November 2023 – Welcome

Advent – Week 1 Tamar: Hope for the Hopeless

Hebrews 6:19-20
We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, where our forerunner, Jesus, has entered on our behalf. He has become a high priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.

Have you ever felt hopeless? A deep sense that things are terrible and will never get better. Unfortunately, I think we have all felt this before. Whether it is a sense of hopelessness in your career, finances, our nation’s politics, or in a relationship, hopelessness is a direct result of living in a fallen world.

Tamar is the first named women in the lineage of Jesus. She was the daughter-in-law of Judah, one of the twelve sons of Jacob. Her full story can be read in Genesis 38 and is sandwiched in the narrative of Joseph. After Joseph was sold as a slave to Egypt, Judah left his family and emersed himself in the pagan culture of the Canaanites by marrying a Canaanite woman. Judah had three sons and the oldest, Er, married Tamar who was also a Canaanite. Er died because he was wicked (Genesis 38:7) and then, Tamar was given to the second son, Onan, to carry on the family line since Er never had children. However, Onan, intentionally did not allow Tamar to get pregnant because he too was also wicked so God also put Onan to death (Genesis 38:9-10). Judah’s youngest son, Shelah, wasn’t old enough to marry Tamar, so Judah sent Tamar back to her father’s house to live as a widow until Shelah was of age for marriage.

Time went on and although Shelah grew up, Judah didn’t keep his word to Tamar. The time came for the annual sheep shearing so Tamar disguised herself as a prostitute to lure Judah to sleep with her (Genesis 38:14-16). This was a common practice for the Canaanite men to sleep with cultic prostitutes so their harvest would be blessed. As a pledge for Tamar’s payment, Judah gave her his signet ring, cord, and staff as collateral for payment.

Tamar returns to her father’s home and her widow’s clothes. When the news came out that she was pregnant, she was confronted with her sin. She explained that the man responsible for the pregnancy is the owner of the signet ring, cord, and staff. These three items would be like three forms of identification for us today. There was no denying the items were Judah’s and he realized what Tamar had done (Gensis 38:26). Judah, not keeping his word to care for Tamar after the death of his sons, pushed Tamar to take matters into her own hands. Without a husband and children, Tamar was left to live as a widow for the rest of her life. In the patriarchal society back then, that would have been a desperate, vulnerable, and hopeless place for a woman.

It can be hard to see the hope of Christmas in Tamar’s story and after giving birth to twin boys, Perez and Zerah, she was not mentioned again until Matthew 1:3 in the lineage list of Jesus. Though Judah displayed an enormous lack of character, God used this man to later become the royal line of the Israelites. Tamar was a Gentile, Canaanite women who used deception and prostitution to carry on the family line. Despite the human sin of both Tamar and Judah, God, in His providential working, used this mess to bring forth the Messiah. Though Judah showed a lack of character leaving Tamar stranded and hopeless, Jesus became the Lion of Judah and the Hope for the hopeless through this very family.

No matter the hopelessness you may be feeling, there is One who gives us hope in all circumstances. Romans 15:13 says, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” God is able to work the most tangled, chaotic, and hopeless situations for our good and His glory. Because of Jesus, we have hope that eventually all things will be restored and made right. The same God who made a way for Tamar is the same God who can make a way for you and for me.

As humans, we can make a mess of our lives, but God’s ultimate plan will come through in the midst. Friend, no matter what hopeless situation you may be walking through, we can lay it all down at the feet of Jesus. It is at His feet that we experience forgiveness and freedom from sin. The life He gave on the cross is what frees us from the hopelessness and the pain of this world. Even if it may be hopelessness created by your own choices or actions like in Tamar’s story, God is willing and ready to give us freedom from those choices and the shame or guilt we carry from those choices. We just have to say yes and let Him.

This Christmas season, cling to this hope. Remember, if things are not what you hoped for this year, we have a Savior who is coming back to make all things new. Just as God’s promises came to fruition in the birth of Jesus, His promise to return is also true. This hope is an anchor for our souls.

Advent Series Begins 11.27.23!

Advent is a time to prepare our hearts for the celebration of the birth of Jesus the Messiah. There are five named women in the lineage of the Messiah. When you look at their individual stories, these women are not worthy of being a part of the Christmas story, but that may be why God chose them. Over the next five weeks we will see the amazing work of God’s plan to restore and redeem His creation through the gift of Jesus and the women He chose to use to carry out His plan.

In the Meantime – Week 3: When Dreams Come True

Genesis 50:20-21
You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. So then, don’t be afraid. I will provide for you and your children.” And he reassured them and spoke kindly to them.

