by Kat Shultis | Apr 3, 2024 | Featured, Life Advice, Wisdom
John 11:32-35 “When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.’ When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. ‘Where have you laid him?’ he asked. ‘Come and see, Lord,’ they replied. Jesus wept.” (NIV)
One crisp, cool October afternoon, I was getting home from a doctor’s appointment. Within a matter of seconds, after I had entered the house, I was upstairs in my closet crying. You know those deep sobs where you can hardly cry because you are so upset? I had hit my third season in a row as an elite runner with a new injury nagging me and was seeing many doctors a week to try and get to the bottom of health issues. My body was failing me, so I felt like a failure even though I was working harder than I ever had to try and get healthy and happy again. It felt like all of my dreams for the future and running and who I thought I was were crashing to the ground.
I sat in the closet crying, asking God to explain, just wanting to go back to the way my life was before. My dad heard me from downstairs. Shortly after, there was a soft tap, tap on my bedroom door. I got up to answer, and as soon as I saw my dad’s face, I burst into another fit of tears. I could see the empathy he felt in his eyes. He came and sat with me in my closet and let me have a good, long cry. “Why me?” I asked him. “Why do I have to go through this when none of my friends do?” Have you been there? Wishing for another story? My dad held me and rubbed my back as he answered in a slow, apologetic voice, almost on the edge of tears himself. He told me he did not know why I had to go through this.
Then he began to slowly unpack the story of Lazarus in the Bible to me. He said, “I don’t know why, but this is what God does to his friends, all throughout the Bible he does this to his closest friends.” This past fall I spoke at a small women’s conference about the story of Lazarus. I encouraged them to see Jesus’ empathy for Lazarus as an example of how He cares for us in the pain we face in life. I want to be clear here that I do not mean God wishes evil upon us. I believe that whatever pain we walk through in life God is able to use. Before speaking at this women’s event, I reread the passages in John 11-12 over and over to study exactly what Jesus did in this story of Lazarus. I wanted to make sure I said everything in the right context. I wanted to truly share the heart of God with these women through this moving story. About the third time reading through it I remember being so powerfully moved by these four verses, 32 “Now when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet, saying to him, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.’ 33 When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. 34 And he said, ‘Where have you laid him?’ They said to him, ‘Lord, come and see.’ 35 Jesus wept.” (John 11:32-35 ESV).
Now, in the previous passages John talks about when Jesus first got news that Lazarus was sick. He waited two days before going to Judea to see him. It also states that Jesus was very good friends with Lazarus and his sisters. Mary and Martha are two very significant people in the Bible and love the Lord intimately just as He loves them. Imagine knowing you had the power to help a close friend or relative who was on death’s doorstep, and you had to let them pass and wait two days before going to check on their family. I think the most significant verse in this story is verse 35, the shortest verse in the Bible, “Jesus wept.”
Now, you might think, yes, it was His best friend, of course He cried. But, to me the crazy beautiful part of Jesus being moved by Mary and Martha’s tears, being “deeply moved” as it says, is that He knew He was about to go raise Lazarus from the dead. He had been dead four days and Jesus knew He had the power to heal him and had told his disciples verses before this, 11 “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go to awaken him.” He knew what He came to Judea to do. He could have come in dancing and praising and joyful for He knew He was about to bring glory to God. Friend, God loves you, with a capital L. However, sometimes things in our life must die before He can raise up something beautiful. When things in our life die, our most helpful response is, “Lord, come.” We must ask Him to come and be with us in the broken we do not understand. If you just started reading because you saw this linked on Instagram or popped up randomly for you and you are not sure if it is for you, maybe reading this story about Lazarus reminded you a bit of your own story? I encourage you to keep reading! Do not become bitter to your pain. Know that we serve a God who knows the plan. Know that we serve a God who does allow Lazarus to die, but not a God who does not have a backup plan for greater glory. Do not miss out on the story God is writing. There is a reason for your broken dreams. Something beautiful getting broken can lead to something even better. We can surrender our broken in order to allow God to do His better. We can work with God and allow Him to take us from our lowest, to and for His highest.
