In covenant love

But God’s Spirit warns us

Nehemiah 9:29-30 [A prayer rehearsing the history of Israel] You warned your people to return to your Law, but they became proud and obstinate and disobeyed your commands. They did not follow your regulations, by which people will find life if only they obey. They stubbornly turned their backs on you and refused to listen. In your love, you were patient with them for many years. You sent your Spirit, who warned them through the prophets. But still they wouldn’t listen! So once again you allowed the peoples of the land to conquer them.

1 Timothy 4:1 Warnings against False TeachersNow the Holy Spirit tells us clearly that in the last times some will turn away from the true faith; they will follow deceptive spirits and teachings that come from demons.

Hebrews 3:6-7, 12-13 We are God’s house, if we keep our courage and remain confident in our hope in Christ [some manuscripts add, “faithful to the end”]. That is why the Holy Spirit says, “Today when you hear his voice, don’t harden your hearts as Israel did when they rebelled, when they tested me in the wilderness.” … Be careful then, dear brothers and sisters. Make sure that your own hearts are not evil and unbelieving, turning you away from the living God.

I’m posting this in Maryland, at a wonderful place called Caboose Farm (Caboosefarm.net) where the extended Elliott family is having a once-every-three-years reunion. I probably won’t post this Thursday.

In the remarkable prayer of praise recorded in Nehemiah 9, the word “but” appears six times in reference to the people of Israel. God was faithful in myriad ways, but his covenant people turned away from him again and again and again.

The author of Hebrews draws a straight line from his time back to the people of Israel in the desert, 1500 years before. If he (or she) could see our hard hearts, two thousand years later, would he (or she) draw a line to us as well? Don’t we need the Spirit’s warning as much as the Hebrews did?

Reflecting on this, I recall that in the last few days I’ve heard or read the following:

“I don’t think God exists, because if he does, he would have healed my beloved sister. I can’t trust him anymore.”
“I was too badly hurt by the church to ever go back. I still believe in God in my heart, but I can’t stand the people who claim to know him yet behave in unkind and cruel ways in his name and say such demeaning things about people different from them.”
“I’m an ex. Ex-Catholic, ex-protestant, ex-atheist, ex-everything. Bottom line: I believe in myself.”
“God is too busy holding this fractured world together to care about me, and people have been cruel. My life has been one disappointment after another. So, I’m considering ending it.”

The good news from the prayer in Nehemiah 9? An entirely different “but.”

“But you are a God of forgiveness, gracious and merciful, slow to become angry, and rich in unfailing love. You did not abandon your people” (v. 17).

“And now, our God, the great and mighty and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of unfailing love, do not let all the hardships we have suffered seem insignificant to you” (v. 32).

Forgiveness. Grace. Mercy. Patience. Unfailing love. God, who keeps his promises, offers them all. Take what you need.

Hungry

But God’s Spirit teaches us

Nehemiah 9:20 [In a prayer rehearsing God’s goodness to Israel after Ezra reads the Law of Moses to the people] You sent your good Spirit to instruct them. [Other versions say “teach.”)

John 14:26 [Jesus told his disciples] But when the Father sends the Advocate [paraclete: Comforter, Encourager, Counselor] as my representative—that is, the Holy Spirit—he will teach you everything and will remind you of everything that I have told you.

1 John 2:27 For the Holy Spirit teaches you …

So far in this little survey of the Holy Spirit active in the Old Testament we’ve seen him as creator, supreme artisan, wise adviser/burden bearer, source of power, and communicator.

Since God doesn’t change, it’s not surprising to see the Spirit playing these same roles in the New Testament. Today’s topic is no exception. The Holy Spirit teaches us, as he taught the people of Israel in ancient times. Jesus, the master teacher, filled with the Spirit, told the disciples it was better for him to go away, because the Spirit can be present to each of us, as Jesus in his human body could not be.

Nehemiah 8 and 9 describe people hungry and thirsty to understand God’s instructions. They longed to live in keeping with God’s wisdom. In chapter 8, they stood for three hours listening closely (v. 3) as Ezra read the law of Moses to them. A month or so later, they again stood for three hours listening to the law, and then for another three hours confessing their sins—all the ways they had broken God’s law—and worshiping God.

Have you ever been as hungry and thirsty as that, not just for a Fourth of July barbecue, but longing to understand how to please God, in love with him and thrilled to honor his greatness? In chapter 8, the people celebrated “with great joy because they had heard God’s words and understood them” (v. 12).

