Manna For Moms

Devotions for Moms Like You!

2013

No Potties

Megan Breedlove 2 Comments

Recently Ellie (who’s almost 10) and I were going through a set of question cards designed to encourage conversation. Her answer to one of the cards let to a conversation that both confused me and made me laugh. Let me share it with you:

Me (reading from the card): “What would be the worst place to visit?”

Ellie: “Hawaii!”

Me: “Hawaii?? Why would that be the worst place??”

Ellie: “Because they don’t have any potties.”

Me (totally confused): “What?”

Ellie: “They don’t have any potties. You have to use the community outhouse.”

Me: “Sweetie, Hawaii is part of the United States. They have potties there.”

Ellie: “The Schmidtkes said they didn’t. They also said that when it was really cold and snowy, like when there was a blizzard, they had to use a bucket because they couldn’t even get to the outhouse.”

Me: “Hawaii doesn’t have blizzards. Were they talking about Alaska or somewhere?”

Ellie: “I don’t know.”

Me: “Hawaii is one of the United States. They have the same technology we have. They have potties there.”

Ellie: “Oh.”

Even typing this conversation makes me laugh. I found it pretty amusing, and I still do.

What’s not nearly so amusing is when we get confused about what God has said. He said one thing, and we think He said something else.

God says, “I poured out all my wrath over your sins on Jesus when He hung on the cross.” Yet we think He still gets really angry at us when we blow it.

God says, “Don’t sin,” and we think what He actually meant was, “If you sin, you are no longer acceptable to me, and I won’t love you.”

God says, “I so loved the world that I sent my only Son.” We think, “Okay, so He loves the world, but He doesn’t really love me.” We forget that He also said He exults over us.

It didn’t really matter much that Ellie mistook Hawaii for Alaska. It does matter when we misunderstand God.

It matters that we understand what makes God’s heart glad, and what breaks it. It matters that we understand why He considers certain things sin. It matters deeply and profoundly that we understand Who He is, as well as how much He loves us.

How do we make sure we get it right? How do we keep from getting misled into thinking that Hawaii has blizzards?

We have to know the Bible. Inside and out. Cover to cover. Every bit.

Why? Because, as John R. W. Stott says, “The Bible is God preaching.” It’s His Word to us. It’s His love letter to us. It’s what He wants us to know and one of the primary means He uses to reveal Himself to us. Therefore, it should be our primary go-to reference when we want to know what He says.

It’s great to listen to those who claim to teach the word, but what matters is not what they say, but what the Bible says. It’s fine to read books, but what matters is not what the author says, but what the Bible says. Hopefully, the speaker or author will indeed be teaching the Bible, but you have to know your Bible to be sure.

Do you know your Bible? Do you know what God says to you through it?

The Secret Service is the division of our government charged with dealing with counterfeiters and counterfeit money. In order to carry out their jobs, they have to know the difference between a fake bill and a real one. To learn the difference, they study not the fake bills, but the real ones. They study genuine bills over and over and over, so that when they see a bill that’s counterfeit, they will recognize it because it differs from the real thing.

That’s how we should study the Bible—so deeply and so well that we will recognize anything that differs from it.

Do you want to know what God says? Study your Bible. It’s fine to read or listen to what others have to say about the Bible, but you need to study it for yourself too. If you’re not sure how to do it, there are many great resources online or in print that will help you.

That way, you’ll know truth, and you’ll recognize anything that differs from it.

You’ll know that there are, indeed, potties in Hawaii.

2 Timothy 2:15—Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth. (NIV)

Brushing Off the Crumbs

Megan Breedlove No Comments

Recently, I made two cheesecakes to take to a party. No, I couldn’t have chosen the easy way out and simply bought a couple of cheesecakes. I had to make them myself.

The actual recipe isn’t too hard, and I’ve used it before. The whole experience went pretty well, except for a minor glitch that had to do with my brand-new Springform pans.

I had never used that kind of pan before; previously, I had always bought prepared crusts. This time, I wanted to make my own. So I made the first cheesecake, then had to remove it from the bottom of the pan to slide it onto a serving tray so I could reuse the pan for the second cheesecake.

