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Our Best Relationship Advice

Our Best Relationship Advice

Today’s a GOOD day on the blog, because I get to share a WTG episode I recorded with one of my favorite people – my husband! Christian and I get to answer some questions about relationships, faith, life, and all the things. I’m so excited to share this one with you! Let’s dive in to the DM’s!

Question 1: What were some things you did intentionally while you were waiting for each other?

There are tons of people out there waiting for their person and wondering what to do in the process. So, I thought Christian would be the perfect person to answer this one since he has great advice on the topic. Christian said prayer and building a community of guys around him were the two key elements in his season of waiting. In the season before he and I started dating, he was very intentional about spending alone time with God, and having bible study groups and prayer nights. He truly believes that time in his life prepared him for our relationship.

This same idea applies to girls as well. Find good Godly community with other girls who are seeking the same purpose! During that season in Christian’s life, he wasn’t just preparing himself for our relationship. He was becoming the man he wanted to be. He was focusing on the Lord and himself which is so important. You have to have a moment in your life when you’re focusing on who God is and who you are so that when you go into a relationship, you’re a whole person.

I love what I heard said once. They said that whenever two people become one, it’s not fifty-fifty. It’s two becoming one. And so many only have fifty percent to give because they were focusing on other things the whole time and never took the time to know yourself. But whenever both people truly know themselves and are rooted in who God is, two people becoming one make such a strong one.

Question 2: What would you tell your younger self who felt like they would never find the right person for them?

I think I would tell my younger self to just rest and wait. You don’t have to try to figure out who your person is. It’s just going to happen. When you say you have to “find love,” you’re putting a lot of pressure on yourself because if you have to find something, then you have to go searching for it. If I’d tried to “find” Christian, I genuinely don’t know if I would’ve found him because I wouldn’t have been looking where he was. I never would’ve thought my husband would be in Seaside, FL, the day I happened to be there on vacation with my friends. I’m so grateful we found each other, but the fact is that we didn’t have to search.

You just have to show up each day with a willing spirit, present yourself in such a way that you’re ready to meet your person, and be in relationship with someone. And when you show up each day like that, you’re positioning yourself in the place to be able to meet your person. I think God makes that intentionally happen. So, I don’t think we have to find our person. I believe God connects your steps to each other.

Question 3: What have you been learning from God recently?

Christian said a lot of times when he thinks about God, he thinks “Father,” “Redeemer,” all these amazing qualities of God. But it recently hit him that God is his Creator. When he prays, it’s to the One who physically created him. All his attributes were created by God. I remember looking out at the ocean on Christian’s and my honeymoon and thinking, “Wow. The God who created the ocean created me.”

And the crazy thing is that when God made the ocean, the stars, and moon, He said it was good. When we look at those things, we think they’re amazing. And then He made us, He said it was good. But when He made man and woman come together, He said it was very good. That is so humbling to think about. And when you look at God as the One who created you, you begin to feel much more confident and loved. It also pushes you to want to further that relationship.

Question 4: Does God speak to you in dreams?

My answer is yes. I would love to share one of these instances with you! Before I tell this story, I want to say that if you’ve never had a dream from the Lord before, that is not a bad thing. That does not mean God’s withholding something from you. There are incredibly spiritual people who have never felt like they had a dream from the Lord. I will say, though, it is something to pray for. I used to hear about this girl who had God dreams and I wanted them so badly. So, I started praying for them and they started happening. It’s not like I have one every night. I probably have one once every three years. The way I can tell that it’s a God dream is when there is a moment in the dream when I feel the Lord speak.

Years ago, my team and I really wanted to go to a conference. At this point, we were hosting tours and gatherings, and decided we wanted to get poured into. Well, we saw the Global Leadership Conference was being hosted in London. So, we bought our tickets as regular attendees. A couple months before we bought our tickets, I had a dream that I was in a green room, which is the room the speakers gather in before an event. In the dream, I was looking at a map of places in the world where revival had broken out in. These places were colored in. Then, Pastor Michael Todd, who I’d never met at that time, walked in the room and looked at the map and said, “This is a divine holy moment.” Right after that, we started singing the song “Set a Fire” and all got down on our knees because the presence of God felt so heavy. I woke up and wrote down the dream.

