my heart, so why can’t I seem to control my heart or even locate it? For most of my life it seems to have had its own way, navigated by fear or desire. It moves and it ends up moving me.

I know my heart is tangibly real in this sense—I see evidence of its affections. But how does one control the heart?

Ever since I was young, I have been fascinated by the life of King David. He made so many terrible mistakes, and yet he bled God. He was passionate. Over and over again throughout his journaling through Psalms, he says variations of this phrase: The Lord is with me; I will not be afraid. What can mere mortals do to me? (Psalm 118:6).

And his life flowed out of this mentality. Because he feared and adored God, he feared nothing else. No one else. What was different about my faith than David’s? Why did I live with this stream of fear of people?

I grew up knowing the facts about God, and one of those facts was that he wanted to possess my heart completely. That I would love the Lord, my God, with my all my heart, soul, mind... that all of me would love Him the most (Deuteronomy 6:5). But I couldn’t live it then. I was busy making most everyone in my life happy, and it was working for me—at least most of the time.

I’m lying. It wasn’t working. I was completely wrecked inside. How does anyone ever make everyone happy? I waited for my parents’ answer.

Was I the only one torn like this? In love with God and yet eagerly serving everybody but him?

That night on my parents’ bed, as I told them I wanted to obey God by serving Him in another country, far from their categories and dreams, many streams flooded me. They were streams that, at the time, trumped the planet-building God.

My parents weren’t wrong to express their opinions. I was only eighteen, and I was their daughter. They never said I was forbidden to go. But I was intuitive. I could feel it. I could feel their disapproval.

So I didn’t go. I didn’t even think about going anymore.

In the decade that followed, as much as my love and understanding of God grew, this river of idolatry only rushed stronger and stronger, oftentimes making me anxious, even frantic. Since the invisible thoughts of people are not easily controlled, I would spin, longing to control them.

People had to shrink for me before God had me completely... but how?

When I get still and hear the loudest thing in me, it is often that I am chasing everyone but God. And I fear if he gets too close, he’ll see it. But if I let him close anyway, we sit together on days like that, looking over the frantic river that is wearing me out. He never says, I told you so. He could, but He never does.

Love is jealous... especially God’s love. He wants me, and I want everybody else.

God knows we all have this problem, loving everybody but Him. So he called a prophet to dedicate his days to answering the same question I ask: how do we stop chasing everybody else and come back to God?

Continue to our blog to read the rest of today's devotion by Jennie Allen (it's another long one, but worth the read!). Jennie continues with an examination of what we can learn about God's jealous love from the life of the prophet Hosea.

Your Turn

Is God your only thing? Whose approval do you need to abandon to live fully for God alone? Leave a comment on our blog. We'd love to hear your response today. ~Devotionals Daily