“Hi. Is this Madison? We were wondering if you were still interested in being on this next season of The Bachelor.”

I stepped off the treadmill. At first I thought they had the wrong Madison. I thought, “Wait! I didn’t apply for The Bachelor. How in the world did they get my informat—.” Then it hit me. The girls from my small group had applied me without telling me! “What do I say now?” I wanted to be respectful.

She spoke up again, “Hello? Madison, can you hear me?”

I quickly assured her, “Yes, I am still here! I just wasn’t expecting this at all. Can you email me some more details? I will think about it.”

Truth is, I did not intend to think about it. I already knew my answer to that question. Going on the show wouldn’t make sense for me. I immediately called my mom thinking she would agree with me that I should say no, but she insisted that I shouldn’t close the door without taking some time to think and pray about it. In the background I could hear my sister Mallory running around, screaming, “This is so cool! Madi, you have to do it!”

I tried not to think about it, but I couldn’t stop. The decision was constantly on my mind. I wanted to treat this opportunity like it wasn’t a big deal, but deep down inside I was freaking out and wanted to tell all my best friends about it! As I continued to pray about it, I had enough peace to at least begin the process.

Throughout the interview process, my family and I prayed about what I should do. We continued to receive peace at each step. I prayed day and night for months. I dedicated twenty-one days to prayer, with the intent of getting the answer I needed. I asked seven people—my closest friends, family, and mentors—to stand with me in prayer for direction, clarity, and wisdom on what to do. Throughout those twenty-one days, the peace, signs, and words God gave me left me without a doubt. I knew what I was supposed to do.

On day twenty-one of prayer, I broke down in tears. “God, I feel this is where you are leading me, but I’m scared. I’m terrified. I don’t know if I can do it.” As I finished praying, my pastor came up to me, and without knowing any details of what was truly going on and what I was praying for, he looked at me and said with confidence, “Whatever you are praying for, I just want you to know I am confident that you can do it and you have people around you who believe in you.” It was the exact affirmation I needed to hear in that moment. I felt a peace come over me that I will never be able to put into words. I knew in that moment that if they called to ask me to be an official contestant, I wouldn’t be confused, doubtful, or uncertain; I would know exactly how to respond: with a surprising yes.

Saying yes to The Bachelor, or rather saying yes to the unfamiliar and uncomfortable, didn’t come easily. Saying yes came from a place of trust and peace. I trusted that this was where God was leading me. And I was choosing to walk in courage, even though every voice around me (and even inside me) was fearful of what could happen.

Like the person who is “it” in a game of hide and seek, these defining moments in our lives call out to us, “Ready or not, here I come.” My guess is that your instinct is to yell back, “Not ready! Definitely not ready! Give me a minute to find a better hiding place.” This was what I wanted to say so badly, but God was leading me out into the wide open.

Maybe, like me, you have been called to step up to the plate or called to a task that you don’t feel fit for or good enough for. Maybe you have experienced so many disappointments that you fear to hope and dream again. Instead, you play it safe so that you don’t get hurt and you don’t hurt anyone else. Maybe you have been in a moment that demanded courage, but you didn’t rise up because you were too worried about what other people would think. I get it.  I have been there too. And let me make it clear: I’m not perfect and don’t have all the answers, but I have learned courage through mistakes, failure, heartbreak, loss, pain, and a lot of pressure.

I’ve learned the power of preparation and the importance of the process. I’ve had to learn how to break free from my past to be able to step into my potential. I have had to step into the unknown, just trusting the peace I felt. I had to step into a situation that required courage, letting go of my personal dreams and expectations. But courage didn’t just come out of nowhere. It was built through years of failure, disappointments, and fears. It was built when no one was around.

I have learned that how you prepare in the private will determine how you perform in the public. In unseen moments, waiting moments, and painful moments, you are preparing for the moments that will shape the course of your life. This is where growth happens – hidden away from the spotlight. It’s in the long days of waiting that character is forged. It is in these moments when pain turns to strength and endurance.

