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Our 4 Postures in Pain toward God

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When we’re in pain, we often take one of four postures toward God. See if any of these sound familiar. Personally, I’ve done them all.

(1) Hiding from God

Sometimes in our pain, the shame ramps up, and we do anything to not be exposed.

Adam and Eve are the poster children for hiding from God in shame, after they ate the forbidden fruit in Genesis 3. They clothed themselves to hide from each other. And they hid from God. Their shame was in overdrive.

Shame’s lie is, “I am uniquely and fatally flawed. Uniquely – no one’s as bad as me. And fatally – there’s no fixing me.”

Both are lies. In the words of Tenth Avenue North, “you are more than the mess you made.” I write more about this here, but we are not what we do.

The beautiful thing about the Genesis 3 story is God’s response. God didn’t burst into the Garden, tearing off Adam and Eve’s fig leaves, with a vengeful cry of, “I know what you did!” Yet we hide from God because that’s what we expect, and what our shame fears the most.

Instead, he asks questions: “Where are you?” And when Adam admits he was hiding in shame, “Who told you that you were naked? Did you eat from the tree I told you not to?” Then when Adam performs the world’s first blame-shift by throwing Eve under the bus, God asks Eve, “What have you done?”

[Aside: I have a post here, with a 1-page worksheet, about starting a daily practice of answering 4 specific questions God asks us.]

Now, yes, God knew the answers to his questions before he asked them. He wasn’t asking for information. He was asking for relationship. He was asking for connection. His questions were an invitation to Adam and Eve to connect with him in the middle of their sin and their pain.

And, yes, God gives consequences to all involved, Adam, Eve, and the serpent. But it’s fascinating to me who didn’t get a question. The serpent. Because God doesn’t want relationship with him. That ship sailed when Satan rebelled against God and fell from Heaven.

But God asks us questions because he’s inviting us to stop hiding. Into relationship. To bring all of our sin and pain to him in an intimate, connected, relationship. We have a special opportunity that fallen angels do not. I encourage you to take it.

(2) Running from God

Jonah is the poster child for this one. There are times when we know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, what God wants us to do. Or maybe it’s something we know is wrong that we want to do anyway.

Sometimes we know what God wants, and, like Jonah, we intentionally head in the other direction. Running from God is telling him, “No, I’m doing it my way.”

You know Jonah’s story. God told him to go preach repentance to Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, one of Israel’s enemies (who would later destroy the upper kingdom of Israel). Jonah got on a boat going the other direction, was thrown overboard during a storm, and was swallowed by a whale (ok, technically, a huge fish).

It’s a misconception that the whale spit Jonah up on the beach of Nineveh. Jonah actually got spit up back in Israel, where he started. But don’t take my word for it:

  • Jonah 3:1-2 – The Lord tells Jonah (again!) to go to Nineveh. Why would he have to go there if he was already there?
  • Jonah 3:3 – “Jonah obeyed the Lord and went to Nineveh.” Again, the Bible wouldn’t record Jonah going to Nineveh if he was already there.

God gave Jonah a do-over. God had the fish barf him right back where he started from, so Jonah and God could try this again.

When we bolt, in his love and longing for us, God often allows painful situations to bring us back to a place where we can try it again.

And in Jonah chapter 4, when Jonah is angry and arguing with God, God asks Jonah questions.

  • “Have you any right to be angry?” (asked twice in slightly different ways)
  • “Shouldn’t I care about that great city (Nineveh)?”

God doesn’t rebuke Jonah. He invites Jonah into a conversation by asking questions.

If you are running from God, I encourage you to have the conversation with God. Bring all your fear, bring your pain, bring your anger. It’s ok. God can take it. He would rather have the difficult, ugly, messy conversation than see you bolt.

(3) Fighting with God

When I first sat down to read the Book of Psalms, I dreaded it. I thought it would be the most boring book in the whole Bible. “Reading the song lyrics on the jacket without the music. Swell.” But now, having read them, Psalms is my favorite book in the whole Bible.

