How to Have the Conversation You've Been Avoiding

When You Have to Do Something That Terrifies You

There are moments when you know what you have to do and you're terrified to do it. Discover how God meets you inside the fear, and why a scared little yes is still courage. There are moments in most lives when you know exactly what you need to do, and you are scared to death of doing it. Send the email. Have the conversation you keep putting off. Fear has a sneaky way of making the ground under your feet feel like it could give way, so that doing anything at all feels like a risk you cannot afford. Staying put starts to look like wisdom, when it is only fear dressed up as good sense. This episode opens with Ronda Paulson, a mom in East Tennessee who sat in a foster-parent training class and learned that children removed from their homes sometimes sleep on the floor of a state office while a worker searches for a bed. She pictured a little girl walking in with everything she owned in a black trash bag, and she started to cry. That is when she heard God ask, "These are my children. What are you going to do?" Her answer was, "I had no idea." She had never started an organization in her life. What she could not shake was a picture of a house, not an office, with a bathtub and a hot meal, so no child ever spent another night on a conference room floor. God knew His people would feel this kind of fear, and He spoke to it again and again. He never left the command hanging in the air. He gave a reason. Isaiah 41:10 says, "Don't be afraid, for I am with you. Don't be discouraged, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you. I will hold you up with my victorious right hand." Notice what He promises. His presence: I am with you. His strength for the middle of it: I will strengthen you and hold you up when you feel like you are going down. That is a promise for the moment your voice is shaking and your palms are wet. He meets you right there, while your knees are knocking, before anything has gone well. That reframes what courage is. Courage is doing the terrifying thing while you are still terrified, because God is with you in it. The shaking hands do not disqualify you. Ronda did not wait to stop being scared before she booked a luncheon, stood up in front of her whole town, and asked strangers for money she did not have. She did it afraid, and God took it from there. This episode looks at why fear makes obedience feel so risky, and how one scared little yes can become something far bigger than you. BY THE TIME YOU FINISH LISTENING, YOU'LL DISCOVER: * Why fear makes staying put look like wisdom, and how to tell the difference * What Isaiah 41:10 promises for the middle of a terrifying moment, not just the far side of it * One small first step you can take today, while your knees are still shaking You do not have to feel brave before you move. You have to move, and trust that the God who said "I am with you" meant it. Share This Episode: https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/284 [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/284] Need Prayer? Leave me a voicemail: https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/voicemail [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/voicemail] Want to keep these devotions coming? Please consider supporting this podcast. https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/support/ [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/support/] Rate and Review https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/reviews/new/ [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/reviews/new/] Connect with Bart Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/dailydevotionsforbusyliveshttps://www.facebook.com/dailydevotionsforbusylives [https://www.facebook.com/dailydevotionsforbusylives] Website: https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com] Feeling spiritually drained? Start here. Download your free copy of my eBook Making Time for Jesus https://daily-devotions-for-busy-lives.kit.com/b33aa395d1here: https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/subscribe [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/subscribe].

How to Trust After You've Been Betrayed

Betrayal changes the way you see people, and forgiving someone is a different thing from trusting them again. Discover how God rebuilds trust by inches when you make Him the refuge under everything else. Betrayal changes the way you see people. A friend talked about you behind your back, or a spouse lied, or someone you counted on walked away right when you needed them. Even years later, long after the wound closed over, you catch yourself flinching at things a healthier version of you would have taken in stride. A friend cancels plans, and part of you decides they were never your friend to begin with. That flinch is a scar, and it forms for a reason: your mind learned that people you love can hurt you, so it keeps everyone at arm's length to keep you safe. The trouble is that arm's length is a lonely place to live. This episode opens with Gary and Mona Shriver. Gary came home and admitted a 3 year affair, and the other woman was Mona's close friend, so she lost two people in one day. Gary was repentant and wanted the marriage, and Mona decided to stay. Then she ran into the part nobody warns you about: forgiving him and trusting him again turned out to be two different things, and she had no idea how to get from one to the other. The psalmist points to where that trust has to be anchored. Psalm 118:8-9 says it is better to take refuge in the LORD than to trust in people, better to take refuge in the LORD than to trust in princes. This verse gets misread as a call to give up on people and rely on God alone. Read closely, it says something better. Refuge is where you run when everything else gives way, and the psalmist is telling you where to put the full weight of your trust: on God, because He is the one who holds. Then, when a person lets you down, and people will, the letdown does not take you down with it. You were never standing on them in the first place. Once God is holding that weight, you are free to love people again. You can risk a friendship. You can rebuild a marriage. You do it by grace, knowing that even if this person lets you down, you will not fall through the floor. The trust you had before was fragile. The trust God builds in you after has a foundation under it. This episode looks at why the flinch after betrayal is normal, what the psalmist means by taking refuge in the Lord, and how trust comes back the way it came back for Gary and Mona: by inches, on a timeline you do not get to pick. BY THE TIME YOU FINISH LISTENING, YOU'LL DISCOVER: * Why forgiving someone and trusting them again are two different things, and why that distinction matters * What Psalm 118:8-9 means when it tells you to take refuge in the Lord rather than trust in people * One small step you can take today to move back toward people without leaving yourself unprotected You can love people again. God does the slow work in you, inch by inch, and He becomes the refuge that holds when everything else gives way. Share This Episode: https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/283 [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/283] Need Prayer? Leave me a voicemail: https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/voicemail [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/voicemail] Want to keep these devotions coming? Please consider supporting this podcast. https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/support/ [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/support/] Rate and Review https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/reviews/new/ [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/reviews/new/] Connect with Bart Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/dailydevotionsforbusyliveshttps://www.facebook.com/dailydevotionsforbusylives [https://www.facebook.com/dailydevotionsforbusylives] Website: https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com] Feeling spiritually drained? Start here. Download your free copy of my eBook Making Time for Jesus https://daily-devotions-for-busy-lives.kit.com/b33aa395d1here: https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/subscribe [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/subscribe].

