Facets of Faith

When Our Tank Is Empty, What Do We Do?

07.24.2018 by Dawn Stewart //

This month our Facets of Faith team has the great pleasure to share with you the thoughts of one of our sisters in Christ, Dawn Stewart. She writes and speaks from a place of authenticity so lacking today. Her vulnerability shows others how to be real, open, and vulnerable so Jesus can be the soothing balm of our souls. Sit back, settle in, and prepare to let God use one of His precious daughters to shine light in the darkness of our hearts when we need them fueled with hope. (Haven’t we all been there before?) *smile *

I have a really bad habit when it comes to caring for my vehicle. I don’t do a great job paying attention to my fuel gauge. Over the years, I have put myself in some very stressful situations because of this bad habit. Like those crazy, hurried mornings when I have gotten the kids in the car just in time to make it to school only to realize I don’t know if I have enough gas to get them there.

I end up driving with my eyes constantly returning to the gas gauge, stomach in knots, and my thoughts beating me up for not being more responsible. The guilt that my kids might be late because of my lack of intentionality eats at me. I can’t even enjoy my time with them in the car because I am so hyper-focused on the guilt I’m feeling. It’s stressful. It’s emotionally and mentally chaotic. And, it’s absolutely unnecessary. I have everything I need at my disposal to ensure I don’t end up in this situation. I have the money for gas. I have gas stations at nearly every corner. I know how to put gas in my car. I don’t even mind putting gas in my car. I just don’t pay attention to the very thing that tells me when I need to take action.

My spiritual journey can get a lot like this as well. I absolutely have a spiritual, emotional, mental, and physical gas tank. And when I start to run out of gas in any one of those areas, life gets really stressful, emotionally and mentally chaotic, and I end up spending a great deal of my energy focusing on the problems in my life instead of the good that is all around me. Guilt runs rampant in my heart and consumes my time and energy. It is just like the car ride, but on a much broader scale. If I am not aware that my tanks are getting empty, and don’t take the necessary action to fill up, I end up feeling and behaving in ways that are unhealthy for me, for my family, and for those around me.

Each tank requires its own unique fuel and reveals its emptiness in its own way. My physical gas tank begins to get empty when I am not caring for my physical being with proper fuel – food, exercise, and healthy amounts of sleep and rest. I become tired and weary, hyper-sensitive, and not very fun to be around.

My emotional tank becomes empty when I am not properly fueling my emotional being with times of fun mixed in with the responsibility of life. I become too serious, easily irritated, frustrated, emotionally clingy and difficult to be around.

My mental tank becomes low when I am not fueling myself with healthy thoughts, positive self-talk, and encouragement. I catch myself having negative thoughts towards myself and others, and those thoughts quickly manifest themselves in negative attitudes and behaviors.

Of all the tanks I need to be paying attention to, my spiritual tank is by far the most important. For 35 years of my life, I paid no attention to this area of my life. It was dry as a bone. I was so consumed with trying on my own strength to keep the other areas of my life fueled and so wrecked with stress because I could never seem to keep up with my own physical, emotional, and mental needs. Eventually I just gave up and over time became extremely unhealthy in every area of life. I felt hopeless. I became desperate for change, desperate for help – and it turns out that what I really needed was to begin filling the spiritual tank within me. I had no idea it was even there.

My first real prayer was one of total desperation. I couldn’t keep up with life anymore and recognized a need for God’s intervention. And so I asked Him for help. I could almost feel the water pour into the dry areas of my soul. It was like rain falling in an area that has been wrecked with drought. The more I sought the Lord’s intervention, the more I could feel my soul come to life. I didn’t even know I was so parched with thirst! Prayer was the fuel that brought hope into my life again!

I had such little understanding of prayer, but I knew that something in my life was changing. Over time, I discovered that prayer is the lifeblood of my spiritual journey. It is so much more than just words coming out of my mouth to a distant God. True prayer is the very means of communication with an ever-present, living God! It is a relationship building, soul drenching, heart healing interaction with the very One who created me! I don’t need to have specific words to form the right prayer, to sound holy enough, or to make sure every need is delivered correctly to Him. He doesn’t want my performance. He wants my heart.

