He Ate the Change

“Mommy, my tummy hurts. Real bad.”

Here’s why. He ate change. Literally.

My four-year-old friend took a dare this week from a five-year-old. He put coins in his mouth. Then swallowed.

89 cents, to be exact.

Swallowing change quickly is a dare we often want to take, too.

As believers in Christ, we want to be kinder. To be more courageous. To be more loving. Now.

• If I can read the Bible in 3 months,
• if I can volunteer for every ministry,
• if I can fast for 40 days,

I’ll be changed quicker, right?

Not really. Change doesn’t usually come fast.

Transformation is a slow process.

When Change Is Slow

I finally finished my daily Bible reading plan yesterday. It’s a 2-year plan for reading all of the Old and New Testaments (already a longer time span than most plans).

But it took me even longer. The 2-year plan stretched into 3 years.

But that’s okay. I’m in it for the long haul. And if God needs to work longer on me than others, so be it. I’ll celebrate the little wins. Eventually he will get the job done on the other side of this life. My latest mantra has been “not yet” (thanks, Jean).

I may not yet be fully transformed. But I can have peace in the process if I’ll trust it’s coming.

And try to be content with where I am—who I am—today. I don’t make myself holy by reading the Bible. I can be open to change as I read, allowing my spirit to cooperate with God’s Spirit. But I’m not in charge of my own transformation.That’s holy work. I can walk the path, but I can’t make myself arrive. I need grace and peace and Jesus for that.

Learning Lessons

My little buddy ended up at the ER Tuesday. They had to get the money out quicker than letting nature take its course. They were successful.

His throat is sore today, but he’s recovering well. He’s learned a lesson.

I hope I’m learning, too.

Lasting spiritual change doesn’t usually happen overnight. I can’t force it to happen.

Don’t eat the change.

* * *

Have you or your kids ever eaten anything strange? How patient are you with your own transformation? Please share in the comments.

I’ll start over reading the Bible again next week. Do you have a favorite translation you’d recommend? (I like to read a different one each time. Just finished NLT.)

God is constantly teaching us lessons.

But sometimes we sleep through class. If we show up at all.

However, there are also times—especially during times of great suffering or great joy—when we’re all ears. Alert and listening, we work hard to understand what he’s showing us, soaking up every lesson.

We want to remember these lessons. They matter. They change our lives, not only in the moment, but also in our future.

So how can we hold on to these these lessons from God?

One way to retain our lessons is to document them.

Create a Notebook

On Tuesday, April 23, Enjoy God’s Word Conference will begin. There will be a wide range of topics and speakers on different ways to grow closer to God.

I’ll be sharing “How to Create a Spiritual Growth Notebook” on how we can keep track of God’s faithfulness.

Here’s a 1-minute sneak peek from the conference.

[Click here if you don’t see the video]

During this session we’ll look at why it’s beneficial to keep a record of your spiritual history.

• Because we forget when we don’t intentionally plan to remember.
• Because remembering the past helps us move more faithfully into the future.
• Because God specifically says to remember. (See Genesis 28:11-18; Exodus 17:14-15; Joshua 4:1-10; 1 Samuel 7:12)

We’ll also set up a notebook with a 3-ring binder, tabs, sheet protectors, and nine notebook categories for things related to our spiritual health.

When we’re organized, we can find what we need, deepen our current faith, and have fertile ground to plant new seeds.

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Get Content and Community

You get access to these three spaces:

1. Library 
   This is is where all the video sessions will be kept. You will have lifetime access to all the sessions in the digital library + your own conference notebook with details on every session.
2. Lounge
   This is where community happens. It’s already open, so if you have a ticket, drop in now and say hello to fellow attendees. This is also where live Q&A sessions will happen with each speaker.
3. Livestream
   The Philippians keynote sessions with Katie Orr will be broadcast live each day of the conference at 9AM and 2PM EST. But they’ll also be recorded and added to the library if you can’t watch live.

I’m excited for it to get started!

* * *

If you sign up, please join me for a live Q&A in the Lounge on Tuesday, April 23, at 11am Eastern/10am Central Time! I’d love to chat and hear your ideas.

