“Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”

Hebrews 11:1

Perhaps you don’t even realize you’ve given up.

Resignation has replaced the faith in God you once had that your prayers would be answered. Or maybe you have a request that seems so audacious you’ve yet to voice it. It  hovers on the outskirts of your mind while you wonder, Is my God really that big?

For this week of Lent, we are going to focus on faith. The Bible tells us that if we have mustard seed faith, we can move mountains. I’d like to take God at his word by growing my faith in Him: trusting Him with my prayers, both big and small; leaning on Him in difficult times; praising Him when all is well — and when it isn’t.

 What Is Faith?

One way to nurture faith is by simply spending time with Jesus. In the little book The Promise of Answered Prayer, Jim Cymbala says,  “Faith is especially nurtured when we just wait in God’s presence, taking the time to love him and listen for his voice. Strength to keep believing often flows into us as we simply worship the Lord. The promise of scripture becomes wonderfully alive as the Spirit applies them to our hearts.”

This year I’ve focused on waiting quietly with God. Several times a week, I pick up my prayer journal, still my heart, and just sit with God, listening for His voice and journaling what I feel the Holy Spirit witnessing to me. It’s been hard to make myself stay still. A million tasks vie for my attention, but as I sit at Jesus’ feet, He brings scriptures to my mind to read, and people to my heart to pray for, and sin to be confessed. He gives me wisdom for situations I’m facing and peace for my soul and pictures to ponder.

These times of quiet add a richness and depth to my devotion time that was absent before.

Now I find that if I don’t have this one-on-one with Him that I miss it. I long for his presence and that still, small voice whispering to my heart, fanning the sparks of faith into flames. And I’ve learned that faith is not the absence of difficulties, but the presence of Jesus in the midst of difficulties.

This week, let’s remember that faith does not rest on our abilities, but on the ability of the One we believe in, as Psalm 130:5-6 reminds us:

I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,

and in his word I put my hope.

My soul waits for the Lord

more than watchmen wait for the morning,

more than watchmen wait for the morning.

What will you put your faith in God for this week?

Pray on!

 Have you ever lost something of value that you would have given anything to find? One day my 3-year-old son and I were shopping in a department store. I was pawing through the sales racks looking for bargains, and I turned around to say something to him only to see empty space. In a panic, I called his name and looked up and down the aisles all around us trying to find him. He was nowhere to be seen. I was about to call in store reinforcements for help when I heard a giggle and a voice say, “Here I am, Mommy!” He had crawled into the middle of a clothes rack to play hide and seek. Although he had only been missing for a few minutes,  I was weak with relief when I pulled him into my arms.

As I think about this week’s focus for Lent, I wonder am I this desperate when I am seeking God? Am I pursuing Him with the same intensity that I had when I was looking for my son?

I don’t know that I am, but I think I need to step it up a notch.

According to the Blue Letter Bible, the Greek word for seek is zeteo, and it means all of the following:

•       to seek in order to find
•       to seek [in order to find out] by thinking, meditating, reasoning, to enquire into
•       to crave, demand something from someone

As I look at these meanings, the word crave resonates with me, seems to go hand-in-hand with seek. When I’m craving a piece of chocolate, it’s on my brain constantly until I fulfill that craving by popping a velvety piece into my mouth. I can’t stop thinking about it, and I seem to see chocolate or smell it wherever I go. That’s how I should be craving God everyday. I need to have Him on my heart constantly, see Him wherever I go, catch his scent on the breeze. Whether I’m at work, at home, or out and about, I can think about Him, meditate on Him, read His word, and pray. But the one difference is I don’t just want to satisfy my craving, I want to feed it.

For this week of Lent, let’s work on seeking God and indulging our cravings for Him. Unlike chocolate, He’s not fattening, so we can have as much as we want.

Share some ways you will be seeking Him this week and pray on!

(Here are the other posts in this series: Self-Denial, Repentance and Examen)

 As a child, the season of Lent often began with a battle royal for me.

You see, my parents always encouraged my sisters and me to give up something for Lent. More often than not, I usually gave up candy. Every week a good portion of my weekly allowance quickly found it’s way from my pocket to the coffers of Krajci’s Drugstore a few blocks from my house. In the small town where I lived, Krajci’s was one of the few places that had a huge selection of five- and ten-cent candy. Bub’s Daddy Bubble Gum, Paydays, Wonka Bottle Caps, Snickers Bars, and cherry Colas were a few of the items I splurged on. Forty days seemed an awfully long time to go without a treat from Krajci’s.

Self-denial

I didn’t totally understand at the time the purpose for giving up something during Lent. I would have been happy to have given up brussel sprouts or tuna noodle casserole, but I understood enough to realize that what I gave up needed to be something that I actually liked.

Today I realize that one of the purposes of self-denial is that it is part of the process of spiritual formation. I need to cooperate with the Holy Spirit so that He continues to transform my life to make me more like Christ.

In that spirit, this year during Lent I am going to work on “giving up” a sin pattern in my life — and hopefully this will be something that continues for the rest of the year too. I think I know just what bad habit I want to be rid of this year: lateness.

Tardiness has been a habit that has plagued me since childhood. It worsened during my teen years (just ask my best friend Pam who drove me to school most mornings). I was always rushing around stressing myself out and anyone else that had the misfortune of being around me. I’ve since made some changes but still have plenty of room for more. I know this won’t be an easy fix for me, but I’m expecting progress!

