Are You Restless? Discover God’s Dream For You by Jennie Allen, Restless

As I stared at the ceiling, I saw the scrape marks. Right after we had moved into our first house, Zac, my husband, scraped off the popcorn textured ceiling. You’d think that would be something you’d never really notice — the ceiling — but it was something I stared at every afternoon. I stared as my newborn son slept. I had nowhere to be. Nothing to do. I would lay on my beige sofa and stare at the marks that had been left in trying to make something perfect of it. And in the quiet, surrounded by everything I thought I’d ever wanted, I felt that everything I’d ever wanted was strangling me. I loved my family, but in the process of making a family I had somehow lost myself. Passions were pushed aside, dreams had trickled away, and the needs of other people outside my family had escaped me. My entire former life had been shut down for the immediate demands of one little person. I wondered if it was wrong to care about anything or anyone outside of these four walls. I wondered if I would feel permission to dream again. I didn’t need to find a career or even a calling. I had one. Motherhood. What I needed was a sense of purpose. I felt restless. Was this feeling pushing me toward something bigger, or crippling me from loving the life I was given? Maybe it was both. Something in me still feels restless. As we stare at the marks on the lives we have tried to make perfect, we ache a little. The word calling has always seemed to tease me, like a mysterious secret containing the answer to my ridiculously restless spirit. We wonder if we are missing some mystical great noble purpose that was supposed to squeeze into the holes of our ordinary lives. We feel numb. We feel bored. Let’s assume that if we are breathing, then we have a purpose for being here. Every one of us with breath in our lungs still has something left to do. I want to dream of what our purposes may be. The most consistent thing I have been asked in my ministry is some version of this question: “I am in. I am all surrendered to God. But now what? I don’t know what He wants me to do?” Every single one of us is designed to fit into a unique space with unique offerings. God’s will for every one of us will look different. There is a framework within the commandments of Scripture, and within it we are free to create lives reflecting God and His passions here. We Have a Call to Dream The Old Testament described a day in the future about which God said: I will pour out My Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions. — Joel 2:28 God promised a day would come when His people would be filled with His own Spirit. And when they were full of God, God Himself would give His people dreams and visions. Dreams and visions. This day has happened. The Holy Spirit flooded the earth at Pentecost, and immediately after, Peter reminded them of the promise of that day: No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel: In the last days, God says, ‘I will pour out My Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams.’ — Acts 2:16-17 We live in the last days. We are filled with the Spirit of God, and we’re living on this earth for relatively few days to accomplish the will and work and wonders of God. Why do we do this? So that “everyone who calls on the Name of the Lord will be saved.” – Joel 2:32 Our creative God has an infinite number of creative plans to make Himself known through us, His image bearers, so He sent His Spirit to give unique visions to unique people to reach the world in unique and beautiful ways. The Spirit of God has dreams for you. And He has given you an abundance of gifts, resources, people, and vision to accomplish His dreams for you. If you do not feel that way yet, you will. What If? What if the things you love to do collided with the plans God has laid out for you from before the foundations of the earth? What if the random relationships and activities in your life all of the sudden had a focus and felt intentional and meaningful? What if the things that have caused the most hurt in your life became the birthplaces of your deepest passions? What if you could get past your fears and insecurities and spend the rest of your life running your guts out after His purposes for you? The beige sofa upstairs is unthinkably dirty with the stains of over a decade of beautiful messy life, my quiet sleeping baby turned into four big kids and my minutes are overflowing now, filled with it all. Life. But I still feel it sometimes… a whisper of more. Not more because what I am doing isn’t important, but because I so rarely believe that it is. Watch the Video for Restless  Excerpted with permission from the Restless by Jennie Allen, copyright Thomas Nelson.

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You Cannot Lose in the End
“You have a guard of soldiers; go, make it as secure as you can” (Matthew 27:65).
When Jesus was dead and buried, with a big stone rolled against the tomb, the Pharisees came to Pilate and asked for permission to seal the stone and guard the tomb.

They gave it their best shot — in vain.

It was hopeless then, it is hopeless today, and it will always be hopeless. Try as they may, people can’t keep Jesus down. They can’t keep him buried.

It’s not hard to figure out: He can break out because he wasn’t forced in. He let himself be libeled and harassed and blackballed and scorned and shoved around and killed.

I lay down my life, that I may take it again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. (John 10:17–18)
No one can keep him down because no one ever knocked him down. He lay down when he was ready.

When it looks like he is buried for good, Jesus is doing something awesome in the dark. “The kingdom of God is like a man who scattered seed on the ground. He sleeps and rises, night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows, but he knows not how” (Mark 4:26-27).

The world thinks Jesus is done for — out of the way — but Jesus is at work in the dark places. “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 12:24). He let himself be buried — “no one takes my life from me” — and he will come out in power when and where he pleases — “I have power to take it again.”

“God loosed him from the pangs of death because it was not possible for him to be held by it” (Acts 2:24). Jesus has his priesthood today “by the power of an indestructible life” (Hebrews 7:16).

For twenty centuries, the world has given it their best shot — in vain. They can’t bury him. They can’t hold him in. They can’t silence him or limit him. Jesus is alive and utterly free to go and come wherever he pleases.

Trust him and go with him, no matter what. You cannot lose in the end.

For more about John Piper’s ministry and writing, see DesiringGod.org.

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Dream Weaver (Daniel 2:24–30)

As you approach the king’s throne, a swarm of whispers fills the room.

“Who does she think she is?” “She’ll never be able to do it.”

Striding steadily forward, and struggling with your own self-doubts, you wonder, “Will all these gawking eyes witness an execution or a miracle today?”