Immediately after, Israel put into practice what they were learning. It led to a dramatic change of priorities and lifestyle, resulting in health and harmony among them.

I appreciate this prayer by Joseph Mercier, 1851-1926, noted for his strong resistance to German occupation of Belgium during World War I. Many around him were killed and buildings destroyed. It’s a fervent prayer in the throes of great trouble and stress. Today I think of the courageous people of Ukraine who persist in their work for God while missiles fall around them.

O Holy Spirit, beloved of my soul, I adore you. Enlighten me, guide me, strengthen me, console me. Tell me what I should do; give me your orders. I promise to submit myself to all that you desire of me and to accept all that you permit to happen to me. Let me only know your will.

Listen!

But God’s Spirit speaks to and through those who listen to him June 30, 2025

2 Samuel 16:13 So as David stood there among his brothers, Samuel took the flask of olive oil he had brought and anointed David with the oil. And the Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon David from that day on.

2 Samuel 23:1-2 These are the last words of David: … The Spirit of the Lord speaks through me; his words are upon my tongue.

1 Kings 11:38 [God said to Jeroboam through his prophet Ahijah] If you listen to what I tell you and follow my ways … as my servant David did, then I will always be with you.”

Jeremiah 23:18, 21-22 Have any of these prophets been in the Lord’s presence to hear what he is really saying? Has even one of them cared enough to listen? … I have not sent these prophets, yet they run around claiming to speak for me. I have given them no message, yet they go on prophesying. If they had stood before me and listened to me, they would have spoken my words.

Acts 2:30 [Peter preaching on Pentecost, referencing Psalm 16] But David was a prophet.

A friend gave me wise counsel regarding a problem I shared with her.
My husband encouraged me by running an errand on a busy day that I had forgotten, accompanied by kind words.
On a day I felt like I had blown it in several areas, a mentee told me her sessions with me have helped her overcome obstacles and draw near to God.

All of these happened in the last week. In each case, I felt that I received through others words from God that nourished my soul and lifted my head. I believe they fit within a broad definition of prophecy: hearing and communicating words from God that bless us and others. As Paul put it, speaking truth in love, in a way that is good and helpful and encouraging (Ephesians 4:15, 29).

Leanne Payne often said, “God is constantly speaking words of love to us.” Am I still and attentive enough to hear what our Father is saying, or am I too anxious to fill the space with my own words?

Shutterstock: N. D. DSouza

Listening to God doesn’t come with any agenda other than accurately hearing what God is saying to us. Words from God always align with Scripture and with God’s character. Exceptionally, they may be predictive of the future.

When people claim to have heard messages from God for others yet do them harm rather than good, or when these “words” don’t line up with Scripture or with God’s character, they cast doubt on whether hearing from God is a real thing. Perhaps you’ve been hurt by someone claiming to know God’s perspective or direction for your life.

Jeremiah, cited above, records God’s frustration with that kind of “prophecy,” false because of failure to humbly listen to him. We must always take great care with our words, but especially when we think we’ve heard from God for someone else. I wonder how much “church hurt” is rooted in this kind of abuse.

Some Scripture authors, such as David with his psalms, may not even have been aware that their writing was prophetic in the predictive sense—yet New Testament writers refer to them as Messianic. An example is Peter’s quoting of Psalm 16 in Acts 2. Did King David consider himself a prophet, as Peter declares? I at least have not thought of David that way, and commentators express a variety of opinions about this.

Hearing from God is a huge topic that can’t adequately be covered in one blog post. It’s clear, though, that David listened to God, and in the power of the Spirit, communicated God’s words to others through his psalms, words that still bless us today.

I want to listen like that.

Word of God Speak, Bart Millard and Pete Kipley, Mercy Me

Better together

But God’s Spirit gives us power to do what he asks

Judges 6:34 Then the Spirit of the Lord clothed Gideon with power.

Acts 1:8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you.

1 Corinthians 4:20 For the Kingdom of God is not just a lot of talk; it is living by God’s power.

2 Corinthians 12:9 God said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.”

Gideon, self-identified as the least important member of the weakest family in Israel, hid at the bottom of a winepress to thresh wheat for fear of the cruel oppression of Midianites.

(Remember Jesus’s disciples hiding in a locked room for fear of the Jewish rulers?)

Out of all Israel, the angel of the Lord appeared to this frightened young man and greeted him with “Mighty hero, the Lord is with you!”

(Remember Jesus’s disciples hearing him say to them, “I am with you always, to the end of the age”?)