Last week we talked about Abraham, the man God chose to make a covenant with and promised to make him into a great nation. Abraham had Isaac (the promised son in a humanly impossible situation) and Isaac had Jacob. Jacob married two sisters, Rachel and Leach, but Jacob loved Rachel the most. Rachel struggled with infertility for a long time and was unable to conceive. Rachel eventually gives birth to a son who they named Joseph. Joseph became the eleventh out of twelve sons and Jacob did not hide his favoritism toward Joseph at all. Jacob’s favoritism for Joseph was so severe that it caused the older ten brothers to hate Joseph (Genesis 37:3-4).

To make the situation worse, at the age of 17, Joseph had two dreams in which his older brothers bowed down to him causing the hate to grow (Genesis 37:5-8). Joseph may not have realized it at the time, but God gave Joseph the gift of interpreting dreams. Throughout his life, many of the dreams Joseph had come true.

Because of Jacob’s favoritism, the older brothers plotted to kill Joseph, and after some back and forth they settled on selling him as a slave to travelers headed to Egypt, rather than killing him (Gensis 37:19-27). Once Joseph arrived in Egypt, he was sold to a man named Potiphar and the man took Joseph to his home. Because of God’s hand over Joseph’s life, Joseph he prospered in Potiphar’s home (Genesis 39:2-4).

Things went well for a little while until Potiphar’s wife made advances toward Joseph. Joseph, being a man of integrity, rebuked her advances. To get even for the rejection, the wife falsely accused Joseph of rape (Genesis 39:11-20). Joseph was thrown in prison, but once again the Lord was with him, and Joseph became a leader in prison where he was put in charge of the other prisoners (Genesis 39:20-23). Joseph prospered in prison because God was with him.

During his time in prison, Joseph interpreted the dreams of two fellow inmates, one of which was Pharaoh’s cupbearer who was eventually restored to his position (Genesis 40:6-22). Though Joseph asked to be remembered and mentioned to Pharaoh, he was forgotten about for two years (Genesis 40:23 & 41:1).

Up to this point, Joseph’s life has been somewhat tragic and unfair. A young man born as the favored son with a special gift of dream interpretation was continuously used and mistreated by those around him. Just when things started getting better for him, something else happens to pull him down into literal pits.

Has your life ever felt this way? You are doing the best you can with what God has given you, but you can’t seem to get ahead. Life keeps whacking you back for no apparent reason. The feelings of being unliked, unappreciated, misunderstood, and ganged up against time after time can leave you drained and defeated. What is the point? Why do I even try? If we are not careful, this can also lead to a path of resentment, bitterness, and anger.

But what we need to focus on in Joseph’s life is how he seemed to make the best of every situation he was thrown into. As a slave, he prospered and was put in charge of Potiphar’s entire household. As a prisoner, he prospered and was put in charge of the entire operation. How easy it would have been for Joseph to sit in a corner with his arms folded, wallowing about how unfair his life was. But that is not what he did.

Later, Pharaoh himself had two very disturbing dreams and the cupbearer finally remembered Joseph (Genesis 41:1-13). Joseph was brought out of prison to interpret the dreams for Pharaoh, and we learn that the dreams symbolized seven years of prosperity and seven years of famine ahead for Egypt (Genesis 41:25-36).

At the age of 30, because of Joseph’s obedience to God and his God-given gift of dream interpretation, was named second in command of Egypt and headed up the endeavor of preparing for the next fourteen years ahead (Genesis 41:39-40&46). Thirteen really hard years for Joseph and he finally began to see some relief. Before the famine hits, Joseph has two sons. “Joseph named his firstborn Manasseh and said, ‘It is because God has made me forget all my trouble and all my father’s household.” The second son he named Ephraim and said, ‘It is because God has made me fruitful in the land of my suffering’” (Genesis 41:51-52).

In the naming of his sons, we see Joseph’s faith in the One True God and get a glimpse of the emotions he must have felt those thirteen years of suffering. But it is in the years ahead that we really see what Joseph did in the meantime of his anguish.

The famine eventually hits, and Jacob sent his older ten sons to Egypt to purchase grain for the family. Guess who they had to buy the grain from – the very brother they hated, Joseph. “Now Joseph was the governor of the land, the person who sold grain to all its people. So, when Joseph’s brothers arrived, they bowed down to him with their faces to the ground” (Genesis 42:6). The very dream that got him to Egypt came true over 20 years later.