Madison earned her Bachelor of Science in Communications from Auburn University in 2018 and earned her certificate in ministry in Pastoral Leadership through Highlands College in 2018. Madison started her career working as a Foster Parent Recruiter in Birmingham, Alabama in 2019, where she recruited and trained Foster Parents in the Foster Care System. In 2020, Madison was a finalist on Season 24 of ABC’s The Bachelor. After making it to the very end with the bachelor, they both agreed to go their separate ways a few days after the show ended. Madison has been involved in many outreach programs, including: Adullam House, Sozo Children, Orphanage Emmanuel, Haddie’s Home, Big House Foundation, LA Dream Center and Auburn Dream Center. Madison describes herself as extroverted, passionate, and strong. She thrives most when she is being challenged by others and when she is also able to challenge those around her. She travels nationally as a speaker and an author with a growing platform as a social media influencer.

“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 am one of those nosey women who can’t help but match her single friends. When I see two people, both of whom love Jesus, both of whom like pizza, science podcasts, and hikes (both of whom I love) obviously they should be together forever and have babies and go on vacation with my husband and I.  

If you are a single person I love, I apologize in advance. 

Though I have matched many a couple, my matches are usually failures. I tell myself this is because I’m matching young people, and young people are picky and stubborn. Whatever the reason for my failed attempts, I’ve learned my lesson: no matter how much I want two people to be together, I can’t make them fall in love. No one can.  

At least that’s the conventional wisdom—that love happens to us, that falling in love is all chance and chemistry and feelings and sparks, unpredictable and impossible to engineer. 

Maybe. Or maybe not. 

About 20 years ago, psychologist Dr. Arthur Aron conducted a study in which he attempted to prove that falling in love is a scientifically predictable process. After years of research Aron both identified the conditions for falling in love and proposed a prescriptive path for it. Aron said that under the right conditions you could make almost any heterosexual man and woman fall in love, assuming they were open to it.  

Here was his strategy: A man and woman enter Aron’s lab through separate doors. They sit face to face and answer a series of increasingly intimate questions. When the questions are done, they stare at one another silently for four minutes.  

That’s it. The whole experiment takes 90 minutes.  

Six months after one of these encounters two study participants were married. They invited all the lab-workers to the ceremony. 

In an article for The New York Times’ “Modern Love” column, author Mandy Len Catron writes about her experience trying out Aron’s method. She says, “Most of us think about love as something that happens to us. We fall. We get crushed. But what I like about this study is how it assumes that love is an action.”  She says about the story of the night she tried out Aron’s questions (the night she fell in love): “It’s about what it means to bother to know someone, which is really a story about what it means to be known.” 

What does it take to fall in love? According to Dr, Aron, attention. It takes bothering to know someone. It takes listening, welcoming another person’s vulnerability. It takes you investing in seeing someone exactly as they are.  

There’s this line in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Juliet’s mom tells her there’s going to be an eligible bachelor at the party she’s hosting. Juliet tells her mom, “I’ll look to like, if looking liking move.” In other words, “I’ll look, and if I like what I see—I’m in.” 

This is the principle at work in Aron’s study—looking to like or looking to love. When we’re willing to entertain the possibility of love, and when we’re devoted to looking at the person across the table, love comes rather easily.  

Especially when the person across the table isn’t a person.  

– 

Nobody in the Bible loves God quite like David does. That is my entirely biased but not entirely unfounded opinion. I know David did some terrible things. He had sex with Bathsheba. He killed a man. He did both those things, and he loved God very much. 

I know he loved God partly because he said so. Often. In love songs.  

Over and over, in 73 different songs, David wrote about “my God,” “my Lord,” “my Refuge,” “my Rock,” “my Savior,” and “my Redeemer.” 

Why all the “my”s? Think of your “my”s: my fiance, my mom, my friend. “My” means relationship, proximity, intimacy.  

