“Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!
Why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?
For behold, when the voice of your greeting came into my ears,
the baby leaped in my womb for joy!
Blessed is she who believed, for there will be a fulfillment
of the things which have been spoken to her from the Lord!”
~ Luke 1:42-45 (emphasis mine)

I’ve read this so many times, but this time, as I read it in day 2 of my prayer journal, The Life of Christ, that one phrase stuck out to me: Blessed is she who believed.

This phrase tells me something, something about Mary that we need to emulate. Blessed is she who believed. How hard that must have been! First, to see an angel and actually believe the experience was real. Then to believe the thing he told her was possible, even though all logic, all laws of nature, the very order that God Himself had put in place said it wasn’t.

Mary believed anyway.

She believed that God could create life from nothing. She believed God would protect her long enough to see that life to birth, even though by law she could have been put to death. She believed that even if this baby who shouldn’t logically exist meant being cast out of her home, cast away from Joseph, that God would provide for them. She believed that the promise of God would protect, provide, and be the only thing she ever needed.

Blessed is she who believed, for there will be a fulfillment.

Here is a mystery of our faith, of our Lord: God doesn’t need our belief to make His word happen. We see that over and again in the Old Testament. But ther’s still something about the combination of God’s word with our faith that brings about blessing, that creates good things from nothing.

By her belief, by her yes, Mary took hold of a blessing beyond what any other woman in history could claim. She became the living ark of God’s Living Word. She became the mother of God the Son. She became the mother of the church, remembered and esteemed by every believer throughout history.

Because she believed.
Because she believed, we can believe.

Elizabeth too demonstrates this crazy belief. She had first believed her own impossible motherhood–perhaps that’s what prepared her to believe Mary’s even less-possible state. Elizabeth is so fascinating, isn’t she? We know her husband doubted, but it would seem that she didn’t. She knew life would find her, and she knew her son was something special. Yet she also knew, the moment she heard Mary’s voice, that her child was THE child. Elizabeth began John’s work for him that day, before he was even born.

As I pondered this, I wondered how I could apply it to motherhood, Godly motherhood, in general. Maybe part of being a godly mother is believing in and acting on the callings of our children, even before they’re old enough to know it. Quite a thought, isn’t it? I don’t pretend to know what my children will end up doing, exactly. But then…neither did Mary and Elizabeth. Not exactly. They didn’t know the exact words they would say, the exact messages they would preach, the exact journeys they would travel. They only knew that they had been ordained by God to do His work.

Perhaps we and our kids aren’t all Johns and certainly aren’t all Jesus. But we’re all called to do our part for the Kingdom, including our children. Have I acted on that belief? Have I proclaimed enough that my children are children of the King?

Blessed is she who believed.

Blessed is she who believed in the purpose of her child–that can be said of both of these cousins. They, who would become the teachers of these two remarkable men. They who claimed a blessing not just through motherhood but through their faith in impossible life. They, who are among the most famous women in history, because they said yes.

Because they believed.

What are you being asked to believe today from the Lord?

This phrase struck me so much, I decided I wanted some visual reminders of it!
I designed the words with a beautiful floral background and then created some items for your desk and home. Each one has two color options, because I couldn’t decide which I liked best, LOL.

I hope you enjoy the pillows, blankets, wall art, and notebooks as much as I do!

(As a note, these are all created through a printing service that ships them directly from their facility,
so it will charge shipping costs automatically based on where they’re shipping from.
That means separate shipping from items I fulfill directly.)

Do not give to dogs anything that is holy.
And do not cast your pearls before swine,
lest they trample them under their feet
and then proceed to tear you to pieces.”
~ Matthew 7:6

This verse came up in a conversation lately…a conversation about the place of Christians in a very un-Christian culture. When, we may ask, do we shake the dust of this world off our feet? When do say “Enough!” and retreat from the forums that snap and harass us? When do we give up on people or networks or communities?

Enter this verse. According to some very well-established commentators like Matthew Henry, this verse is speaking about how some people in the culture are so far gone into the ways of evil as to be classifiable as “dogs” and “swine,” and that we are in fact wasting our efforts and squandering the Gospel by continuing to offer it to them.

This wasn’t sitting right with me. How about you? First of all, there’s the obvious dilemma: How do you know who is true “swine” and who will turn into the next Paul? How in the world can we, mortals that we are, judge such a thing? Especially given the fact that Matthew 7 opens with the warning “Judge not, lest you be judged by the same measure.” And follows it with “Remove the plank from you own eye before you try to remove the speck from you brother’s.” Then this verse comes. And do you know what follows? “Ask, and it will be given to you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and the door will be opened.”