Months later, the people from the Global Leadership Conference see my name in the sign-up list and reached out asking me to do a Q&A. This was all in March. So, I get on this call with these pastors from London and Nicky and Pippa Gumbel start speaking to me. They said, “I don’t know if you know it but this is our GLOBAL Leadership Conference. So, we’ll have leaders from all over the world representing.” Then Pippa said, “That Monday night of the conference, you’ll be speaking, along with Pastor Mike Todd.” As soon as she said that, I knew it sounded familiar. Like I had lived it before. I went back to November in my book with my dreams, and read out loud to them what it said. They had chills.

Fast forward to May. We’re in the green room and they bring in a map and say, “If this is the dream you had, we’re going to pray into it.” So, we prayed over this dream that revival would happen all around the world. After Pastor Mike and I had preached, Nicky asked me to come back up and pray for an anointing on my generation like never before. The presence of God was so thick in the room and all of a sudden, Mike Todd starts singing “Set a Fire” and everyone is on their knees praising God. This was definitely one of the craziest experiences of my life, and it was undeniably because of the Lord. But when you look at the God of the Bible, God spoke in dreams all the time. So, why wouldn’t He speak to us in dreams?

Isaiah 26:9 says, “My soul yearns for you in the night; in the morning my spirit longs for you. When your judgments come upon the earth, the people of the world learn righteousness.”

It’s basically this prayer of longing to see God. Before I go to bed at night, I tell God that my spirit longs to see Him that night. I encourage you to keep a prayer journal by your bed and always write things down if you feel the Lord speaking, whether it be in a dream or any other time.

However, not every dream means something. Both Christian and I have crazy dreams that don’t necessarily mean anything. For instance, you might dream about your biggest fear, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to come true. I dream about losing Christian, but that doesn’t mean I actually will. I have to remind myself not to panic. I don’t think God speaks in fear. We need to have the wisdom to discern what is significant and what’s not.

Question 5: If I want to break a bad habit, where do I start and how do I do that practically?

I used to have the bad habit of being sensitive. My mom used to call me “Sensitive Sally” because it was so extreme. This habit drove me crazy. If someone looked at me wrong or said the wrong thing to me, I would be convinced that they didn’t like me. And I would get so upset about it. I feel like I grew out of that by making the conscious decision to grow thicker skin. Thank God I broke that habit because if I heard all the opinions I get from people now and was still as sensitive as I used to be, it would be terrible.

Let me say this to the person who is sensitive or anxious, you actually can control you. At the end of the day, you are the only person who can choose to change you. So, if there’s something about you that bothers you, fix it. Don’t stay in it. Ask God to help you in doing so.

As far as sinful habits go, Christian had a great take on handling them. He said that at some point, you have to lean into your conviction. And if you’re truly a follower of Christ, you should have conviction.

Hebrews 10:26 says, “If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left.”

Christian went on to say that though we still struggle with things and battle sin, there’s a difference between habitually sinning and turning from sin. However, if we do sin, we have one as an advocate for us.

“My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One.” (1 John 2:1)

I asked Christian to address one of the biggest struggles in our generation: pornography. I know his friend group had an incredible breakthrough from this and I wanted him to share. He started by talking about his friend group in college. Week after week, we would ask for prayer over our struggle with pornography and lust. Finally, after a few months, we all asked, “What are we actually going to do about any of this?” We took the initiative to actually do something about it. We began to hold each other accountable and slowly watched each other’s struggles deteriorate. If you struggle with something and don’t make a change, you can get comfortable in it. But the moment you decide to make a change and repent, everything shifts.

For people listening, I think there’s a couple takeaways from Christian’s experience:

  1. They held each other accountable as a group. They didn’t try to do it alone.
  2. They actually did things to help them stop. It wasn’t just a weekly check-in. They were intentional about holding each other accountable. And they hung out so much as a group.

If you’re walking through something right now that is a sinful habit, I encourage you to get with someone dealing with the same thing and decide today that it will no longer be a struggle. Yes, it is going to try to fight, but y’all will be fighting back. That doesn’t mean that you won’t mess up every now and then, but it is saying that you’re not going to let it own your life. Practice the things you have to put in to play to make sure it goes away. Because when you are fighting a giant like that, you have to know how to fight back.