Joseph immediately put the pieces together (Genesis 42:9) and saw the hand of God in his life. He immediately saw how his suffering would eventually be used to not only save his entire family but also all the nations around him (Genesis 50:20). Here is the thing, if Joseph had been so wrapped up in his hurt and bitterness, it is possible he would not have seen the purpose behind everything he went through.

It was the posture of Joseph’s heart during the suffering that enabled him to see the glory of God in those moments. It was what Joseph did in the waiting that gave him a heart of compassion and sympathy towards his brothers that he never expected to see again. He chose forgiveness when he could have chosen revenge. He spoke kindly to them when he could have let the pain of the previous years speak words of retaliation. He chose obedience to God even when it would have been easier to give up.

This has been such a lesson to my hurt and wounded heart. It can be so easy to let past wounds from others stay with us our entire lives and dictate how we interact going forward, but as a daughter and beloved child of the One True God, He has so much more in store for me. And for you. Though we may have years when things don’t make sense and seem hopelessly lost, God is working behind the scenes for our good and His glory. When we trust the path He has for us and posture our hearts to be filled with His fruit, we are able to see the hand of God moving in our lives and the lives of others. May we not let bitterness and resentment keep us from experiencing the good God intends to accomplish through us. May we continue to be obedient when called by God, so that we may see His goodness in our lives.

Ephesians 2:10
For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

In the Meantime – Week 2: When You Take Life into Your Own Hands

Isaiah 55:8-9
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

God chose Abram to be the man to carryout His wonderful plan of covenant, blessing, and special favor. There was one issue: Abram and his wife Sari did not have children and were in their geriatric years. Because of this, a servant was currently Abram’s heir to his estate. But God spoke directly to Abram in Genesis 15:4-6, “Then the word of the Lord came to him: ‘This man will not be your heir, but a son who is your own flesh and blood will be your heir.’ He took him outside and said, ‘Look up at the sky and count the stars—if indeed you can count them.’ Then he said to him, ‘So shall your offspring be.’ Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.”

Abram had the confidence of the promise of God. He believed the Lord would do what He said he would do but his wife Sari took matters into her own hands. “Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian slave named Hagar; so she said to Abram, ‘The Lord has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my slave; perhaps I can build a family through her” (Genesis 16:1-2). Makes sense, right? Long before fertility treatments, this was common practice for barren couples to have an heir. It would be Abram’s own flesh and blood as God promised and Sari would raise the child as her own.

This is not what God had in mind and this single decision affects us today. Through Sari’s servant Hagar, Abram had a son named Ishmael and this is what was promised about Ishmael, “He will be a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against everyone and everyone’s hand against him, and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers” (Genesis 16:12). Not exactly what mothers want for her children, right?. Ishmael became the father of the Arabs, the same people causing havoc and mass bloodshed in the Middle East right now.

In Sari’s defense, this seemed to be the logical solution. She was well past menopause and so conceiving a child seemed impossible. But as Isaiah reminds us, God’s ways are not our ways, and His thoughts are higher than our thoughts. God’s promise to Abram and Sari (now called Abraham and Sarah) came to fruition a few years later when Isaac was born. “Now the Lord was gracious to Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did for Sarah what he had promised. Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the very time God had promised him. Abraham gave the name Isaac to the son Sarah bore him. When his son Isaac was eight days old, Abraham circumcised him, as God commanded him. Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him” (Genesis 21:1-5).

There is so much we can learn from the waiting of Abraham and Sarah. First, nothing is impossible with God. Nothing. It can be easy to see these stories of the Bible as old folklore but the God who gave Abraham a son at the age of 100 is the same God we serve today. He is a promise keeping God that even when circumstances seem impossible and hopeless, He can and will make a way. If you are waiting on a promise or direction from God and your circumstances around you do not make sense, remember the passage in Isaiah. God’s thoughts and ways are high above ours. There are things going on behind the scenes that God is working together for your good and His glory.

Second, there is nothing we can do to thwart the plans of God (Job 42:2). We simply aren’t that powerful. What God plans and promises will be no matter the mess we make with our own plans in the meantime. Abraham had a child with his servant to “move things along” but that wasn’t God’s plan. Isaac was God’s plan and He still carried out that promise despite the actions of Abraham and Sarah.

Finally, though we cannot thwart God’s plans, what we do in the meantime matters. As that single decision of Abraham and Sarah to have Ishmael through their servant Hagar still affects our world today, the things we do in waiting can have a lasting impact. But the good news is, it can have a lasting impact for good! The work in our hearts, the refining of our souls, and the intimacy we experience with God changes us forever . These good things can impact those around us and thousands of generations to come.