As I read these verses in context and tried to figure out why I was daring to argue with Matthew Henry, it hit me: This famous “pearls before swine” verse is not about “them” at all. It’s about us. And it can be summed up in these two questions:

Why would we give holy things to dogs?
Why would we cast something as precious as pearls into the pigsty?

This passage isn’t calling out the world for being unworthy, nor is it telling us we need to be aware of the unworthiness. We all know what to expect in a pigsty, after all. But keep in mind that this passage did begin with “judge not.” We don’t know when one of those hate-filled people around us is going to become the next Paul thanks to our faithfulness. We don’t know, we can’t know…and we also don’t need to know.

What we do need to know is how to treat the good news that Christ brings. Look at those verses again, in light of those questions. What if, instead of saying, “Man, look at the filth of the world! Don’t sully yourself with that,” it’s saying, “Why are you treating what is holy and precious so cheaply?”

Do we truly understand the value of the gift we’ve been given?

Think about it. What do you give to the dogs or pigs? Leftovers. Garbage. What’s spoiled or unusable. They get the feed that isn’t quite up to human standards. They get it because they enjoy it, and it’s what they’re created to eat–we’re not doing them a disservice by feeding pigs with slops.

But can you imagine, seriously, tossing an heirloom into the pig pen? Can you imagine giving your dog your Bible as a chew toy? Of course not! But when do we do that without realizing it, when it comes to the people around us?

Maybe it’s when we greet grief or pain, anxiety or mental illness with catchphrases instead of genuine listening, loving hearts.

Maybe it’s when we assume that people who have a political opinion we don’t like can’t really be children of God too.

Maybe it’s when we help spread fear and distrust and hatred and claim that we’re doing it in the name of Jesus.

Maybe it’s when we use words of blessing but mean them as a curse.

This is not treating the sacred as sacred. This is not treating the treasure as something to be cherished. This is valuing ourselves and our wants and our comforts above the Kingdom we’re called to serve.

We have to discern the difference between what we should hold most dear and what leftovers we can toss out to the animals. So what do we place the most value on, and what do we hold too loosely? Do we hold our earthly things to our chest and then “toss out” the Gospel message because it costs us nothing? Are we treating it like leftover scraps that we don’t need anymore? Or do we “toss out” those earthly things to anyone who needs them, holding close and demonstrating the value of the spiritual by treating it with the utmost respect? That doesn’t mean that we don’t share it–it means that we make it clear what we’re sharing is precious and important.

It’s far too easy to read those verses and mount up on our high horses, where we can look down on those dogs and pigs. When, though, did Christ ever call us to do that? No. He calls us to wash the feet of the people who have been in that pigsty. He calls us to serve and love them. He also calls us to recognize that the most valuable thing we will ever encounter is not gold or jewels, a nice house or a fast car, a great insurance plan or a job with upward mobility.

The most valuable thing we will ever encounter is the love of God, poured out for us on Calvary.

Do we value that so highly that we share it as treasure…or as leftovers?

“Peace I leave with you,
my peace I give to you.
Not as the world gives
do I give it to you.
Do not let your hearts be troubled;
be not afraid.

~ John 14:27

What is peace? Jesus promises to leave us with it–not just any peace, but His peace. It’s something we all know we need. Something we crave. Something we spend money searching for and trying to grab hold of. Something we tout.

But do we really understand it? Like, really understand it?

What is peace? Is it the absence of strife? Of conflict? Of war? It is “the state of tranquility or quiet” like the dictionary says? Or “a state of security within a community”? Is it just “freedom from disquieting thoughts” or “harmony in personal relations”?

Maybe peace is, in a way, all of those things. But that is peace as the world knows it–as the world gives it.

The peace of Christ is something different. It’s something more…but also something more fundamental. Whole books can be and have been written on the subject, and it’s one I’ve really wanted to lean into from the biblical perspective. I’ve read about it. I’ve talked about it. I’ve studied it. Not enough, but enough to get started thinking it through in words here (no doubt I’ll have more on the subject later!).

A few weeks ago, my husband was speaking with a board of directors. He’d been nominated to be the new president of this board for a non-profit, and one of the others asked him, “Do you feel peace about this?”

Now, my husband is a man of deep and thoughtful faith, but he’s also a man who has taken great pains to separate his faith from mere feeling or emotion. So this phrase–do you feel peace–has long grated on him. He will say that never once in his life did he “feel peace” about a decision before it was made–though he frequently feels it after it is made. To some, this seems like a lack of faith.

But it isn’t. It is, in fact, a very true and primal kind of faith: the kind that says, “I will trust you, Lord. I will trust who you made me to be. I will trust that when I’m chasing after You, even if I make a mistake, you will redeem it. I trust that even if my fallibility, I can’t possibly undo your will…even if I’m not 100% sure what that is.”