What to Do When You've Been Overlooked

Being overlooked stings most when the people passing you over already know your work. Discover what God was doing while David stood forgotten in a field, and how to stay faithful in the work in front of you. Some people spend years being the one who doesn't get picked. You watched a colleague take the promotion you were more qualified for. You watched a friend get invited to something nobody thought to include you in. The sting cuts deepest when the people passing you over already know your work. Christine Darden knew that sting. She came to NASA in 1967 with a master's degree in applied mathematics, hired as one of the "human computers" who ran the calculations the engineers needed. Men who walked in with the same degree went straight into engineering, where they ran their own projects and moved up. Darden stayed at her desk running their numbers, watching people who started after her climb past her. She could have decided that's just how it worked. Instead she walked into a director's office and asked him to his face why men and women with the same credentials were being sent down different roads. David knew that sting, too, and the man who overlooked him was his own father. When the prophet Samuel came to Bethlehem to anoint the next king of Israel, Jesse brought out his sons one at a time. God said no to every one of them. Then, in 1 Samuel 16:11, Samuel had to ask a question that never should have needed asking: are these all the sons you have? There was still the youngest, out in the fields watching the sheep. Jesse didn't forget David. He ranked him. He decided which of his sons belonged in front of a prophet and left one out with the animals. But God was never working off Jesse's list. He knew the address of that field, and the meal in Bethlehem stopped until the boy nobody sent for arrived. There's something else in that field. David was out there doing work nobody claps for, and out there he got good with a sling and fought off a lion and a bear. Everything he learned while he was being ignored is what he used the day Goliath showed up. The overlooked years were training. This episode looks at what to do while you're waiting to be seen: how to keep doing good work when no one is writing your name down, when to ask the question the way Christine Darden asked it, and how to leave the answer with the God who already knows exactly where you are. BY THE TIME YOU FINISH LISTENING, YOU'LL DISCOVER: * Why being passed over by the people who know you best stings more than being passed over by strangers * What 1 Samuel 16:11 reveals about the way God chooses, and why He never picks from the lineup men hand Him * How to stay faithful in unglamorous work, and how to speak up without taking the outcome into your own hands God does not choose from the list men hand Him. He knew where David was the whole time, and He knows the address of the field you're standing in today. Share This Episode: https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/282 [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/282] Need Prayer? Leave me a voicemail: https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/voicemail [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/voicemail] Want to keep these devotions coming? Please consider supporting this podcast. https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/support/ [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/support/] Rate and Review https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/reviews/new/ [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/reviews/new/] Connect with Bart Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/dailydevotionsforbusyliveshttps://www.facebook.com/dailydevotionsforbusylives [https://www.facebook.com/dailydevotionsforbusylives] Website: https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com] Feeling spiritually drained? Start here. Download your free copy of my eBook Making Time for Jesus https://daily-devotions-for-busy-lives.kit.com/b33aa395d1here: https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/subscribe [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/subscribe].