While these thoughts took place in your imagination, a similar situation occurred in Daniel’s reality. He stood face-to-face with an unpredictable despot, King Nebuchadnezzar, who had murdered many of Daniel’s family and friends during their exile in Babylon. Now Daniel’s own life was in danger (along with all the other scholars and key advisers of the nation) unless someone—anyone—could interpret the king’s strange dream. Daniel’s life depended upon being able to do what no one had been able to do—not even the king’s “wise men.”

Talk about stress. Daniel faced a seemingly impossible and dangerous circumstance requiring the utmost wisdom and bravery. Not only had he been exiled to Babylon (modern-day Baghdad), but now he faced an even more pressing drama.

How did Daniel handle this super-dramatic, high-stress situation? He coped with it by cultivating a close relationship with God and depending on God for wisdom and power (verses 20–23). When the drama heated up and he was asked if he could interpret Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, Daniel did not talk himself up. He humbly responded, “No [one] can explain to the king the mystery he has asked about, but there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries” (verses 27–28). Daniel invited God into his drama.

In the course of our lives, we’re sometimes called to deal with stressful or uncomfortable situations. You may work as the only female in your church’s leadership; you may care for your aging in-laws, who have never thought you were good enough for their son. No matter what the situation, the best way to handle it with grace and wisdom is to invite God to direct the circumstance. Let him weave your way through with his wisdom. Lean on his strength. Rely on his insights. You may not feel like you can handle the stress, but with God’s help, you can.

Taken from NIV Women’s Devotional Bible

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The Great King’s Wine

We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. (Hebrews 4:15)

I have never heard anyone say, “The really deep lessons of my life have come through times of ease and comfort.” But I have heard strong saints say, “Every significant advance I have ever made in grasping the depths of God’s love and growing deep with him, has come through suffering.”

This is a sobering biblical truth. For example: “For Christ’s sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as refuse, in order that I may gain Christ” (Philippians 3:8). Paraphrase: No pain, no gain. Or:

Now let it all be sacrificed, if it will get me more of Christ.

Here’s another example: “Although he was a Son, Jesus learned obedience through what he suffered” (Hebrews 5:8). The same book said he never sinned (Hebrews 4:15).

So learning obedience does not mean switching from disobedience to obedience. It means growing deeper and deeper with God in the experience of obedience. It means experiencing depths of yieldedness to God that would not have been otherwise demanded. This is what came through suffering. No pain, no gain.

Samuel Rutherford said that when he was cast into the cellars of affliction, he remembered that the great King always kept his wine there. Charles Spurgeon said, “They who dive in the sea of affliction bring up rare pearls.”

Do you not love your beloved more when you feel some strange pain that makes you think you have cancer? We are strange creatures indeed. If we have health and peace and time to love, it is a thin and hasty thing. But if we are dying, love is a deep, slow river of inexpressible joy, and we can scarcely endure to give it up.

Therefore brothers and sisters, “Count it all joy when you meet various trials” (James 1:2).

For more about John Piper’s ministry and writing, see DesiringGod.org.

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Breaking Bread With Jesus (Mark 2:13–22)

Jesus feasted while John fasted. Whereas John’s call to conversion was essentially linked to penitential practices, the call of Jesus is fundamentally connected to being a table companion, eating and drinking with Jesus in whom God’s merciful manner with sinners is manifested. Breaking bread with Jesus was a festive celebration of good fellowship in which there was salvation. Asceticism was not only inappropriate but unthinkable in the presence of the Bridegroom.

This remarkable passage illuminates the extraordinary enchantment cast by the Carpenter-Messiah. The ragamuffins discovered that sharing a meal with him was a liberating experience of sheer joy. He freed them from self-hatred, exhorted them not to confuse their perception of themselves with the mystery they really were, gave them what they needed more than anything else—encouragement for their lives—and delivered reassuring words such as, “Do not live in fear, little flock; don’t be afraid; fear is useless, what is needed is trust; stop worrying; cheer up—your sins are all forgiven” [paraphrase]. Small wonder that the evangelist Mark preserved this memory of Jesus with the utmost care.

Taken from NIV Ragamuffin Bible

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What Is Well-Placed Shame?

When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. (Romans 6:20–21)

When a Christian’s eyes are opened to the God-dishonoring evil of his former behavior, he rightly feels ashamed. Paul says to the Roman church, “When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death” (Romans 6:20–21).

There is a proper place for looking back and feeling the twinge of pain that we once lived in a way that was so belittling to God. We will see in a moment that we are not to be paralyzed by dwelling on this. But a sensitive Christian heart cannot think back on the follies of youth and not feel echoes of the shame, even if we have settled it all with the Lord.

Well-placed shame can be very healthy and redemptive. Paul said to the Thessalonians, “If anyone does not obey what we say in this letter, take note of that person, and have nothing to do with him, that he may be ashamed” (2 Thessalonians 3:14). This means that shame is a proper and redemptive step in conversion and in a believer’s repentance from a season of spiritual coldness and sin. Shame is not something to be avoided at all costs. There is a place for it in God’s good dealings with his people.

We can conclude that the biblical criterion for misplaced shame and for well-placed shame is radically God-centered.

The biblical criterion for misplaced shame says, Don’t feel shame for something that honors God, no matter how weak or foolish or wrong it makes you look in the eyes of other people. And don’t take on to yourself the shamefulness of a truly shameful situation unless you are in some way truly woven into the evil.

The biblical criterion for well-placed shame says, Do feel shame for having a hand in anything that dishonors God, no matter how strong or wise or right it makes you look in the eyes of others.

For more about John Piper’s ministry and writing, see DesiringGod.org.

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