Everything went fine with the transfer of Cheesecake #1 to Platter #1. Mostly fine, that is. With all that jostling of the crust, some of the crumbs somehow—I still can’t remember how—wound up on top of the cheesecake.

“How am I going to get those crumbs off?” I asked my friend Rea, who was going to the party with me. “I can’t just blow them off.”

Rea came up with the idea of using my basting brush to gently brush the crumbs from the top of the cheesecake. That worked. Until I stepped in.

As Rea gently brushed the crumbs from the dessert, some of them fell onto the platter. I used my fingers to scoop the crumbs into my other palm, and then, for some inexplicable reason that still eludes me, I dumped them right back on the cheesecake.

There was a moment of confused silence before Rea said, “What did you do that for?”

“I don’t know,” I said, as puzzled as she was. And this devotion was born.

You see, what I did with those crumbs is just like what we sometimes do with sin. We realize there’s a problem, we get the sin brushed off of our lives, then we add it right back in.

What in the world was I thinking? we wonder, just as I wondered that day in my kitchen.

I hadn’t stopped to consider the options of where I could put the crumbs. I simply didn’t think about the ramifications of what I was about to do, and I dumped them right back where they came from.

Yep. That’s definitely what we do with sin. We just. Don’t. Think.

Whether we put the crumbs back on the cheesecake on purpose isn’t really the point. The point is that there they are, back where they shouldn’t be. Whatever our motives, we still messed up, undoing all the work that had just been done.

Have you ever been in that place, in terms of sin in your life? Where you got rid of it for a time, then found yourself right back in it?

Sure you have. We all have. That’s part of the insidious nature of sin. It can have a hold on us without our even realizing it.

So what do we do to make sure that we don’t sin without thinking? That we don’t just let the words come out of our mouth that shouldn’t have been said, or fail to do something we should have done, without even thinking about our actions?

We ask God to help us, and we ask regularly. We ask Him to warn us when we’re about to do something wrong. We take those areas in which we know we are prone to sin, and we put those areas to death by establishing plans for dealing with our wrongdoing and preventing further sin.

It’s hard. Believe me, I know. But I don’t want to put the crumbs right back on my cheesecake. You don’t either.

We want that cheesecake to look like it was supposed to.

Psalm 139:23-24—Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting! (ESV)

Overcome by Vegetables

Megan Breedlove No Comments

Being that our thirteen-month-old son Timmy is as fearless as he is, and being that he has already performed many daredevil feats from which he somehow miraculously escaped unharmed, my husband and I have asked each other a few times, “So, how long do you suppose it will be before we end up in the ER with Timmy?”

That question was answered Friday night. Timmy came walking into the kitchen, tripped over his own feet, and fell face-first onto a large can of green beans. The rim of the can caught him just above the bridge of his nose. Timmy cried heartily for at least sixty seconds, whereupon he got over it. I knew, however, that his cut required stitches.

So I changed his diaper and put him in a fuzzy sleeper (good hospital wear). I then loaded up all five kids in the van and took Timmy to the ER, where he got four stitches in his poor little face. If Timmy grows up with an aversion to green beans, we’ll know why.

The point of this story, other than the fact that green beans aren’t as innocent as they look, is this: despite all his activity, despite all the things that should have done him in long before now, Timmy was overcome by…a can of green beans. Something so simple led to his defeat.

Often it’s the same with us, isn’t it? We get all the big things right, but it’s the “little” things that trip us up.

We don’t commit adultery, rob a bank, or murder anyone. But we lie, speak critically, or gossip.

It’s not a temptation for me to rob a bank. I don’t have any trouble refraining from that sin, because I don’t want to commit it in the first place. But being critical? A temptation to which I give in all too often.

True, some sins may have “bigger” consequences than others. But even what we think of as the “little” sins—the ones that don’t really matter much—can ruin our relationships with God and with others and cause us additional consequences we never intended.