Instead of coming in dancing and praising to the mourning family, Jesus hurts with them, He physically weeps with them. And then He says, “Show me the tomb.” After Lazarus is raised, much glory is brought to God, and many believe. The pain of Lazarus and his family was intense. There was death and there were tears. Jesus hates to see us hurt but He loves us so much that He feels the pain with and for us. How significant a love our father has that He does not simply show up celebrating when He knows the end of the story. He knows the final outcome is good, but He still holds us and allows us to lean back against his chest and feel his heartbeat for us. He is a good father who knows how to love his children better than anyone.
My husband and I used to read the Narnia series to each other anytime we were on a long road trip or getting ready to go to bed. We try to read aloud instead of being on our phones all the time. We were reading The Magician’s Nephew, the first of the series by C.S. Lewis. If you have not read Narnia, I will give you a little context. In the series Aslan represents God and He is a lion. The Magician’s Nephew is the first book and is a parallel to the creation story in the Bible. Digory, the main character, a child, has a very sick mother. He is realizing Aslan might heal her as he gets to know how powerful and kind Aslan is. I couldn’t hold back my tears when I read the following passage aloud, “‘But please, please – won’t you – can’t you give me something that will cure Mother?’ Up till then he had been looking at the Lion’s great feet and the huge claws on them; now, in his despair, he looked up at its face. What he saw surprised him as much as anything in his whole life. For the tawny face was bent down near his own and (wonder of wonders) great shining tears stood in the Lion’s eyes. They were such big, bright tears compared with Digory’s own that for a moment he felt as if the Lion must really be sorrier about his mother than he was himself.”1
I don’t claim to know why God does what he does and allows certain things to happen to us, but the truth is his “best friends,” those who have enviable intimacy with Him almost always have hard stories because that’s how that intimacy grows. We do not have to know why He allows us to break, we just must know He does not leave us that way. We draw closer to God by fighting battles with Him and for Him. The circumstances of this life cannot be what defines my joy (or yours). Running fast/being injury free was not my purpose. And God was using every “closet moment” with Him to develop a sense of identity, purpose, and love for Him far beyond what I already had. Every time we look into God’s eyes just as Mary did after her brother Lazarus died, just like Digory did when he thought about his mother dying and being sick, we get to see His character. And His character is love. His character is empathy, His character is good. He cares for you.
“God, thank you that you love us, with a capital L. Thank you that sometimes, things in our lives have to die before you raise up something beautiful. In the midst of the hard of this life we say, “Lord, come.” We ask you to come and be with us in the midst of the broken we cannot understand.”
Blessings,
Kat Shultis
For Deeper Study:
1. For a practical guide on how to grow in trusting God, grab a copy of Kat’s book, My Lowest For His Highest 2. Another great resource on this topic is, Renovation of the Heart by Dallas Willard
3. Psalms 62:8, “Trust in him at all times, you people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge.” (NIV)
1 The Chronicles Of Narnia. The Magicians Nephew. C.S. Lewis. Copyright 1982. HarperCollins. Page 83.
by Kat Shultis | Aug 1, 2023 | Healing, Life Advice
Good morning friend, I hope as you sip your morning coffee and read through this page or two you are lifted up by the truth that celebration is a gift! We all know the saying “Comparison is the thief of all joy,” right? When we go through seasons of comparison, where we do not feel like any of our dreams are coming true and everyone else’s are, it can be hard. I think waiting seasons are some of the hardest to not let bitterness come in through comparison or just sadness over our wait. When my husband Casey and I first moved to Florida I started a Bible study at our house on Wednesday nights. As we discussed a topic for our study the first few meetings, many of the girls were struggling with knowing their purpose and struggling because they were in a waiting season. They were waiting for their dream job, their spouse, a better living situation, a painful situation to end, and so many other things. Almost every one of us as we went around the circle, sharing our struggles, were stating struggles with comparison when it seems like everyone else has something better. If we allow ourselves to think that way, no matter how good we have got it we will always feel this sense of discontentment because we are trying to live someone else’s lives, not our own.
