Note from Team LO: We are so glad you’re here! Each Thursday in October we’ll be posting different prayers for our Nation. Enjoy and meditate on this prayer for unity.
“Making known to us to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.” Ephesians 1:9-10
God, we come to you today with a heart posture of thanksgiving for your plan for the fullness of time. In a culture and day and age that asks questions like, “What is God doing?” or “Is God still with us and for us?”, we can know that we know that we know that you are still on the throne.
We thank you that we can know that you are still furthering your plan for unity. We can know that you will bring our life to completion at the day of Christ’s return (Philippians 1:6).
But God, we need your help for this. Above that, we just need you. Nothing else. Would you, in your power and strength, give us hearts that align with your heart for unity among us? Would you pour heaven down on us and continue to give us, your people, the mind of Christ to look for what we have in common, more than dwell on what we disagree on?
God, thank you that you are still advancing your plan, and that nothing can stop that.
A global pandemic cannot stop it.
Natural Disasters cannot stop it.
Division cannot stop it.
An election cannot stop it.
God, have your way and be magnified among us, and through you being magnified, unite us.
“..that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, that they world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.” John 17:21-23
Father, we thank you that we have a Savior that could empathize with our weaknesses, but all the more, through empathy, set the perfect example for us on Earth. We agree with Jesus’ prayer found in John 17, that we would be one, even as Jesus is one with you. Out of the love that you have poured out on us, give us the desire to pour out love and unity onto other’s. We don’t have the ability to carry out the act of godly unity on our own (Romans 7:18). We need your help each hour, each second of each day to carry out your mission for unity.
Lord, we trust that you will call us up in the coming month.
We trust that you will increase our dependence on you to love those around us.
We trust that you will increase our prayers for those that are difficult to love.
We trust that you will equip us with the words to use that give you glory in the tough conversations.
We trust that through our unity, you will bring others to you through seeing that the people of God operate differently than the rest of the world.
We trust you, we trust you, we trust you.
Unify us, Lord, for your name and your renown is the desire of our souls (Isaiah 26:8)
Note from Team LO: Thank you so much for joining in our Proverbs study that we’ve been going through as a community! This post is packed with goodness and biblical truth. If you want more from this study, or want to start from the beginning, click HERE to get started. Enjoy today’s post!
Have you ever heard the phrase, “I don’t know what I don’t know”? This saying is often used for people who lack experience in a certain areas of expertise, or even sometimes used by the humble to say that they’re just doing their best with the tools they’ve been given. To be honest, it really is a valid excuse… but an excuse, nonetheless.
As we continue in our Proverbs study, one thing is certain: “I don’t know what I don’t know” isn’t going to be as believable as an excuse as it once was. Packed with detailed instruction, the breakdown of wisdom v. foolishness, and the un-deniability of what stirs up evil and what brings about good in friendship, Proverbs 17 will leave you with a mindset of “I DO know what I DO know.” We’re excited for this one, friends! Let’s dive in.
Verse 4: An evildoer listens to wicked lips, and a liar gives ear to a mischievous tongue.
Have you ever had those friends that have “selective listening”? Sometimes it’s funny because those friends will ask the exact question or repeat the exact phrase that someone just said, and if you’re close enough, you get to call them out and have a good laugh (lovingly, of course). But in verse 4, this is referring to people who have selective listening only for the words that don’t lead to unity, but instead lead to strife. Here’s the truth: Your flesh is always going to pay attention to words of flesh, and the spirit is always going to pay attention to words of the spirit. So which ones are you drawn to? This will tell you which “self” you’re living out of.
For further study of the new self v. the flesh: Colossians 3
Verse 9: Whoever covers an offense seeks love, but he who repeats a matter separates close friends.
THIS ONE GETS REAL! Friend, are you quick to want people to know the mistakes of others? It’s like a game of telephone, gossip gets passed further and further down the pipeline, and by the end of it, everyone’s heard something, but it gets further and further away from what’s actually true.
There is SUCH a blessing for those who honor others by working to cover an offense of a friend. This doesn’t mean that you help a friend hide sin, it means that you don’t take it further outside of the circle of the ones who witnessed it. That way, your friend can focus of repenting to God and those who he/she hurt without having to further their shame. What a beautiful thing it is when you work to honor your friends by holding back your tongue.
Verse 14: The beginning of strife is like letting out water, so quit before the quarrel breaks out.