It must have felt to Gideon like a sarcastic joke. I picture him, startled, looking around the small space where he was hiding to see who this strange guy was talking to. It couldn’t be to him. Mighty hero??

Gideon responds with bitter questions, an overflow of anguish ending with, “The Lord has abandoned us.” How could this stranger possibly believe the Lord was with them?

(Remember that on the mountain in Galilee where God gave the disciples the Great Commission, Matthew makes a point of telling us that some of them doubted—even after walking so closely with Jesus for three years?)

And the angel, speaking for God, says, “Go with the strength you have, and rescue Israel from the Midianites. I am sending you!” Gideon replies, “But Lord, how can I …?” (Judges 6:14-15 and on). He didn’t realize that the strength he had was God’s strength, not his own.

(Remember Jesus saying to the disciples, “I have all authority … therefore, go”?)

The unlikely interchange between Gideon and the angel of the Lord reminds me of Moses at the burning bush. “Who, me? You want me to do what?? You’ve got to be kidding! Send someone else better qualified!”

You know these stories, right? If not, read Judges 6 and 7 and Exodus 3. If you’re like me, you’ll find a LOT to identify with in Gideon’s and Moses’s protests.

I am with you. With God’s call comes the power to accomplish what God asks of us. And because we know our own inadequacies, we know it’s only the Lord who can fulfill through us his purposes. All glory goes to him.

The Lord walked closely with both Gideon and Moses, patiently encouraging them and giving them specific instructions along the way. In each case, they started from a place of acknowledged, painful loss and defeat and failure. Their relationship with God was transparent from the beginning, with no pretense of being worthy of God using them. They learned to recognize and rely on the Lord’s voice. They depended absolutely on him.

In both cases, later, after God successfully accomplished his initial call to them, Gideon and Moses tried to go forward on their own and got into trouble. King Saul is another biblical example of the way self-confidence can become self-defeating (1 Samuel 15). The author of 1 Chronicles summarizes Saul’s life in this terse statement, “Saul died because he was unfaithful to the Lord. He failed to obey the Lord’s command” (10:13).

We don’t ever outgrow our need to depend on the Lord and submit ourselves to him. We are always beginners in this walk of obedience and faith; forever, the rest of our lives, learning and growing.

And on the flip side, in our desperate dependency, we can feel the delight of watching God do through us what we could never do in our own strength. I experience this every time I hear someone say that the Karis book has encouraged or challenged them in some way. I wrote that book with so much fear and trembling, so keenly aware of my own inadequacy.

Like Gideon and Moses, I tried to get out of doing it, asking God to choose someone else, a better writer, someone with a platform and experience in the publishing industry. Someone not so closely tied to Karis. I feared being accused of bias and lack of objectivity; that what I wrote couldn’t be relied on because I am her mother. I feared not being capable of summarizing her thirty years of life in a way that would do justice both to her faith and the Lord’s faithfulness to her. I fussed and protested for months.

And in the end, holding this little book in my hand three years later, I experienced the truth God’s Spirit expressed to Paul, which became Karis’s life verse: “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.”

How is the Lord stretching you? What is he asking of you that seems impossible?

Can you hear him saying, as he did to Gideon, “I am with you”?

Are you willing for the Spirit to clothe you with power to do what he is asking you to do?

Too heavy

But the Spirit shares the burden June 23, 2025

Numbers 11:1, 11, 14-18 Soon the people began to complain about their hardship, and the Lord heard everything they said. … And Moses said to the Lord, “Why are you treating me, your servant, so harshly? Have mercy on me! What did I do to deserve the burden of all these people? … I can’t carry the burden of all these people by myself! The load is far too heavy! … Then the Lord to Moses, “Gather before me seventy men … I will take some of the Spirit that is upon you, and I will put the Spirit upon them also. They will bear the burden of the people along with you, so you will not have to carry it alone.”

As we picked raspberries in her father’s garden a few days ago, my granddaughter Juliana, 2 ½, said, “Grammy, I mulch. But sometimes it’s too heavy, so my Daddy helps me.”

Juliana (right) “camping” with her sister and cousins in Grammy and PopPop’s back yard Friday.

I’ve been smiling over that ever since. How many two-year-olds do you know who say with pride, “I mulch”? How many have tried to carry a 40-pound bag of wood chips?

But Juju’s statement went deep into my soul. I, too, try to carry burdens too heavy for me. And my Father helps me. Thank you, Father.

In your life, what is too heavy for you to carry by yourself?