One of the best messages I have ever heard on comparison and longing during waiting seasons was at The Grove in Atlanta, a women’s event hosted by Passion City Church and Shellie Giglio. DawnCheré Wilkerson was speaking and she preached on Psalm 118:24, “This is the day The Lord has made and I will rejoice and be glad in it.” (Psalm 118:24, ESV)[i] She discusses how the Psalmist in this scripture was actually going through a very rough time and it would not have been the obvious response for him to be celebrating. I believe when we decide to say “I will rejoice and be glad in it,” acknowledging where God has us in this waiting season, we are able to endure much more and cheer others on along the way. One of the only ways I have found to truly cripple comparison and beat the enemy at his own game is to celebrate others. A self-help book I was reading recently did not simply talk about self-love like a lot of these types of books do. The author, Stephen R. Covey says “What is self-love is actually self-discipline.”[ii] What if learning how to stop struggling with comparison does not take us having some dramatic good thing happen in our life or us having something “better” than that person we struggle with comparing to, but what if it is an internal battle? “Religious leader David O. McKay taught, ‘The greatest battles of life are fought out daily in the silent chambers of the soul.’ If you win the battles there, if you settle the issues that inwardly conflict, you feel a sense of peace, a sense of knowing what you’re about. And you’ll find that the public victories–where you tend to think cooperatively, to promote the welfare and good of other people, and to be genuinely happy for other people’s successes–will follow naturally.”[iii] If you do not know my story, I was an All-American cross country and track runner in High School until I fell and tore both of my hips and had a lot of other health issues that beat me into the ground until I quit running competitively 8 years later. I know that for me, when I activated discipline to ask God for help to cheer on my friends in high school and college when they were getting to win state, conference, go to nationals, doing the things I had loved before my injuries, I was able to be so much more joyful.
My husband and I started trying for kids about a year and a half into our marriage, in December of 2021. January 6th, 2023 around 3PM I got home from an appointment and noticed Casey was out running some errands so I had the house to myself. We had been trying for our first baby for about a year now and I was pretty accustomed to my period just starting and informing me that there would be no baby that month. I had learned so much about celebrating others during the year of waiting for our positive test because everyone in our family got pregnant without having to try and I was constantly buying people baby clothes, listening to birth stories and helping throw baby showers. However, this month I was a day or two late and had an opportunity to take a test very quickly before Casey got home. I ran into the bathroom and set up my little vlog camera I had set up so many times when I had taken pregnancy tests before so I could record a sweet and happy reaction for whenever that day came. Fully expecting the test to be negative I covered it up for the allotted three minutes the Clearblue packaging tells you to wait for. Before looking at the test I held it up to my camera for Youtube to see and out of the corner of my eye I saw a reflection of the test in the mirror and I gasped. The wait was over. Tears immediately streamed to my eyes and prayers of “thank you God, thank you Lord,” came out in between the sobs of joy. The wait was not over though, a much harder wait was just about to get started. At around 11 weeks pregnant I was at the emergency room at ten o’clock at night miscarrying and laboring with our first born. Just a few short months later we miscarried again. Eighteen months of praying for our baby and we had two in Heaven and none earth side.
If you have been through a season of grief so deep you don’t really know how you will be able to breathe again then you know how I felt these spring months of 2023. My world came crashing down over and over. The thrill of seeing a positive pregnancy test I had waited all those months for seemed somehow tainted now. I remember during the intense period of sadness following the first miscarriage I almost never stopped crying. I felt empty, numb, and depleted of everything good. However, these days had me dreaming, not even just longing for, but almost drooling over the thought of going to Heaven. Losing your baby you dreamed of, carried, and never got to meet creates a sense of longing and heart break that will never fully pass no matter how much “time heals.” I have been working on a book to be published next year for quite some time now and the subtitle is “Fixing our Eyes on Jesus in the Midst of Broken Dreams.” In the book I write a lot on Hebrews 11 and 12, the “Faith Heroes” section of the Bible. I had written just weeks before our baby left us to be with Jesus on these Scriptures. And now thinking, “Wow, I thought I knew how to fix my eyes and long for Heaven THEN, but now….” I have never ached so heavily to go to a place before. My longing to meet my babies and stop experiencing the pains of this earth side life ate at me like nothing had before. I was continually reminded that this place is not my home, and thank God for that. I was continually and forcefully reminded where my eyes should be fixed and where my true and only source of hope comes from.