How do you best remember things? Please share in the comments.

]]> https://lisanotes.com/remember-the-lessons/feed/ 30 https://lisanotes.com/spiritual-growth-notebook/ https://lisanotes.com/spiritual-growth-notebook/#comments Fri, 29 Mar 2019 10:00:50 +0000 https://www.lisanotes.com/?p=17291 Make a Spiritual Growth Notebook How do you keep track of your spiritual history? Your Bible notes? Your memory verses, prayer lists, spiritual milestones? While we often keep up with… ]]>

Make a Spiritual Growth Notebook

• How do you keep track of your spiritual history?
• Your Bible notes?
• Your memory verses, prayer lists, spiritual milestones?

While we often keep up with our medical histories or educational records, we often neglect documenting what God has done in our spiritual lives.

In less than a month, the Enjoy the Word 2019 Conference will begin, April 23-25.

I’m excited to be sharing a break-out session there on “How to Make a Spiritual Growth Notebook.”

We’ll learn how to create our own notebooks to keep up with our spiritual timelines, sermon notes, book studies, etc. By proactively remembering God’s faithfulness in the past, we grow our faith in God for the future.

$10 Off Now

If a conference from home interests you (it’s all online!), get your ticket to the Enjoy God’s Word Conference in the next few days by April 1 while it’s still $10 off. On Tuesday, April 2, the early-bird pricing goes away.

There will be over 20 sessions to watch and participate in, plus 6 sessions by Katie Orr on Philippians.

To celebrate, Katie Orr is giving away a free swag bag with goodies on her site. Your chance to win is here.

More Sessions

Here are a few of the other sessions. Once you purchase your ticket, you own all the sessions for a lifetime. You’re free to watch or rewatch them anytime from your own computer. You’ll also receive a digital viewer’s guide to accompany each session.

• From Bitter to Better

Learn how to stop complaining about your circumstances, quit comparing yourself to others, and start allowing God’s Word to give you new perspective.

• Across the Gap
  The Value of Multi-Generational Bible Study

Exploring the biblical framework for and real-life value of engaging in multi-generational Bible study. This session includes ideas and tips for connecting women across generations.

• Transforming Our Thought Lives to Places of Hope

Understand the power of your thought life and receive practical training in taking your thoughts captive to truth.

• The Comfort of God’s Word in Our Loneliness

Learn how to discover the hidden blessings and powerful lessons in your lonely seasons of life, through God’s greater perspective.

• Keynote Sessions on Philippians

This six-part teaching series will help you understand the key passages in the book of Philippians.

* * *

Questions or comments? 

I participated in this conference last year and really enjoyed it the sessions and the live Facebook groups. I look forward to spending time there again this year.

More free Bible study resources!

This giveaway is open through midnight, Thursday, April 26.

Enter here to win.

If you could use some new resources as you seek God through studying, here’s an easy giveaway. Enter to win one of these bundles of Bible study resources.

Check out the list of resources in the digital bundle package as well as the bundle that will ship to your home.

If you refer a friend and your friend wins, both of you will get prizes.

This giveaway is in celebration of the new 2018 Enjoy the Word Online Bible Conference hosted by Jami Balmet & Katie Orr.

* * *

]]> https://lisanotes.com/free-bible-study-bundle-giveaway/feed/ 3 https://lisanotes.com/making-a-decision-10-10-10/ https://lisanotes.com/making-a-decision-10-10-10/#comments Mon, 22 Aug 2016 10:00:58 +0000 https://www.lisanotes.com/?p=10253 What decision do you need to make? We’re constantly deciding something. With my daughter getting married in a few weeks, we’ve been faced with many decisions. Who to invite, what… ]]>

What decision do you need to make?

We’re constantly deciding something.

With my daughter getting married in a few weeks, we’ve been faced with many decisions. Who to invite, what gifts to buy, what to wear (I still don’t know that one!).

Whether your decision today is large or small, here’s a process that can help. (I originally posted about it here. It helped me decide “yes” to Guatemala.)