Do you ever just need someone to grab your face and say “quit!” Quit stirring things up, stop repeating what was told to you in privacy, stop sacrificing others on the altar of your own insecurities.
This verse references water seeping out of a dam in the beginning phases. The way it works is once a dam has been breached, there is no holding back the water – there’s no turning back once it’s cracked.
Same way with our words: once we’ve started down the path of stirring up conflict with our words, it’s like the dam that will eventually completely erupt.
This causes division, brokenness in relationships, and a lack of peace. Let’s be people who won’t even entertain the beginning stages of gossip. Let’s not fool ourselves to think we can start and then just stop whenever we’d like. Jesus commands holiness, and when we let divisiveness in, we aren’t strong enough to hold it back. Seek his ways, his words, and his walk.
On further study on the impact on our words: James 3
Verse 22: A joyful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.
The “good medicine” of our culture are things like Netflix, binging on ice-cream, online shopping, scrolling on Insta, and any other way of distraction. But this scripture says that the OG good medicine was and still is a “joyful heart”. And isn’t it true?! When you’re looking for what can sooth your soul, you’re never going to find it through someone’s IG story or in your favorite Home Edit episode (although all good things in their rightful place!), you’re going to find it in restoring your joy in the Lord. Don’t hand over your fragile, crushed spirit to what can’t actually mend your heart. Let the One who was crushed for you restore to you a joy in your salvation.
For further study on a joyful heart: Psalm 51:7-12
Verse 28: Even a fool who keeps silent is considered wise, when he closes his lips, he is deemed intelligent.
This verse sums up this chapter so well. To paraphrase: YOUR WORDS MATTER, FRIEND.
It’s so easy to live in our own world, thinking we know best, and that we’re always right, or that we can say things flippantly without consequence. But Jesus says that we will be held accountable one day for every word we say (Matthew 12:36). It would be a shame to interpret this verse as saying that we shouldn’t ever speak, but it a charge to make sure that the words we speak are ones filled with the power and truth of the Holy Spirit in us. We have a helper to give us words, and his words are perfect, why would we not choose words in the Spirit? And yes, we will mess up, but even our words of repentance are just as powerful as saying all the right things.
Above all, let’s be people who love, are quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry with one another. If this Proverb shows us anything, is that the abundant life is seen through a life of honoring one another, living in unity, and being quick to learn the ways of righteousness.
Let’s turn away from being people who don’t know what they don’t know to people who know that we know that we know how to love God and love people.
And that’s Proverbs 17! We hope you loved it and have loved this study! For more proverbs, click HERE and check out the study as a whole.
Note from Team LO: Today is a VERY special day. It is everyone’s sister and friend and our fearless leader’s BIRTHDAY! We want to give a huge shoutout to Sadie Rob and the kind, real, incredibly loving, life-giving soul that she is. There is no one else like her so we thought: What better way to honor her today than to share with you all *23* of her original, life-changing quotes? Soak these up and comment your favorite below. Even better, head on over to insta @legitsadierob and show her some love there!
HAPPY 23rd BIRTHDAY SADE!
1. Your purpose is to love.
2. The presence of Jesus begins to remind you of your past but only so He can redeem it.
3. Here I am, God. No Limits. No Distractions. Send me.
4. If you’re waiting for peace, your peace is on the other side of that obedience.
5. Don’t be the fancy version of yourself. Just be you.
6. What God uses most often is our brokenness and our humility.
7. The number one way to fight jealousy is to be about something.
8. Dance is a universal language of freedom.
9. You’re worth a lot more than your feelings will tell you.
10. Just because we are waiting, does not mean that God isn’t working. He is preparing us for our purpose.
11. That right there, that moment when I started to think about myself less and Him more was the turning point for me, and that is probably my greatest piece of advice I could give you to walk out the calling on your life and survive the hatefulness of the world. More of him, less of you.
12. You have heard me say it before and I will say it again, you will not experience the true depth of love just by being liked or just by liking others who like you back. You will experience the depth of love when you feel known and are loved anyway, and when you love others not because of what they do for you, but because God loved them first.
13. To say that a gap needs filling is to say that from the beginning something is missing, but I’m telling you, if you’ve given your life to God, you already have all you need to fill your heart and soul; you just have to realize it. To fill a gap, you have to add something to it so that there is enough, but to fulfill something, you simply need to step into its reality.