People always say God is near to the broken hearted because of Psalm 34:18. It states, “If your heart is broken, you’ll find God right there; if you’re kicked in the gut, He’ll help you catch your breath” (Psalms 34:18 MSG). If you are currently living in that “gut punch” but you haven’t been able to catch your breath yet, I am with you. It is all good and well for me to write another sweet “trust God” and “fix your eyes on Heaven” blog to remind us of Biblical truths, but it is another thing for me to sit here and say “I get it, I am broken into pieces and shattered on the floor right now too.” I am not perfect and after the second miscarriage there were a few days where for the first time in my life I could say I felt mad at God. There were several things going on in our lives other than the first miscarriage before we were surprised and then devastated by the second pregnancy and I remember begging God for relief. Before the second pregnancy even came into our awareness/existence I was on my knees asking God to make things good again because there was more “bad” going on than I had ever experienced in life. There were family things, marriage things, work issues, ministry things, my health post miscarriage was horrible, and others that felt like they were all about to make me implode into a fury of grief and sorrow and rage. I had never felt mad at God before and I wouldn’t even fully say I was mad at Him now, I was offended. My prayers felt like a broken record repeating, “I trusted you!!! I know you are good and I trusted you with this so how are you allowing this?! Father, how on earth is this what you call good?” I know we all have those big questions in our life of, “How could a good God allow bad things?”
During our two miscarriages at the end of a year and a half of trying for a baby it took genuinely all the strength in me to not want to yell at every mom and pregnant woman around me to stop complaining about anything moms complain about (because mumming is very hard and even as someone who wishes more than anyone to be a momma and hold my babies I still recognize it is one of the hardest and most important jobs there is!). I wanted to scream how incredibly lucky they were to get to kiss their baby, to rock them to sleep, to be the one who sees them wake up from every nap, to know what their wailing cry sounds like in the middle of the night. It ate at me like a sickness how hurt I was by person after person who got pregnant not just once, but twice within the timeline of us trying for a baby and losing two. However, when I allowed myself to feel the anger and rage and bitterness it did not help my pain at all. If anything it only made my pain worse because it stopped me feeling my own sorrow and grieving and led me to anger instead.
When I did not activate that discipline of celebrating others, when I decided to sit in my sorrow and feel bad for myself, I would feel hateful things towards those friends and not want to cheer them on. DawnCheré discussed this in her message at The Grove. She realized in the middle of her eight-year journey with infertility that she had a choice. She could choose to cower away, to be bitter in the wait and feel hatred towards all of her family and friends who were able to have multiple children before she could conceive, but instead she learned to choose celebration. She showed up to the baby showers, got the best gifts, loved her friends a little extra who had kids and needed help. She showed up in the art of the discipline of celebration. Because she realized, it is our call to say “This is the day The Lord has made, I will rejoice and be glad in it” (Psalms 118:24). She knew she had a good God, with a good plan. She learned the grit of endurance through the discipline of celebration. You see, she learned to invest her time in praise instead of wasting her time. She learned that she did not need a new circumstance, but a new perspective.
Psalm 145:13-21 says, “Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and your dominion endures throughout all generations. [The LORD is faithful in all his words and kind in all his works.] The LORD upholds all who are falling and raises up all who are bowed down. The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food in due season. You open your hand; you satisfy the desire of every living thing. The LORD is righteous in all his ways and kind in all his works. The LORD is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth. He fulfills the desire of those who fear him; he also hears their cry and saves them. The LORD preserves all who love him, but all the wicked he will destroy. My mouth will speak the praise of the LORD, and let all flesh bless his holy name forever and ever.” (Psalm 145 ESV). God opens His hand and “Satisfies the desire of every living thing.”
Yours and my story are the same in the sense that He is writing them and He is a much better storyteller, future planner, and author than any of us could ever be. I just sat in bed crying a few weeks ago before falling asleep because I had seen God’s faithfulness in my waiting season in so many special ways. However, I wasn’t crying over His goodness, but my lack of it. I knew I would have seen His faithfulness in my story so much more if I had been more faithful to listening and learning along the way. When we lean into the wait, when we ask Him for sweet reminders along the way, He gives them. I am leaning further up, further in, while fixing my eyes on Heaven. I am asking for more sweet reminders throughout my day that no matter how bad it gets I can still see His goodness in the land of the living. I will leave you with 2 Corinthians 4:16-18, “So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For the light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” God has so much for your story, so much He considered it worth dying for. Do not give up, keep your head up and your heart strong. I am praying that these words give you fresh wind in your sails and the confidence to dream again while you celebrate others dreams coming true. No matter how many dreams get broken in this broken world, Jesus will always be there waiting to remind us He is our number one dream. Here is to breathing dreams like air friends. May you give your lowest for His highest and take on the spiritual discipline of celebration that you were made for!