When You've Become Estranged from a Family Member

Family estrangement is one of the griefs almost nobody talks about, and it usually hardens because each side waits for the other to move first. This episode looks at Jacob crossing the river to face Esau in Genesis 33, and the courage it takes to be the one who reaches out. Family estrangement is a grief almost nobody talks about, and it's more common than most people realize. Maybe it's a sibling you don't speak to anymore. Maybe it's a grown child who stopped returning your calls. The reasons vary, but usually both sides are convinced they're the reasonable one, and each waits for the other to move first. So nobody moves. A distance that began with a single wound becomes a habit of silence that outlasts its own cause, and a relationship that could have healed slowly slips away. Grant Phillips knew that silence. He left his father's strict, cold home the summer he finished high school and put 3,000 miles between them. His drinking and rage nearly wrecked his own family, and in recovery he came to the step about making amends and put his father in a category he labeled "when hell freezes over." After 15 years of little more than stiff phone calls, his sister called with news that something was wrong with their dad. Grant dialed the number, worked through the small talk, and with a shaking hand finally said the thing he had never said: "I love you, Dad." For the first time, he heard his father cry. Later he learned the whole truth, that his mother had been an alcoholic and his father had held the family together the only way he knew how. What Grant had read as coldness had been love he couldn't see yet, and the two of them got 17 more years together. Scripture gives us the same pattern in Genesis 33. Jacob had cheated his brother Esau out of their father's blessing and fled for his life. Twenty years later he had to cross a river and face the brother he had wronged. Notice who moved. Jacob, the one in the wrong, walked toward the brother he had every reason to fear, bowing low the whole way. And Esau, who had every right to a grudge, ran to meet him, threw his arms around his neck, and wept. God tends to move first through the person who chooses courage, and it's usually the one humble enough to go first rather than the one with the stronger case. Taking that step guarantees nothing; some doors stay closed, and this episode won't pretend otherwise. But you will never know what God was ready to do until someone is brave enough to start walking. In this episode, Bart draws on years in law enforcement, tracking down next of kin after a death and hearing again and again, "they have a son, but they haven't spoken in 20 years." That is where estrangement ends when no one crosses the river. The door that has been closed for decades can still open, and it often opens for the one willing to reach out first. BY THE TIME YOU FINISH LISTENING, YOU'LL DISCOVER: * Why family estrangement hardens when both sides wait for the other to move * What Jacob and Esau's reunion shows about the courage to go first * How to take a small first step toward a family member you've lost God often moves first through the person willing to be brave. If there's a river between you and someone you love, you can be the one who crosses it. Share This Episode: https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/281 [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/281] Need Prayer? Leave me a voicemail: https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/voicemail [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/voicemail] Want to keep these devotions coming? Please consider supporting this podcast. https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/support/ [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/support/] Rate and Review https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/reviews/new/ [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/reviews/new/] Connect with Bart Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/dailydevotionsforbusyliveshttps://www.facebook.com/dailydevotionsforbusylives [https://www.facebook.com/dailydevotionsforbusylives] Website: https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com] Feeling spiritually drained? Start here. Download your free copy of my eBook Making Time for Jesus https://daily-devotions-for-busy-lives.kit.com/b33aa395d1here: https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/subscribe [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/subscribe].

How to Handle Being Falsely Accused

Few things burn like being accused of something you didn't do, and sometimes no defense makes it stick less. This episode looks at Psalm 7 and how to hand a false accusation to God as both your refuge and your judge, the way Andrew Brunson did from a prison cell in Turkey. Being falsely accused burns in a way few things do. When you are guilty of something, at least the guilt gives you somewhere to put the pain. A false accusation is different. You know the truth, and you cannot make anyone else see it. Everything in you wants to fix it, to lay out the proof until the room agrees. Sometimes you can. And sometimes, no matter what you say, the accusation sticks, and you are left holding a truth nobody will receive. Andrew Brunson lived the extreme version. After 23 years pastoring a small church in Turkey, he was arrested in the crackdown after a failed coup and charged with terrorism and espionage, with no evidence and a possible 35-year sentence. He spent two years in an overcrowded cell, lost 50 pounds, and admitted later that he did not handle it well, at times wondering whether God was even there. At a hearing, people he had known stood up and repeated accusations they could not back up. When the judge asked if he had anything to say to them, Andrew said his faith taught him to forgive, so he forgave them. He used his one chance to speak to forgive instead of to fight, and handed the whole thing to God. Psalm 7 shows where that strength comes from. David wrote it while being hunted over a lie that could get him killed, and he does two things. First, he runs to God as his refuge: "I come to you for protection, O Lord my God." Second, he asks God to be his judge, and he means it both ways, even opening himself to God's verdict: "if I have done wrong... then let my enemies capture me." That is a man so willing to let God judge the matter that he will accept the ruling even against himself. That second move is what protects your soul. When you say, God, you be the judge of this, and of me, you stop having to control what everyone thinks, a weight you were never strong enough to hold. The accusation may still stick with people, but your vindication was never theirs to give. It belongs to God. There is a place for defending yourself. If a word of truth can clear things up, say it. But there is a point where defending yourself stops being about the truth and becomes about your pride, and past that point you only feed the fire. In this episode, Bart draws on years of praying with people who were falsely accused, and the wisdom that a defense sometimes helps and often makes things worse. When you cannot clear your name, you can still hand it to God, your refuge and your judge, and even forgive, and that is what keeps the accusation from turning you bitter. BY THE TIME YOU FINISH LISTENING, YOU'LL DISCOVER: * Why a false accusation cuts deeper than being guilty of something * What Psalm 7 shows about making God both your refuge and your judge * When to defend yourself and when defending only feeds the fire When you can't clear your name, you can still hand the whole thing to God, your refuge and your judge. Your vindication was never the crowd's to give. Share This Episode: https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/280 [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/280] Need Prayer? Leave me a voicemail: https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/voicemail [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/voicemail] Want to keep these devotions coming? Please consider supporting this podcast. https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/support/ [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/support/] Rate and Review https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/reviews/new/ [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/reviews/new/] Connect with Bart Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/dailydevotionsforbusyliveshttps://www.facebook.com/dailydevotionsforbusylives [https://www.facebook.com/dailydevotionsforbusylives] Website: https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com] Feeling spiritually drained? Start here. Download your free copy of my eBook Making Time for Jesus https://daily-devotions-for-busy-lives.kit.com/b33aa395d1here: https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/subscribe [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/subscribe].