14. You are already loved just as you are. You are already enough just as you are. You are already seen just as you are. You are already known just as you are.
15. The turning point is where everything changes. There is a path of death and a path of life. So turn in His direction, toward life.
16. Even when we see it, we can’t fully comprehend it. Because what we really have to know when we’re walking into something with God is that even though we might be able to see a little bit, his ways are higher than our ways, his thoughts are higher than our thoughts, and he is going to do exceedingly and abundantly more than we could ever dream of.
17. The words of life empower. The words of death destroy. The words of life encourage. The words of death cause people to lose heart. The words of life affirm. The words of death tear down. The words of life give hope. The words of death cause despair. The words of life are confident. The words of death are powerless. The words of life are full of hope for the future. The words of death replay the pain of the past.
18. We can place our confidence in God and truly live rooted in his never-changing love.
19. We forget that we only have the grounds perspective and a oneway track mind when it comes to getting where we are going. It is so important we remember God sees our future, all those who we cross paths with, and is considering everyone’s life plan from the sky’s perspective.
20. Take some risks. Face plant. Laugh about it.
21. Examine what’s in your heart and make sure your words align with it.
22. You will most likely have a revelation of what you feel God wants you to do before you have a realization of what He is actually going to do.
23. Love requires vulnerability, authenticity, work, and sacrifice.
Want more encouragement from Live Original? Follow us on Instagram @legitsadierob and @liveoriginal.
“Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.” – Ida B. Wells
What a few weeks it’s been. We as a team have been in prayer over the devastating events that have deeply impacted our black brothers and sisters and have grieved us all as a nation.
At the same time, we know that Jesus is in this and we KNOW he wants to show us something during this time. How to not just be about racial reconciliation in our hearts, but to also live it out. How to make love a verb.
We want that, and we know you want that too.
Team LO has sought out resources from leaders in our country that have educated us and taught us more about systemic racism in our country and world. We know that there are ENDLESS resources out there that can educate and lead us to change, but today we are just giving you 5 of the top resources that we have found to be helpful for us during this time.
Friends, put in the work. Ask God to search your heart. Pray for God to give us all the strength and desire to shatter the very dividing wall of hostility that He sent Jesus to kill roughly 2,000 years ago.
No one can make you dig into these, but we hope you’ll take it as an individual challenge to rise up, learn, and live out change.
The “Young and Scrappy” (aka Team LO) are coming to you from the blog today! We’re bringing the behind the scenes of our team to you. Each of us has our own gifts, talents, and advice that we want to share with you! We all were was asked to share the best advice they have ever been given, and a little of our story of how we ended up at Team LO.
**PLUS: Team LO has invented something called the “egg test” and had a ton of fun with it. Keep reading to find out: which egg are you?
Court (over medium egg):
Up first is our California girl, Court! The best advice she has ever received is from her dad. He shared with her, “If you are doing the Lord’s work, and you can make what you need to live, then you will be the richest person on earth.” This advice has stuck with Court as she has navigated the transitions of careers in her young adult life. Court’s dad is a very successful businessman who spent most of his life pouring into business, so for her to hear that from him, she knew it was right.
It’s a lot easier said than done to really live out the gifts that God has given us in our careers. We can get so distracted by what the world tells us is right in a career that we aren’t paying attention to what God is telling us we need in a career. It is so important to step into what God has called you to do, and he will provide.
Court has been on Team LO for three years, now. Sadie and Court had become friends before team members, and Sadie had asked Court one day, “Are you living out the dreams and skills that the Lord has given you?” Whoa. It was a hard reality when Court realized that the answer to that question was, no. She had a great career working in marketing for a university. Her degree was in marketing and this just seemed right. When she thought about the questions harder, she knew that she had a heart for college ministry and designing. But where in the world was she going to be able to find a job with both those things?
Fast forward a week, Sadie called Court and asked her to say yes to Team LO which was very unknown at the time. Court knew that though her prayers the Lord was calling her to say yes. The yes was to trust God knowing that he would provide. When you say yes even though you can’t see what’s coming, God rewards that and he has blown Court away in the way that he has provided abundantly.
She moved to Nashville with Sadie and day by day they asked God what he wanted them to do. They got a website together, started the Instagram, and truly just prayed for direction. God showed up and provided in all the small moments in friendships, the team, and creatively. Court has learned so much in creating, pursuing the Lord, and how to be a good friend and teammate.
When God is calling you to a yes, you don’t know what is on the other side of that! God is going to reward that yes.