Blessings,
Kat Shultis
[i] DawnCheré Wilkerson, The Grove Podcast Episode: May 4th, “This Must Be The Place.” https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/this-must-be-the-place-dawncher%C3%A9-wilkerson/id1441017228?i=1000559564944
[ii] The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen R. Covey. Page 77. Simon & Schuster 1230 Avenue of the Americas New York, NY 10020. Copyright 1989, 2004. 2020 by Stephen R. Covey.
[iii] The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen R. Covey. Page 348. Simon & Schuster 1230 Avenue of the Americas New York, NY 10020. Copyright 1989, 2004. 2020 by Stephen R. Covey.
by Kat Shultis | May 31, 2022 | Life Advice, Testimonies
An excerpt from a blog I wrote when I was in a hard struggle with forms of disordered eating and insecurities around body image:
How do I begin? It’s another slow morning. The best kinds of mornings, with a cozy blanket and a good cup of coffee. But there’s that horrid nagging in the back of my head and heart. Body image… a sickness with no name, she comes and goes whenever she pleases, far more often than a simple, unwanted guest.
She tries to deplete my ability to love others, to enjoy my life, to do the things I love, to be confident, to chase my dreams. She tells me I cannot when I KNOW I can. She tells me I will not as if her will is my command.
She depletes my excitement for life far more than any human ever could. She becomes my entire thought process some days. I give her more than I would ever admit.
Her sickness and contagion strikes yet again with a double tap on a post of a friend I am supposed to love but instead I hate because she says they are “better” than me and I can never even compete. I can’t win, I lose to her every time.
Not today. I refuse to listen. I refuse to go numb to my senses, my love, my excitement, my the life my Father in Heaven has given me. She knows she isn’t smarter than Heaven, she just wants me to keep me believing she is. She wants me to keep believing this repetitive cycle is my life and I can’t choose anything else.
Not today. My thoughts around any form of food or exercise begin to diminish as I reach for the only words that seem to help when my immune system gets weak. She tries to convince me I am unworthy of these Holy words I’ve cried over myself night after night after night. Stating that they will not be my assistant no matter how many times I read them.
Trying to read my Bible I make my weak reach again, again, “Oh, God, in fire and wind come and do it again. Open up the gates, let Heaven on in, come rest on me. Come down, Spirit when you move you make my heart pound, you’re here and I know you are moving, I’m here and I know you will fill me” (Rest On Us, Upper Room). I know He is the only one who saves, He’s bottled up my tears every other time she’s come, I just let her stay for far too long. Not today.
My song is not one of defeat. Yours is not either. I know it seems she has the authority, but in reality that voice in your head gets no say. Every time we believe a word from the enemy we are damaging our spiritual immune system, our spirit gets sick.
God come fight our battles, we know you make us well. We invite you in, come and bottle up our tears again. Resting our heads on our Father’s chest, His heart beat is good. His heart beat is for me. This is how we fight our battles, sisters.
blessings, kat
_________
Hey sisters, If you are reading this I wish I could give you a hug and tell you how for you I am today! If you read the above and it resonated with you I hope you find some encouragement here. I started to struggle with slight forms of disordered eating and insecurity towards the end of high school. By the time I was a freshman in college I struggled with pretty bad restricting and binging patterns around food and exercise. It got to the point where I was depressed, anxious, hated my body and felt ashamed of myself. When people ask me why I care about girls with eating disorders and insecurities I say “because of ‘her’” in relation to the girl who is “me” my freshman year of college who cried herself to sleep each night. I call those nights of struggle “dark nights” now in messages/blogs I write. If you are in a “dark night” season right now and the devil’s lies seem true, I want to share with you three things I wish I had used to fight against him during those hard times.
We have all heard the saying that the enemy comes to steal, kill, and destroy. He comes to steal our joy, kill our hope, and destroy our light. I believe he comes to steal our joy through comparison because it truly is the thief of all joy. For me personally I remember struggling with comparison with an acquaintance of mine for a long time and it went from slowly comparing, to jealousy, to wanting to find things she was doing wrong, to gossiping about her, to not liking her as a friend anymore, and finding myself thinking about how mad I was that she was successful literally all the time. One day at a time the enemy used this comparison to suck the joy out of my life. I truly felt miserable because I was so jealous of her life. This is not a fruit of the Spirit and truly not what God has for us. Comparison is a distraction from the God given purpose we have.
