Episodes
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Set out to reflect Jesus like a mirror and you come face-to-face with your list of what you lack. Your squabbles and squeamish fears, your flat-out insecurity and sneaky pride. The features you’d change. The less-thans and not-likes and labels confirming your unworth.
Links mentioned:
It’s not too late to join the #ReflectJesus challenge! Grab the challenge prompts HERE and I’ll pop into your inbox the rest of the month with daily prayers to help you and I reflect Jesus like a mirror.
To get a short, doable tip in your inbox every week to help you get to know your neighbors, sign up here.
Read the written version of this episode HERE. -
I find what works on a mountain also applies to our relationships with our Enneagram opposites and how we approach an election.
Links mentioned:
Discover your Enneagram number and how it helps you love your neighbors well HERE. To get a short, doable tip in your inbox every week to help you get to know your neighbors, sign up here. Read the written version of this episode HERE. -
Missing episodes?
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David finds himself in a spot many of us do today, sandwiched between the ugly and awful repercussions of a severed relationship with God and the invitation to find oasis in the here-and-now as we wait for full glory.
Links mentioned:
Check out Begin Within: A Gratitude Series. Get the weekly story in your inbox to cultivate year-round, ripple-effect gratitude! Take the #ReflectJesus gratitude challenge! To get a short, doable tip in your inbox every week to help you get to know your neighbors, sign up here. Read the written version of this episode HERE. -
With-ness. Could there be a word that sits closer to the tender heart of God? It strikes me while praying for North Carolina, Chaing Mai, and Florida how God’s promise to join us as we gather in His name (Matthew 18:20) reveals His desire 1) to be with us and 2) for us to be together.
Links mentioned:
To get a short, doable tip in your inbox every week to help you get to know your neighbors, sign up here.
Read the written version of this episode HERE.
Samaritan’s Purse (choose hurricane relief, any other specific need, or simply where it’s most needed).
Health and Hunger Coalition (located in Boone, NC and providing hard-to-reach neighbors with food).
Within Reach Global (bringing compassion and the gospel to Chaing Mai, Thailand). -
A reflection is a mirror image. It captures the slightest tilt of the head, a shift in posture, merriment in the eye, or sorrow squeezing eyebrows together. It’s not static, but fluid, transcribing in real-time every stray hair and sigh, every question etched in a facial expression. The fullness of emotion, the details of dress, the way we slump or stand tall–a mirror will tell it truthful.
If we’re to mirror Jesus back to a hurting world, we’ve got to fall in sync with His breath, His heartbeat, His tears and tender expressions. We’ve got to memorize the features of His face, the veins in His nail-scarred hands, and the inflections of His voice.
Links mentioned:
I can’t say enough good things about Jennifer Dukes Lee’s guided journal, Stuff I’d Only Tell God.
Read more on Matthew 5:7 HERE.
Check out my dear friend Jennifer Sakata’s newly released podcast, Living the Grace Life.
To get a short, doable tip in your inbox every week to help you get to know your neighbors, sign up here.
Read the written version of this episode HERE. -
What if I were a bit more like her? Noticed details and demeanor, presence and absence? Gave others a glimpse of how we each matter to God?
Links mentioned:
Discover your Enneagram number, what we love about you, how your Enneagram strengths help you love your neighbors well, and how to best love your neighbors with different numbers HERE!
Around the Clock Mom by Sarah Butterfield.To get a short, doable tip in your inbox every week to help you get to know your neighbors, sign up here.
Read the written version of this episode HERE. -
When we’re walled on every side by insurmountable, when the odds aren’t in our favor, when there’s no action or inaction that’s risk-free, what do we do? Because sometimes it appears there isn’t a way out.
Maybe you’ve been there, or that’s where you are today: pinched between bad and also bad. You need an immediate and miraculous rescue.
Let’s turn for a moment, from the story you’re living to one described in the book of 1 Samuel. Here we find faith that takes a little different angle than Even If Faith (even if You don’t answer the way I hope, I still trust You, God) or Nevertheless Faith (in the middle of the very worst, nevertheless I choose to believe that You’re good). This is a story of Maybe He Will Faith.
Links mentioned:
To get a short, doable tip in your inbox every week to help you get to know your neighbors, sign up here. Read the written version of this episode HERE. -
When we feel welcome, we come back. Kids know this instinctively. As adults, we might have to unravel what we’ve learned about hospitality because we’ve somehow begun caring more about keeping our house clean than putting our guests at ease. Our efforts, though good-intentioned, may sabotage what we truly want: for others to feel at home in our home.
Links mentioned:
To get a short, doable tip in your inbox every week to help you get to know your neighbors, sign up here. Read the written version of this episode HERE. -
When we feel welcome, we come back. Kids know this instinctively. As adults, we might have to unravel what we’ve learned about hospitality because we’ve somehow begun caring more about keeping our house clean than putting our guests at ease. Our efforts, though good-intentioned, may sabotage what we truly want: for others to feel at home in our home.
