How Not to Love By Cortney Donelson

Source: www.clouds365.com

Luke 12:25-26 (NIV)

“Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life? Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?”

“I worry about you because I love you.”

Even if we have never said these words aloud or heard them spoken to us directly, I bet most of us have felt the weight of their meaning. Well-intentioned parents worry about their children. Caring spouses worry about each other. Even adult children worry about their aging parents. Unfortunately, the message is not healthy. It is most certainly not biblical. In fact, recipients of this unhealthy way of thinking become handcuffed to the worrier – rendering them ineffective in living out the life God planned for them. Is that what those who love these recipients intend? Of course not, but I will share a quick story about how I came to wonder about what is going on with all our worry.

As my son climbed into the neighbor’s car, I waved goodbye from the front door. The wind was blowing the treetops, and dark grey clouds raced across the sunless morning sky. Thunderstorms were all around us. There had been tornado warnings the night before, off to the west. The car headed down the street towards his school – one comprised of mobile classrooms and no permanent structures. 

As I climbed the stairs to have a quiet time before my day started, I said a prayer. God, keep him safe. Protect him and his classmates from bad weather. Send your angels to surround his school. I am worried…”

At that moment, halfway up my staircase, God spoke to my heart. Worry does not equal love. I stopped abruptly. God’s message was clear. Love is many things, and worry is nowhere on the list. God continued to drop one-liners into my mind:

Love is trust

There is no fear in love

Worry and anxiety are handcuffs

I went to my bedroom, and thought about that last one. God wasn’t telling me that my worry would handcuff me. He wanted me to know that as a parent, my worry would handcuff my son. That realization hit me hard. I love my children massively. I want what is best for them, and as a believer I know that what is best is what God wants for them. If I worry about what they do, where they go, or what will happen to them … my fear may prevent them from listening to what God is whispering to them. It may limit their God-given gifts. It may halt progress towards their calling. 

If I have learned anything in my faith journey, it is this: God doesn’t call us to safe, easy, or mainstream paths. He calls us through the narrow doors, the ones you need to push through. Fear and worry paralyze us from discovering what lies beyond that narrow door. I certainly don’t want my “love” for my children to cause them to miss out on all the amazing things God has in store for them because they sense (or hear) my concerns.

There is more. Even when life becomes unsafe, difficult, and crazy as we surrender to God’s leadership, we can trust that no matter what happens, His love will endure it all. He is the God of righteousness and justice. If a tornado rips through my child’s school and all of earth’s fury arrives, God will be there. I trust Him. I have to. Otherwise, the awful things of this world will destroy me.

To love someone is not to worry about them. “Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life? Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?” Worry will not prevent bad things from happening. Fear will not help us or our loved ones move towards God or discern His plans for our lives. Anxiety will not convince others to make different choices or change their behavior. I believe it is just the opposite. Worry will show others how we lack confidence in God. Our fear might cause those we love to live within our misguided expectations rather than choosing obedience to explore God’s will. Our anxiety will reveal our trust issues with God. When others sense our worry, they can become handcuffed to the “safe and wide door” in an effort to stop our fears.

The next time we start to worry about a loved one’s present or future, let’s go back to Luke 12:25-26. Let’s remember that worry will not bring about the circumstances we hope and pray for. In reality, worry might limit them from experiencing what God had planned for them – even the difficult-but-worth-it paths. 

Instead, let’s help them push through that narrow door by trusting God and teaching them to do the same.

Prayer – God, today we choose to trust You and release our worry to You. We want to show our loved ones that You are good, just, and righteous. We pray we don’t limit our loved ones’ spiritual journeys by exposing our own faith gaps. Thank You for Your never-ending love and mercy. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen.

© 2014 As a Clay Jar. All rights reserved.

It's Not Gonna Be Easy By Cortney Donelson

Source: Unknown

James 1:2-4 (The Message)

“[Faith Under Pressure] Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don’t try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way.”