I found it in Chip and Dan Heath’s book Decisive, which was one of my 10 favorite books in 2014. The Heaths adapted the concept from Suzy Welch’s book, 10-10-10.

10/10/10

It’s about perspective. By prayerfully asking yourself these three questions, you both narrow and broaden the time frame that your decision sits in.

• 10 Minutes

First, ask yourself:

How will I feel about this 10 minutes from now?

• 10 Months

Second, ask:

What about 10 months from now?

• 10 Years

And third:

How will I feel 10 years from now?

When I think about buying my mother-of-the-bride attire, the next 10 minutes aren’t critical. However, I can use the next ten minutes to set a plan and a deadline for getting my outfit together (shop on Saturday; buy something by September 5).

In 10 months, the wedding will still be a recent memory and I’ll likely still be looking at photos, but the pressure of the decision will be nonexistent.

And in 10 years? I doubt I’ll care at all which dress I picked out. (I’ll just be thinking how much younger I looked in 2016 than I do in 2026.)

In the short term, buying a dress is a hassle to someone like me who hates to shop. But in the grand scheme of things, I can see that this choice isn’t a life or death decision.

Putting it into the 10/10/10 scheme helps me see that the important thing in 10 years will be celebrating Jenna and Trey’s 10-year anniversary of a God-honoring marriage.

* * *

UPDATE: I found a dress! My daughters went shopping with me Saturday and we found something I liked in the first store. #happymom

Let me know if you try 10/10/10 for one of your decisions. Please share in the comments.

Givers. Receivers.

We often divide these up into two camps. As good Christian boys and girls, we know which side of the line belongs to us: Be a giver. It’s the right thing to do.

Until it’s not.

When we only give and refuse to receive, are we doing wrong?

When Kay and I roll our cart of prepared dinners up and down the eight floors of the apartment building to give meals to the disabled, it looks like we’re the givers.

• We bring the food (although we don’t cook it—don’t think highly of us).
• We offer the prayers.
• We write down needs to pass along.

But if we refuse to receive anything in return, are we being close-fisted with grace?

When Patty was going to have surgery, we prayed for her. So one Wednesday before I was going to have a procedure done, I asked Patty to pray for me. She was more than delighted to. She gave me advice on what helps her: Remember that you go with the Lord—and you’ll come back with the Lord. I took her advice.

And the next Wednesday when I reported that God had faithfully answered her prayers in a positive way, and that I wanted her prayers more often!, she was excited.

She was giving.
I was receiving.

We left her apartment to deliver a meal to W, another man in the apartment complex we’ve gotten to know. He was telling us stories about his guns and how he wants to teach all his granddaughters to shoot so they could protect themselves.

When he said he really was a scary man, Kay and I could smile about it and say he wasn’t scary to us. Because we knew this: he’d be scary for us, but not against us. He told us he would always have our back. He was on our side, and we believed him.

He was giving.
We were receiving.

We ran into James a few minutes later. He was carrying a medicine bottle half-full of moonshine. He said he had a cold, but by morning, it would be gone, thanks to that.

He offered the same to us; if we ever needed any, he’d share. We told him we were healthy so far, but thanked him for the offer just the same.

He was giving.
We were receiving.

In David Z. Nowell’s book Dirty Faith, he says that “giving to others can be spiritual poison” when it doesn’t go both directions.

When we identify ourselves only as the givers, we can easily fall into spiritual temptation.

“For the wealthy—and that’s all of us—serving others can reinforce our intuition that we are where we are because we deserve to be here.  Giving forgives any debt of grace we have incurred. The ‘feel good’ aspect of Christian charity work can be intoxicating, and it plays to all our base instincts.”
– David Z. Nowell

When we remember that the only true one-way giver is God himself, we can better participate in the two-way giving and receiving that comes with being human.

When we identify as givers only, Nowell says that it . . .

“points to the gulf between us: I have the power and position, and you do not. I have Jesus; you don’t. But, unfortunately, I think it is precisely the perspective we often bring to our interaction with the poor, not just in spiritual matters, but in all things. The giver operates from a position of power and privilege. The recipient, by definition, is the inferior.”