Because the Psalms are so real life, so raw. The Psalms are more descriptive of real life than prescriptive. God gets us.

Here are some excerpts (my paraphrases, but you get the point):

  • Psalm 2: Why do the nations plot in vain against God? (Anybody following the news lately?)
  • Psalm 3: Everyone’s against me!
  • Psalm 6: I’m worn out from groaning, all night long I flood my bed with tears.
  • Psalm 10: Where are you God? Why are you hiding in times of trouble?
  • Psalm 13: How long, God? Will you forget me forever?!?
  • Psalm 51: Forgive me God!
  • Psalm 77: When I remember God, I groan! (This psalm was portrayed so beautifully in Season 3, Episode 8, of The Chosen.)

And so many more. Yet in all of these desperate psalms, God meets the writer. In the middle of the pain, and the abuse, and the ugliness, and the sin, and the hurt. God wants to walk with us through it.

“Conflict is growth trying to happen.” – Jill Savage

I encourage you to have the confrontation with God. What are you angry about in your life? Have it out with him, he can take it. David, Job, and Jacob, just to name a few, had it out with God. And God did not rebuke them. God met them.

Many psalms are beautiful examples of having it out with God, and through that process, strengthening relationship with him. The psalmist always ends closer to God than when he started. So will you, if you have the conversation.

(4) Seeking God with Trust

Eventually, we want to land here. Hiding and running are ways we avoid seeking God. And fighting with him is a messy way to seek God.

But what if there’s a healthier way?

Jesus modeled a healthy way to seek God in the middle of suffering in Gethsemane. Well, that was Jesus, so it was easy for him! Um, no, not so much. He sweated blood (Luke 22:44). There were no rainbows and unicorns.

Jesus modeled seeking God in a healthy way in the middle of hardship like this:

  • He told God what he wanted. “Take this cup from me.” (Matthew 26:39)
  • He named the messy emotions. “My soul is overwhelmed to the point of death.” (Matthew 26:38)
  • He deferred to God, trusting God’s plan: “Yet not as I will, but as you will.” (Matthew 26:39,42)
  • He received (and accepted!) the supernatural strength to do what he needed to do. An angel from Heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. (Luke 22:43) You will receive the supernatural strength you need too.

But Jesus is God, so he could do that! Yes, Jesus is fully God. But he’s also fully human. In becoming human, Jesus emptied himself of his divinity (Philippians 2:6-8). He did everything as a human, as an example for us. So we can do everything Jesus did, and even greater things (John 14:12), if we have the same relationship with the Father he had, which is available to us who believe through the Holy Spirit.

“We can never be challenged by a negative, but only by the character of God.” – Graham Cooke

In every trial on this earth, God wants to reveal to us, personally, an attribute of himself that we haven’t experienced yet (or at a deeper level than we’ve experienced in the past). So in the midst of trials, can we learn to ask, “Father, what do you want to reveal to me about yourself in this?”

What attribute of God do you need right now?

Your Turn

Does this resonate? In pain, which of these 4 postures do you lean toward? Tell us in the comments. What you have to share will help others. And please share this post with everyone it will bless.

4 Ways to Deescalate Conflict

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If you’ve been watching The Chosen, you’ve seen a brilliant (fictitious) example of Jesus de-escalating conflict in Season 3 Episode 8. Spoiler Alert: If you haven’t seen it, go watch it, then come back and read this post.

[Aside: If you’re new to The Chosen, it’s a multi-season show about the life of Christ through the eyes of the people who met him. It’s professionally done (not another cheesy Bible project). And I’ve never seen any show or movie that captures the heart of Jesus like this one does. I highly recommend it. But you have to watch it from the beginning, Season 1 Episode 1, or you won’t get it. You can watch the whole thing for free by downloading the free The Chosen app.]

As usual, even the fictitious scenes in The Chosen reflect Biblical principles. The writers did a brilliant job showing Jesus deescalate a potentially violent situation between 4 different rival ethnic groups, all at odds with each other.