Like a teenage boy with a girl he can’t stop thinking about, David sees God everywhere he looks. He sees God when he looks at the sky, “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the expanse proclaims the work of his hands” (Psalm 19:1). He sees God at work: “With you I can attack a barricade, and with my God I can leap over a wall” (Psalm 18:29). He sees God in victory, “The Lord gives victory to his anointed” (Psalm 20:6). He sees God in the dark, “Lord, you light my lamp; my God illuminates my darkness.” (Psalm 18:28) 

 When God delivered him from the hand of Saul, what were David’s first words? “I love you, Lord, my strength” (Psalm 18:1). 

 How did David come to love God like that? Lots of ways I bet—a family heritage of faith, shared adventures—but one way sticks out. David fell in love with God so deeply, because David spent so much time looking at His face. He writes in Psalm 27, “I have asked one thing from the Lord; it is what I desire: to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, gazing on the beauty of the Lord and seeking him in his temple” (27:4) 

David looked to love. 

– 

How do we look to love God–this God who’s sometimes hard to see? Lots of ways, but one of the easiest ways is in Scripture. 

In his work For Self-Examination, Søren Kierkegaard writes about reading the Bible: 

Think of a lover who has now received a letter from his beloved as precious as this letter is to the lover, just so precious to thee, I assume, is God’s Word; in the way the lover reads this letter, just so, I assume, dost thou read God’s Word and conceive that God’s Word ought to be read. 

Kierkegaard says this is the only way to truly read God’s Word—as if the one you love most has revealed his heart and asked for your active love in return.

It’s oversimplifying things to say the Bible is a love letter, full stop. But the Bible is a love letter. In fact, that’s perhaps the most true thing we could say about God’s book. When I read the Bible I see a God quick to love, eager to be loved, and fully devoted to making himself known. 

When I first considered the list of probing questions from Dr. Aron’s study on falling in love, I thought of God and the ways he’s made himself vulnerable in scripture. In the Bible God reveals the details of his past relationships—who he’s loved, who loved him back, who didn’t, how they hurt him, how it felt. In the Bible God shows us what he’s proud of, the things he’s made, the truths he holds most dear. He tells us what he wants for the future. He tells us what disappoints him and what breaks his heart.

On every page of the Bible God yells and beckons and sings and whispers, “Look at me. Love me.”

If you want to love God (if you want to accept his proposal and receive the abundant life that grows in the soil of your love for him), you need to spend more time looking at him. And since he’s not sitting on your couch or meeting you for coffee, that largely means reading the love letter, listening to his answers to the questions, learning who he is and what he cares about. 

God is willing to be seen. He wants it. He wrote a whole book (books really) to help you know him better. God knows it’s hard to love someone you can’t see or touch. I think he’s hoping the Book will help.

We need to read it. And when we read it, we need to look to love. 

Excerpt adapted from JL’s new book, Look to Love: A Better Way to Read the Bible

JL Gerhardt is an author and Bible teacher. Her latest book is Look to Love: A Better Way to Read the Bible. She and her family are currently traveling the globe, seeking God’s face on new continents. Keep up with JL on Instagram @jl.gerhardt! 

About a decade ago, I started memorizing Scripture with a friend of mine who battles depression. I got frustrated one day when I was sitting across from her because I realized that there were so many lies she was believing. Then I realized there were so many lies I was believing, and that there is an enemy who is called the father of lies, who LOVES to distract us from the truth. All of the sudden, it dawned on me that it wasn’t enough for us to just acknowledge the lies that we so often believe. We desperately needed to ground ourselves in something stronger: the truth. So we started committing God’s Word to memory and called these verses our “Fighting Words.” If God calls His Word a sword, we might as well use it to fight back against the lies we so often believe.

As we memorized Scripture together, it started changing us. It didn’t change our circumstances, but it gave us some solid ground to stand on when the shame storms started rolling in, and it ultimately gave us a shelter and a hope that no matter what we were facing, we were never alone. It’s been one of the most transformative practices of my life, and it felt too powerful to not invite others to join me! I started sharing different scriptures that have grounded me and guided me and whispered hope in the darkest nights of my soul on Instagram over three years ago almost every Friday, and the comments and community that has gathered around the warmth and light of these promises from God’s Word has been so beautiful.

