We want there to be good reason for the delay.

Want to know the waiting will one day make sense.

Want assurance that God’s best will be worth all the angst and surrender.

Links mentioned:

1. To get a short, doable tip in your inbox every week to help you get to know your neighbors, sign up HERE.

2. Read the written version of this episode HERE.

I think of how less light around me works almost like blinders on a horse. Blinders are the piece on a horse’s harness that blocks their vision–not entirely, but so they see only what’s straight ahead. It’s a built-in focus mechanism. One I often resist but deeply need.

Links mentioned:

1. To get a short, doable tip in your inbox every week to help you get to know your neighbors, sign up here.

2. Read the written version of this episode HERE.

3. Get the playlist of my favorite worship songs HERE.

4. Get a FREE Names of God Phone Wallpaper HERE.

I was a keep-to-myself neighbor for most of my life. A scarcely-seen neighbor. A door-locked-unless-I-expected-guests neighbor.

But I was also a lonely neighbor.

I thought it was normal to drive across town every time you wanted to meet up with a friend. To close the garage door as soon as you pull inside and gaze at the ground when you walk to the mailbox. To nod a cordial hello if you see a neighbor but not step inside their house, not hoist their kid onto your knee as they stir something on the stove, not leak tears in living rooms and share meals in front yards and welcome your house to fill with neighbor kids.

You don’t know what you’re missing until you experience the opposite. 

Links mentioned:

1. To get a short, doable tip in your inbox every week to help you get to know your neighbors, sign up here.

2. Read the written version of this episode HERE.

3. Get a FREE Names of God Phone Wallpaper HERE.

And I want to know his secret. 

What compels the psalmist to pursue the teachings of God regardless of the hour? To chase after God’s will with urgency and love God Himself wholeheartedly?

It’s not perfection, because the unnamed author of this Psalm openly admits failure to fully follow God’s decrees. “Oh, that every part of my life would remain in line with what You require!” he exclaims (v. 5). 

I take another sip from the not-round rim of my mug, grateful a deep love of God’s Word doesn’t hinge on my ability to live a holy, impeccable life. With all its dents and dimples, my Rae Dunn mug still holds 16 ounces. And similarly, my imperfection surrender and limited understanding and straying thoughts and selfish impulses don’t stop God from filling me with Himself through His Word.

Links mentioned:

1. To get a short, doable tip in your inbox every week to help you get to know your neighbors, sign up here.

2. Read the written version of this episode HERE.

3. Get a FREE Names of God Phone Wallpaper HERE.

Just imagine what might happen if the words we say breathed life, ignited hearts, and amplified hope when they were overheard! If what came out of our mouths was laced in humility and grounded in our God-identity. If our words repaired breaches and lent hope and lit a candle for someone else.

Someone listening over our shoulder, curious how to trust God when life doesn’t make sense.

Someone observing at a distance how we become the hands and feet of the Lord we say we love.

Someone with doubts and no idea what to do with them.

Someone who feels unlovable.

Someone misunderstood.

Someone keeping it together on the outside but crumbling inside.

Someone made the brunt of a bad joke.

Someone serving selflessly and feeling unseen.

Someone with questions that hollow and a soul-ache that persists.

Links mentioned:

1. To get a short, doable tip in your inbox every week to help you get to know your neighbors, sign up here.

2. Read the written version of this episode HERE.

3. Proverbs 4:23, ESV

4. Philippians 4:8, The Voice

5. Get a FREE Names of God Phone Wallpaper HERE.

We get both–the imposter syndrome and the subtly-inflating self-impression. We shame and doubt ourselves, wondering who we are to think God can use us for His grand purpose. And we’re also guilty of esteeming ourselves too highly, as if our value has anything to do with us and not the One who breathed undeserved worth into our lungs just because He loves us so.

Links mentioned:

1. To get a short, doable tip in your inbox every week to help you get to know your neighbors, sign up here.

2. Read the written version of this episode HERE.

3. Loved to Life by Ann Voskamp.

4. Get a FREE Names of God Phone Wallpaper HERE.

What if we let go of the “metrics-based growth” Jennifer Dukes Lee cautions will “[hurry] our hearts,” and lean instead into the two heart cultivators Jesus offers?

Links mentioned:

1. To get a short, doable tip in your inbox every week to help you get to know your neighbors, sign up here.

2. Read the written version of this episode HERE.

3. Jennifer Dukes Lee's books.

4. Get a FREE Names of God Phone Wallpaper HERE.

After a rich, tear-wet journey through the Old Testament searching for who God is on every page, resting in His endless love felt like a bear hug. Again and again and again the truth that God’s love never runs out and is always meant for us brought strength to my soul, filling me for another day of pouring out.

Links mentioned:

1. To get a short, doable tip in your inbox every week to help you get to know your neighbors, sign up here.

2. Read the written version of this episode HERE.

3. Daughters First Retreat

4. Get a FREE Names of God Phone Wallpaper HERE.

It hits like the curled top of an ocean wave: every name I’ve penned in Bible margins, in answer to Ann Voskamp’s question in Sacred Prayer–”Who do I say that God is today? (Mark 8:29)”–is who God is in the right-now. Not a single descriptor is merely a past-tense attribute of God’s nature. Each name spans as far back and reaches as far beyond as endless eternity.

Links mentioned:

1. To get a short, doable tip in your inbox every week to help you get to know your neighbors, sign up here.

2. Read the written version of this episode HERE.

3. I’m taking Mary Demuth’s 90-Day Bible Reading Challenge, searching for names of God as I read like it’s some sort of treasure hunt. Never though to look for God in this way until I began journaling through Ann Voskamp’s Sacred Prayer.

4. Get a FREE Names of God Phone Wallpaper HERE.

We don’t have to be more or less of anything. Our presence alone blesses Him. I’m sitting with that as I ponder how we best serve God and minister to the people in front of us on His behalf.

Links mentioned:

1. To get a short, doable tip in your inbox every week to help you get to know your neighbors, sign up here.

2. Read the written version of this episode HERE.

3. I’m taking Mary Demuth’s 90-Day Bible Reading Challenge, searching for names of God as I read like it’s some sort of treasure hunt. Never though to look for God in this way until I began journaling through Ann Voskamp’s Sacred Prayer.

4. Get a FREE Names of God Phone Wallpaper HERE.