Daughter of the King. Wife. Mother. Friend.

Do you need qualifiers in your life? Do you need something or someone to tell you how important or how loved you are?


As the very type-A, perfectionist, list-making, goal-oriented person, I struggle with that. God is bringing me to my knees and while at the wonderful Symphony House of Prayer at my home church yesterday, God showed me my real qualifiers: Daughter of THE King. Wife. Mother. Friend.


Do we need more than that? 


Psalm 90:14, David calls out to God, "Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing with joy and be glad all our days."


Beth Moore said this in the Bible study I'm doing, "Fewer conditions leave us in worse shape than emptiness."


Psalm 139:23 says this, "Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts."


Proverbs 13:12 tells is this, "Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life."


God wants us to be filled up with Him and by Him. In our society, we put so much energy, thought, and time into trying to fill that God-shaped hole with external things. God's calling us - me -, to fill it with Him.


There is nothing here on earth that will sustain us. There is nothing that will be there forever; but we are told God and His Word will be there forever. 


1 Peter 1: 24-25 tells us this, "For, “All people are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord endures forever.” And this is the word that was preached to you."

Lord, fill our God-shaped holes with You and Your love! Forgive us, O Lord, for failing to come to you first. For failing to fill our hearts with the promises and love you have given us. Lord, walk with us today as we struggle with thoughts of inadequacy and renew in us a heart filled with hope and adequacy in You!

Our View

On one of our last days in France, I sat on my balcony having my quiet time overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. The view from my vantage point was breathtaking. 


It made me question our view in life though. Not our political views... not our social views, but our Godly views. God lead me to Esther that morning in my quiet time. In hard and uncomfortable times, in times where God is calling us to do hard things, shouldn't our stance be that of complete surrender and complete trust in God to be there and to do what He's going to do in us and through us?


Esther was called to do something very difficult - to risk her life to save the lives of all her people. God called her there, at that very time in life, "for such a time as this." (Esther 4:14) God might be (and I would actually change that to God IS) calling you and I here on this earth "for such a time as this." God has called us here to tell the world about the saving grace and love of Jesus.


David Platt, in Radical, tells of a young woman, Genessa Wells. Genessa was an intelligent promising young lady fresh out of college. Genessa decided to spend her life, following God's call for her, in the Middle East, sharing the gospel with the people there that had never heard the gospel before. Before she left, Genessa wrote her friends this, "I could give up on going overseas and get married and become a music teacher. All of this is very noble and, to be quite honest, sounds good to me! But in my heart I want to change my world - more that I want a husband and more than I want comfort. I need..... to tell others about Jesus."


She wound up working with the Egyptians, the Palestinians in refugee camps in Jordan, with Muslims in France, and with Bedouins in the desert. 


Following all of that she wrote, "I honestly would not want to be anywhere else but here, where God has put me. He gives me more than I could imagine."

And, in her last letter home she wrote, "It seems everything we do comes down to one thing: His glory. I pray that all our lives reflect that."

In Esther, God spoke through Mordecai, telling Esther that even if she doesn't do what she was called here to do, God will make another way... but he was trying to encourage her to "do hard things" and to do what God had called her here on earth (at this precise moment in time) for - to save the Jews.


After calling on God in prayer and fasting, Esther did just that. She risked her own life by coming before the King uninvited and she petitioned him, “If I have found favor with you, Your Majesty, and if it pleases you, grant me my life—this is my petition. And spare my people—this is my request" Esther 7:3 

You see, God has called us ALL here, on this earth for a purpose. Would we do what Esther or Gennesa did? Would our view be that of knowing we are doing what we are supposed to be doing and trusting God with the rest?


Are we where God wants us? Or.... are we playing it safe? It's safe to stay in the comfort of our nice American homes and our luxuries. It's safe to raise a family and not teach our children to "do hard things" themselves.


What's your view?