My friend Rhonda and her husband Jim have carried gardening burdens for me this spring, a responsibility too heavy for me as I have faced other challenges. I am so deeply grateful.

Moses found himself desperate for help with dealing with the complaints of the people he shepherded for forty years in the desert, a burden too heavy for him alone.

God, who called us through Jesus to live “freely and lightly” (Matthew 11:30 in The Message), promises not to give us more than we can bear. He calls us to share the weight of our burdens with other people.

If life feels overwhelming right now, I invite you to think about these Scriptures and ask the Holy Spirit who can share your load. I’m doing this exercise myself today.

Matthew 11:28-30 Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.

1 Corinthians 10:13 The temptations (peirasmos, testings) in your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you can endure.

Galatians 6:2 Share each other’s burdens, and in this way obey the law of Christ.

I will give you rest Sing through the Bible

All kinds of arts and crafts

But the Spirit is the supreme artisan!

Exodus 31:1-5, 35:30-35 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Look, I have specifically chosen Bezalel … I have filled him with the Spirit of God, giving him great wisdom, ability, and expertise in all kinds of crafts. … And the Lord has given both him and Oholiab the ability to teach their skills to others. The Lord has given them special skills as engravers, designers, embroiderers in blue, purple, and scarlet thread on fine line cloth, and weavers. They excel as craftsmen and as designers.

It makes sense that the triune God who created earth in all its beauty and exquisite detail, and in particular created humankind in his image, would delight in our ability to create. I love this story, of God particularly gifting Bezalel and Oholiab, filling them with his Holy Spirit, to lead and guide the crafting of the Tabernacle, an oasis of beauty in the desert. I love the fact that God wanted this mobile place of regular connection with his people to be especially lovely.

Last Saturday our church held an Arts Collaboratives Retreat for people engaged in all kinds of creative pursuits. We have seven Arts Collaboratives: Writers J, Gardeners, 2-D Visual Art, 3-D Visual Art (pottery, knitting, architecture, glasswork …), Songwriters, Music Performers, and Drama. The retreat focused on Psalm 51 in four parts: Who am I without God? Who am I with God? What is my response to God? What is God’s response to me?

Each part included personal meditation on our response to questions related to our art, including toward the end, How am I through my art showing God’s greatness? How do I want to show God’s greatness through my art?

Our church enjoys the fruits of the Collaboratives’ labor in a variety of ways. The Songwriters regularly enrich our worship. A couple of weeks ago, the Music Performers offered a wonderful concert recognizing the in-between time we all live in. During Holy Week and Easter, 2-D and 3-D visual artists displayed thoughtful, intriguing interpretations of the Stations of the Cross. The Gardeners’ Collaborative helps keep our green spaces lovely.

The Writers’ Collaborative does not have a joint project at this point. But on a personal level, we share our work with each other and offer feedback and encouragement. Right now, as I’m working on Three-in-One, a member of our group who has kids the ages of my target audience is giving me valuable input. The book will be much better because of his own experience with writing for 9-12 year olds.

I depend on the Holy Spirit to help me every time I write something (including these blogs). In the case of this book, I have repeatedly asked for prayer that God will open my mind and guide me through his Spirit to accurately (if inevitably incompletely) represent who God is through this story. If you would like to pray for me in this, I would appreciate it! I am keenly aware of my own limitations, and at the same time I’m learning so much!

Please pray too for Lucy, the teenage artist who is working with me on Three-in-One. And pray for Aderyn, who is figuring out how to handle the challenging ideas I have for illustrating The Gladness Book. (If you’ve seen Campfire Song Stories, Lucy’s and Aderyn’s names are probably familiar to you). I hope both The Gladness Book and Three-in-One will be out by the end of the year, joining The Giggly Bug as this year’s new books.

Inspired by an attempt to help a three-year-old get over her fear of bugs,

now available in hardcover and paperback on Amazon (I don’t know why the cover image isn’t posted yet) and Barnes and Noble.

Thank you, Lord, that when you created us, you desired us to also be creative! Thank you that your Spirit inspires and gifts us in so many different ways.

One of the songs from the retreat keeps running through my mind: Your Labor Is Not in Vain, by Wendell Kimbrough, Paul Zach, and Isaac Wardell.

God of wonders

But God’s Spirit participated in the creation of the world

Genesis 1:1-2 In the beginning God [plural] created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep waters. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters.

For the last few weeks, we’ve been looking at the fruit of the Spirit as Paul lists the qualities of agape love in Galatians 5:22-23. Since we remembered and celebrated last Sunday (Pentecost) the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the believers in Jerusalem, it seems fitting that we continue deepening our understanding of the Holy Spirit.

