55 – How to Know When Multitasking is a Good Thing

Jesus loves busy people. Yes, you read that right. No matter how up-tight or snippy you’ve been today. How not-present you were yesterday. How defeated you feel. Jesus never stops loving you.

We think our behavior comes first. He says come anyway.

We think it’s up to us. The Finisher says, “Dear child, all’s been done.”

Links mentioned:

1. Mary Demuth’s 90 Day Bible Reading Challenge. Grab the book (affiliate link), and join us here.

2. Get a sneak peek of my pocket-sized devotional, Cultivating a Missional Life, HERE. If you want the rest it’s $4.99 on Kindle or $6.99 for the paperback. Grab the bonus 30-day missional living challenge  (free with a purchase) to get the most out of the devotional.

3. Read the written version of this episode HERE.

You and I are not passive acceptors of whatever happens. We go to battle with songs of praise and wisdom from tattered Bible pages and ruthless, trusting obedience. We lock arms with our people and hold each other up when we can’t stand on our own.

Links mentioned:

1. Mary Demuth’s 90 Day Bible Reading Challenge. Grab the book (affiliate link), and join us here.

2. Get a sneak peek of my pocket-sized devotional, Cultivating a Missional Life, HERE. If you want the rest it’s $4.99 on Kindle or $6.99 for the paperback. Grab the bonus 30-day missional living challenge  (free with a purchase) to get the most out of the devotional.

3. Read the written version of this episode HERE.

I want to be enough. Get it all the way right. Finish it on my own. But hold my not-enough in open hands. Release. Surrender. Dig deeper and discover more to let go. That’s hard.

And it’s holy. Gift dripping with grace. God here in this paper-thin place.

I’d tell you I know God’s good, but then I met Him on my knees and through many tears and with worship music loud and on repeat and I know Him differently now. When praise is easy, you trust what you see. Take prayers answered how you expect as evidence that God hears, cares, redeems. But when you’re in the middle a long time and don’t know how it will end, you’ve got to lean into what you can’t see. Trust that God is good now. Nevertheless.

Even when He’s not done yet—because there is where His more-than-enough collides with your not-enough.

Links mentioned:

1. Mary Demuth’s 90 Day Bible Reading Challenge. Grab the book (affiliate link), and join us here.

2. Jennifer Dukes Lee’s study for It’s All Under Control (affiliate link).

3. Read the first chapter (FREE!) of Becky Beresford's writes in her soon-releasing book, She Believed HE Could, So She Did: Trading Culture’s Lies for Christ-Centered Empowerment.

4. Get a sneak peek of my pocket-sized devotional, Cultivating a Missional Life, HERE. If you want the rest it’s $4.99 on Kindle or $6.99 for the paperback. Grab the bonus 30-day missional living challenge  (free with a purchase) to get the most out of the devotional.

5. Read the written version of this episode HERE.

I read Song of Solomon 2:1 (“I am a rose of Sharon . . .”) and remember pulling hundreds of Rose of Sharon seedlings in the spring. They look like an army of twigs laughing at the sky. Not innocent, you realize in year two when they’re already two feet tall and rain-softened earth won’t release the roots. So you squeeze your hands through squares of double-layer fence to pull them young because now you know what happens.

Links mentioned:

1. Mary Demuth’s 90 Day Bible Reading Challenge. Grab the book (affiliate link), and join us here.

2. Six reflection questions I recommend using as a monthly word-of-the-year check-in. Get the printable HERE.

3. Get a sneak peek of my pocket-sized devotional, Cultivating a Missional Life, HERE. If you want the rest it’s $4.99 on Kindle or $6.99 for the paperback. Grab the bonus 30-day missional living challenge  (free with a purchase) to get the most out of the devotional.

4. Read the written version of this episode HERE.

That’s her role—her one aim—to teach us to revere God Eternal. She knows the direction is vital. That we’re always pursuing something, and if it isn’t Him, it’s something that will distance us from Him.

