I am a singer, songwriter, wife, mother, Jesus follower. I send out a 2-minute read every Tuesday about Jesus and life in God.
What matters?
|
Hi Friends, Have you ever noticed how quickly we decide what matters? Who’s successful. Who’s influential. Whose life is “making an impact.” We see the titles, the platform… and without even realizing it, we start assigning value. But God does something completely different. He takes what seems valuable in the eyes of man and turns it on its head. His ways are so very different than ours. Turns out, He put the most valuable thing of all completely out of sight. It doesn’t matter if you are the CEO of a Fortune 500 company or the janitor who cleans up after hours in an empty work space. It doesn’t matter if you’re a headline preacher or the person sitting on row 14. Doesn’t matter if you’re the worship leader who fills stadiums or the stay-at-home mom lifting your voice at the altar of the kitchen table. Who you are is a great secret. We tend to see the numbers, count the impact, and assume we know the whole story. Swept up by externals, we put value in all the wrong places. There’s a reason why the Bible says, “man looks at the outside”. It’s because looking on the outside is the only thing we can do. But God has intentionally set the truth of who you are behind the opaque wall of your heart—a place only He, and you, can go. It’s as if who you really are is a great secret. You are set apart for One. Man looks on the outside, but God looks on the inside. Past the numbers, past the talent, past success and failure, right into the heart. It’s the only thing that moves Him. The human heart is the ultimate secret place. And because this is true, every moment is a new opportunity to catch the eyes of God and give Him our love. Our Father sees in secret. He enjoys us. We are His alone. Jesus, I want to love you and receive Your love today. Help me to remember that You are waiting to meet with me in the secret place of my heart. ♥️ — Anna |
Anna Blanc
I am a singer, songwriter, wife, mother, Jesus follower. I send out a 2-minute read every Tuesday about Jesus and life in God.
Hi Friends, Last night I stepped out onto the back deck. To be honest, I was escaping the thunderous noise (oh the noise!) of three boys who felt bedtime looming and were attempting to squeeze just a few more minutes of play out the day. I stepped out into what has been one of the first warm evenings of the year, heard the birds singing in the forest beyond our yard, and I had what felt like an involuntary reaction. It felt like when the doctor hits your knee just right and you get surprised...
Hi Friends, I’ll never forget it. I showed up for class in college, slid into my seat, and noticed the girl on my left had a large smudge on her forehead. She was an acquaintance, and in my earnestness to be a “real friend”, I pointed it out. “You have something on your forehead”, I said, gesturing to her as if wiping at my face. “It’s Ash Wednesday,” she said, turning in her seat. Whoops! Neither my husband nor I grew up in churches that followed the church calendar or included liturgy. So...
Hi Friends, Last week we talked about finding every last bit of our ordinary lives in the grand storyline of God. This week, let’s look at how we help one another do just that. When Eugene Peterson counseled pastors on how to help their parishioners find themselves in God’s story, he said, “Listening is the first step. It is the precondition for… making the transition from what a person perceives as alienation and experiences as a jumble of unrelated irrelevancies to a sense of coherence and...