When You've Become Estranged from a Family Member

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].

What to Do When You're Angry at Yourself

Some of us are our own harshest critic, replaying every mistake and calling ourselves stupid long after God has forgiven us. This episode looks at Psalm 42:5 and how to answer that self-directed anger by preaching hope to your own soul instead of just listening to it. There's a kind of guilt that goes past regret. Regret says, I wish I hadn't done that. Self-directed anger goes further. It's a running commentary in your head about your own stupidity, the version of yourself you can't escape, the one who keeps a record of every failure and reads it back to you at night. It tends to hit high-performers and people who were raised to expect a lot of themselves. You would never speak to a friend the way you speak to yourself, and yet you let that voice run, day after day, as if punishing yourself were the same thing as taking responsibility. Tricia Goyer knew that voice. At 15 she made a decision she could never undo, and for years the regret followed her on a loop. Then she came to know Jesus, prayed, and confessed it, believing with her whole heart that God had forgiven her. She knew the verses. She could have told you His mercy covers every sin. And she still couldn't forgive herself. God's forgiveness was settled, but the voice in her own head hadn't gotten the message, insisting a woman with her past had no business being used by God. What finally freed her was receiving the forgiveness God had already given, and learning to see herself the way He saw her: clean, and already His. She went on to write more than 35 books and to mentor pregnant teenagers and teen moms, the girls she used to be. Psalm 42:5 shows a better move. The psalmist was clearly in a dark place, but instead of just listening to his own spiral, he talked back to it: "Why am I discouraged? Why is my heart so sad? I will put my hope in God!" He asks his own soul a question, then answers it with the truth. He preaches to himself instead of just listening to himself, and that is a skill most of us never learned. You can do the same thing. When the self-anger starts up, you do not have to sit there and take it as though it were telling you the truth about who you are. It is one voice in your head, and you are allowed to answer it. You can say to your own soul: yes, I got that wrong, and no, that does not make me worthless, because God has already covered it. He is not standing over you demanding that you punish yourself for what He has already forgiven. In this episode, Bart is candid about his own perfectionism, the forehead smack and the muttered "stupid," and what it took to stop treating self-punishment as a virtue. God does not want you paying a debt Jesus already paid. He wants you to receive it and get up. BY THE TIME YOU FINISH LISTENING, YOU'LL DISCOVER: * How self-directed anger differs from regret and why it hits high achievers * What Psalm 42:5 shows about preaching hope to your own soul * Why punishing yourself for a forgiven sin pays a debt already paid That angry voice in your head does not get the last word. You can answer it with the truth and turn your soul back toward hope in God. Share This Episode: https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/279 [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/279] 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 Bring Your Worst Week to Worship on Sunday

Some Sundays the last thing you want to do is walk into church, whether the week wrecked you or you're ashamed of something you did. This episode looks at Psalm 100 and why worship is what you do when you don't feel like it, because God often meets the people who almost stayed home. Most of us have had a Sunday when getting out of bed and going to church was the last thing we wanted to do. Maybe the week wrecked you, and the thought of singing about God's goodness feels impossible. Maybe it's shame, and you can't picture walking into a room full of people who assume you've got it together. So you're tempted to stay home, where it's safe and no one can see you. A lot of us give in, on the mornings we need to be there most. Mark knew that feeling. He had led worship at his church for years before he was arrested on fraud and money laundering charges and sentenced to 16 months in federal prison. The story ran in the papers, so there was no hiding it. When Sunday came, he and his wife Joy could walk into their church and face a room that had read all about it, or stay home where it was safe. They went. They had no idea their pastor planned to preach on money and to say Mark's name from the pulpit. As Mark sat there braced for judgment, his small group got up one by one and came to sit around him and Joy, praying for them through the whole message. What met him was grace, with skin on. Their church held them at the lowest moment of their lives. Psalm 100 reads like a song for people having a great day: "Shout with joy to the Lord... Enter his gates with thanksgiving." But it was a call to worship for a whole community walking into the temple, and not everyone in that crowd was having a good week. Some were grieving. Some had dragged themselves there on empty. The psalm didn't wait for them to feel joyful before it called them to come. It called them to come as they were and let the truth about God work on their feelings once they arrived. That reframes worship. We often treat it as something for when we already feel it, and we stay home when we don't. But worship is mostly what you do when you don't feel like it. You come because God is good and his love lasts forever, no matter what kind of week you had. The feelings tend to follow the obedience; they rarely lead it. In this episode, Bart remembers being on staff at a church where the treasurer, who also served as a deacon, embezzled a large sum and then stood before the whole congregation to confess. The church forgave him and kept him. The biggest step of your week may be the one into the building on the morning you'd give anything to disappear. Take it, because that step is often exactly where God meets people. BY THE TIME YOU FINISH LISTENING, YOU'LL DISCOVER: * Why the Sundays you dread most are often the ones you need most * What Psalm 100 shows about worshiping before the feelings arrive * How a church can become grace with skin on at someone's lowest moment Worship is what you do when you don't feel like it. The person who almost stayed home is often the one God meets most. Share This Episode: https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/278 [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/278] 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 the Treasure Is in a Cracked Pot

A lot of us assume God can only use the people who seem to have it all together, so we count ourselves out. This episode looks at 2 Corinthians 4:7 and the jars-of-clay truth that your brokenness may be exactly where God's light gets out. A lot of us keep a scoreboard running in the back of our minds. We measure ourselves against the people who seem to have it all together, the Christians who never seem to falter or struggle. Then there's you, with the anxiety you can't shake or the marriage that almost ended. So you draw a private conclusion: God can use people like that, and a cracked pot like you feels like a different case. You decide you'll be useful once you've cleaned yourself up, and you wait for a day that never quite comes. David Ring knew that feeling. Born with cerebral palsy after being deprived of oxygen at birth, he grew up dragging one leg and speaking with a slur that made him a target, and by 14 he had lost both parents. When he told his pastor he felt called to preach, he was met with a flat no, and eventually with the words that a boy like him had no business in a pulpit. David came back the next Sunday and said he'd choke on every one of those words. He was right. He has preached for more than 50 years, in over 6,000 churches, with the same slurred speech that once drew laughter, and he tells crowds that God has a habit of using the things other people throw away. Paul turns our assumptions on their head. In 2 Corinthians 4:7 he writes, "We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves." The image is a cheap clay pot, the common kind from any ancient kitchen, filled with the light of Christ. And Paul says the plainness of the pot is the point. If God only used impressive people who had no crack to show, their talent could explain the results. When He fills a cracked pot and the light pours out anyway, everyone knows the power came from God. That reframes everything. Your brokenness was never the thing keeping you out of God's plans. In His economy, it's closer to a qualification. The crack you've been ashamed of might be the exact place His light gets out. David Ring's slurred speech became the reason no one could explain his preaching apart from God. You were meant to bring your brokenness and be used anyway, and that was the plan all along. In this episode, Bart remembers a young man he knew in Bible College who also had cerebral palsy and felt called to preach. He was difficult to understand, yet full of passion and humor, and when Bart invited him to speak in chapel, a number of students gave their lives to God. The invitation is simple: stop waiting to have it together, and offer God your cracked pot, because the crack is how the light gets out. BY THE TIME YOU FINISH LISTENING, YOU'LL DISCOVER: * Why feeling too broken to be used gets God's design exactly backwards * What 2 Corinthians 4:7 means by treasure in fragile clay jars * How to offer God your weakness instead of waiting to fix it first God puts His treasure in cracked pots on purpose, so the glory goes to Him. Bring Him yours, and let His light spill out. Share This Episode: https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/277 [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/277] 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].