I pray all this advice speaks to you and meets you where you’re at, friend! xoxo, Sadie

The Truth vs. My Truth

The Truth vs. My Truth

Friend, I’m so excited to share my message from Jennie Allen’s women’s conference, IF:Gathering 2022, with you! This message is so needed in our world today and I encourage you to watch the full version here 🙂

 

Jennie actually asked me to preach on a specific topic. She asked me to preach on the difference between my truth and God’s truth. That’s a big topic. And if you’re in the Millennial or Gen Z day in age, you know that’s a really big battle that we’re facing. You see everywhere, “live your truth.” Literally, Christian and I were in LA recently and there was a huge billboard that said, “We the youth, live your truth!” It’s everywhere. This message is parading saying your truth will set you free and it’s the best way to live. But friend, I’m here to tell you that is a lie.

I want to start by giving some background on what this generation is believing when it comes to “your truth.” Urban Dictionary is a database where the most liked definition of a term becomes the proposed definition. So, here’s what Urban Dictionary says “my truth” is:

“A non-negotiable personal opinion. This is a convenient phrase for avoiding arguments because people can contradict your opinion, but not your truth.”

That’s actually kind of scary because there’s a generation that can put “my truth” behind whatever they’re feeling in a moment. And as long as it’s their truth, you can’t argue it. Used to, it seemed like the truth was pretty straight forward. We almost all knew that telling someone the truth was the most loving thing you could do. Like, if someone sitting across from me at lunch has a giant spinach leaf in their teeth, the best thing you could do in that moment is to tell that person that they have spinach in their teeth. It may be awkward, but it’s loving.

But nowadays it gets really tricky because you could literally tell someone they have spinach in their teeth and they could say, “No I don’t.” And they would stand strong to that statement because it’s their truth. Circumstances like this can get you questioning what actually is true.

What’s really difficult is when nothing is true, then what is love? What is freedom? What is anything if we don’t have a foundation of truth? It seems like this is a problem that just our generation is facing, but this has been around for a very long time, even back in Jesus’ day.

In John chapter 18, Jesus is talking to Pilate because at this point in the story, the Jews were so fed up with Jesus. He was challenging everything they believed and they were ready to get rid of Him. Since they wouldn’t kill people, they thought that if they made Jesus look bad enough to the Romans, they might crucify Him. So they turn Him in and Jesus begins having this conversation with Pilate when the truth becomes super confusing. Here’s how the conversation goes:

“Am I a Jew?” Pilate replied. “Your own people and chief priests handed you over to me. What is it you have done?”

Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.”

“You are a king, then!” said Pilate. Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”

“What is truth?” retorted Pilate.” (John 18:35-38)

You see, this question dates all the way back to when Pilate asks Jesus, “what is truth?” Pilate had to have felt like the truth was so confusing because the Jews were saying one thing about Jesus and Jesus was claiming another. After this moment, Pilate goes away and tells the Jews he finds no guilt in Jesus. He begins claiming his own truth.

“With this he went out again to the Jews gathered there and said, “I find no basis for a charge against him. But it is your custom for me to release to you one prisoner at the time of the Passover. Do you want me to release ‘the king of the Jews’?”

They shouted back, “No, not him! Give us Barabbas!” Now Barabbas had taken part in an uprising.” (John 18:38-40)

Barabbas was a robber. This sounds crazy, right? Here Jesus is, healing the sick, making the blind see, feeding the 5,000, and Pilate doesn’t personally see any Guilt in Him. And the people still chose Barabbas. That’s what happens when you don’t have a foundation of truth. Whatever the majority says is true becomes true to you. Pilate knew there was nothing wrong with Jesus. But because the crowd said, “Give us Barabbas,” the truth changed. We live in a generation that allows the majority to rule. Whatever Instagram, Tiktok, or the news says is the truth. We don’t even need to fact check it. If everyone says it’s true, then it must be true.

Proverbs 12:15 says this:

The way of fools seems right to them, but the wise listen to advice.”

