It was early and cold for a fall morning, but the road called. I was training for a half marathon and had a five-mile run on my checklist for the day. I didn’t plan to turn. My run didn’t require it either, still, as I rounded the corner headed into mile four, I felt the nudge of the Holy Spirit prompting me to turn left. Somewhat annoyed and definitely winded from the unexpected turn, I slowed my pace and made my way up the hill that now stood before me. What was God doing?

It's not always easy to do the right thing. Especially when you are in the wrong place. When your circumstances aren't what you had in mind. His criticism, her judgment, they aren't what you asked for. The job you'd imagined isn't working out the way you'd hoped. Those friends, that coworker. Maybe you've been hit with sudden illness or financial issues. The unexpected loss of a loved one or the harsh reality of doing this parenting thing on your own. Life is hard, if it's n

“Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will." Romans 12:1-2, NIV. It seems the enemy has mislead us a bit in our thinking. I meet so many people who dread e

If God is always present and at work then it means, there is always an invitation to stop what your doing and join Him in what He's doing. Sometimes joining Him feels small, like realizing the lady in front of you is going to need help getting her groceries in the car because there's way too many and it's pouring down rain. Other times, joining Him feels massive, like walking away from a perfectly good job without knowing what's next. Transitions are a natural part of life.

Jesus was unpredictable. As soon as the disciples thought they had figured it out, He would do something completely opposite leaving them with their mouths wide open. Who was this man that followed no system or sequence? Where did He find the freedom to be fully present and yet completely connected somewhere else all at the same time? Why wasn't He swayed by the power of the people? How did He so radically love and let go? Following His baptism by John the Baptist, Jesus was

You know what I love? I love being a mom of older kids. I mean I loved having babies. I loved snuggles and I loved it when my girls were little and wanted to wrap my hair around their fingers as they fell asleep. But now that they are a bit older, I don't just love them and the things they do - I like them. I really do. I get that the pre-teen, teenage years are hard. We aren't perfect, we definitely have our fair share of run-ins. But there are casual moments throughout our

Recognizing the lies the enemy cleverly slips into our minds is not enough in and of itself. It's a part of the process of reigning in the Kingdom of God, but it is incomplete with out its counterparts. Recognizing we are responding a certain way because of shame or condemnation if a good place to start, but if we don't do something to resist this type of response then it will only continue. After recognizing untruth we must then resist it from taking root in our lives. Ther

Once we begin to see how big God really is, we can’t help but dream bigger. Living with dreams we can achieve on our own speak of a small God. Reality is, we have the attention of the Almighty God. He spoke the universe into being and can certainly handle any dreams we fear might be just out of our personal reach. If Ephesians 3:20, “He is able to do more than we ever asked or imagined possible,” is really true (which in case you are wondering, it is), then think of the bigge

I wonder if the problem has anything to do with how rushed life is, or if it's just there are so many things running through our minds. It might be that by the time we finish what's in front of us physically, we have long since moved on mentally. Whatever it is, the lost art of gratitude has an underlying effect no one is talking about. Gratitude changes things. It's a lot like the Gospel. The Gospel is Good News everywhere it's applied. It is Good News that you have a Savior

Sometimes changing direction is hard. Believe it or not I am the Dooley least likely to stop and ask for help when it seems we've lost our way. I prefer to pretend to know where I’m going even when I don’t. Pretending never seems to work well in the long run. Heartache has an extreme way of pulling your vehicle to the side. Paused on the shoulder of the road, with dozens of other cars racing by, things begin to look different. Nehemiah wasn’t doing anything wrong. He had a go

Sometimes life gets harder before it gets easier. At the end of ourselves is a really hard place to be. But when we've run out of rope, we finally have the chance to realize our moving forward wasn't dependent upon how tightly we held because He had us all along. And He never let's go. There is a place God wants to take you, you cannot get to on our own. No matter how hard you try. Know matter how much you know, how far you've been or what all you've accomplished. He's too go

Rebuilding involves questions. You can't get to where you're going without recognizing where you've been. Our healing is not compartmentalized. It's not confined to space and time. This side of eternity, we do not have the capacity to know and understand it all, but we still have the invitation to seek and recognize what He has made available for us to see. We live in a world of answer givers. Not many listen to understand. Most listen to respond. We have all been guilty of a

The brokenness around you is never to much for the God within you. The world teaches us to keep it together, but Jesus invites us to let it go. At the end of ourselves, we are only ever at the beginning of Him because our God is not the Redeemer of all things fixed, He is the Redeemer of all things broken. In our hands, the painful pieces task us with an impossible rebuild. Without the proper resources, we settle for Band-Aids as a quick fix rather than the root healing neces

Have you ever had a conversation play over and over again in your head? Maybe in a brave moment, you met a friend for coffee and opened up with the storm that has steam rolled its way into your life. Authenticity feels good as the truth of what's really going on pours out of your mouth. Finally, the weight of keeping your struggle to yourself is lessened. Hopefully, your friend meets you with compassion and understanding, grace and truth, but regardless of her words, you undo

Her safety zone was our couch. Over and over again she would grab onto it, pull herself up and maneuver around to the other end. In the beginning, she was content to just travel the length of the couch. Back and forth, back and forth. We would lay temptations a few feet out from her reach hoping she would muster up the courage to let go and step out into the unknown of walking without guidance. A few times she did, only to quickly fall right back down. Until eventually, she d

I had a soccer coach who loved spending nine of the ten allotted half time minutes pointing out our missed opportunities. He often reminded us how the score on the score board was not reflective of the team he knew we were. He wasn't telling us anything we didn't already know. We knew our capacity to play soccer with the best teams in the league. We were as good, if not better than the best, but there were moments we struggled to show it. During the worst half times we hung

The blessed tree Jeremiah talks about in Jeremiah 17 is a deep-rooted tree. It’s the tree lacking nothing. Beautiful inside and out. This tree does not have the appearance of abundance; it has the physical proof of abundance. It is not worried about outer security because it is grounded with inner confidence. It does not work to earn love; it thrives because of having already received love. It doesn’t fear the storm, but stands strong through the winds, even offering shelter

What do you do when you don’t know what to do? When the plan you thought you had turns out not to really be the plan? When the mission changes and the once narrowed focus seems broad, unfamiliar and uncharted? Honestly, the calling has always been so concrete in my head. Black and white – this is what God has gifted and called me to do. I could always picture it. It was always there. But, the further I get into following Jesus, the further I get away from the concrete plan I