Links mentioned:
Discover how to clean for unexpected guests HERE. To get a short, doable tip in your inbox every week to help you get to know your neighbors, sign up here. Read the written version of this episode HERE. -
Are you longing for soul rest too? Grace that holds? Peace that lasts? Let’s name it together.
Links mentioned:
To get a short, doable tip in your inbox every week to help you get to know your neighbors, sign up here. Read the written version of this episode HERE. -
Consider this: What if the multi-faceted masterpiece of your God-given strengths and life experiences helps you reflect Jesus in a way that literally no one else can?
Links mentioned:
To get a short, doable tip in your inbox every week to help you get to know your neighbors, sign up here. Read the written version of this episode HERE. -
As I remember my dad’s calm presence in the passenger seat, I think of Jennifer Dukes Lee’s nudge to see Jesus as a driver’s ed coach rather than a chauffeur.
Links mentioned:
To get a short, doable tip in your inbox every week to help you get to know your neighbors, sign up here. Read the written version of this episode HERE. -
As I hold the decisions I want to delay and the ones I’m tempted to rush in open hands, here’s what’s helping me tune in to God’s voice right now.
Links mentioned:
To get a short, doable tip in your inbox every week to help you get to know your neighbors, sign up here. Read the written version of this episode HERE. -
When I’m tempted to make assumptions about something that’s likely not about me, I ask myself a question: Is my reaction opening my heart or closing me off?
Links mentioned:
To get a short, doable tip in your inbox every week to help you get to know your neighbors, sign up here. Read the written version of this episode HERE. -
It’s been one year since the biggest, littlest miracle happened. As I stand on this side, thankful for now, and also knowing not a single tomorrow is guaranteed, I think of you.
Maybe you’re begging for it to all make sense. You might be white-knuckling a prayer because time is short and you’re scared. Or you’re looking backwards, grieving something you couldn’t fix.
Sometimes our knees find the floor because God’s nearness overwhelms us, and sometimes it’s because we’re desperate to find Him. The latter are the moments we want to believe God knows best and actually cares. Because we need reassurance that His heart is wholly, irrevocably good.
Links mentioned:
The rest of the (in)courage guest post I read. Life Changing Stories devotional. To get a short, doable tip in your inbox every week to help you get to know your neighbors, sign up here. Read the written version of this episode HERE. -
I was the kid my parents would regularly remind to stand up straighter. Because I’d slouch. If that was you too, you know how you sometimes feel like you never outgrew the label of insecure adolescent.
Links mentioned:
The worship songs I love best. To get a short, doable tip in your inbox every week to help you get to know your neighbors, sign up here. Read the written version of this episode HERE. -
I’ll walk you through the key habits in my current morning routine, not to tell you what to include in yours, but to show you how to use a framework that can flex with the time you have available on any given day. Here’s what I’m believing for you: hunger to know God more fully and grace for what it looks like in your actual life.
Links mentioned:
Breath prayers to combat anxiety. The worship songs I love best. To get a short, doable tip in your inbox every week to help you get to know your neighbors, sign up here. Read the written version of this episode HERE. -
Ever feel like you’re on the operating table? Like all your wound-tight knots and woundedness are under scrutiny?
That’s where I was just the other day—asking a brave question in my journal then heading outside to work through it with God while I walked.
When you find yourself turning well wishes for the weekend into “leave me alone,” assuming genuine questions indicate annoyance and obligation, and taking gentle correction as confirmation you can’t do anything right, you’ve got to get to the bottom of it.
Links mentioned:
To get a short, doable tip in your inbox every week to help you get to know your neighbors, sign up here. Read the written version of this episode HERE. -
The very spots that deplete us of our rightness and self-sufficiency open us up to truth that frees and a God who redeems. The fractures sting, but they deflate pride, make more room for God inside. They help us get out of our own way so God can have His perfect way in us.
I’ve been one to pray it’s behind me soon. Figured out fast. Healed fully and speedily.
But that’s often not God’s way. He sees what’s beneath confident exteriors and denials of help. Knows where words have wedged then splintered. Where we’re rehashing the past or fearing the future.
Sometimes He lets us break so He can repair the breach, not in a quick-fix way but with patient, gentle care that heals through to the bone. He also nudges us toward each other as we mature in our faith.
Why? Because we seek reassurance that we’re not alone. We long to be held while we’re lending each other courage to try again, truth to combat false narratives we’ve adopted, and trust that God is more than able to make impossible things happen.
Here’s the thing: we get to prop up each other’s arms and encourage discouraged hearts and stand in solidarity. Our very presence becomes an anchor, tethering each other to hope that runs in abundance.
Links mentioned:
To get a short, doable tip in your inbox every week to help you get to know your neighbors, sign up here. Read the written version of this episode HERE. - Show more