I don’t want to be a generation of fools thinking our truth is the right truth. Just like when the people wanted to release Barabbas, a criminal who was actually dangerous, it didn’t make sense. Your truth is not really concerned with what makes sense or what’s better in the long run. Your truth is always going to seek what is the most comfortable thing in the moment. And Jesus made them so uncomfortable. Your truth allows you to stay the same. THE truth requires change. It requires repentance and a heart shift toward Him.

“So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:31-32)

When I was preparing for this message, I couldn’t remember where that passage was in scripture. So I googled, “Where is the verse when Jesus said, ‘and the truth will set you free’?” The first thing that popped up said, “Who said the truth will set you free?” And it showed a list of people who have said this great line. Along with all these names was Jesus.

As I was reading this, I realized that’s the problem. That sentence is not true for anyone to say but Jesus. And do you know why it’s true when Jesus said it? It’s because when He said, “You will know the truth and the truth will set you free,” He was literally talking about Himself. He knew that He holds the power beyond the grave. He knew He would resurrect from the dead to life. So, that’s actually true for Him to say.

His truth actually will set you free. Now, if I say that MY truth will set you free, it holds no power. It’s not true. Here’s a reminder that may seem obvious but I think we forget sometimes. The reason why the truth is powerful is because it’s true.

I want to mention something that Christian often says to me. He says I’m the most beautiful girl in the world. While this really is so sweet, deep down, the practical side of me thinks that that’s just not true. I know that sounds a bit silly, but I’ve seen some gorgeous women in this world. But what’s so powerful to me is when he says, “I love you.” I love this because I know it’s true. Even after all that we’ve been through together, he loves me. And the fact that that is true makes it so powerful.

We have a generation that would rather be puffed up than set free. They’d rather be told they’re the most beautiful girl in the world than “I love you.” They’d rather be told the thing that makes them feel the most god-like than be completely loved by God. But being loved by God is so much more powerful than any moment of power that you could ever feel.

I was on Instagram one day, and this whole idea of my truth vs. the truth is stuck in my head when I scroll past one of my favorite influencer’s post. I follow her simply because I like her clothes. There’s no real spiritual tie there, just to clarify. She began talking about Wonder Woman. And for those of you who don’t know, that’s my favorite movie.

So, I click to the next slide and begins talking about how thankful she is that women have a heroic figure like her to look up to because little boys have had these their whole life. Superman, Spider Man, Black Panther. Then I click to the next slide and she says, “All of this got me thinking that maybe that’s why I don’t relate to God, because He’s a man. That’s probably why it’s never worked for me. So I heard someone talking about a woman version of God and I started praying to her. It’s been so empowering for me and my daughters.”

I sat back and thought about how tricky situations like that can get. Because she had me with Wonder Woman and the idea of her being an inspiration. But it got tricky when she took it to her relationship with God. See, if I didn’t have ears to discern the truth, it would have been easy for me to look at my own self and wonder if the same concept would work for me.

Then I clicked a few slides further and someone asked where she found that concept in scripture, and she literally said, “I actually haven’t. But if you find it, let me know.” There was no fact checking that took place to support her argument. But once again, the truth is powerful because the truth is true. Prayer is powerful because there is a real God in heaven who I am praying to. And yes, I call Him my Father. But that doesn’t mean I can’t relate to Him. He’s the one who knit me together in my mother’s womb and made me in His image.

Here’s the thing. Praying for your own empowerment won’t get you anywhere. It won’t stop the war going on and it won’t heal the sick. We have to pray for the power of God.

The enemy plays a game with us every day that we all know. Two truths and a lie. We played that game last year actually. We went out in Atlanta and asked a girl these questions:

  1. The “a” in Chick-fil-A stands for grade A meat.
  2. Chick-fil-A is closed on Sundays.
  3. Chick-fil-A only uses born again chickens.

Y’all. She chose the first one. She legitimately chose the third one to be truth. What?! That’s hilarious now. But why did number 3 seem true? It’s because it was a lie mixed in with the truth. The enemy plays this same game with us. He says, “Oh you overslept this morning? True.” “Oh you’re not where you want to be in life? True.” “You’re worthless.” All of a sudden that lie seems true because the other two were true.