Because how often are we really 100% sure? More, how often are we supposed to be? A couple years ago a friend sent me a book called Searching for and Maintaining Peace. She sent it “just because,” but it arrived while we were in the hospital with my son, when he was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. It took me a while to get around to reading it, but it became one of those books where I had to underline and highlight insights all over the place.

One of the things the author pointed out which really resonated with me was that true faith, true peace isn’t about always hearing God perfectly. It’s about knowing that, even when we don’t, He is still there at work. That part of this journey of faith is training ourselves in His ways enough that, even when He’s silent, we can still act. We can still choose good things. Just like as kids grow up they have to learn to make decisions without parental input, so do Christians have to learn to live, making day-to-day decisions whether they’re absolutely certain about the “rightness” or not. God is there, He’s watching, He’s comforting…but He’s also saying, “Go ahead, beloved. Step out. I’m right here if you falter.”

That is true peace. Not a lack of conflict. Not security from your community. Not harmony with others. True peace, the peace given by Christ, is trust. True peace, the kind our Lord and Savior gives us, is knowing that we cannot possibly outpace His love. We cannot fall so far that He isn’t there to catch us. We cannot undo His will. True peace is knowing that even when circumstances are terrible and our world is crumbling around us, nothing can take away the most precious thing in the world: our salvation. True peace is knowing that the only identity we really need is Child of God.

When we can really claim that, when our prayers and contemplation are not about what we need or want or hope to do, but in who we are in Christ, then we’ll also be able to claim exactly what Jesus instructs. Our hearts will not be troubled. We will not be afraid.

Are you troubled? Afraid? We’ve all been there, or are there right now, or will be in the future. But the more we focus on the truth that we’re not defined by our jobs or our place of residence, by our marriages or our children or our families, by what we’ve accomplished or where we’ve failed, the more we’ll find that fearless peace.

Because we are God’s. And He is our master. And Christ has left us with something the world does not give and the world cannot take away. He has given us a gift of peace that stills our hearts and girds our minds with courage.

Be not afraid. Be not troubled. You belong to the Lord.

I’ve always loved the story of Samuel. In fact, as a writer, I’ve claimed the verse about none of his words falling to the ground as what I should be striving to live up to. There are so many lessons we can glean from this wise prophet who heard directly from God.

But the last time I was reading through I Samuel, I found myself dwelling not on who he turned out to be, but rather on where he began. More specifically, on where his relationship with the Lord began.

We’ve all read the story countless times, right. Samuel is sleeping in the sanctuary and he hears someone calling his name. He thinks it’s Eli, so he runs to the priest to ask what he needs. This repeats several times before finally Eli realizes it’s God calling the boy and instructs him in how to respond.

Familiar, yes. So familiar. So familiar, yet I’d never looked at it in quite the way I found myself looking this last time through.

Samuel was a child. We don’t know how old he was at this point, but certainly young enough that the word used is “lad” rather than “man” or even “young man.” He was a child who had grown up serving the Lord in a very physical sense, but the Word of the Lord “was rare in those days.” He wasn’t raised to expect to hear from Him. He hadn’t been trained in how to listen. He was just doing the normal, expected thing, keeping the altar fires burning.

But God spoke. God called.

And Samuel didn’t know His voice. How could he have? He’d never heard the Lord before. But he had heard Eli, many times every day. Shouldn’t he have known that it wasn’t Eli’s voice? Maybe the Lord sounded similar in his ears.

Maybe it was the only reasonable explanation.

Or maybe he recognized authority in the voice that called to him. Maybe he knew that whoever was calling “Samuel!” was expecting to be answered.

Samuel didn’t hesitate or complain, he simply rushed to his master, Eli the priest, and asked what he needed. He went back to his place, no doubt confused and wondering if he’d been dreaming when Eli said, “No, I didn’t call you.” But then it happened again. And again.

Samuel didn’t know how to listen. But God still called. Over and again, God called.

Would He have repeated this process another time? Five times? Ten? How long would God have called this boy?

The answer, I have to think, is until he learned how to answer.

Because God knew the heart of this child was one ready to be molded to His will. He knew that this boy, unlike all the priests and other Levites in the sanctuary, would do His work. He would obey His voice. He would listen to His instruction and to His heart, and he would act in His will. Live in it. Carry it before him like a torch.

But first, Samuel had to learn. He had to learn how to answer. He had to learn whose voice he was hearing. He had to be told, “God is calling you.”

God is calling you. He’s calling your name, and He’s not just asking you to deliver a message of doom to your teacher, He’s inviting you to walk with Him. He’s inviting you into His sanctuary. He’s asking you to do His work. To obey His voice. To listen to His instruction and to His heart. He’s asking you to act in His will. To live in it. To carry it before you like a torch.

Feel like you don’t know how to answer? You aren’t sure what’s God and what’s your own imagination, or the people closest to you? You’re in good company! We all have to learn.