The second thing the enemy comes to do is to kill our hope. I believe especially with struggles like insecurities or patterns we are ashamed of he tries to convince us that “it is always going to be this way.” When I was in the peak of my struggles the biggest lie that kept me depressed and hopeless and un-goal oriented was that I truly could not imagine my life without this struggle. I had convinced myself I was not strong enough to get the help and do the things I needed to do to switch my mentality and patterns away from these disordered eating patterns. There was so much abundant life waiting for me, I just did not see it. If you are in your “dark night” season right now where your biggest fear is tomorrow feeling as hard as today was, I just want you to know, you have a God who surrounds you with angels on assignments, who comes into that dark night and says, “the darkness is not dark to me” (Psalm 139:11-12). I look back on those nights where I cried myself to sleep every night asking God for hope and strength and help and I see Him holding me tighter than He ever has. Know you are never alone in the dark and it does not have to stay dark because the darkness is as light with Him. (Psalm 139:11-12)
And Lastly, I believe the enemies #1 goal is to destroy your light. You might say, well Kathryn, Jesus died on the cross and already won, the devil cannot destroy that light. And to that I would say you are absolutely right, but he still wants to convince you that you are not worthy of carrying that light, that maybe the light of the world is not really worth following, or maybe that He is not even real. He does everything he can to get that light out of you and as far away from you as possible. He uses the stealing of your joy and killing of your hope to slowly but surely diminish that light from its purpose, to convince you that you are not the city on a hill Scripture talks about.
I remember when I was a little kid, my dad and I would snuggle and read the Bible each morning. Our verse was Isaiah 52:7, “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of Him who brings good news, who proclaims to Zion, your God reigns!” He called me “pretty feet” from that verse. A little over a year ago God called me to start doing retreats for girls who struggle with body image and insecurities and I felt like He wanted me to do this as the theme verse for the ministry. I knew it would not make too much sense because it did not have to do with body image but I just had a feeling that was our verse. A few months later, I heard a pastor talk about the context of this time period in Isaiah. Basically anytime they went to battle they sent a messenger with a scroll and his only job was to bring back the scroll after the battle with it saying whether they won or lost the battle. He would get the scroll from whoever was above him and run home to the town he was from as fast as he could to deliver the news. And in this instance he was bringing GOOD news that they had won the battle. He was returning home with the good news that the husbands and sons and friends would be returning home because they WON the battle.
Well, friend, just like we said earlier we know that Jesus already won on the cross so the enemy cannot destroy the light, right? The reason that messenger’s feet are beautiful upon the mountains in Isaiah 52 is because He is carrying good news. The message he carries is what the people in the town will be celebrating. What if the good news we carry, the light of the world, is the most beautiful thing about us too? What if the reason my dad called me pretty feet when I was little was not just some cute saying, but a beautiful picture of the fact that I am most beautiful or pretty when my feet are going and proclaiming the good news? The world and the enemy are doing everything they can to distract you from what truly makes you feel the most purpose filled, loved, shame free, and beautiful. If we can be convinced away from spreading this good news, our bodies will still be beautiful because God made us in His image and knit us together in our mother’s womb (Psalm 139). BUT, no matter how beautiful we are on the outside, we will always struggle on the inside with insecurities and toxic patterns if we do not decide to dwell on the thing that makes us most beautiful and say no to the enemy’s lies by fixing our eyes on our Jesus and asking Him to be our light in the dark night.
One of my favorite Instagram encouraging message writers did a post a while back that said “How beautiful are the feet, if only they would go.” When we stay stuck in our insecurity and doubt our purpose, it stops us from having the courage to do the thing God is calling us to do. So, friend, there is healing to be fought for, it will not come overnight, but with day by day surrender and hard work. Will you be the feet upon the mountains? Will you say no to the devil’s lies and bring the good news anyways? Will you step into the MOST beautiful thing about you? I pray you do, because Jesus considered the purpose He has for you and me worth dying for. And man, is that a God worth living for.