Any sin we commit is an offense against our relationship with God as well as against God Himself. God doesn’t just care about the “biggies”; He cares about all sin, even our favorite sins that we think aren’t that big a deal. He doesn’t like them. In fact, He hates them. Yet we too often excuse them or don’t even call them for what they are.

For most of us, the sins that slip in between us and God aren’t going to be things the world would care about. The things that take us down aren’t going to be things that make the front page of the paper.

No, the sins that bring about our downfall are much more likely to be something that looks like not that big a deal at first.

Something like a can of green beans sitting on the floor.

1 Corinthians 10:12—Therefore let anyone who thinks that [she] stands take heed lest [she] fall. (ESV)

Overacheiver

Megan Breedlove 1 Comment

At one point when my children were younger, I had three of them enrolled in a Mother’s Day Out program for two days per week. They attended class on Mondays and Wednesdays from 9 to 2. Each Monday after I picked them up, we would go to the library, where each child got to choose the number of books corresponding to his or her age and then got a piece of candy from the nice librarian at check-out.

One particular Monday, it was a gray, rainy day. I could barely get inside the church where their program was held without getting soaked. I really didn’t feel like trying to take four kids to the library while keeping everyone dry.

So I entered Lindsey’s classroom with the intention of telling the kids that we wouldn’t make it to the library that day. Another mother was already in the room picking up her son. As Lindsey came to greet me, this other mom knelt down to zip up her son’s jacket.

“Looks nasty out there,” the kids’ teacher said, glancing outside, where the rain was beating against the windows.

And this other mother said to her son, “That’s right, we’re not going to be able to play outside today. So we’re going to go home, make a tent in the living room, and have hot cocoa and marshmallows instead. Won’t that be fun?”

Overachiever, I thought. Right on the heels of that negativity, I realized, There’s no reason to be negative. I could have done the same thing she did.

There are two points I want to make.

The first is this: my immediate reaction to the other mom’s words was negative. Instead of thinking, Wow, what a great idea! I thought, Oh, come on. Now I feel guilty about my decision. In other words, I had taken the easy way out, and I resented someone who was doing what I (here’s the second point) could just as well have done. Like she did, I could have turned the circumstances into an opportunity for fun.

It’s not necessarily bad to scrap plans for the library when the weather is nasty. But I wish I had had that other mom’s perspective. I wish I had realized on my own that the thing that messed up my plans was the very thing that could help me create some really special fun. I wish I had looked at changed circumstances as an opportunity rather than a loss.

If I had, I never would have compared her actions to mine and felt like I came up short. But whether or not I shared her creativity, I should never have had negative thoughts about the great idea she had. Her idea had nothing to do with me, and no, it didn’t make me look bad (even though it felt like it did). There was no reason to feel like I looked bad just because she planned something more creative, and even if I had, there was no reason to resent her for coming up with something I hadn’t thought of.

I’m not proud of my attitude, because it stems from pride. I want to be the best mommy. I don’t want to feel like my kids are getting the short end of the stick because someone else’s mommy plans better fun. I don’t want to feel “less than” some other mommy because she’s more creative or more fun or has more energy or whatever. And the thing of it is, I don’t have to. Neither do you.

There’s absolutely no reason to compare ourselves to other moms. Sure, if another mom has a good idea, we might want to incorporate that into our day or our family. But being down on ourselves just because our weakness compared unfavorably to someone else’s strength? Ridiculous. Not how God wants us to spend our time.

You see, He made each of us the way we are. He granted some abilities to me that you don’t have, and some abilities to you that I don’t have. He made some of us better at creativity and others of us better at organization. God doesn’t want us to compare ourselves to some other mom, because she is not the standard He has for our lives anyway.

Learn from her, yes. Imitate her? Maybe. But compare ourselves to her? No.

I’ve learned to be more creative over the years. If I were to find myself in the same situation today, I might very well have thought of something fun to do at home. But even if I hadn’t, I would no longer feel bad just because another mom thought of something I didn’t.