Links mentioned:

1. Mary Demuth’s 90 Day Bible Reading Challenge. Grab the book (affiliate link), and join us here.

2. Playlist of Songs I Play of Repeat.

3. Get a sneak peek of my pocket-sized devotional, Cultivating a Missional Life, HERE. If you want the rest it’s $4.99 on Kindle or $6.99 for the paperback. Grab the bonus 30-day missional living challenge  (free with a purchase) to get the most out of the devotional.

4. Read the written version of this episode HERE.

Fear is familiar. It’s kept you quiet even when you honestly had something to say. Convinced you to not try, not risk, not show up. Trapped you in your head, in a vicious cycle of people-pleasing and self-perfecting. Stolen more than you want to admit: joy, peace, relational depth.

Links mentioned:

1. Get a sneak peek of my pocket-sized devotional, Cultivating a Missional Life, HERE. If you want the rest it’s $4.99 on Kindle or $6.99 for the paperback. Grab the bonus 30-day missional living challenge  (free with a purchase) to get the most out of the devotional.

2. Read the written version of this episode HERE.

The aerial view from my seat is a timely reminder to zoom out, look for the through line staking what’s true and more important. Sometimes you need to step back to see what you’re missing.

Links mentioned:

1. Gratitude has a ripple effect. Learn more about Begin Within: A Gratitude Series HERE (which seeks to inspire year-round, ripple-effect gratitude).

2. Get a sneak peek of my pocket-sized devotional, Cultivating a Missional Life, HERE. If you want the rest it’s $4.99 on Kindle or $6.99 for the paperback. Grab the bonus 30-day missional living challenge  (free with a purchase) to get the most out of the devotional.

3. Read the written version of this episode HERE.

Kneeling in His presence is an act of reverence. A declaration that He is God and I am not. I need that reminder daily because I’m quick to overstep, as if I can chart my own course better than He can.

Links mentioned:

1. Jennifer Dukes Lee’s guided journal, Stuff I'd Only Tell God (affiliate link).

2. Mary Demuth’s 90 Day Bible Reading Challenge. Grab the book (affiliate link), and join us here.

3. Playlist of Songs I Play of Repeat.

4. Get a sneak peek of my pocket-sized devotional, Cultivating a Missional Life, HERE. If you want the rest it’s $4.99 on Kindle or $6.99 for the paperback. Grab the bonus 30-day missional living challenge  (free with a purchase) to get the most out of the devotional.

5. Read the written version of this episode HERE.

Here’s what I really want you to know about God: He has always desired to be with us. That’s who I find in the pages of Exodus as I rapid read The Voice translation for Mary Demuth’s 90 Day Bible Reading Challenge. A God who always makes a way for us to be near Him because He wants to be known. A God indescribably pained when we turn away.

Links mentioned:

1. I’m taking Mary Demuth’s 90 Day Bible Reading Challenge. Grab the book (affiliate link), and join us here.

2. Get a sneak peek of my pocket-sized devotional, Cultivating a Missional Life, HERE. If you want the rest it’s $4.99 on Kindle or $6.99 for the paperback. Grab the bonus 30-day missional living challenge  (free with a purchase) to get the most out of the devotional.

3. Read the written version of this episode HERE.

God’s promise-laden answer to the Israelites is the same to us—self-wranglers, self-pitiers, self-justifiers. We who like to control the where, when, and how. We who are quick to complain, compare, criticize.

Links mentioned:

1. I’m taking Mary Demuth’s 90 Day Bible Reading Challenge. Grab the book (affiliate link), and join us here.

2. Get a sneak peek of my pocket-sized devotional, Cultivating a Missional Life, HERE. If you want the rest it’s $4.99 on Kindle or $6.99 for the paperback. Grab the bonus 30-day missional living challenge  (free with a purchase) to get the most out of the devotional.

3. Read the written version of this episode HERE.