Prayer is a way that I hand my heart to the Lord. It is a way that I come before God and spend time with Him. It’s a way to both talk to and hear from the Father. And it fuels my hope daily. Prayer is the fuel for my spiritual tank. And it is at my disposal 24-7. I don’t need to go to church to pray. I don’t need to go anywhere. I can talk to the Father right where I am, wherever I am. And as I do that, He fuels my life with hope. And from that hope – that confident expectation that God is and will always be present and working in my life – I am able to effectively fuel every other tank I have. In fact, I would go as far as to say that my emotional, mental, and physical tanks are filled with the overflow that comes from my spiritual tank. I make right choices for my physical self, my emotional self, and my mental self when I am in right relationship with the Father. When my heart and mind are focused on His Kingdom first (see Matthew 6) the rest of my life comes into proper order. It’s amazing to me.

I wish I did everything perfectly, but alas – I do not. There are still some days that I don’t fuel my spiritual tank, and I feel the dryness start to creep back in. I feel the irritation start to form in my mind again, and I watch my attitudes and behaviors become less than fun to be around. I am grateful God always makes a way for me to see the gauge on my spiritual tank is getting empty and provides me with time and opportunity to fill it.

Recently, I started noticing my attitude toward my husband and our marriage slowly becoming more and more negative. I was having a difficult time seeing him as the man God was forming and was paying attention (almost compulsively) to his character flaws. The joy in my heart was starting to wane and bitterness was creeping in.

At first, as is typical, I started thinking the problem was in our marriage and that my husband was becoming less and less interested in connecting with me and our marriage. The more I focused on thoughts like this, the more anxious and worried I began to become. At one point things were starting to feel so bleak inside I found myself wondering if my husband even liked me anymore.

One morning, I was discussing this with a friend and we decided to turn to the Lord in prayer. What ended up happening was that God started showing me I had stopped praying for my husband and our marriage. And the reason that was impacting me so negatively was I had begun to place my hope in my husband instead of in my God.

As wonderful of a man as my husband is, he was never designed to be the source of my hope. He is many things, but my hope is to be in the Lord! I am so grateful to have connected with God’s Word in community with a Sister in Christ. As a result of that time, I was able to confess and repent of my error in focus. God put me back on the right train of thinking. Nothing else had changed. Now my thought life around my husband and our marriage is once again fueled with gratitude, love, appreciation, hope, and excitement for the future. My husband was never lacking in desire for me; I had started lacking in my desire for the Lord. And He allowed me to feel the discomfort of my spiritual tank becoming empty, and provided me an opportunity to get it filled back up!

I see now how my entire life really is fueled by the One who created me in the first place. My most important job is to connect to Him daily. To sit with Him, give Him my heart, and spend time in His presence. When I do that with consistency, I can rest assured that the other areas of my life will be cared for as well.

And, who knows, I might even get better at watching the fuel gauge on my car!

Join the conversation here or on our Facebook page.

The Jet Fuel That Propels Our Hope

07.11.2018 by Jennifer Howe //

Hi, everyone! I wish you the very best (a little late) as we Americans remember the historic significance of July. I’m thankful to live in this amazing country with the blessings it affords. If not for brave souls who made sacrifices—even risking their lives and fortunes—this would be a different nation. I’m grateful our founding fathers were smart and determined. Their choices and wisdom made all the difference. With all her faults, I hope God would still bless America with his presence.

But I digress. On to the real reason I’m here…

We’re talking about something dear to my heart: prayer. There are precious fruits of the labor in prayer; we chose to think about hope. My soul often leans into prayer. I was planted in a family who prays. I am beautifully connected to a sort of second family who prays in my church. And I hope my sons are the next generation of men who pray prayers that echo like thunder. Prayer is powerful and effective for the needy soul. (I’m that soul on any given day.) Are prayer and hope inextricably linked?

What is prayer anyway?
Prayer is comprised of words. But, it’s not yammering on or making small talk. Often the words aren’t warm, fuzzy feelings, and they aren’t some kind of “light” or “positivity” we send out into the universe. The words are a two-way exchange incorporating listening, and so they become a conversation. Prayer’s focus—and the most important part—is who the conversation is with.