That’s because I now know that what makes me a good mom has nothing to do with how I compare to another mom or whether or not I do things the same way she does. I’m a good enough mom if I’m the best mom I can be—not if I’m someone else.

1 Samuel 17:38-39—Then Saul dressed David in his own tunic. He put a coat of armor on him and a bronze helmet on his head. David fastened on his sword over the tunic and tried walking around, because he was not used to them. “I cannot go in these,” he said to Saul, “because I am not used to them.” So he took them off. (NIV)

That’s Our Kenny

Megan Breedlove 3 Comments

Recently, all of our family except Timmy went to see Kenny’s second grade program for school. (If you’ve been following this blog or FB author page lately, you will know why we chose to leave Timmy home with a babysitter.) We took our seats in the gym and waited for the program to start. Soon, the kids filed into the gym. “Look, there’s Kenny!” Ellie said.

Kenny didn’t see us right away, though he was obviously scanning the gym for us. When he saw us, his face lit up, and he smiled. Not a huge smile, just an “I’m really excited that you’re here, but I’ve gotta be cool” smile.

Once they stood in place on risers on the stage, the students sang several songs. I was proud of my son, of course. He looked great in his school uniform—handsome and way too grown up. I was also amused by him.

You see, Kenny is an enthusiastic kid. When he is excited about something, he participates wholeheartedly. And so it was that while the other students were standing quietly singing the songs, Kenny was busy doing accompanying hand motions, which he was making up on the spot.

It was obvious he was making them up, because no one else was doing any kind of motions at all. Everybody else just stood there doing the expected thing. Kenny, on the other hand, had to express his exuberance. “That’s our Kenny,” my husband and I agreed.

Here’s the point: in the Christian life, you and I are either all those other kids, or we’re Kenny.

Most of us are far too reserved when it comes to our relationship with Jesus. Instead of being crazy in love with Him, we settle for quietly appreciating Him from a distance. Instead of delighting in walking with Him, we do it out of a sense of duty.

Where’s our delight? Why do our emotions not get caught up in dancing with the Lover of our Souls? Why do we just stand there when we could instead be participating like crazy?

I’m talking about more than just whether or not your raise your hands during worship (both are fine) or whether you are an exuberant, outgoing person by nature. Even those of us who are naturally reserved can wholeheartedly delight in Jesus. What’s important is not the outward expression of that delight. God doesn’t care very much about that. What God cares about is what’s in our heart toward Him.

It’s possible that all those second graders were enjoying the program as much as Kenny was. God’s not any more pleased with Kenny than He is with any other student. He knows which students were participating wholeheartedly and which were only there because their parents made them go.

Likewise, He knows which of us Christians are participating enthusiastically because He can see into our hearts. He sees much deeper than however we do or don’t express our faith outwardly with physical gestures. He even sees deeper than however frequently we attend church services, read our Bibles, or give money to worthy causes.

None of those things matters a whit in comparison to what’s in our heart. That’s because God doesn’t need our service. He doesn’t even desire our service, if it comes from wrong motives. What He wants is our whole heart, and He will be content with nothing less.

How much of your heart does God have? How enthusiastically do you walk with Him?

If the answer isn’t good, go before Him right now, confess your sin, and ask Him to change your heart. Ask Him to help you dance in your soul with all your might before Him—whatever that may look like on the outside.

2 Samuel 6:14—And David danced before the LORD with all his might. (ESV)

Hope Now

Megan Breedlove No Comments

If you’ve been following my devotions for very long, you know I love writing about heaven. I love thinking about the incredible things God has planned for us and wants us to look forward to; I love encouraging others to do the same. I’m glad and relieved to know that heaven awaits me—that this life isn’t all there is.

But something a friend said the other day on a different topic got me to thinking. It’s great to know that one day, all our troubles will be over. It’s marvelous to have heaven to look forward to. It’s fantastic to have hope in the future.

But we need hope now, too.

We need hope on those days where everything goes wrong. We need hope when grief is crushing us. We need hope not only that things will be better someday, but that we can make it through this day.