When I felt God prompting me to write a book, it took me awhile to get started. I procrastinated, not because I didn’t think it was really God laying the idea on my heart, but because I had never written a book before. I was scared! Not only had I never penned my own book, I had never been trained in advanced writing or editing skills. 

However, I forced myself to get started after several divine “signs” told me it was time. There was no big fish sent to swallow me whole while I ignored His prompting, but there were some pretty obvious messages – dreams, encouragements from friends, and finally a prophetic vision of an open book by someone who had no idea that God had been asking me to write one for months. 

So, with all these God-inspired motivators, I felt sure God would help me write it. Well, to be honest, I did not think He would just help me. I believed He would write the entire thing. I thought I was just going to provide Him with some fingers and a laptop. That’s it. So, I prayed and started typing. 

Twelve months later, I had my first rough draft. Surprisingly, it had been fun to write. Once it was completed, I still believed God had been the sole author while I just poured out what I felt He had communicated to me to write – each word crafted by Him, not me. It had been easy! I found a well-respected editor and excitedly sent her my first draft. 

While I waited for her to provide her feedback, I thought, God gives us only what we can handle. I patted myself on the back for handling it. 

I am going to be blunt here. That was stupid. If I knew God at all, if I had really hidden His Word in my heart, I would know that God is not in the making-everything-easy-for-His-followers business. In the New International Version, James writes, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” Just because God asked me to write a book did not mean it was going to be easy! My book-writing ordeal was about to become a bigger trial than I ever imagined.

After three months, my editor began to send my book back to me in pieces. Each section was filled with recommendations. The number of suggestions was almost equal to the number of words I had typed out myself. It was all very helpful and good advice. Yet, I could not keep from feeling a bit overwhelmed. I had spent a whole year drafting this book. 

To make it worse, in the three-month break while my book was out of my hands, I had added a whole lot to my plate of daily responsibilities. My editor was asking me to reconsider the structure of the book, and that meant I was looking ahead to many late nights filled with planning and writing. It seemed I was going to be starting all over.  I had no idea how I was going to fit this into my new schedule. 

God! I fell to my knees and prayed. Why is this so hard? You told me to write this book. You helped me do it. I thought you were giving me the exact words you wanted to express, and it was all good – and easy! 

Easy? I laughed at my seriously off-base mistake. God doesn’t make our circumstances, acts of obedience, or work easy. He makes them purposeful. He makes them worthwhile. He makes them good. He does not make them easy! Jesus taught us that. Job attested to that. Paul lived that. Peter reminded us of that, and James warned us about that. It is a theme scripted throughout the entire Bible! 

I love how The Message interprets James 1:3. “So don’t try to get out of anything too prematurely.” Was that perhaps what I had done with this book? 

God gives us what we cannot handle on our own! He allows us to struggle, squirm, and wrestle with His will. Why? If we could handle it, we wouldn’t need God. If we could handle it easily, we wouldn't grow. Trials sharpen us. Struggles encourage our dependence on Him. They solidify our faith in Him and give us renewed hope in Him. When we go through difficult times, His glorious power molds us from within. It's the power found just around the corner named HARD and reminds us that we CAN do all things THROUGH CHRIST who gives us strength (Philippians 4:13, capitalization mine).  We cannot handle some of the trials that get thrown our way, but God can. He does so by helping us to see what we are really made of in Christ.

We don’t learn a darn thing when our lives are easy. If we get out of our trials too early, we lose out on all that spiritual and personal growth. So, off I go to reconstruct, re-write, re-build … and re-learn. Time to persevere and find some of that maturity and joy that comes with my struggles.

Prayer – God, forgive the times when we forget Your messages, Your Word. We know life as a believer is not easy – but it can be filled with joy. Give us strength and perseverance to withstand all our trials. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen.

© 2014 As a Clay Jar. All rights reserved.

Constant Contact By Cortney Donelson

Source: www.matthew10-8ministries.org

Ephesians 1:16 (NIV)

“I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers.”

