enLIVEn Devotionals

Abiding in Jesus - Overflowing His Spirit

Can You Hear God?

My 5 year old son asked me after we came home from church last week, “Mommy, how do we know God is talking to us if we can’t hear him?” This seemed to him and to me a fair question to ask. I had to think about how I would answer him. I laughed first at how cute he was and then said, “Well, you just have to be real quiet and listen to your heart where God speaks to us the most.” He and I have been very committed to our new relationship with God and our church. I am proud of his question, even if it is not quite on the right track. I asked him if he understood what I meant, and he said, ... Read the Post

Burdens and Yokes

I came across this in a Bible study recently. The study guide brought out the idea that a yoke harnesses two oxen to a plow—not one. Jesus’ yoke partners us with Him. We are no longer carrying our burdens alone. But the more I thought about this concept, the more I realized that this is no ordinary partnership. We are not giving the fullness of our burden to our friend or our spouse. When we are in these relationships, we at most enjoy an equal partnership or equal sharing of our burden. When we share a burden with Jesus, we should be giving the burden to Him. We shouldn’t be carrying it ... Read the Post

Time Enough

I have much in my life right now that needs tending, and I have found myself spending quite a bit of time lately thinking about time. I began to admit the undeniable fact that I was falling behind, and I sought God concerning this issue. For a long time I would only pray that God would remove some of the stresses in my life. When He showed no haste in removing the pressures, however, I was forced to consider the fact that I might just need some time management skills. Sadly, I had already tried several time management techniques before and failed at every attempt. I knew that there was a ... Read the Post

Failure

I’ve been thinking about failure and success a lot lately. I decided to do a little research into what kind of failures successful people have had. I started with the Hall of Faith found in Hebrews 11. Here we find Noah. We all know how he was chosen by God to build the ark because he was the only righteous man on earth, but did you know that he accidentally got drunk afterward? Or what about Abraham? He had faith and obeyed when God told him to go, even though he didn’t know where he was going. Yet Abraham lied to the Egyptians that Sarah was his sister instead of his wife. Jacob is listed ... Read the Post

Wait

Isaiah tells us that if we wait upon the Lord our strength will be renewed. Wait is really a word of action in this verse. Wait does not mean we can crawl back under our covers until God announces, “Everything is okay now. You can come out.” No, it means we can wait (rely, trust) God to keep us as we put one foot in front of the other. It means we can rely on His strength when life seems to drain us of our strength. It means we have His promised hope when life seems to drain us of our hope. A few years back, I broke my hip finding myself at the mercy of others. A broken hip causes one to ... Read the Post

A Merry Heart

"When your heart is broken, you see cracks in everything." I remember hearing this line from a TV show called Felicity one night in college and I never forgot. It's probably because my heart was broken then from a thing called life and I cried many nights on my knees wondering if the pain would ever go away. My heartache was too much to bear and it felt like everything around me was broken indeed and I saw no hope. Our heart is a very interesting part of our body that is so strong and yet so delicate all at the same time. All our strength comes from our heart but it gets easily hurt and ... Read the Post