so much love and grace friend,
kathryn <3
Kat and her husband Casey live in Atlanta Georgia and run a company called He Would Love First (HWLF), answering the question, What Would Jesus Do (WWJD). She has a ministry called Be a Blessing for girls with disordered eating and insecurities around body image to help girls learn how to have God confidence over self confidence. She loves all things coffee, fitness, nature, and Jesus. Kat ran in college and dealt with disordered eating and lots of health issues and has a heart to help girls out of hard things & hard seasons from that. I Hope this blog encourages you in whatever season you are in!
by Kat Shultis | Nov 9, 2021 | Life Advice, Wisdom
“For the Kingdom of God is not eating and drinking but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” (Romans 14:17)
Goodmorning! Or goodnight, or whatever time of day you are reading this! I am currently doing a devotional called Armor of God by Priscillia Shirer and I am in the chapters talking about the Breastplate of Righteousness. Priscillia talks about how important our hearts are because they are the enemy’s number one target. The devil knows if we do not put on righteousness he can make us believe we are not worthy of it. He can “get us in our feels” as some would say. I do not know about you, but I know myself, and I doubt my level of “goodness” all the time. I definitely have days where I feel unworthy of the call of God in my life, like I am not doing enough, and surely not righteous enough. God is perfect and as is his standard of righteousness, there is no way we can measure up. How do we shake free of perfectionism while still meeting God’s standard of righteousness? Well, thankfully, Jesus died on the cross for that. Jesus took our sin from us while at the same time making us righteous. He did not just take away our sin, he gave us the gift of his own righteousness, we just have to believe him at his word. Romans 4 and Genesis 15:6 both talk about how Abram believed the Lord would give him the son he promised even though it was not likely in the world’s eyes since he and his wife Sarah were so old! It says in these passages that “His belief was credited to him as righteousness.” When we trust God will do what he says, when we believe him, it counts as righteousness.
If you are a Christian, you probably already knew that but you need help to believe it. You need practical action steps to help you put on righteousness, right? I know I do. In Ephesians 4:22-24 (ESV) Paul says to “Put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the NEW self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” We cannot just put off our old self, we have to put something new on. What are the things you put on daily as a daughter of the King? In Dallas Willard’s work, Renovation of the Heart, he sums it up this way, “Information is first. ‘How shall they believe in Him whom they have not heard’ (Romans 10:14). Without correct information, our ability to think has nothing to work on. Indeed, without the requisite information, we may be afraid of thinking at all, or simply incapable of thinking straight.” (Renovation of the Heart, 103). What Willard is saying here is that without proper information or a lack of information altogether we cannot and will not be able to renovate our heart, AKA become righteous. How often do we hear a sermon at church about striving to be holy? James 4:17 says, “the one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it sins.” I think this is part of what Paul is speaking about in Ephesians 4 when he says to “put off” and “put on”. If we are truly pursuing righteousness and not just saying we want to be holy, we must be pursuing the knowledge of what the right thing to put on is. But where do we get this knowledge? My pastor at our small church in Atlanta Georgia this past weekend said something I respect a lot and have never heard a pastor say before. He said what our “teachers” or “pastors” say is not the ultimate truth or source of right and wrong, but Scripture is. He said we should be testing what we hear people say, even what we hear him say. He came to a point of humility to say on stage, “I am not your source of righteousness, God’s word is.” He is asking God for wisdom and clarity and “fact checking” himself before going on stage, but he is saying we are called to do the same. To not just believe everything we hear, but to go to an accurate interpretation of God’s word, our only real source of renovation! I think scripture is something we can all struggle with sometimes because we always feel the need to read more but lack the motivation so we just do not read. I have had a lot of girls DM me on Instagram asking “how do you read the Bible, or how can I get motivated to read the Bible?” There is no one size fits all answer for this but I love how once again, Dallas Willard puts it when he talks about the discipline of memorizing scripture (as Ellie Holcomb spoke on in the last blog). He says,
“The desired effect will not be realized by focusing on isolated verses, but will certainly come as we ingest passages, such as Romans 5:1-8 or 8:1-5, 1 Corinthians 13, or Colossians 3:1-17. When you take these into your mind, your mind will become filled with the light of God himself. And light shines into darkness and darkness loses. When the light comes into a room we do not have to say, ‘Now what are we going to do about the darkness?’ It’s gone!