For every giver, there needs to be a receiver. And everyone should be allowed a turn.

When we receive, we’re giving someone else the joy of being a giver.

Let someone else be God’s grace to you.

“For the poor, for the person receiving the gift, our good works can reinforce inferiority and bring increased dependence. In many cases, the impoverished, the disenfranchised, those living on the fringes of society carry deep, very negative images of themselves. Their self-perceived inferiority often paralyzes them into patterns of living that make it impossible for them to break the cycles of poverty and dependence. If we are not careful, a good Christian handout, instead of being a hand up, becomes a hand of oppression, reinforcing the chains of self-image.”

I don’t want to be stingy with giving grace. But I also don’t want to be too proud to receive it.

The givers need to receive.
The receivers need to give.
Until the lines are blurred.

Who’s the giver here?
Who’s the receiver?
We need to be both.

Give what you have.
Receive what others offer.
Praise God for it all.

* * *

Why is it hard to be a receiver? Please share in the comments.

I highly recommend David Nowell’s Dirty Faith not just for his treatment of giving and receiving to/from the poor, but also for his heavy encouragement to stay actively involved in the lives of those who are different from us. David and his (blogging!) wife Susan have many incredible stories of ministry work that will stretch your own heart. He stepped on my toes often and in much-needed ways.

“New Testament faith cannot be practiced in private. Either the faith will destroy the isolation, or the isolation will destroy the faith. Intimacy with God means relationships with others.

. . . We have spent two thousand years building a hierarchy that is internally focused; why don’t we spend the next two thousand years looking beyond our walls?”
– David Nowell

]]> https://lisanotes.com/blur-your-lines-giver-or-receiver/feed/ 36 https://lisanotes.com/look-straight-through/ https://lisanotes.com/look-straight-through/#comments Mon, 18 May 2015 10:00:48 +0000 https://www.lisanotes.com/?p=6490 Some days I see just the fence. But other days, I press right up close, eye to the gap, and look straight through. Oh my. When I go outside with… ]]>

Some days I see just the fence.

But other days,
I press right up close, eye to the gap,
and look straight through.

Oh my.

When I go outside with God in the Yard, I seek the open space.

I want to look through.

I leave a hole in time.

I ask for the open space.

Breathing room.
Margin around the edges.
Empty spots with no expectations.

What does God want to say today? What does he want to show? What does he want me to see?

I’m sure I still miss him by a wide margin on many days.

But there are days . . .

• when ducks hear me laugh out loud at how God made their bodies flip upside down as they dabble in water
• when I marvel at how trees defy gravity pulling down, and lift limbs up instead, in proud praise to the Son
• when I sit long enough to actually lose track of time (has it been 5 minutes or 30?) as he stills me in the quietness

On those days, the sky is wide open. 

* * *

How will you carve out breathing space this week? Please share in the comments.

revised from the archives

I looked at the clock. 3:35 a.m.

It was too early to be awake.

But the clock didn’t shine long. Suddenly everything went black. All electricity had shut down.

My mind raced to the morning’s agenda. It was Sunday. That meant getting up early to shower, eat pancakes, then head to choir practice before worship services began.

But with no electricity, I’d take a cold shower and keep wet hair. And forget the pancakes. And would we even have church? Their power supply was the same as ours.

I drifted in and out of sleep, weighing pros and cons of possible plans.

In the end, it didn’t matter. The electricity came back on, just in time for me to get up and start the day (with pancakes).

At church that morning, Pastor Mark admitted similar turmoil over contingency plans if the electricity hadn’t returned.

But he’d concluded it wouldn’t matter.

Because the presence of the Lord isn’t dependent upon our creature comforts. Jesus always shows up wherever and whenever his believers do.

And to prove the point, during the middle of morning worship, he had all the lights turned off. The musical instruments shut down. The place was silent.

And God was present. His Spirit was thick. As always.

Lesson learned.

Until yesterday.

Another Sunday. I woke up, got ready (but no pancakes since Jeff the pancake man was sick), and left for choir practice.

But walking into the church building, I noticed it was dark. No electricity. Two Sundays in a row, we’d lost power. Jeff texted me, confirming the same just happened at our house.