Words and The Living Word
The Bible tells us what prayer is and to whom we pray. Prayerful words are designed to create intimate communication with God—all of God, the Trinity. Prayer puts us in direct communication with the God of the universe, our Heavenly Father; through Jesus, the Son; by the power of the Spirit. And that sounds a little heavy in the theology department, but it’s important to think in those terms sometimes.

But when you pray, go into your private room, shut your door, and pray to your Father who is in secret. Matthew 6:6a CSB

I’m thankful our Father hears what is prayed privately, or even silently (6:6b).

Therefore since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens—Jesus the Son of God—let us hold fast to the confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tested in every way as we are, yet without sin. Therefore let us approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us at the proper time. Hebrews 10:14-16

In what other way can we approach the throne of God (from the physical world) but through prayer?

In the same way the Spirit also joins to help in our weakness, because we do not know what to pray for as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with unspoken groanings. Romans 8:26

Plain and simple. Sometimes there are no words. Sometimes we don’t know how to pray. When we’re at a loss for words or we fear our wants and needs might be muddled, we count on the Holy Spirit to speak into that moment. He is willing to step in, and if we let him, Spirit will pray in our stead.

Why Pray?

He said to them, “Whenever you pray, say: Father, Your name be honored as holy. Your kingdom come. Luke 11:2

Let’s never forget who we are praying to, first. We’re asking God to break through in our world in the ways only he can. He is holy, set apart. Today that looks like a whole other reality; someday we’ll walk into his presence and see his face. Nothing in this world happens without his knowledge, but we can have meaningful, intimate conversations with our almighty Father in heaven from this realm.

But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, Matthew 5:44

…bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. Luke 6:28

The hardest prayers to pray can be for those who have hurt us, friends, or family members. Those are tough prayers, but this is a command.

Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. James 5:13a

We’re familiar with these prayers. When we have compassion for the sick, weak, or hurt, we pray. That’s actually a directive. We learn to pray in the big and little stuff. (The latter can be harder to remember.)

Therefore, pray to the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest.” Matthew 9:38

Let’s not forget to ask the Lord to equip his people to speak well, be able to give answers, and to share the hope! (See 1 Peter 3:15-16.)

…praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, Ephesians 6:18 ESV

We pray. At all times. All kinds of prayers. Persevering in prayer for all of God’s people, including ourselves.

But, where’s the hope?
I need to know where the jet fuel in prayer is for the hope I need, and you may too.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to His great mercy, He has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 1 Peter 1:3

Our good and merciful Father has given grace through Jesus. We don’t deserve it and can’t earn it. Our “living hope” is salvation through Jesus. We were saved from sin into a beautiful relationship with the Father. All because of Jesus. This life will end. What comes next hangs from nails in a cross. It’s a free gift—but a choice we make nonetheless. Since it’s an “already but not yet” kind of thing, we employ hope. We are children of God now, but we’ll walk heaven’s streets later. This is fuel for the hope fire, isn’t it?

I rise before dawn and cry out for help; I put my hope in Your word. Psalm 119:147

…casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. 1 Peter 5:7

Because God is good (see his goodness in grace above) and he cares for us, our concerns are his concerns. When we are distressed or depressed, it matters to our Father. He has given us his Word (the Bible), the Living Word (Jesus), and his Spirit because he loves us that much! We have all we need in our terrible trouble. Every. Single. Moment. More hope. He cares about the little things and the big things.

If we don’t have strength or words or wisdom…

We have Jesus and the finished work on the cross.

We have the precious words from God on the pages of the Bible.

We have the Spirit who will pray with and for us.

God strengthens us through the pages of scripture, none of which make sense without Jesus or the Spirit. He hears our words, which are often inspired or amplified by the Spirit. But the only way to the Father is Jesus. The gift of the Spirit is through Jesus. Jesus is our hope. We pray to stay in close relationship with the One who loves us, cares about our lives, and acts on our behalf.

Nothing is possible without Jesus. (Talk about hopeless!) If we pray…if there is any hope to be fueled at all…it’s because of Jesus.

Thanks for reading, friends. Do you find prayer fuels your hope? I would LOVE to hear your thoughts on that. Share a time when prayer solidified hope for you. Comment below or stop over at the Facebook Page.

Love you all!