Precious mom who needs hope, let me tell you something: hope is exactly what Jesus came to give you. Not just for heaven, but for right now.

Do you need hope that someone will completely, perfectly love you and meet all your emotional needs? God will do that Himself. Sometimes He uses others to help Him minister His love to you, but even when others fail, He can—and will!—pour His love into you until your heart overflows.

Do you need hope that eventually, the wounds others caused in your life will heal? One of God’s names is Jehovah-Rapha, meaning God Who Heals. He can heal those scars in your heart and soul, the scars you think nobody else truly understands, because He does understand. And He can make you whole.

Do you hope against hope that someday, you will feel like you really matter? Like you’re infinitely worthwhile? God has declared repeatedly in His Word that you are already incredibly precious to Him. And He’s willing to repeat it to you over and over, and to confirm it with His love and by His Spirit within you, until you believe it.

Do you need hope that you can make it through another day? He’ll give you His strength to keep going when you feel like you just can’t.

Do you desperately hope that you’re doing a good enough job of being a mom? He’ll show you exactly what to do to be “good enough”—and it’s probably not as hard as you think. You can be a good enough mom. You can even hear Him say it.

If you put your hope in having pleasing or easy circumstances, you’re going to be disappointed, probably often. But if you put your hope in God Himself, you will never be disappointed. That’s because true, life-giving hope is found not in circumstances but in God Himself, and He’s guaranteed that He will never leave your nor forsake you.

Not just at the end of life. But right now.

Deuteronomy 31:6—Be strong and courageous. Do not fear or be in dread of [anything], for it is the LORD your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you. (ESV)

Note:
If you’d like to know more about heaven, eternal life, or the kind of hope you can have right now, I encourage you to contact me through my website or to read some of the materials already there under “How to Know God”. I’d love to hear from you.

Timmy the Explorer

Megan Breedlove 4 Comments

If you have been following the exploits of my son Timmy (either on my Facebook author page or here on Manna for Moms), you know by now that he is an explorer. Which is a nice way to say he is into everything.

One of the things that seems to be especially exciting for him is doors. I think in Timmy’s mind, he is convinced that just on the other side of any door lies something marvelous. So he spends a lot of time opening cabinets and drawers, banging them closed, opening them again, and playing with whatever he finds inside. (And then leaving it on the floor for someone else to pick up.)

He also has hearing like a bat. Whenever I open an exciting door such as the refrigerator door or the front door to our home, Timmy heads toward it like a rocket. He loves to go outside or to scale the shelves in the refrigerator. The other day, we didn’t realize that he had somehow removed a package of lunch meat from the fridge while he was climbing it. We later found the empty package on my bedroom floor. The ham from the package was under a nearby blanket.

The point is that Timmy regards any open door as an invitation to head right on through. He doesn’t seem to stop to question whether or not he should go through the door; he just goes, in the confident expectation that grand adventure awaits him on the other side.

Too bad we can’t be more like Timmy when it comes to doors God opens for us.

I don’t mean that we should indiscriminately head through every open door; we need to consider which doors have been opened for us by God. But when God has opened a door for us, we need to head right on through, in the confident expectation that something grand awaits us.

Too often, though, we’re like Moses. We see an open door, and we say, “I can’t do that, God. You see, I (fill in the blank with whatever excuse comes to mind).”

I’m not smart enough. I don’t know how. I’m not as good at it as so-and-so.

Do we really think that the God who calls us to go through the door doesn’t know our limitations? And if Almighty God, knowing our weaknesses, commands us to walk through the door, who are we to make any excuse at all? Especially when He’s promised to go with us and enable us every step of the way to perform that which He’s told us to do?

Someone might laugh at me. People might not understand. I might lose friends (or family).

Okay, this one is a little tougher. We all know that it can be incredibly painful when people make fun of us. When they imply, or say it straight out, that we’re doing something stupid. When they desert us.