Some of you may be familiar with the online marketing giant Constant Contact. Thousands of organizations use Constant Contact for email blasts or event promotion and to facilitate information flow with a large database of recipients. It’s an amazing service, allowing its customers to stay in touch with their key audiences at any time, with the simple click of a button. 

The premise is similar to how God wants our relationship with Him to be. He wants information flow to be immediate and available at any time - day or night. So, He created prayer. No clicks of a button needed.

God’s desire is that we are in constant contact with Him. Why? Our prayer life matters. 

I believe prayer unleashes divine powers, leads the charge for change, and brings us intimately close to God. Prayer allows us to give thanks, seek and find God’s will, and share our secrets, hopes, and challenges with the One who cares most of all. The Bible tells us that the prayers of those who follow Him are productive. “…The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective." (James 5:16)

I pray often – in my car, at my job, as I write, before I eat, in the midst of parenting, before I fall asleep. Many of the prayers are short, expressing gratitude or praise. Some are deeply emotional. A few prayers are shared aloud with others, but most are one-on-one conversations with God that go on inside my heart and head. The styles and content of my prayers are as varied as my emotions. They take on different themes, come from different places of my heart (both the faithful and selfish sides), and are always heard and answered – just maybe not the way I would like.

There are times in my constant contact with God that I do get somewhat overwhelmed. There are so many things that require prayer. I could spend all day in prayer and feel I missed someone or something. I wonder how the apostle Paul did it. Paul wrote 13 books of the Bible. In most of them he was writing to specific churches or groups of people. With each letter to them, he opens with the same message; that he has been in constant contact with God prayerfully supporting that particular group of believers. 

To the people in Ephesus he wrote, “I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers.” To the Romans he said, “First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is being reported all over the world. God … is my witness how constantly I remember you in my prayers at all times…” (Romans 1:10-11) 

There are moments in my day when I feel the weight of responsibility to cover everyone I know, and even those whom I have never met, with prayer. During those moments, I trust that God knows my heart. I trust the Holy Spirit will deliver all my God-honoring requests that I may forget to include but certainly have housed inside my chaotic brain. “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.” (Romans 8:26)

The more I pray, the closer I feel to God. The more I pray, the easier it becomes to hear His reply. The more I pray, the more I witness His hand in my life and learn to trust Him implicitly. It’s no wonder Daniel stopped what he was doing, knelt down in the solitude of his bedroom, and prayed three times every day. It’s no surprise he was willing to die in the jaws of lions than give up his constant contact with God. 

God invites us into His presence through prayer. The more often we accept that invitation, the more authentic and deep our relationship with Him will become. Bill Hybels, author of “Too Busy Not to Pray” says it this way, “Authentic Christianity is not learning a set of doctrines… Authentic Christians are persons who stand apart from others … their character seems deeper, their ideas fresher, their spirit softer, their courage greater … (They) are full of surprises. That’s because authentic Christians have strong relationships with the Lord – relationships that are renewed every day (through prayer).”

Source: Unknown

Constant contact with God through consistent and genuine prayer is one of the critical components of building our faith. Without my continuous focus on Him, the world seems to pull me in multiple directions. Even seconds spent with Him can be the difference between a wise and poor decision, a God-honoring rather than self-seeking path, and a positive rather than negative perspective about a situation. 

I challenge you today to get in touch with God hourly. I know – it sounds crazy! Yet, we do it with friends, co-workers, and family. We text, email, IM, post, and whatever else we do to stay in constant touch with people. Why not with our Heavenly Father? Set an alarm or a reminder on your phone. Then, commit to make at least one of those hourly contacts a deeply intimate prayer in a quiet place. You will discover that the more you talk to God throughout the day, the more you recognize His voice and are able to discern His reply – your prayers will become two-way conversations that never seem to cease. 

Who knows … you may soon find yourself unwilling to sacrifice your constant contact with God, no matter what the consequence.