How Does Prayer Fuel Our Hope?

07.03.2018 by Tracy Stella //

Welcome, friends! This month FACETS of Faith is talking about one of my favorite spiritual topics─prayer. But before you get some picture of stuffy, formal displays, scrub that imagery from your brain. That’s not at all where God led me on this month’s writing journey. I can’t help but think God is going to bring people in need of hope to our posts this month. Know that you are getting prayed for by our team. We pray you have hope as an anchor that helps you hang on. We pray you have hope for today, tomorrow, and your future. We pray you have hope for yourself, your family, and your friends. We pray that, even in hard seasons of life (and especially if you are in one RIGHT NOW) you are able to feel the love and hope of Christ alive in your heart.

My first house was a cute Cape Cod in a small lakefront community. I loved the place! Cute as a bug! (Ladybugs are cute, right?) Anyhow, it sat perched high on a hill overlooking the lake. It was adorable. Fenced yard, a huge deck to take in all the water views, my first home a little slice of heaven. Except.

Except that one neighbor. You know the one (especially if you are familiar with unincorporated living). He never took care of a thing! His home sat disheveled as his lack of care and concern for his property diminished the value of everyone else’s. He was a nice guy. He just didn’t pay attention to what he had and how his lack of upkeep negatively impacted everyone else in the neighborhood.

Thankfully, I had a buffer. One home sandwiched between mine and the neighborhood eyesore. It got so bad at one point that my next door neighbors, the ones who took exemplary care of their yard, were forced to plant huge lilac bushes to block the sight of junk piling up in the backyard. Before long the neighbor whose property was diminishing returns for everyone else’s home values ran out of room in his back yard.

His neglect was smack dab in the front yard for all the world to see.

His boat and trailer sat front and center for years. Not sure how many. Enough to start growing weeds inside. Not quite the flowerbed you’d see on HGTV giving that home curb appeal. Nope! More like, more clutter and visual chaos than the eye can easily consume. His grime-covered boat with wild flowers (aka weeds) growing out of it sat so long on his driveway that it sank into the asphalt and would one day require a tow truck with a lot of torque to remove it once the “red tag committee” got involved.

That boat and trailer sat. Years. No love. No care. No fuel. Only neglect.

We can be like that sometimes.

We can have a shiny, new boat sitting in our driveway. However, without taking care of it, the boat loses its luster. Without adding fuel, we go nowhere. Fast. We need fuel to get where we’re going. How can we get anywhere on empty? Over time, without fuel our boat and trailer sink into the inky asphalt. Tires go flat, melting in the warm sun, becoming one with the driveway. Before we know it, there are well-worn ruts from the weight of the boat. Sinking. Sinking. A slow sink, unseen to the naked eye on day one, day two, day twenty. But before long, people begin to notice, even if we don’t.

“I wonder what’s going on at the neighbor’s house. Things are looking pretty shabby over there.”

Condemned houses don’t start out that way. Somewhere along the way someone just stopped caring. Perhaps, the people living inside lost hope. Life can get hard. Sometimes when life gets hard we curl into a ball, hide inside our houses, and don’t come out much. We think staying inside where the world can’t see us, and we can’t see it, will somehow make our situation better. But it doesn’t. It get’s harder. Lonelier. More isolated. Right where the devil wants us. He may even fertilize our futility.

“You don’t need them anyhow. You’re better off by yourself. No one will hurt you ever again. Just stay right here, locked in this cage that you think is freedom. Keep thinking that way.”

Weeds grow up entangling our hearts in hopelessness.

Heartbreaking to watch. We all need someone! All of us! We try to hide, but we can’t really. People eventually see what we think is a secret. People notice our neglect. The weeds that people once thought might be wild flowers are seen for what they are. Weeds.

One weed turns to two turns to ten. Condemned. Because, again, that’s right where the devil wants us.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. Through sadness and despair we can see hope peering through the far off distance if we squint our eyes and look through the haze of hard things. Like a star to the naked eye. We know it’s there, fuzzy, distant, but it’s not false. It really does exist.

Hope really does exist!

