Encouragement

  • God is an Equipper

    God is an Equipper

    My friends, we are witness to amazing times right now. God is doing some really big stuff right now all over the world. First, I want to share some Bible verses that caught my attention years ago and now God has brought front and center again. Take a look at two often overlooked people in…

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  • Weekend Worship – A New Twist on Loneliness

    Weekend Worship – A New Twist on Loneliness

    My firends, we've talked a lot about loneliness in our mismatched marriages over the years, but I heard a new twist on it while listening to a podcast by Pastor Nathan Edwardson. It's amazing. Are you ready? This is what he said: "Loneliness is an invitation to know and pursue the One who will never…

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  • Trusting God is Like Building a Puzzle

    Trusting God is Like Building a Puzzle

    My friends, I have to tell you I wrote this post partly on my iPhone as I did my walk and pray. I can only imagine that my fellow walkers and joggers thought I was a text addict, but when God has something to say, I’ve learned not to rely on my memory and write…

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  • Weekend Worship – Lord, I Need You!

    Weekend Worship – Lord, I Need You!

    Happy weekend, my precious friends! This song by Matt Maher is getting a lot of play time on the airwaves and on my playlist. The words Maher croons out, "Lord, I need you" is the common cry and song of our hearts, isn't it? What's so profound is what happens when we tell Jesus, "I…

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  • Do You Really Believe God is Good?

    Do You Really Believe God is Good?

    As I prayed and asked God what He wanted me to share with you today He kept bringing me back to His goodness. And not just His goodness but BELEIVING He is truly good and desires only good for our lives. As I listened to His heart and I listen to the hearts of so…

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  • Weekend Worship – Lay Me Down!

    Weekend Worship – Lay Me Down!

    My precious Sumites, I love this song by Chris Tomlin because it's about the surrendered life and the JOY of living like we belong to Jesus. Because we do! We are His and He is ours. This is also what Scripture means when it says, "the joy of the Lord is our strength" (Neh. 8:10.)…

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  • Trust + Surrender + Obedience = Breakthrough

    Trust + Surrender + Obedience = Breakthrough

    My friends, a few weeks ago I talked about A Step of Faith. In that post I said “we will have to take a believing step of faith to activate the promise we’ve been given.” This was all about trusting God and moving in that trust (faith) to step forward. Nearly a month later I…

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  • Weekend Worship – FREEDOM!

    Weekend Worship – FREEDOM!

    My precious friends, since our conference I am more and more convinced that God is moving is a big way and His message is all about Hi love and freedom-the freedom that comes when we walk in faith, trusting Him for our lives and knowing who ecactly we are in Jesus. Recently I wrote a couple…

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  • The Path of Faith

    The Path of Faith

    My precious friends, I know we're mourning the loss of Rosheeda and celebrating her new home in glory! Ro is the one who inspired me a couple years ago to surrender to God and to seek to live and understand what a surrendered life looks like. She lived and breathed it. She lived and breathed…

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  • Weekend Worship – I Surrender!

    Weekend Worship – I Surrender!

    My precious friends, I'm still pondering the meaning of surrendering our lives to Jesus. I've always been struck by how Jesus stood before His accusors and said nothing to defend Himself. That speaks to me of a holy dignity that rises above the opinions of men and sits squarely and humbly with God.  The Bible…

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  • The Surrendered Life

    The Surrendered Life

    My friends, Lynn and I are just days away from meeting some of you at the Intentional Life Conference. I am so excited to finally meet you in person and give you hugs! This community (SUMites as Ro called us!) is so precious to me. Those of you not coming, I feel like I’m carrying…

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  • Freedom

    Freedom

    All that Christ did, He did so that we would be slaves no more to the law-and more than that, to our own sinful nature. Freedom guys. FREEDOM. Christ redeemed us so that we could enjoy freedom in this life and the next. Oh Lord, thank you for Your Son. Thank you that our redeemer…

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  • The Greatest Sacrifice

    The Greatest Sacrifice

    The word that came to mind for this post was "lent"… So, you guessed it. I started searching and reading and trying to flesh this thing out-and of all that I read and pondered, the one thing that stands out the most is that Lent is time of great sacrifice. Gang, let me tell you,…

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  • Weekend Devo – God Loved Us First!

    Weekend Devo – God Loved Us First!

    My friends, we have a wonderful week of devotions planned for next week. Rosheeda has prayfully written something for each day so that we can walk through the week with hope, faith and love planted squarely in our Jesus, and celbrate the greatest gift of this life and the next (yep, it's the gift that…

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  • God Set Me Up!

    God Set Me Up!

    A couple weeks ago I wrote my post about the Israelites crossing the Jordan as a step of faith in their journey to claim their Promised Land. I also wrote about how this is our story as well, that we too have Jordans to cross and Jerichos to march around in order to claim the…

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  • Special Guest Today! Please Welcome Suzie Eller!

    Special Guest Today! Please Welcome Suzie Eller!

    My precious friends, today I want to introduce you to Susanne (Suzie) Eller. She's been a great support to the SUM ministry and now we get to share her with you! Suzie's message of forgiveness in her book, The Unburdened Heart is desperately needed today and by so many. I hope you find answers and…

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  • Weekend Worship – Moving Forward

    Weekend Worship – Moving Forward

    This weekend I'm at Lynn's-we're working on the conference coming in April. We are so excited about this event! God keeps showing us more and more of what He wants to accomplish and reveal at this conference. We are so blown away! My friends, God sure seems to have us on a fasttrack to our…

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  • A Step of Faith

    A Step of Faith

    My precious friends, God has put a fire in my heart to speak to you about taking a step of faith. There is something God is calling many of us to do-something unique to our place and time and season-and He’s given you a promise that goes with this. And maybe you’ve prayed and waited…

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  • Weekend Worship – Holy Hummingbirds, Batman!

    Weekend Worship – Holy Hummingbirds, Batman!

    My wonderful and precious friends, I wish we could all be in one room worshipping God together. What a sweet incense that would be, rising up to our Lord, wouldn't it? The beautiful part is, one day we will get to do this. Our room will be the throneroom of heaven and we will all…

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  • Is Your God too Small?: Three Radical Changes To BIG Hope

    Is Your God too Small?: Three Radical Changes To BIG Hope

    My precious friends, today I want to talk about hope. We’ve talked about hope in the past but we need to revisit this key area of our faith walk because without hope, we can’t have faith. Without Jesus, we can’t have grace. And Jesus is the one we need to place ALL our hope in…

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  • Weekend Worship – Jehovah-Jireh, The Lord Will Provide

    Weekend Worship – Jehovah-Jireh, The Lord Will Provide

    Yep, there it is. My "new" set of wheels. My dear friends, I've taken you on this car journey with me, first sharing my family's finanical challenges, the need to sell my "beloved" SUV, and then the search for another car. Nothing "magically" appeared but I consider God's provision in this whole scenario as pretty…

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