Let me tell you another thing the enemy does. He says, “Oh, you love your best friend. Your best friend’s beautiful. You’re attracted to your best friend.” And you think, “Wait a second. Is that true? Because the other two things were true, so maybe that means this its true.” When we’re not rooted in a foundation of truth, we begin to search those lies and see if they might be true so that we can be free. But we don’t stop long enough to say, “I find my true freedom in you, Jesus. You are the way, the truth, the life. I’m following You to get to everything my heart desires, which is God.” He is love, truth and power.

We look at the story of Jesus and Barabbas and wonder why they picked Barabbas. Well my question is, why do we choose Barabbas? Barabbas was known for three things. He was a murdered, a robber, and a rebel. These sound a lot like steal, kill, and destroy. The same characteristics of the father of lies.

You see, in life there will be a daily choice to hear the voice of truth or the lies of the enemy. Because the truth is we have a Savior and an enemy. Don’t choose Barabbas just because it’s more comfortable in a moment. Choose Jesus, because although it requires change from the inside out, it is purifying you in such a way that you can stand before a holy God blameless and truly feel the power of what freedom really is.

God Still Loves You

God Still Loves You

Friend, today. is. the. DAY. Who Are You Following? is out now! That feels so surreal to say. I can not wait for this message to get into your hands! As you flip through the pages, I sincerely pray that this book helps you navigate through some of the challenges we face with social media and leads you to the heart of Jesus! If you want to go through the book with me, be sure to grab your copy HERE and join the book club group inside the LO sister app
Now, I want to share an excerpt from chapter 8 with you!
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“Are you that duck girl?” That question used to reallllly get to me. Sometimes I would simply reply yes, because I obviously knew what they meant, but I have to admit there were times I said no. I even would tell the pastors at churches where I was speaking not to say anything about Duck Commander or Duck Dynasty when they introduced me, not because I wasn’t proud of it, but because it seemed like that was the only thing people knew about me. I was trying to start something new, like ministry, speaking, and writing, but it felt like I was just stuck being “that duck girl.” I did not want to be known just for what I had done; I wanted to be known for who I was.

The struggle between who we were and who we are is a tension that many of us know well. It can be difficult to let go of our past and how we used to be known to others, whether it involves positive or negative experiences or a little bit of both. It can feel hard to be confident and worthy of stepping forward in a new way—especially in the age of social media, where it seems our past is never far behind.

We live in a time when everything is posted for everyone to see. Most posts are fun and filled with good memories, but some are meant to hurt or embarrass others. And some posts show people in situations they never should have been in. Mistakes, misjudgments, and moments of weakness and rebellion live forever online, preserving our lowest moments. I have had friends whose reputations were clouded because of posts from a not-sogood past—not only others’ posts about them but their own posts when they were living a wilder life. Girls have told me how they weren’t accepted into a sorority or they didn’t land their dream job because of damaging posts, texts, or tweets from years past that have stayed with them.

It can be difficult to convince those around you that you’ve changed. I’ve talked to people who have turned their lives around only to struggle with others accepting their new life choices. It is tough when you get past the hardest part of forgiving yourself and then have to face the people who want to remind you of what you did. I’ve seen people gripped by fear that pictures they sent or words they posted online will come to the surface one day and they will be humiliated. That shame about who they used to be often keeps people from becoming who they are meant to be.

When we hang on to the past, we get stuck where we are instead of moving forward to where we’re going. Whether we do it to ourselves or it’s pushed on us by others, it’s unfair that online records force some of our worst moments to relentlessly haunt us. But just because life happened and the pictures show something from our past doesn’t mean we have to stay stuck. There is a way for us to let go of past mistakes and transgressions, and that way is with Jesus.

Paul, a man who had a bad past himself, put so plainly why we can and need to move forward and not stay stuck where we are or where we were: “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:1–4 esv)

The question then becomes, How do I become who I am when everyone knows me for what I did or who I was? I’ve heard this so many times, and I’ve even lived the story.

When Christian and I started dating, we talked about Jesus all the time. We shared podcasts with inspirational messages, Bible passages we were reading, the latest worship song we loved, and anything and everything Jesus was doing in our lives. That was naturally how our relationship formed because that was who we both were and what we both talked about.