This is what inspired this book my first devotional book, Fighting Words. I wanted to gather women around some of my favorite promises from God’s Word and invite them to warm their hearts by the light of his love. I want you to bury some treasure in your hearts by memorizing some of these promises together, and to allow the Spirit to speak in and through God’s Word to revive, refresh and remind our weary and forgetful hearts of what is true. Here is an excerpt from my devotional titled “Jesus’ Fighting Words.”

Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” – Matthew 4:4

Right after Jesus is baptized in the Jordan river, when the Spirit descends like a dove on him and God says, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased,” (Matthew 3:17) we read that the Jesus is then led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil (Matt 4:1). I’m not sure about you, but this does not sound like the way we have celebrated baptisms in my family! It’s been forty days of fasting, and the enemy comes in with lies and temptations….isn’t that just like Satan? Coming in for the attack when we are tired, weary, lonely and even hungry (if it were me I would have been HANGRY….the angry kind of hungry, if you know what I mean).

This passage has always been hard for me to wrap my head around. Why on earth would Jesus begin his active ministry on earth after his baptism by wandering alone in the desert, being tempted by Satan? When I started memorizing Scripture over a decade ago, I remember telling my friend Sara how powerful it had been for me to be able to fight so many of the lies that I believe with God’s word. I’ll never forget how she responded. She said, “That makes total sense. That’s how Jesus fought the lies of the enemy too. Remember in the desert? He’s out there for forty days wandering, hungry, and to every lie that the enemy whispers, Jesus responds with ‘It is written…’ and then he quotes Scripture. So really, you’re just following in his footsteps!”

My mouth dropped open. Of course, Jesus would do this for us. He went first. He wandered in the wilderness and modeled what it looks like to shut down the attempts of the enemy for us. The weapon of choice? God’s word. “It is written.” If Jesus used the word of God to silence the enemy’s lies, then that must mean that we can and should use God’s word in the same way, for “we do not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.”

Let’s continue to feed our souls the words that come from the mouth of God, and hold tight to them when the enemy comes with every kind of lie or temptation. Thank you God, that you provide for us, both physically and spiritually. Help us feast on Your word and follow in the footsteps of Jesus, speaking the truth even when we’re lost in the wilderness. · Describe a time in your life that felt like wandering in the wilderness.

• Were there any lies about God or yourself that you were tempted to believe, especially as you were walking through a seemingly desolate place?
• Make a list of some of the lies you are prone to believe about yourself and about God, especially during wilderness seasons (if you can do this on notecards, even better!).
• For every lie, you write down, go find a verse that speaks truth over that lie. If you wrote the lies on notecards, write the truth on the back of the card. I call this an “It is Written” list, and it has been such a beautiful way for me to speak light into the darkness of the lies I am so prone to believe. These are generally good verses to memorize as well, so you have them tucked in your heart for easy access when you need them the most.

Prayer: Thank You, God, that when we walk through wilderness seasons, we are not alone. Thank You for your Word, that speaks a stronger truth over any lie we’ll ever be tempted to believe, and thank You for your Son, the LIVING word, who modeled out for us the way to hold onto the truth and speak it into the darkness. Help me to fight the lies that I so often believe with the truth from Your Word. *Excerpted with permission from Fighting Words by Ellie Holcomb. Copyright 2021, B&H Publishing.

For eight years, Ellie Holcomb recorded and toured full-time with her husband’s band, Drew Holcomb and The Neighbors, before stepping off the road when her first child was born. Her solo debut, As Sure As The Sun (2014), landed her a Top 10 hit on Christian radio with “The Broken Beautiful” and a GMA Dove Award for “New Artist of the Year.” Her critically-acclaimed sophomore LP, Red Sea Road, followed in 2017. In subsequent years, Holcomb has released two children’s books – each with a companion EP of original music written specifically for kids, the second of which earned her a Dove Award for “Children’s Album of the Year,” in 2020. This summer she released her third full-length solo project, Canyon, to much acclaim. “A deeper sorrow, a higher hope; to be broken is to be human,” Ellie Holcomb says to sum up the content of her latest album. For more information visit: ellieholcomb.com