I’ve seen people hide under a blanket of futility. It’s hard to watch. So hard! As I see them sinking, I want to impart every ounce of wisdom-infused, hope-filled message God has ever delivered to me. He’s certainly pulled me out of several ruts I was sinking into over my lifetime. I want to say, “See? Look where I’m standing! I didn’t think it was possible. Hang on! Have hope! Keep going! You’ll get there!”

God’s love, grace and mercy infuse hope. Like an IV drip, He gives much-needed nourishment.

How, you ask?

How did He give me hope?

Prayer.

How does He give me hope?

Prayer.

Whether for me or for someone I care for, prayer gives me hope. It helps me hang on.

I’ve grown to love prayer so much! It’s my lifeline. It also helps me to be a lifeline for others, not in some unhealthy, co-dependent way. Rather, healthy helping.

When I’m praying, God will put someone on my heart (basically bring them to my mind), so I know that’s who He wants me to pray for that day. Often, I’ll quietly ask in my head, “How should I pray?” And then I get a sense of what God wants me to pray for that person and the situation they’re in. You see, I used to want to fix it for people, to solve all the world’s problems and to wear the weight of that all by myself. (Even before I was a believer, I wanted to help people.) But helping people in dire need of hope is just flat-out too hard, too much to carry without Christ. We can’t! We can’t fix the world. We can’t even fix our own little world, the one that sometimes turns upside down in each of our lives.

Nope.

But we don’t have to. It’s not how God designed things.

He desires to help us! He desires to give us hope!

How do I know?

Time and time again He’s demonstrated it to me. All along He was, I just didn’t hear Him in my younger days. I tuned Him out. Tone deaf. But once I started having conversations with Him, for that’s what prayer is, a conversation with God, I have been astounded at how much He has to say about me, about life, about big things and little.

I’ve been blown away at His sweetness, His sensitivity to me and my heart. And He’s helped me to not only hang onto hope for myself, but for others. I’d venture to say that’s almost harder. Hope for others. You see, I know what’s in my brain. I know where I’ve been and I have a sense of my own struggles (even if I don’t always fully understand them). With others I pray for, I can’t see inside their heads. I don’t REALLY know what’s in their heart. People can be a mystery. People can be misunderstood.

But with prayer, I hear things on their behalf. God can (and does) reassure me. He helps me have hope for others who don’t have it for themselves. Through prayer, God will help me to know what’s next, not every step to get to the final destination, but what’s next.

Without prayer which fosters a deep, intimate relationship with Christ, how do we not give in to the futility the enemy wants to shackle us in? “Sink lower, deeper. Deeper still. And let your lack of care and concern start to contaminate everyone around you.” We know darned well the enemy wants to wreak havoc in every relationship. It’s his specialty, and one of the areas he is at his sneakiest, twisting and distorting truth to hinder any sense of healthy relationships with others.

Prayer gives us hope in those scenarios too.

Changing of hearts doesn’t happen through what I say or even what I do. God may give me an assignment in a situation, but the miracle-working power of transformation only happens when someone allows God to change their heart. Our prayers are spiritual fuel to change hearts. My energy is best spent praying on others’ behalf.

Prayer is also our spiritual buffer, protecting us from absorbing other people’s problems in an unhealthy fashion. Prayer is for our protection, so we can help without hurting others or ourselves in the process.

Something that gives me unbelievable hope is how I’ve seen God answer my prayers. Countless answers. I trust Him. I trust He hears me. I trust He loves me. And I hope you do too. Better than that, I pray you do!

And remember what can happen in unincorporated areas. Weeds grow. Sinking into ruts. Condemned. Instead, let Christ live in your heart.

Join the conversation here or on our Facebook page.

If you would like Christ to live in your heart, pray this prayer.

Jesus, I don’t really understand all that it means to let You live in my heart, but I do know I need Your help! I need Your hope! So I surrender my heart and my life to You. I will grow to know You over time, and I thank You that You will help me to learn how to hear Your voice. Show me through prayer and through others how to experience You, Your love for me, and Your love for others. Help me to follow You forever and to embrace all that You have to show me, to teach me, and to heal within me. Instead of sinking deep in despair, help me to sink deep in Your love! Thank You for your gentleness. I pray You show me how gentle and loving You are, like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. Thank You, Jesus, for living in my heart from this day forward, forever and ever. In Jesus’ name, amen!