If you’d like to join me in giving something up for Lent, tell me about it in the comment section below. I’d love to hear from a few fellow bad-habit breakers.

Pray on!

Listen in as Mary Kane and Jane VanOsdol of OnlyByPrayer.com discuss a simple way to set goals for 2014. The book One Word That Will Change Your Life by Jon Gordon, Dan Britton, and Jimmy Page is transforming their goal-setting plans for 2014. Whether you are a seasoned goal setter or you repeatedly fail at keeping any goals you set, you’ll be inspired to approach this process in a whole new way for 2014.

Resources from the podcast:

Compel Training from Proverbs 31 Ministries

One Word website

One Word That Will Change Your Life, Expanded Edition (book) available as an e-book and in print

Lately, I’ve been spending some time setting goals and praying about the year ahead. I love the fresh start that the New Year affords us but have to admit that I’ve never been very good at setting  — or keeping  —  goals. Identifying priorities is not one of my strengths. I feel almost paralyzed at the prospect of it all. What if I set the wrong goal and I’m boxed in for the whole year and I can never change it?! (Silly, I know.) So goes the thought process in my head.

If at First You Don’t Succeed …

Well, this year a few things are different. First, I joined the Compel writers and speakers group from Proverbs 31 Ministries. Using one of their tutorials, I actually set six smart goals that I feel rather hopeful about. Whether I follow through with them remains to be seen, but they are realistic, specific goals. For example, rather than “Write a book this year,” one of my goals says “I will write a Kindle book on Prayer Strategies as one of my four special projects for this year, and I will work on it on Friday afternoons.” See what I mean by specific? Through this training, I realized that being specific will actually give me a chance of succeeding and hitting at least some of my goals.

The second thing that happened is that I stumbled across a totally different way of approaching goal setting. One morning this week I had the Today show on in the background as I was eating breakfast. My ears perked up when I heard Al Roker and Natalie Morales mention goals, so I tuned in to hear what they had to say. They introduced their guest, motivational speaker Jon Gordon. Jon didn’t sound too hopeful about the whole process of goal setting as he cited the following statistics:

• 9 out of 10 people will fail at their resolutions
• 50 percent of us will fail by the end of January

I could just see my smart goals going up in a puff of smoke.

Instead, Jon recommended a simple goal-setting process he calls One Word: God gives him one word for the year that becomes his focus.

Hmm. That sounds easy enough, yet powerful. He said in the last three years that he, his family, and now many others (including sports teams, businesses, and schools just to name a few) have done this, it has revolutionized their lives. Here’s the simple three-step process he says will help you choose your word.

Look in. Look up. Look out.

I decided to check out the One Word website to download a free action plan to take me through the three steps of choosing my One Word for the year. Incidentally, I bought the book One Word That Will Change Your Life that Jon wrote with Dan Britton and Jimmy Page, which I really like. It’s an inspiring read and only takes about 50 minutes to get through.

And the Word Is …

So, back to me. God gave me my word for the year: Listen. Already it’s changing how I go about my day. I’ll share more about that after I’ve lived with it for a while.

Does this mean I’m going to drop my smart goals? Nope. I’m still excited about trying those out, too, and will update you on that progress in about a month.

What about you? Where are you in setting goals for 2014? Are you a believer, or do you think it’s a waste of time? Will you choose One Word? If so, I’d love to hear it. Please share in the comment section below. If you’d like to watch the Today show segment with Jon, I’ve embedded it below.

Happy goal setting (or not) and pray on!

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With the New Year comes a fresh start free from mistakes, regrets, and failures of the past year. Hope and possibilities and expectations jostle  for space in my soul as I look to the future. Yes, if I’m honest, some anxiety too. But mostly excitement for what lies ahead. Like sojourners of times past, I want to welcome the Lord into these next 12 months. Or should I say, I with Him. I want to be sure the door of my heart is open to Him this New Year.

I recently read about an old Scottish tradition that placed much importance upon the New Year. Folks visited from house to house as the New Year rang in, wishing each other a good year while celebrating with food and drink. Once midnight passed, each household watched expectantly to see who would be the very first guest to cross the threshold of their door, thus portending what the next year would hold.  I can just envision a knock on the door and families gathered around the hearth to see who would take that first important step into their home.

To acknowledge this tradition, the Celtic Daily Prayer Book includes a “first-footing” prayer for the New Year, on page 238 called The Opening Door, in which the pray-ers welcome Christ to be the “first foot” into their home to bless them. What a lovely idea!

I was so taken with this thought that I wrote a short prayer myself to welcome Christ into my New Year.

Open Door

By Jane VanOsdol

I open the door of my heart this New Year …

to see Your glory all around me;

to hear the whisper of Your voice;

to smell the fragrance of Jesus in my life;

to taste the fruits of Your blessings;

to feel the presence of Your Spirit.

Welcoming your footsteps across the threshold of my heart,

Anticipating the gift of another year.

Amen.

I wonder if your heart is open to God this year? Do you feel the anticipation of new adventures waiting to be lived, or have difficulties of time past left you dreading the door before you? Open the door to Jesus so that He is the first one to set foot in your heart this year.

“Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.” Revelation 3:20

May you experience the peace of Christ and the joy of living life with Him this year.

Pray on!

*Image courtesy of Freedigitalphotos.net artur84