Christian and I formed this relationship based on who we were at that time. This was the only version of Christian I knew because of who he was when we met and who he consistently was as we started dating. He and I didn’t grow up in the same place; we did not meet until he was going into his junior year of college and I was living in Nashville. I didn’t know Christian’s past and he didn’t know mine. I never knew who he used to be and he didn’t know who I used to be before we each drew close to Jesus. And it turns out, Christian was pretty wild in high school and lived a very different life than the one he lived by the time I met him.

After he graduated high school, Christian went on to college and his first semester was also pretty wild. Just your stereotypical college start. One night at a party, Christian was shotgunning beers on a balcony, and this guy walked up to him and said, “I thought you didn’t drink!” The guy said this because Christian had joined his fraternity saying he was a dry pledge, even though he did drink—he just knew it was something he probably should not have been doing. But that night, on the balcony of his frat house, he looked at the guy and said, “You’re right. I don’t drink.” In that moment he realized that what he was doing was not aligning with who he wanted to become.

Christian walked two miles home that night in the rain. He got back to his dorm, got on his knees, and prayed to God. After that, he turned his whole life around. He got involved with the church and started serving, and he made this amazing group of friends who shared and supported his values. They even started a Bible study on campus that very quickly grew to have more than one hundred guys! He totally changed. It’s pretty incredible. Really, it’s a miracle. It’s one the Bible says will happen when you give your life to Jesus.

Even though Christian had become this new creation and was on fire for God when we met, I started to notice that some “past posts” were still making him feel the need to hide. When Christian would go home, he felt as though his family all knew him as his high-school self because that was the last version of him they’d seen. They didn’t know the man he had become. He tended to revert back to the same attitude he had in high school when he was around people who knew that former version of him. He really struggled with going back to the place that held so much of the past that he was not proud of. He wanted to be who he was, but pressing past the past is hard. He wondered, How do I press past who they knew me to be and show them who I actually am now?

Now, I didn’t know any of this during our first visit with his family—so that made for some weird moments. When I casually brought up Christian’s relationship with Jesus in front of his family, I noticed he didn’t want to talk about it. I thought it was super strange he was being so evasive and awkward, because with me he was always so open and confident about it.

The funny thing is, all his family members are believers who love Jesus and love Christian. But the enemy has a way of making you feel stuck. And as long as he can keep you stuck in who you used to be, he does not have to worry about the miracle you have become.

I encouraged Christian to share his story with his family. Part of his hesitation, though, was that telling them how far he had come would expose the whole truth of who he was before. His family had never known just how wild he had been, and it would be hard for him to tell them. But he did it anyway. He finally told his parents all about how he used to live and what had changed for him when he got to college. He shared that he was on fire for the Lord.

Of course, his parents were so proud of him. They are such loving parents. The honest conversation created a freedom with his family to talk openly about what God was doing in his life and to be proud of where he was.

You might feel caught in that same situation. When we are becoming someone new and feel God doing something in our lives, we need to fully step into it. And yet too often we fear that people are going to hold us in that place where we started, so we end up holding ourselves captive there and don’t let ourselves actually be free. Christian had to let go of who he had been to fully step into who he was becoming.

The Bible says when you die with Christ, when you’re baptized, or whenever you give your life to Jesus, the old self is gone and a new self has come (2 Corinthians 5:17). “We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4 esv).

Baptism symbolizes that you are burying your old self and are washed clean under Jesus’ blood, and when you come back up you are new. You are no longer the version of you that people used to know. You’re starting a new life. When Christian gave his life to Jesus, he was letting go of his old self and becoming someone new. So, of course, he was going to act differently than he used to. That’s how it should be. That is the power of the gospel. Christian experienced exactly what the Bible describes: he became new.

I have heard people comment that God does not seem to perform miracles like He did in biblical times. Many in today’s culture question if God is even capable of performing miracles. Maybe that comes from not seeing any of them for themselves. Maybe that comes from never asking for a miracle. Or maybe they did ask once, and God did not provide the miracle they were expecting, and they are upset because they don’t understand why.

Regardless of where you stand on God being a miracle working God, I have to say that I believe with my whole heart that He was and still is because I have seen it. And no, I have not seen a mountain physically move, but when someone goes from old to new and from dead to alive, that is a miracle.