This time the electricity did not come back on before services began. Instead, we lit 50 candles, rallied the acoustic guitarists, and welcomed Holy Spirit among us.

It was a beautiful service. With or without electricity . . .

• We had Power.
• We had Light.
• We had Heat.

At the end of the service, with eyes closed and heads bowed, Pastor Mark invited those who didn’t know Jesus, to get to know him.

And the power clicked. The lights came on. At just that moment. (I know that sounds corny or made up, but maybe God really wanted to drive home his point? I just know it’s what happened.)

New Power. Fresh Light. Restored Heat.

It’s the climate I want to stay in. This now of God’s presence that permeates our atmosphere.

Because plugged or unplugged, the Lord stays on.

* * *

Have you had a cool experience with God lately? Please share in the comments.

We are in town too early. Their weekend gathering doesn’t officially start until 5:30. So looking for something to do, we discover a wildlife refuge and a nearby lake to hike around.

At first there is little wildlife. Then from out of nowhere, the ducks start flying in. And flying in. And flying in.

They play a little in the water, then fly back out.

To where? We drive through a nearby neighborhood across from Standley Lake.  There we find about 50 ducks gathered in a small front yard, all quacking together around a bird feeder.

Easy access to good food. That draws us all.

The Refuge, an “eclectic faith community,” is meanwhile drawing them in, too.

They provide a free meal at 5:00 on Sundays. Several round tables are set up; people are gathered around eating and talking. Maybe around 50.

Jeff and I come in at the end of the meal. We meet another newbie also coming in after the food meal. Last week was his first visit. It was delicious enough to draw him back this Sunday night for a second spiritual meal.

He’d heard about The Refuge through a friend. He’s been out of church for awhile, and is looking to resolve a spiritual crisis. He is excited to find this safe place of protection to work through things.

I’d heard about The Refuge through Kathy Escobar’s blog. Her thoughts, her writings, and her passion for God through her blog have been drawing me in for the past couple of years. And admittedly, her nonconformity appeals to me, too. I count that a plus.

So here we are in a town outside of Denver, seated around tables and Bibles with people we don’t know, and listening to Kathy Escobar in person.

Good news: Kathy matches her blog picture (you can never be sure if we bloggers will match our pictures, right? I need to update mine). I easily spot her.

But better yet, she matches her blog persona. She is real. She is godly. She is loving. We watch her hug on people, engage in conversation, demonstrate through words and actions that she knows Love.

The outer space of this gathering is also welcoming. The walls are bright and direct you to spots for eating, for praying, for gathering. The tables are lined with butcher paper for you to write on. We read a couple notes from a previous week and smile. Extra Bibles are on each table, and (this is one of our favorite things!) extra reading glasses (which is a good thing because Jeff forgot his).

As the meeting progresses, we sing, we pray, we gather information about Galatians, then around each table we discuss personal questions and insights from the text.

One of the first genuine questions at our table is: Is all this Bible stuff really true or is it a bunch of bullcrap?

This place is for real.

If we didn’t already know, we know now this church is aptly named. The Refuge. A safe environment where people can come in and out with all kinds of questions and doubts and hunger, and feel protected. Easy access to a good meal.

Kathy concludes with this question for each of us to take home:

What is the good news?

It’s a question the Galatians might have been asking. And it’s just as relevant a question for us.

What is my good news? What is your good news?

That night, my answer could have been it was good news to find out Kathy is authentic. That communities like this exist. That some thoughtful person sets out extra reading glasses. All good news.

But my ultimate answer to “What is your good news?” is this:

It’s good news to keep discovering that Love is real. God is Love. And Love is here.

Here, wherever your “here” is, you can find Love, feast on Love, be Loved.

We close out the evening at The Refuge singing a final song: James Taylor’s “You’ve Got a Friend.”

Yes, that is indeed good news.

* * *

I so enjoyed chatting with Kathy afterwards, telling her I came because of her blog! Next time I go to Denver, we’ve agreed to meet for longer conversation. She’s awesome.

What is your good news? Please share in the comments.