The Grief of Losing a Pet

When Your Confidence Has Been Shaken

Something knocked you down, and you have been off balance ever since. Discover why confidence built on your track record cracks, and how God rebuilds it on ground that can hold you. There was a stretch of years when you knew who you were and what you were doing. You were good at the job, or the role you had grown into. Then something happened. The job you were sure about ended, or the thing you were certain you could handle turned out to be beyond you. You have been off balance ever since, second-guessing decisions you used to make in your sleep. This episode opens with Shonda Whitworth, a woman who was good with money. She kept a budget and planned ahead, and being the capable one was part of how she saw herself. Then the finances came apart in a way no spreadsheet could fix, and one day this careful, capable woman was sitting in front of a bankruptcy attorney. What that does to a person is difficult to explain. It was never only about money. It was about the story she had told herself concerning who she was. Everything she had been standing on, the competence and the record of doing it right, was gone out from under her. The question on the table that day was simple and brutal: when the thing you were sure you could do turns out to be the thing that just failed, what do you have left to stand on. Here is the trouble with the confidence most of us build. We build it on our track record, on the evidence that we are capable and have handled things before. That kind of confidence works right up until the day the evidence changes. Then it cracks, because it was resting on us the whole time. Solomon points to a different footing. Proverbs 3:26 says, "for the LORD is your security. He will keep your foot from being caught in a trap." Security is the thing you lean your whole weight on. For years that was your competence. Solomon moves it onto firmer ground: the LORD Himself, who does not change when your circumstances do. Look at the promise attached. He will keep your foot from being caught. Solomon knows you will walk toward traps you never see coming. The promise is that God keeps your footing when you do. That kind of confidence can survive the next thing going wrong, because it does not depend on you being good enough. This episode looks at why competence makes such a fragile foundation, and how confidence gets rebuilt on Someone who holds when everything else gives way. BY THE TIME YOU FINISH LISTENING, YOU'LL DISCOVER: * Why confidence built on your track record cracks the moment the evidence changes * What Proverbs 3:26 means when it calls the LORD your security, and what He promises about your footing * A practical way to name what your confidence has been resting on and move your weight onto God You do not have to lose everything to learn this. Confidence rooted in God can hold you when your track record cannot. Share This Episode: https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/286 [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/286] 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].

The Grief of Losing a Pet

Losing a pet is a grief the people around you often minimize. Discover why your loss counts, and how the God who made animals and called them good cares for them and for you. Losing a pet is one of those griefs the people around you tend to minimize. It was just a dog, they say. Just a cat. You learn to keep the grief to yourself, going to work with a hole in your day and saying nothing, because nobody hands out bereavement leave for a cat. But you know what that animal was to you. She was there when the house was empty. She lay next to you through the worst stretch you have been through, and she never once asked you to explain yourself. Losing her was losing something you loved, and grief is the reasonable response to that. This episode opens with Ryan Davis and his K-9 partner, Jethro, a German Shepherd who lived at home with the Davis family in Canton, Ohio, and slept on their pillows. Davis said he spent more hours with that dog than with his own family. One night in January 2016, they answered an alarm at a grocery store, and when a man inside opened fire, Davis turned Jethro loose and the dog went through the door first. Three rounds hit Jethro. Not one officer was scratched. Every bullet that could have struck a person that night struck a dog instead. People will tell you the Bible has nothing to say about a dog. Open it and you find otherwise. God made the animals and called them good, and Psalm 36:6 puts it plainly: "Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains, your justice like the ocean depths. You care for people and animals alike, O LORD." The God who runs the universe keeps the animals in His care. He made them on purpose, and He notices when a sparrow falls. So when you love one of His creatures and lose it, your grief makes sense. You are grieving something God Himself thought was good enough to make. The same verse that says He cares for animals says He cares for people. That is you. He stays close while you hurt over your dog, the way He is always close to the brokenhearted. He can handle a grief that other people wave off. You can bring Him the whole thing: the empty spot by the door, the leash you cannot throw away yet. He will not tell you it was just a dog. This episode gives you permission to grieve the animal you loved, and points you to the God who made it and cares for you now that it is gone. BY THE TIME YOU FINISH LISTENING, YOU'LL DISCOVER: * Why grieving a pet is a reasonable response to losing something you loved * What Psalm 36:6 reveals about God's care for the animals He made * How to grieve your pet before God, and how to comfort someone else whose loss is being dismissed You do not have to pretend the loss was small. The God who made the animals and called them good cares for them, and He cares for you when you lose one. Share This Episode: https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/285 [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/285] 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 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].