Jesus gives us the opportunity to embrace Him in His death and resurrection and become a new self. Don’t doubt that this miracle can happen for you. You get to walk with Jesus and live a better life.

What Are You Seeking?

What Are You Seeking?

Hey friend! Excited to share with you an excerpt from chapter two of my new book, Who Are You Following?, available for pre-order now! I can’t wait to walk through this book with my friends in the LO sister app, and I would LOVE for you to join me in doing so! Join the book club group inside LO sis today 🙂

In the Bible Jesus’ disciples knew exactly who they were looking for, and when they found Him, they stopped “scrolling” and dropped everything to follow Him. That seems like a wild concept: to be able to just drop your plans in life and follow someone you have never met. But many of us do that all the time without even realizing it. We follow people on social media that we have never met and will most likely never meet, and we begin to change things about ourselves without even realizing we are doing it.

It might not happen overnight, but in time you will start to look like who you follow. You can’t help it. The first time I saw bike shorts, I looked at a friend and said, “I’ll never wear those.” It’s now two years later, and I have three pairs. Have you ever noticed how friend groups all start looking alike? It’s incredible how fast a trend can take hold.

Many of these things are just silly, like fashions, dance moves, or even phrases that come and go, so what’s the worry? We may not be really changing our lives, but this shifting of our values— the things that we once said we would never do and now find ourselves doing—can happen on a deeper level. Maybe it was a thought shift from caring about who God says you are to caring more about who people say you are. Or maybe it was a priority shift from putting others first to only caring about yourself and doing what makes you the happiest. We are all being moved and shaped by the people we follow in much more important things: our beliefs, our morals, our values.

Now, back to the disciples. Let’s read John 1:35–41 to understand why they decided to follow Jesus the moment they saw Him.

“John was standing with two of his disciples, and he looked at Jesus as he walked by and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!” The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. Jesus turned and saw them following and said to them, “What are you seeking?” And they said to him, “Rabbi” (which means Teacher), “where are you staying?” He said to them, “Come and you will see.” So they came and saw where he was staying, and they stayed with him that day, for it was about the tenth hour. One of the two who heard John speak and followed Jesus was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. He first found his own brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah.” (esv, emphasis added)

A little backstory so that we can understand the gravity of this moment: For hundreds of years there were prophecies that a Messiah was coming. At this point in history, John the Baptist had been out in the wilderness preaching about the coming Messiah. There were many people who believed and were waiting for the prophecies to be fulfilled. So on this day, when they heard John say that Jesus was the one they’d been waiting for, they asked Jesus where He was staying and immediately followed Him.

Now that you know the context, you can understand why, when Jesus asked them, “What are you seeking?” they didn’t answer with, “We don’t know.” Instead, they said, “We have found the Messiah.” They’d finally found what they were looking for. So they dropped everything they were doing and began to follow Him wherever He was going.

I love how immediately after gaining this following, Jesus turned and asked, “What are you seeking?” He gave them a moment to reflect on their intentions. He sought to make sure that they weren’t just aimlessly following someone because they heard it was cool or because they just thought He seemed legit. They were able to commit to following Him because He was who they were looking for, and they knew He was leading in the direction they wanted to go.

We need to be more intentional about what we are looking for so that we can be intentional about who we begin to follow. This is true not just on social media but also in our real-life relationships, including future friends, spouses, mentors, or work associates. If you do not know what you’re looking for in a future spouse, you will end up in situations you never imagined yourself in. If you don’t know the kind of person you want to be friends with, you may join friend groups that lead you away from your desired version of yourself. If you don’t know the job you want, you may sign up for whatever opportunity comes your way, even if it’s not helping you move toward your goals. The disciples set the best example for us because they knew what they wanted and where they wanted to go—and so the second they saw Jesus, they dropped everything else and started following Him.

Matthew 6:33 says, “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (esv). Notice that the verse does not just say to seek the kingdom, but to seek the kingdom first. Many of us may have Jesus on our list of things we are following, but if we are honest, He is nowhere near first place in our searching, and then we wonder why we don’t experience the goodness of His love and the life that He has for us. We want the blessing of Jesus, but we don’t want the commitment of following Him. This verse tells us all these things will be added to us if we seek Him first. So it’s as simple as can be: if you seek God, you will find the things of God. Whatever you seek you are going to find, so the question of “What are you seeking?” might be the most important one to answer.