Also, I’m interested in this topic because of the book I’m writing for kids, hoping through story to communicate more about the Trinity than they typically learn in Sunday School. Not that I “understand” this mystery!

The Trinity is present in Scripture from the very beginning. The name for God used in the creation account in Genesis 1, Elohim, is plural. And immediately, the Spirit is singled out, hovering over formless, empty darkness (1:2). Then Elohim said, “Let there be light” …

Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-89) heartening poem “God’s Grandeur,” referencing Genesis 1:2, could have been written today.

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.

It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;

It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil

Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;

And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;

And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil

Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;

There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;

And though the last lights off the black West went

Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent

World broods with warm breast and with ah! Bright wings.

God of Wonders by Steve J. Hindalong and Marc Byrd, Third Day

Strengthen self-control

But God’s power must be used rightly June 5, 2025

Galatians 5:22-23 But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!

Proverbs 16:32 Better to have self-control than to conquer a city.

Proverbs 25:28 A person without self-control is like a city with broken-down walls.

I’m writing today in lovely Meridian, Idaho, remembering the impact on me of previous experiences in this beautiful state and their influence on Treasure Hunt 1904, book two of the Cally and Charlie historical fiction series. My sister Jan and I are here for a few days visiting our sister Marsha and brother-in-law Vance. I’ve not been here before in June. The flowers are stunning.

Marsha’s roses

The themes of Treasure Hunt 1904 directly relate to the final virtue in Paul’s description of agape, the lovely fruit the Spirit produces in our lives when we give him freedom to garden our hearts.

Self-control, translated “temperance”—moderation, self-restraint—in the KJV, is enkrateia in Greek, derived from the word kratos, which means strength. Like praos (see the last blog about gentleness), enkrateia is a strong word. It calls us to the right use of power. That power, as we know, is the operation of the Spirit of God in our lives, which we will recognize and celebrate this Sunday, Pentecost.

Along with the other virtues, gentleness calls us to choose how we treat others. Enkrateia reminds us we have the ability and responsibility to choose how we manage ourselves, circling us back to “Love others as you love yourself,” as Jesus taught us (Matthew 22:39). The Spirit empowers us to do both with godliness (God-likeness, the God who is love) as we practice agape.

Paul uses enkrateia (as a verb): we must discipline ourselves to win the race of life. Not to win temporary earthly rewards, but an eternal prize: God’s “Well done, faithful servant” (see 1 Corinthians 9:24-27; Philippians 3:12-14; Matthew 25:21).

So, what’s the connection with Treasure Hunt 1904? Using the motifs of a multi-layered treasure hunt and of water (see John 7:38-39), so critically important to transform into fruitfulness the fertile deserts of Idaho, we see Cally grapple with the wounds of trauma in her life (book one), emerging from the grief and paralysis of victimhood into proactive purpose. As she grows into acceptance of the love the Malcomson family offers her, Cally begins to recognize her own power. She can make choices for herself, rather than being controlled, for good or ill, by others.

This book also includes scenes of the devastating, ongoing impact of previous decades of misuse of power, sometimes, tragically, in the name of God, as western settlers and the U.S. government claimed a “manifest destiny” over the lives and territory of native Americans and others. Is not this false equivalence, still plaguing the world today, a breaking of the third commandment and of Jesus’ command to love others as he loves us?

Pentecost Sunday initiates the liturgical season of “ordinary time.” Ordinary, for you and me and all followers of Jesus, means practicing the wonderful fruit of the Spirit, in the agape love of the Father, empowered by Jesus’ conquest of sin and death by his sacrifice on the cross and his resurrection. “Live clean, innocent lives as children of God, shining like bright lights.. your faithful service is an offering to God” (Philippians 2:15-17).

In ordinary time, let’s shine! Let’s bear fruit that adorns the world with joy.

Holy Spirit, today I offer you freedom to grow the good fruit of agape love in my heart, in all its dimensions. Pull out the weeds, heal the wounds, rebuild healthy boundaries, and water the fertile soil of God’s love. Amen.

Guard gentleness

But God’s gentleness is rooted in power June 2, 2025

Galatians 5:22-23 But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!

Matthew 11:29 Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart.

John 13:3-5 Jesus knew that the Father had given him authority over everything and that he had come from God and would return to God. So he got up from the table, took off his robe, wrapped a towel around his waist, and poured water into a basin. …

I love seeing strong people treat others gently. Don’t you? For me, this exhibits true strength, the emotional security that allows them to respect, care for and protect others, rather than indulge a need to show off how powerful they are. It tells me they have experienced and embraced the healing of agape in their own hearts.