"Prayer can never be in excess." - C.H. Spurgeon*

Prayer – God, I love You! I want to seek You with all my heart, all my soul, and all my mind. To do this, I must act upon the fact that You are here with me – every moment. Help me remember Your presence and engage with You, having constant contact with You every day. I lift up my time and my prayers to You … in Jesus’ name. Amen.


* C.H. Spurgeon, also known as the "Prince of Preachers," was a British Baptist preacher in the late 1800's.

© 2014 As a Clay Jar. All rights reserved.

After the Big One By Cortney Donelson

Photo by Westia

Romans 5:3-5 (NIV)

“Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.”

Most of us have experienced a serious blow or two to our otherwise happy hearts: a childhood trauma, a deep betrayal, an unfathomable circumstance, or perhaps impenetrable grief.  Through the battle, we fought. We prayed. We fell to our knees and with nowhere else to turn, we asked God for mercy, healing, and rehabilitation. He granted it, and we came out of the darkness with a renewed hope and a stronger faith.

Down the road called time, we realize there is one negative consequence of surviving a huge heart wound and coming out the other side. From the moment of restoration and forward, there is the risk of believing that every other poke to your scarred heart is not worthy of feeling.

I want to tell you that is a lie. God cares about every poke, prod, pierce, and plunge into our hearts. Big or small, they matter to Him. I admit, however, it is sometimes difficult to convince ourselves of this truth. I have recently struggled with allowing myself to hurt over something I judged as not worthy of the pain. 

My struggle started when my thoughts became focused on comparing my current pain with past pain.  Rationalization convinced me that since this situation paled to one a few years ago on the “pain scale,” I had no right to get so emotional about it. Logic told me that I should just “get over it.”  Unfortunately, this type of reasoning seemed to make me feel worse. I could not work through the pain because I was so ashamed for reacting to it in the first place. I was not giving myself any space to feel, only to think. My heart was breaking from a thousand mini pokes because I was too pinpointed on the pain scale to realize that too many painful pokes will eventually kill. 

So, how did I finally reach the conclusion that it was okay to feel my pain and disappointment over the “little thing?”  I did three things. 

1. I prayed. Just as with the big pain event, I went to God with my hurt. I opened my hands and gave the pain to Jesus. In return, He gave me Romans 5:5 “And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.” He told me there is no shame in pain. Suffering produces hope, not disgrace. Hope is built from all our character-building pokes, minor or major. However, prayer was not the only thing He wanted me to pursue. God pointed me to those I do life with too. 
2. I shared. Without safe people in my circle, such as my husband and a few close friends, where I can be vulnerable, admit my shame, and disclose my unfair pain scale comparisons, the struggle would have continued to circle inside my head. Giving my pain a voice helped allow my head to rest and my heart to hurt … and finally heal. Otherwise, I would have been slowly killed by the thousand little pokes.
3. I forgave. God and those safe Christian warriors in my corner reminded me that unforgiveness was piercing my heart too – possibly more than the actual painful events. They showed me that I had forgiven some of the hurts, but not all of them. There were repetitive prods that were messing with my heart. This was the most difficult step for me. The source of my hurt was not asking for forgiveness. Yet, I needed to let everything go, including any future pokes. I was reminded that forgiveness is for those whose hearts are breaking, not for the ones who break the hearts. Forgiveness frees the poked and prodded and rescues them from a thousand deaths. It is not freedom for those who don’t even realize the hurt they have caused or worse, those who may realize it and not care enough to act. 

We all have hurts, and they come in many different sizes. When we experience the worst of the worst and survive, it can be difficult to reconcile any other pain that follows. God wants us to stop playing the pain scale comparison game – both within ourselves and with others. Every hurt matters, no matter what we’ve been through before and no matter what anyone else is going through either. 

Let’s not let a thousand little pokes kill us.

Prayer – God, thank You for loving us through all our pain, not just the big stuff, Thank You that You pour into our hearts and care about it all. Help us with forgiveness, and heal us from ourselves.  We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

© 2014 As a Clay Jar. All rights reserved.