Though we see the consequences of what happens when we take matters in our own hands, remember this, God is a God full of grace and mercy. No matter what we have done in the past, we can start each day, each moment new. Because of the blood of Jesus, we are clothed in righteousness and can come to the Father completely spotless and forgiven of our sins. If you have not waited well in the past or still feel guilt over taking life into your own hands, today is a new day to leave it behind and seek the comfort and promises of a good Father that wants good things for His children.

Psalm 100:5
For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.

In the Meantime – Week 1: Purpose in the Waiting

Psalm 27:13-14 (AMP)
I would have despaired had I not believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.
Wait for and confidently expect the Lord; Be strong and let your heart take courage; Yes, wait for and confidently expect the Lord.

“I can’t wait to move out of the house!” “I can’t wait to graduate and start making money!” “I can’t wait to get married!” “I can’t wait to have kids!” “I can’t wait until the kids are independent!” And so, it goes. There is always that next phase we can’t wait to get to. Always something easier and greener in the “next”. Could it be that we are so focused on what is next that we don’t enjoy what is happening right now?

We can become so consumed with looking toward the future, whether it’s the weekend ahead or the next couple of years ahead, that we aren’t living in the present. We don’t stop to enjoy and appreciate the season we are in. Each season has its own aspects of being difficult, but each season also has really precious parts that, if not looking, can be blown through and completely overlooked.

Singleness can be lonely, but it can also be the time you meet your closest friends, learn independence, and grow closer to God. The first year of having a baby is exhausting, demanding, and at times terrifying, but that sweet baby will only be that little for such a short time. Those middle of the night cuddles will soon only be a memory. Having an empty nest can shake your identity, but it can be a time you reconnect with your spouse, get to sleep in, and have the option of spontaneity.

Waiting is hard and no one really likes to do it. We are impatient from birth and God uses sanctification to teach us patience (part of the fruit of His Spirit) and contentment in our current circumstances. This is something He has been working on in my heart. God has carried us through a lot, but there are still many unknowns for our future. We are still waiting for direction and guidance in some areas. the longer the wait, the harder trust becomes.

In February 2022, I felt God calling me into ministry. It was a clear assignment, but the details were not given. What ministry? Where? Do I need to go back to school? More questions than answers swirled in my head. I had felt this nudge for a while but it had never been as clear as it was in early 2022. For those close to me, it came out of the blue. Over the next few months after, God began to reveal, step by step, the idea of Providence Ministries and the Walk in Providence Blog. Despite seemingly impossible circumstances, it all launched August 1, 2022, only six months later!

When God calls us to something, He reveals things a little at a time. Rarely is a blueprint for the next ten years rolled out on the table with specifics of what the final product will look like. Instead, He illuminates one step at a time. Each step requires faith, trust, and obedience. Psalm 119:105 says, “Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.” He guides us and lights the way for each step ahead as we lean into Him and seek to understand His Word.

This can be so hard to do day after day in the waiting season. The Psalmist a few verses later says, “Though I constantly take my life in my hands, I will not forget your law” (Psalm 119:109). I haven’t waited perfectly, and the enemy has used fear and doubt to tempt me to take my life into my own hands.

I want to wait well. I want to enjoy and be present in the meantime, in this moment, in this year, in this season, instead of constantly striving to obtain the next.

There is purpose in the waiting, work that God wants to do, things He wants to show us about Himself, and growth that happens to prepare us for the next steps ahead. For it is in the meantime that we must be vigilant to plant our feet on the firm foundation of His Word to stand against the schemes of the enemy. In the waiting, the insecurity of hearing the voice and direction of God is where the enemy will attack us with impatience, fear, and discontentment.

And though it may not seem like it at the time, we are not the only ones sitting in the waiting season. Many have gone before us, and many have a waiting season ahead. It is the natural rhythm of life. Over the next couple of weeks, we will look at a couple of people that had to wait and the very different things they did in the meantime. Some waited well and others did not. What we do in the meantime can have a lasting impact on the legacy we leave.

NEW SERIES STARTS 11.6.23!

Waiting is the worst, but it is also a part of life. When we find ourselves waiting unexpectedly or longer than we want, it can create anxiety causing us to question the God that loves us. As we are deep into our third year of waiting for God’s direction, I have learned that its not just about the destination but the way we walk the journey.

How we wait and what we do while we wait matters. Some wait well, but most of us do not. I want to be someone who waits well.

Join me for a three-week devotional series called “In the Meantime: Purpose in the Waiting”.