But God doesn’t ask us to do anything alone. He goes with us. And not only does He walk with us and in us, but He will also fill us with all the love, peace, and companionship that Almighty God is capable of (which is a LOT more than mere human beings can do). Yes, we might lose some relationships. We might be on the receiving end of some pretty hurtful actions. But God longs to fill our empty places with Himself. So if our heart is left a little more empty by someone who has damaged his or her relationship with us, or broken that relationship, that only leaves another spot in our heart that is now available to be filled by God. This is not a net loss.

I’m afraid. This will be hard.

It’s okay to be afraid. God understands that we will sometimes be afraid of doing what He’s asked us to do, or that we will only be able to do it with much agony and trembling. Look at Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane right before His arrest that led to His crucifixion. He was so anguished in His spirit that He sweat blood. Yet He still walked through the door. And the Jesus who showed a mind-blowing level of courage in allowing the soldiers to take Him captive and later crucify Him is the same Jesus who will grant us the same courage to walk through the door we need to go through.

So let’s walk through the door He sets before us. But let’s not fix our eyes on what we’re afraid might await us on the other side, or what we’re certain will await us. Let’s walk through that door with our eyes fixed on the God who called us, trusting Him to guide us every step of the way, as we walk through the door and then beyond.

Revelation 3:8—“I know your works. Behold, I have set before you an open door, which no one is able to shut. I know that you have but little power, and yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name.” (ESV)

Hebrews 12:2—Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. (KJV)

2 Corinthians 4:18—So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. (NIV)

Timzilla

Megan Breedlove 2 Comments

Timmy on DishwasherTimzilla. The Timminator. The Minister of Household Redistribution of Objects, Jr. (Lindsey was Sr.) All these are nicknames for our youngest child Timmy.

At not-quite-one-year-old, he not only walks, but runs. He’s fast, too. I turn away from him for just a second, and when I turn back, he’s gone. Then it’s anybody’s guess as to whether he’s heading for the toilet (to drop something in, or simply play in the water) or the poor cat’s litter box (today he was trying to stuff a dustpan in there while the cat was still inside).

He’s smart. He’s quick. And he’s determined. We’ve childproofed the best we can, but he’s figured out how to defeat at least one of our child locks. We tried to put up a baby gate to keep him out of certain areas, but he scaled it and was on his way headfirst down the other side when we caught him. We’ve told the older kids to keep the bathroom doors closed so he can’t get in, but they don’t always remember.

Timmy Under SinkAll this means that we have to provide more supervision for Timmy than we did for any of our other kids at this age. We love it that he’s curious, and we want him to be able to learn and explore. But we also want him to be safe.

Therefore, we have to have restrict some of his activities. For example, he’s not allowed to eat the cat food or dip his pacifier in the cat’s water. (Eewww.) We also on occasion have to remove him abruptly from a situation he’s gotten himself into (such as the time at the library recently when he began scaling the magazine rack and got stuck), which makes him fuss or cry unless we successfully distract him with some new adventure.

Timmy at LibraryWhy do we limit activities that he loves so much? To prevent him from making himself sick or injuring himself. Why do we pull him away from whatever the current Promised Land might be, even though he cries? To protect him.

If I told you that we allowed him to play in the litter box, go outside on his own, or store his pacifiers in the toilet, and didn’t stop him, you’d wonder what was wrong with us. You might even wonder whether we truly loved Timmy. That’s because as any parent knows, loving a child requires setting boundaries which they may NOT cross—at least not without serious consequences.

You know that. I know that.

Why, then, when God marks something “off-limits” in our lives, or when He delivers some serious consequences, do we accuse Him of not really loving us, or of not wanting us to have any fun? Why do we kick, scream, and cry?

It’s because we don’t realize that God sets limits and makes rules for our protection.

He knows exactly which things will make us sick or injure us, whether physically or spiritually. He knows what we need to be removed from right now, no matter how much we kick and scream. He knows what things to close the door on so we can’t just walk right in like we would otherwise. Yet instead of being grateful when we find a closed door or read a biblical command to avoid something—grateful God has marked out where the danger lies, so that we can avoid it—we get mad. Resentful. Often, we kick down the door and walk in, or we ignore the “No Trespassing” sign, only to find that—surprise, surprise—God knew what He was talking about in the first place, and we should have listened.