What Are You Seeking?

Influencer’s Superpower

I am SO excited to share this excerpt from my new book, Who Are You Following?, available for pre-order now! I pray this encourages you and meets you where you’re at, friend!

I remember as a kid not being happy about being told to follow someone I didn’t deem worthy of being a leader. In elementary school our class had a special role assigned each week, the job of line leader. You didn’t have to do anything to get this leadership position; you just waited for your turn in alphabetical order. This meant that even the worst kid in the class was going to be the line leader at some point, which meant that you were going to have to follow him. There was even a song: “We’re following the leader, the leader, the leader. We’re following the leader, wherever he may go.” Following the line leader really bothered me. Even then I was aware of and thinking about who I was following and whether they were leading me in the right direction.

Or maybe your teachers assigned someone to “watch the class” while they were out of the room. Wasn’t it the worst when they assigned someone you knew wasn’t worthy of that role? The kid who was always causing trouble when the teacher wasn’t looking was suddenly the one “in charge.”

As an adult I’ve looked in the mirror and asked myself, Was I more bothered by who I was following and where they were taking me when I was a kid than I am now, when it matters more? My answer? Yes.

Be honest with yourself. I don’t think I’m the only one who would answer that question with a yes.

It’s easy to follow someone during their ten minutes of fame—the person with the biggest viral videos on TikTok, the trending “it” couple on Instagram, the reality star with the most dramatic scene of the week. Recently I heard someone say they think TikTok is the worst thing for our generation and they’d never let their own kid have it, yet they use it for their own entertainment. Don’t get me wrong. There’s nothing wrong with entertainment, but when we admit that this form of entertainment is “the worst thing for our generation,” we must be ready to ask ourselves, “Is this the way I should be entertaining myself?”

I, too, scroll through certain social media platforms more than I realize, more than I plan to. Especially when I look up and thirty minutes or an hour—time I’ll never get back—is gone. But the real question is, Who do we really want to follow? Especially when we realize that who we are following is influencing us and the way we live our lives.

Most of us don’t even realize the power that others’ influence has over us. If you’ve purchased something from a swipe-up link on Instagram, you’ve been influenced. If you’ve looked in the mirror and felt a little differently about your beautiful body after seeing perfect (and likely edited) bikini photos online, you’ve been influenced. You’ve been influenced if you can’t figure out why you’re lonely, why you’re insecure, why you struggle so much with confidence, and why you’re not finding the relationships you want to be in. At some point, you might even realize the power of influence when suddenly you’re looking in the mirror at a stranger.

The term influencer is a new one. It was just added to Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary in 2019. When social media began, it didn’t take long before companies started realizing that people were actually following what others online were doing, wearing, and using. So they tapped them to advertise their products. There is nothing wrong with this; I think it just highlights a fact that we can’t ignore: we are being influenced on social media. It’s literally in people’s job titles.

Not all social media influence is bad influence. Many of you probably heard about this book from social media. Maybe you watched a sermon online that changed your life. Maybe you met your spouse on social media! Social media is what we make it. I am merely pointing out that overall, the influence social media has had on our lives is negative. We can blame tech companies all day long, but I say this is our problem to fix.

The dirty little secret of social media is that we are often following people who don’t have a clear direction in life and may or may not really know who they are. So how in the world could we expect them to help us find who we are? Those women online with seemingly perfect bodies, the people in perfect relationships, and the perfect moms with angelic children? They are struggling with the same things we are, because they are human and have the same twenty-four hours in a day that we all do. In fact, there are times people even seem to view me like that. I get comments on my posts that say, “It must be nice to not have problems like xyz.” But the fact is, I totally have those everyday problems. I just don’t share them on social media.

When you follow the wrong directions on a map, you end up lost. When you follow the wrong influences in your life, you will find yourself in that very same position—lost. There is no sense wasting our lives searching in all the wrong directions when there is a clear direction for all the things we desire in life.

So how do we follow the right path in life?

Matthew 7:7–8 says, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.” Friend, I want you to have your own direction in life. Let’s spend some time together asking, seeking, and knocking.

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