Steph (hard boiled egg):
Next up we have our key dot connector, Steph! Her best advice also comes from her dad and that’s, “Think before you act.” It sounds simple but this has saved us all from a great deal of heartache and pain along the way. It’s so easy to fire off a quick response, but in the background hearing “think before you act” causes us all to take a step back and think about the consequences of our actions or our words if we aren’t careful.
Steph and Sadie met on a beach trip with mutual friends. Steph worked in the entertainment industry at the time and studied music business at Belmont University in Nashville. She had the perfect “dream job” working at a music label. But there was a part of her that felt a call into ministry, but she wasn’t sure what that looked like yet. Sadie later reached out to Steph and asked her to join the Live Original team as a Tour Manager. This was scary. Steph was given a choice to stay where she was and be comfortable in her “dream” job or jump into the unknown. Steph didn’t feel equipped for this job based on her skill set or personality. Praying through that was scary and the only way she said yes was because God had asked her to step into it.
Steph realized that if God is calling her, he was going to equip her. He would never call her to something that she wasn’t capable of. God reminded her that her personality type as the perfect type for this position and God developed her into the person that she was. Steph has built so much confidence in the Lord through this position. And yes, it can still be uncomfortable and scary, but every time those feelings come, God shows up. Loving the uncomfortable is so important. God brings an abundance of joy when you step into the uncomfortable that God takes us unto. He increased our faith and shows up every time.
Morgan (scrambled egg):
Now we have our scrambled egg, Morgan. Morgan’s best advice ALSO comes from her dad. Morgan lost her dad when she was 15 very suddenly and that was a very confusing time in her life and caused a lot of questioning and pain. But her dad wrote her a letter before he passed and said, “Always remember where your home is”. At the time this seemed random and Morgan was confused as to what or where her home was. Through the years, this advice has been a reminder to Morgan that we can be stripped of anything in life, but at the end of the day if we can remember where true home is, that’s always going to give us peace hope and stability. Our home is not found on this earth and is not out forever. Her dad was giving her a taste of the future. When the world is telling us that our world is found here in earthly things, we can remember that our citizenship is found in heaven. Every good gift here is a glimpse of what’s to come because we are promised so much more, which is our heavenly home.
Morgan was working in real estate before joining Team LO but got to tag along on the tour since her husband was the tour pastor. On the tour, she noticed the way that team loved and cheered each other on. Morgan felt the need to pray with Sadie and she knew that in 2019 God was going to do big things. Morgan had a burning desire to run the race with the team but kept that desire to herself because she didn’t feel equipped. Next thing you know, Sadie had asked Morgan to join the team. Morgan was not a writer at all but was asked to come on the team as someone who leads the blog and join and lead LO sister.
If you have a desire that you know aligns with what God would want, He put that there for a reason and you should go after that. She knew that it wouldn’t be her own skills that would get her thought it, but God’s. Morgan actually failed the editing test for the job. TRUE STORY. Sadie hired Morgan anyway and told Morgan, “I don’t care about the editing test because that’s not why I’m hiring you.” What Sadie conveyed to Morgan that day was that our value is not found in our performance. He is a God who shows up in our weaknesses. Are we asking God to show up in places where we would fail without him? He had to show up for Morgan or she couldn’t do the job that was being asked of her.
The common thread of each of these stories is that God is the center of all of this, and none of it would be possible without Him. Everyone said yes to LO before it was even a thing or successful. They all said yes when they had successful careers, but felt the Lord calling them to something else.
The value of each team member is in their hearts and who they are in Christ. Man looks at the outward appearance, but God does something for the heart. Everything we do as Team LO is so much bigger than who we are as individuals. It has to be God. God is bigger than anything that we could ever accomplish on our own. God is enough for all of this.
Sadie Robertson Huff is well known for her engaging smile and energetic personality, but there is a lot more to the 25-year-old star of A&E’s Duck Dynasty and runner up on ABC’s Dancing With the Stars season 19
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Sisters and friends from all over the world share their stories, advice, and encouramgent on our blog. Topics feature college advice, sisterhood, sadie’s messages and more.
Sadie Robertson Huff is well known for her engaging smile and energetic personality, but there is a lot more to the 25-year-old star of A&E’s Duck Dynasty and runner up on ABC’s Dancing With the Stars season 19
“It’s about making an effort to do what we can to love one another.”