Which of God’s commands do you chafe about having to obey? And what difference would it make for you if you realized that God was directing you into paths of abundant life instead of placing an unreasonable burden upon you?

Which doors are you trying to break down, despite the fact that God has told you to keep out?

Is there something you resent Him for not allowing you to do? Or are you perhaps jealous that others “get away with” doing something God has told you not to do?

Someday, when he is older, Timmy will look back on the rules I enforced with him, and he’ll be grateful I didn’t let him do those things. And someday, when we reach heaven, we’ll look back and realize all the dangers and sorrows God kept us from by structuring things the way He did.

Until then…until we understand…let us never forget that He always knows what He’s doing.

And that if we disagree with Him about the benefits of one of His commands, He’s not the one who’s wrong.

1 John 5:3—This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome.

Timmy Makes a Mess

Winning the Lottery

Megan Breedlove 2 Comments

In 2011, there was almost $262 billion in lottery tickets sold worldwide. That’s $262,000,000,000 in tickets. In other words, that’s an average of about $37 worth of lottery tickets per person. Nobody in my family bought a lottery ticket last year, so somebody else must have spent our $259.

Whatever the differences between the buyers—race, education, income, gender, favorite color—there is one common characteristic they all share. They want to win, preferably an amount that’s amazing and life-changing.

How many people actually win the lottery? I don’t know that statistic, but I do know it has to be considerably fewer than 262 billion.

You may not play the lottery, but what if I told you about a jackpot that was far more valuable than something that’s measured in dollars? And what if I told you that you didn’t have to pay any money up front, and that you were guaranteed to win if you truly wanted to?

It sounds too good to be true, but it isn’t. The guaranteed reality of living in relationship with Jesus is that you get a huge payoff.

I only wish I had realized this sooner. I’ve been a Christian for many years, but it’s taken me that entire time to grow in my knowledge of the incredible benefits of walking with Jesus…and I still have a long way to go. But I want to share with you some of the things I’ve learned along the way. Maybe they’ll help you too.

The first thing is this: Jesus is beyond incredible. When you consider getting to know Jesus deeper, you are considering getting to know an incredible Person. And He’s not just incredible because He can do impressive miracles and because He knows everything. He’s incredible because of who He is, not just because of what He does. The more I’ve gotten to know Him, the more I’ve found out that He is more amazing than I can possibly comprehend. Once I realized that the point of Christianity was getting to know Jesus, and not just doing (or avoiding!) a bunch of stuff, my whole focus changed. And as I began concentrating on getting to know Him rather than on just doing things right, I began to fall more in love with Him and became even more amazed by Him.

Now having said that, let me tell you the second thing I want to share with you: Jesus also does incredible things. Not only do you get to enjoy a relationship with someone who is already perfectly worthy of your love and perfectly trustworthy, who’s in it with you for the long haul, and who only gets more and more interesting and desirable, but He will also do incredible things for you. And He loves it when you ask Him for those things.

Sometimes we Christians get this crazy idea that we’re not supposed to ask God for much. We’re just supposed to be content with whatever He provides. Oh, but we couldn’t be more mistaken. You see, God delights in pouring out blessings upon us. He is most glorified when we most delight in Him and when we rely upon Him to give us what we need.

Do you need a friend? He’ll always be there for you. He’s never too busy to listen. He never reveals your secrets, and He loves to do things with you and go places with you.

Do you need comfort? He knows exactly how to comfort you through His Spirit within you. Sometimes He’ll even send a human being to help show you His comfort.

Do you need strength? He’ll give you His.

Do you need wisdom? He’ll tell you everything you need to know, and He never makes a wrong decision or an error in judgment.

Do you need healing in your heart and soul? He knows exactly how to bind up your wounds.

Do you need appreciation? He appreciates you 24/7/365, and He even puts in an extra day on Leap Year. And He won’t just appreciate you silently; He’ll tell you He appreciates you, over and over and over, as many times as you need to hear it.