Over time, “meekness,” the word the KJV uses to describe this aspect of the fruit of the Spirit, has come to represent weakness rather than strength. But praos (or praus), is rooted in strength and is a fruit of power: the ability to choose a humble position in order to bless others. Praos is the gentleness we see so clearly in Jesus’ life and teachings.

Jesus chose to give up his divine privileges and took the humble position of a slave (Philippians 2:6). “He could have called ten thousand angels,” as the old song says, to free him from the suffering of the cross. He “did not retaliate when he was insulted, nor threaten revenge when he suffered” (1 Peter 2:23). He had the courage to live in poverty, to touch a leper, to defend women, to elevate children, to enjoy the company of “sinners,” to break all kinds of cultural taboos in order to show us what God’s love is like. His gentleness can still melt our defensiveness today.

“The greatest among you must be a servant,” Jesus taught (Matthew 23:11). In his upside-down Kingdom, authority must be used in humility rather than flaunting one’s power over others (Matthew 20:25-27). “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28).

Holy Spirit, please help us to learn from Jesus to use the power of gentleness within agape to bless others as he did. Guard and heal our hearts from the insecurity that generates pride. Generate in us the humble strength that comes from knowing ourselves beloved, our own needs tenderly cared for.

Jesus understands what praos sometimes costs us. “By his wounds you are healed. Once you were like sheep who wandered away. But now you have turned to your Shepherd, the Guardian of your souls” (1 Peter 2:21-25).

Shepherd of my Heart, Sandi Patty

Find freedom in faith

But God’s faithfulness never ends May 29, 2025

Galatians 5:22-23 But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith [many translations say faithfulness instead of faith], gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!

Lamentations 3:22-23 The faithful love [hesed] of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning.

“Great is Thy Faithfulness,” we sang at my dad’s funeral, his favorite hymn. “Morning by morning, new mercies I see.” God’s faithfulness anchored him through incredible challenges and trials, even through failures.

And Dad’s death was just the beginning of his story. After his death, we sibs let our imaginations fly as we pictured him in Heaven with all the time in the world to indulge his many passions and interests. Why could we do this? Because God’s faithfulness is ETERNAL. It doesn’t stop here.

“One day at a time” has been my instinctive response when people ask me how I survived the Karis years. “Sometimes one hour at a time. Counting on God’s faithfulness, his manna for this one day.” Thinking about an elusive “tomorrow” was too overwhelming. I gripped God’s faithfulness for this moment, this challenge. And then the next one. I lived this way for 30+ years.

Karis’s move to Heaven–I’m so curious about what she’s been up to there in her ongoing experience of God-s faithfulness!–didn’t automatically change me. Living intensively in the present, without margin in my life for worrying about the future, became so habitual that for better or worse, it’s with me still. I’m able to engage with this morning, or today—maybe that stretches out now to thinking about this week. But I plan for and set personal longer term objectives in only the vaguest of terms, such as “I want to publish three books this year, so I’ll have them to take to homeschool conventions next spring.”

(Unless I see that my lack of planning will negatively impact others. That somehow feels different, requiring more detailed attention to “how” something could be done.)

“How exactly will you accomplish this?” my husband asks of my vague desires. He wants a Plan, as do our mission leaders. I’m immediately flooded with stress and a compulsion to retreat, to give the whole thing up. I think, “If God wants me to do this, he’ll show me how.” But my ideas about what I want to do aren’t the most important thing. I need to stay flexible to understand what God is asking of me on any given day.

Is that the kind of faith Paul is talking about? Or is it irresponsibility; just an excuse handily available (principally to myself) if I don’t reach my “goals”? The jury is out.

Vine’s says pistis, the word Paul uses in Galatians 5:22, is used in the New Testament always of faith in God or Christ. It’s not faith in myself or faith in other people or circumstances. It’s not even faith in God’s promises. It’s persistent trust in God’s faithfulness, rooted in personal surrender to him, himself.

For me, this is freedom. It’s not all up to me. The weight of the world is on HIS shoulders, not mine. I just have to do my wee part.

Here’s the cool thing: even faith in God’s faithfulness is not something I have to generate. It’s something the Spirit produces in me.

My part is giving him space in my soul to do his work. And then letting his faithfulness motivate me to live faithfully.

Faith and Wonder, Meredith Andrews