But that’s okay. Because God is the most patient teacher. He knows your potential, so He will call to you, and call again, and call again until you realize you’ve been answering the wrong person and finally say, “Speak, Lord! Your servant is listening!”

Are you ready to truly listen, and to carry out His will?

I don’t know about you, but I love it when I see people in Scripture behaving like…well, like people. Like I would do. I love seeing how they were humans just like me. They mess up, they say the wrong thing–sometimes the stupid thing–and sometimes…sometimes they even just revert to default behavior when they don’t know what else to do. We can see a great example of this with Peter and the others after Christ’s resurrection, before His ascension:

¹ Some time later, Jesus once again revealed himself to his disciples at the Sea of Tiberias, in the following manner. ² Simon Peter, Thomas called the Twin, Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two other disciples were gathered together. ³ Simon Peter said to them, “I am going out to fish.” The others replied, “We will go with you.” They set off and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.

⁴ Shortly after daybreak, Jesus was standing on the shore, but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus. ⁵ Jesus called out, “Children, have you caught anything?” When they answered, “No,” ⁶ he said to them, “Cast the net over the right side of the boat and you will find something.” They did so, and they were unable to haul the net on board because of the great number of fish.

~ John 21:1-6

Let’s imagine for a minute that we’re there with the disciples. They’d gone through Holy Week with Christ. They’d seen him crucified. They’d gone to the empty tomb. Christ Himself had appeared to them in a locked room, not once but twice. And John tells us that Jesus performed other signs for the disciples that weren’t recorded. In short:

They knew. They knew their Lord had defeated death. They knew He’d been raised to life again. They knew it.

But…then what?

Haven’t we all been there? We had that shock, that jolt, that lightning bolt epiphany. It’s real! He’s alive! He really is Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God! We are filled with joy unspeakable. Amazement unfathomable. Peace unknowable.

And then…what? Life is going on, ticking by, but what are we supposed to do? Jesus didn’t give us instructions, most likely. He hadn’t given them any at this point. We know that for at least a week, quite likely more, they were just hiding out in that upper room where He’d appeared to them twice. They must have been getting antsy. They must have begun to ask, “Now what? What are we supposed to do? Do we go out…? But we might get arrested, then what good would we be? Do we just sit here? Wait for Christ to visit us again, and press Him for some instructions this time? WHAT DO WE DO?”

I can just imagine Peter–bold, daring Peter–slapping his hands to his legs and standing up. He’d had enough of sitting around, and if he didn’t know what to do…well then, he’d just do what he’d always done. “I’m going fishing.”

Fishing. A normal, everyday activity. More, the one he’d been raised for, trained in, the thing he’d made a living at all his life, until three years ago. Fishing. The thing he knew best. But not only that. Fishing–the thing he’d been doing when Jesus first called him.

I don’t think that had ever struck me before. In a way, Peter is just returning to his default setting, right? Going back to the thing he knows best. Reverting to old behavior. He’s pressing the reset button, unplugging the machine, returning to factory settings.

But it’s not only that. He’s also returning to the place, to the activity, where Jesus had met him before. He’s doing the thing that had first made him aware of Jesus’ holiness, to where Jesus had said, “From now on, you’ll be a fisher of men.”

Sometimes we just need that reminder. We need to go back to where it all started and remember. We need the comfort of those old nets in our hands, our boat under our feet. We need fresh air and water lapping the hull and our best friends, our brothers beside us. Sometimes, we just need to go back to the place where our faith began.

Why? Well, we see that in this story too. Because Jesus meets Peter there again–in fact, we see a replay of their first meeting. The lack of a catch, the instructions to cast again on the other side, the net-testing haul.

But this time, they didn’t have to ask who this Man was. They knew. I imagine Peter squinting toward the shore, but unable to see the figure he’d heard so clearly. I imagine John–the youngest–elbowing him in the side, his own eyesight just fine. “It’s the Lord!” he proclaims. And that’s all Peter needs. He takes his cloak, jumps in the water, and swims to shore. There’s no stopping him, no waiting for that heavy-laden boat to be rowed back. He knows his Savior is there, right there, and nothing will keep him away.

I hope that’s how we all are when we revert to the comfort of our default position. I hope we see it, not as something just to fill our time or give us something to do or make us some money. I hope we see the comfort of the familiar as the gateway to the Divine. That we see it as putting ourselves in the place where we met Jesus, so we can encounter Him again.

And I pray that when we hear His voice, we listen, just like Peter did. I pray that the moment someone says, “It’s the Lord!” our hearts quicken within us, and we JUMP. Jump for the fastest way to meet Him wherever He is.

I pray that our default position becomes “meet the Lord.” Whatever that might look like for you.