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Friendship with the Lord and the Flourishing that Follows

Friendship with the Lord and the Flourishing that Follows

by | Jan 21, 2025 | Featured, Hope, Joy, Life Advice, LO Library | 0 comments

“Who is the man who fears the LORD? Him will he instruct in the way that he should choose. His soul shall abide in well-being, and his offspring shall inherit the land. The friendship of the Lord is for those who fear him, and he makes known to them his covenant. My eyes are ever toward the LORD for he will pluck my feet out of the net.” (Psalm 25:12-15, ESV)

When we fear the Lord, we experience His friendship. When we experience His friendship, we begin to flourish. 

If I am being honest, the last couple years of my life have been so full. On the outside, you’d say I was thriving, maybe even flourishing. By the grace of God, I graduated with my Masters of Arts in Counseling and started my dream job at Daystar Counseling Ministries working with adolescent girls. I moved right outside of Nashville, Tennessee, my husband and I were traveling every weekend, I was getting to see my family in Louisiana every two to three weeks, it was great…and hard. On the outside, you couldn’t see the hard part. The good part was seen. The hard part was felt. 

I quickly found myself striving to prove myself in my job, ignoring the insecurities that were slowly beginning to surface, and filling my mind with distractions to numb all of the stress and anxiety. I was lonely because I missed my friends and family. I was so busy I couldn’t see straight. And you best believe I was eating out more than I ever imagined because meal prepping isn’t a thing when you are gone every weekend and get back in town Sunday night. Internally, I was craving the intimacy I once felt with God, I was longing to experience pure joy and passion for His Word, and I was desperately seeking to have a deeper understanding of who He is and what He was calling me to do. I was stressed, anxious, overwhelmed, and longing for something so much deeper than what was on the surface of my life. 

However, for some reason, that longing remained a longing. I wondered for a while why that had been the case. Why hadn’t this longing turned into action? Why hadn’t this desire birthed something deep within me? The truth is, the soil of my soul had become very very dry over time. There had been little watering, so not many good things were taking root and springing to life. I was reading the Word daily, but I wasn’t sitting long enough to let it soak in and revive me. I was getting a full night’s rest, but I was never actually resting. I was showing up for my job, but I was consumed with the fear of failure and the lie that I wasn’t good enough. I was so caught up in the busyness of my life, that I lost sight of the purpose of my life: to be a living sacrifice for the Lord.

On the outside, my life was “flourishing,” but my soul was not. And if I’m being totally honest, it was an illusion that my life was flourishing. My life was good and full, but I slowly allowed other destructive beliefs and distractions to take root: idol of busyness, lies and insecurities, fear of failure, fear of not having control, fear of man, fear of…you name it…I had it. 

Fear paralyzed me. It consumed me, and prevented my soul from truly flourishing because I had mistakenly become friends with it. 

Last year, I had had enough of not feeling like myself. I lost my passion, my boldness, and my deep joy. I was tired of allowing fear to consume me and distract me from God’s calling on my life. So, I decided it was time I surrender it. Over the course of the year, I relearned what it meant to fear the Lord instead of fearing man. I started going to my own personal counseling, I prioritized journaling, I redefined what worship looked like for me, and I started being honest with myself and God. It wasn’t easy, but the outcome was worth it. 

It wasn’t until I released the fear of man and learned what it meant to fear the Lord, that I began to experience my soul flourishing. My mind and soul started being renewed by Truth, peace, joy, and a deep love for God again. The longings I had were finally matched with action because there was a new hope within my soul. 

In learning to fear the Lord, my friendship with Him was birthed. My soul felt peace again. My mind cleared and I started writing again. Reading the Bible didn’t feel rushed anymore, and His Word began sinking deep within. Anxiety stopped paralyzing me once I released what I had been gripping so tightly: fear. 

For too long, I was consumed by the wrong kind of fear. Instead of falling at the feet of Jesus, fearing His holy name in an awestruck and reverent type of way, I was tangled up in the fear that distracts, defeats, and destroys our minds and souls. When I finally released it, I experienced something new. 

We all have that “thing” we squeeze so tightly that prevents us from wholeheartedly fearing the Lord and experiencing deep friendship with Him. It’s not until we release it and rest in Him that we are able to flourish. If I have learned anything in the last year, it is this: In the release, we experience freedom, friendship with God, and a soul-kind of flourishing that makes life full of joy and peace. 

I’ll be the first to say, life can be so hard at times. It is easier than ever to grow distracted by our circumstances, good and bad. It’s often in the distraction of our circumstances that we lose sight of what it means to fear the Lord…At least that is how it’s been for me. Yet, we must learn to be honest with ourselves, release what is in our closed fists, and recenter our gaze on the Lord — daily. It isn’t a one time fix all approach. We are saved once, we are sanctified daily. It is in the sanctification that our friendship with the Lord deepens and our lives flourish. 