You say, ‘I can’t memorize like that.’ I assure you, you certainly can. God made your mind for it and he will help you. He really wants you to do this. Of course, that will be an integral part of the other changes that will penetrate your life as a whole. As you CHOOSE to give your time and energy to, and plan your life around, the renovation of your mind, it will happen! But you must CHOOSE to do it and learn how–just like learning to program and live with your TV. Then you will know by experience that the mind of the Spirit is life and peace, and in all the deflections of life your mind will automatically recenter on God as the needle of the compass returns to the north.” (Renovation of the Heart, 113).
Wow. I was so convicted once I read that passage. Willard is not trying to say “you are not righteous unless you memorize the whole Bible right now.” He is simply saying our desire should be for Christ and to become more like him. In our thought life we must first know what truths we are to be thinking on. I believe this is the number one reason our generation is so depressed, struggles with intense anxiety, disordered eating, insecurity, confusion, the list goes on and on. Because the source of every thought about ourselves and the life we live is from social media strangers we follow for their outfits instead of their morals, Hollywood movies with constant sex scenes and graphic images, inaccurate media and news outlets, once again, the list goes on and on. If we consume our phone above all else anxiety and depression will reign in our hearts and minds. If we consume God’s presence, his word, relationship with him above all else, righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit will reign. At the end of each week when my phone sends me my screen time report, however many hours it is, I try to make it less hours the next week and prioritize certain habits to help me do that. In turn I have far more time for God’s word and practicing his way. One of my favorite authors, John Mark Comber, talks about what he calls “rules of life” in several of his books. According to John Mark,
“A rule of life is a schedule and set of practices and relational rhythms that help us create space in our busy world for us to be with Jesus, become like Jesus, and do what Jesus did—to live “to the full” (John 10v10) in his kingdom, and in alignment with our deepest passions and priorities.
While the word “rule” may strike you as a strict or binding constraint, the Latin word we translate “rule” was originally the word for a trellis in a vineyard. In the same way a vine needs a trellis to lift it off the ground so it can bear the maximum amount of fruit, and keep free of predators and diseases, we need a rule as a kind of support structure to organize our life around “abiding in the vine,” (John 15v1–8) as Jesus imagined.
It’s been said that we achieve inner peace when our schedule is aligned with our values. A rule of life is simply a tool to that end. Rather than a rigid, legalistic to-do list, it’s a life-giving structure for freedom, growth, and joy.” (Practicing The Way, JMC)
I love this perspective because it shows that yes, if we are to pursue the renovation of our heart and to be more like Jesus’, we must make certain “rules” in our lives to give us organization and drive! Truly, we want to be successful in our personal lives, so we make to do lists, while our time with God is far from a to do list, it is something that must be done in order for us to truly succeed in our walk with The Lord. So, what do we believe? #1 We KNOW we are righteous because God made us righteous when he died for us. Go ahead and tell the devil right now that you are righteous because of Christ so he can stop convincing you otherwise! #2 We ACT out of that righteousness! We learn the truth, believe it and stay in it. He is the vine and we are the branches. Hard things feel like a discipline when you first start them. This past summer I started to have convictions about certain things in my life I honestly did not want to be convicted about or change, but as I have slowly and prayerfully begun to shift around my priorities, putting what scripture says first above my desires, God has made me thankful for those convictions. I cried the whole way home from Church the other day in gratitude that God was coming in and helping me become more righteous through the convictions he has given in this season instead of leaving me where I was.
Friends, I am with you in this fight of dying to self and living 100% for Christ!! It is crazy how far we have come because of Christ and how far we still have to go because we can never fully arrive. But we get to rest in the assurance that our sweet Jesus already did the hard part. We just get to fall in love with his story and ask him where we fit in! I encourage you to take what you have read and ask God to give you convictions and help you act on them. He will not do it for you, but he will do it with you. Have you decided to make God a constant presence in your mind? Dear friend, he is knocking, but it is up to you to open the door.
Love you so much,
Kat <3
I live in Atlanta Georgia with my husband Casey and we run a company called He Would Love First, answering the question What Would Jesus Do (WWJD x HWLF)! I also have a small ministry called be a blessing to help girls with body image/disordered eating. I was a collegiate runner who battled a lot of injuries which led to struggles with food and insecurity so I am very passionate about helping girls overcome that! Lastly, I’m an LO sis ambassador and love everything Sadie and her team are doing! Thankful to have been able to be a small part the past year?!
xoxo,
Kat Shultis
