We Exist To Inspire and Fuel Christian Faith!
GROW In Your Relationship With God: Shop GROW Box
Share The Gospel: GROW It Forward
Add request to message details on checkout.
Give Thanks Past Thanksgiving...
Need.
The Bible is full of deep soul-aching need, story after story of desperate people seeking help, seeking answers. From the beginning of human history in the Garden of Eden, need has borne down heavy and carved canyons into our tender souls.
We are gaping empty.
We are made to be filled.
And our Creator knows this. He stands ready to pour us full of His gifts, His grace, Himself.
But the thing is, before we can receive what He has for us, we have to look at those places in ourselves that are yawning cavernous, void of fulfillment and meaning. We have to stop distracting ourselves, stop numbing the feelings of desperation, stop trying to be okay, and admit our need.
Until we see our own emptiness, we can’t see how God can fill us. We can’t truly know gratitude for what we are given until we have felt the impact of being without.
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew5:3 (NIV)
The poor in spirit. Those who know they have nothing to bring to the table, who feel the ache of the roads they’ve run down looking for anything to keep the walls from caving in. Jesus said the kingdom of heaven is theirs.
We can do nothing to earn the kingdom of heaven – all the blessings God has for us and all the fullness of Himself.
All we can do is wait with all our aching and empty places exposed, and let Him fill us with His grace; a rushing, laughing, glittering torrent of His goodness that brims up and over the edges of our soul-wounds and onto everyone around.
And, oh the gratitude of the one who has known cold, dead emptiness and is now stretched with seam-bursting life…
This, friends, is the beginning of true thankfulness.
Leave a comment
Comments will be approved before showing up.
Also in News
Breathe
This world can be a heavy place.
The kind of heavy that presses down and makes it hard to breathe.
We rush to outrun pain and busy ourselves to forget the crushing weight of days and months and years that don’t turn out the way we thought they would. All of us who have lived a little while know it, that pounding of a frenzied heart racing to keep a desperate body moving. And we push on like we’re been chased by time, carrying that airless ache in our chests.
Jesus’ followers
Godly Grit
“And what do you do?”
It’s a normal question, a defining question. Tell me what you do with your time, so I can understand who you are.
For a lot of us, if we’re honest, the answer would be, “I wait.”
We wait for the next thing, wait for the kids to be grown, wait for our ship to come in, wait for the right relationships, wait for our dreams to come true and our questions to be answered. And sometimes the waiting drives us a little out of our minds.
We fidget and spin circles, and our impatience drives us so hard against tomorrow that we forget to see today.
We forget to see the truth.
Waiting is close to God’s heart.
Re:Main in God's Love
We’re born with an instinct to be curled inward, legs pulled up and fists closed tight. It’s what feels natural and comfortable. As we grow, our bodies adapt and learn to function stretched tall and open, but a lot of us keep living in an emotional fetal position. We’re afraid to be seen and known. We’re afraid of pain and loss and not having enough.
Enough protection.
Enough strength.
Grow Team
Author