Do you need love? He’ll pour it into your soul day in and day out, your whole life long. In fact, He’s inspired a whole book to be written that will reveal to you how much He loves you. (It’s called The Bible.)

Do you have any kind of need at all? He’ll meet it in the way that’s best for you out of His vast resources.

It’s not only that He died on the cross for us to pay for the sins we’d committed that we couldn’t pay for—though that in itself is far more than we deserve. You see, He didn’t make us spiritually alive just so that we could go through life feeling empty and disappointed, while grateful that at least we weren’t going to hell. The Bible says He transferred us from the kingdom of darkness into His marvelous light. That doesn’t mean just that we get to go to heaven when we die. It also means that being eternally in His perfectly awesome presence begins right now for us, right here on earth. We can begin enjoying and loving Him, and being perfectly enjoyed and perfectly loved by Him, right now. We can have the best Best Friend we could ever imagine, and we can spend every second of every day with Him.

I can’t think of anything better than that.

John 17:3—And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

Spending Time Together

Megan Breedlove 6 Comments

Eighteen years and a couple months ago, the man who is now my husband asked me for a date. I accepted his invitation because he seemed like a nice guy, and I thought it would be fun to get to know him better. (Plus, he was cute!) We went out to eat at a barbecue restaurant, and we had a great time. When he dropped me off at my dorm (I was a seminary student then), I wondered whether he would ask me out again, and I hoped that he would. He did, and again, I accepted. Gradually, as we spent more time together getting to know each other, we fell in love.

Would we have fallen in love if we never spent any time together? No. We would still have felt attracted to each other, but we wouldn’t have been in love, because you can’t know that you love someone for who he or she is unless you truly know him or her. And getting to know someone takes time.

That’s why many of us aren’t very much in love with Jesus. We can’t love Him unless we know Him; we can’t know Him unless we spend time with Him; and most of us don’t spend much time with Him.

We may go to church regularly, and that’s good. In fact, it’s great. But too often, we go expecting to receive our weekly dose of Jesus rather than looking for Him as we go and expecting to meet Him there.

We may even listen to Christian music, read Christian books occasionally, or do other Christian-y things. All these are fine. But we often do them for entertainment rather than because we are intentionally seeking God.

It’s true that God can break through to our hearts any time He wants to. It’s also true that He often uses sermons, books, and music to reach out to us. But if we’re not engaging in these things expectantly—if we’re not purposely looking for Jesus in those places—we’re going to miss some, if not most, of what He wants to offer us.

We also tend to neglect two of the most basic means of getting to know God—reading the Bible and praying. Maybe we’re intimated by the thought of trying to understand the Bible; maybe we don’t know how to pray; maybe we just don’t realize the importance of doing either of these things. Whatever our reason, we virtually ignore some of the primary means of getting to know Jesus.

No wonder we’re not in love with Him. No wonder. It’s because we don’t spend enough time with Him to get to know Him. And without knowing Him, we can’t love Him.

Precious mom, do you spend much time intentionally seeking Jesus? I can’t tell you exactly how much time to spend; there’s no one “right” amount. But do you consciously set aside time for being with Him and getting to know Him? Do you participate in your Christian activities with the express, intentional purpose of searching for God?

If you don’t, you’re missing out on the incredible, awesome, beyond-belief things that happen when you take time to get to know Him.

You see, spending time in the presence of Jesus is not just some dry exercise in proper Christian practices. Amazing things happen when you spend time getting to know this amazing Person. So the reason you need to evaluate whether you’re spending the kind and amount of time with Jesus that you should is not just so you can make sure you’re doing things “right”. It’s so you can stop missing out on all the glorious benefits that are falling by the wayside because you’re not with Him very often. Oh, if we only knew what profit, what gain, we would receive from spending time with Jesus!

We’ll talk about exactly that when we meet together next week.

Psalm 27:8—My heart says of you, “Seek his face!” Your face, LORD, I will seek. (NIV)

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