We can trust that God’s Word is true. Psalm 25:12-15 has become an anchoring passage for me:

“Who is the man who fears the LORD? Him will he instruct in the way that he should choose. His soul shall abide in well-being, and his offspring shall inherit the land. The friendship of the Lord is for those who fear him, and he makes known to them his covenant. My eyes are ever toward the LORD for he will pluck my feet out of the net.” 

When we fear the Lord, He promises to instruct our way. When we rest in who He is, our soul abides in well-being—it flourishes. We experience friendship with the Lord when we fear His name, and He makes His covenant known to us. When our gaze is fixed on Him, he plucks us out of the net we are tangled in. He is a faithful God. May we fear Him wholeheartedly and begin to truly flourish in the way He originally designed our souls to.   

What is it in your life that prevents you from fearing the Lord? What would it look like for you to release it, and recenter your gaze on the holiness of God in reverent fear of His name?

Blair is a wife, counselor, and writer. She spends most of her days working at Daystar Counseling Ministries counseling girls of all ages, surrounded by the cutest therapy dogs and the smell of popcorn popping in the kitchen. She is passionate about walking alongside girls and young women as they learn what it means to be rooted in Christ and confidently walk in the specific calling God has placed on their life. Her favorite things are cozy mornings by a fire, coffee shops, traveling to new places, hosting friends, and going on walks. Keep up with Blair on Instagram @blairkwest and @_replanted_ !

A Good Sting Is A Good Thing

A Good Sting Is A Good Thing

by | Jan 25, 2024 | Life Advice, LO Library, Shame

Oh how easily I attempt to avoid the “sting” of conviction for my own complacency and comfort. I think in our world of constant distraction, it’s easy for all of us to ignore or grow numb to the gentle conviction of the Holy Spirit. We grow complacent. When we are complacent, we don’t welcome conviction.

Complacency results in a lack of desire to change, or the belief that one doesn’t need to change. Conviction disrupts our complacency. I’ve learned that we as humans do not love to be disrupted or interrupted, especially by conviction.

We get comfortable in our sin, so when conviction hits, we turn the other way and pretend we didn’t feel it… or at least I do at times. To be honest, over the last year, I have grown so distracted that I wasn’t necessarily “pretending” that I didn’t feel conviction, I was actually too overwhelmed by my distractions that I didn’t think I had the capacity to dig deeper when conviction hit. I knew the conviction would require me to sit and reflect, but my distractions told me I didn’t have time to do that, so I continued on, and “ignored” the conviction of the Holy Spirit telling me to slow down, reset, and release control.

The sting of conviction often hurts so much we don’t want to acknowledge the root of what’s going on deeper…the fear of having to change, the fear of giving up control, the fear of turning from a life that has grown to be incredibly comfortable, the list goes on.

I’m sure we have all found ourselves here at some point in our lives…maybe you are in this place right now. If this sounds familiar to you, I want to send some encouragement today.

A GOOD STING IS A GOOD THING.

Let me say that again. A GOOD STING IS A GOOD THING.

Conviction may sting, yes. It may be uncomfortable and not feel so great, but it is a GOOD thing because it is from the Holy Spirit. When we are convicted, it means that God is reaching His hand out and wanting to refine us. He is bringing attention to our sin or ways in which we have turned to things other than Him for fulfillment, so that we can turn from that and turn toward Him. This is called sanctification, meaning “set apart to be made holy and purified.”

I think sometimes we confuse the two words conviction and condemnation.

Conviction is from the Holy Spirit.
Condemnation is from Satan.

Conviction leads us to repentance. Condemnation overwhelms us with guilt and shame.

The good news is that in Christ there is NO condemnation. Satan has no say in our sanctification process because Christ has made us new, calling us holy and setting us free from the enslavement of sin and death.

Romans 8:1→ “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death…”

It never “feels” good when I am convicted and have to acknowledge the complacency I have fallen into because of the entanglement of my sin. But, conviction always leads me to the feet of Jesus where I humble myself and acknowledge my need for Him. But, it requires that I slow down and really sit in what the conviction is revealing that is going on deeper within me. There is always a root of our sin, of our complacency, and of our need to be distracted. And when the root is discovered, that is where the joy and beauty of refinement is really experienced.

May we not be women who run from conviction, but rather embrace it and thank God for the grace and mercy He pours out on us, so that we are not overcome by guilt and shame. May our distractions cease when conviction comes, so that we can rest in the kindness and mercy of our Father, knowing that He is refining us and making us more like Him as we allow the Holy Spirit to dig up the ways in which the world has distracted and numbed us.

Gosh, conviction is never fun, but it is always beautiful because it’s a picture of the kindness of God offering us the chance to be sanctified and renewed each day. LOVE YOU GUYS!

xo, Blair