A Little Brain Science

First, a little science about how our brains work in conflict situations. Here’s a short 90-second video of the “hand-brain model,” using your hand as a model for the brain.

Our brain’s cerebral cortex, where our rational thought takes place, is a very slow processor. In conflict, we don’t have time for that, so it goes off-line, leaving our decision making to our hypothalamus (where our emotions live) and our brain stem (fight or flight).

This is how God wired us as humans to survive in dangerous situations.

But to successfully navigate conflict, we need everybody involved to get out of fight-or-flight mode and back into their cerebral cortex, so we can have a rational conversation.

A Disclaimer

My assumption going in is that everyone involved is more healthy than toxic. If you’re dealing with a narcissist, or someone else who’s more toxic than healthy, these techniques may not work. A narcissist is only interested in winning. They don’t really want to solve the problem; they just want their way.

When you’re dealing with someone who’s more toxic than healthy, what you say doesn’t matter. Only what you do matters; actions are the only language they understand. If that’s your situation, I strongly recommend getting counseling to learn the tools you need to deal with it effectively and safely.

But for people who are more healthy than toxic, these techniques can go a long way.

Here are 4 actions we can take to de-escalate conflict, with (mostly!) healthy people, as much as it depends upon us. These do not go in any particular order. They can repeat. And in any given situation, you might do only one, a couple, or all of them.

(1) Take a Non-Threatening Posture

As Jesus and the disciples are surrounded by these rival groups shouting at each other and mocking him, he does the most counter-intuitive thing possible.

He sits down. And although they reluctantly sit with him, his disciples aren’t happy about it. There are angry, rival groups standing around them. When the disciples point out to Jesus that “we look weak and defenseless,” Jesus just smiles. Because that’s the point.

In a conflict, people are tense and ramped-up because they’re scared. They feel threatened. Taking a non-threatening posture can alleviate the tension, inviting the other person (or people) to ramp-down, because there is no threat.

This doesn’t mean you have to physically sit down. In fact, everyone may already be sitting, but still be spun-up because of the emotional threat they anticipate in the conversation. Ask the Holy Spirit how to take a non-threatening posture in your situation, either physically or verbally. It might mean taking the actions below.

(2) Ask Questions without Judging the Answers

Questions are a brilliant way of slowing people down. They move people out of fight-or-flight mode because their cerebral cortex is required to answer the question. Questions, and you waiting patiently for the answer, slow people down, inviting their cerebral cortex to come back online.

Several times in this scene, Jesus asks questions. Questions are a great way to help everyone involved establish the facts of what actually happened in the situation causing the conflict. Questions communicate respect by giving everyone a chance to answer and be heard. And communicating respect lowers the perceived threat-level, inviting the other person’s cerebral cortex to come back online.

Here are some pro tips for asking good questions:

  • Don’t ask yes or no questions. No cerebral cortex required for that. Ask open-ended questions.
  • Wait for the other person to answer. Get comfortable with dead air. Don’t jump in to break an uncomfortable silence. Once you ask a question, let them speak next.

(3) Tell Stories

Jesus was a genius at storytelling. Word pictures, analogies, and parables invite the other person to move from fight-or-flight move into ponder mode. You can’t think through a word picture with your amygdala; you need your cerebral cortex for that.

The Chosen writers expertly weave many of Jesus’ parables into this scene.

Ask the Holy Spirit for a word picture that describes your side of the conflict, particularly one that communicates how you feel.

(4) Look for Opportunities to Meet a Need

In this fictitious scene, Jesus heals a man with a broken leg. This gets the respect of the rival groups, and they all sit down and listen to him. Then Jesus proceeds to sort out the conflict with questions and stories.

You may not have the opportunity to do a miracle. Or you may; the Holy Spirit still invites us into the miraculous today. But is someone in the room hurting because of an unmet need?

I guarantee you this: When they came into the conflict, they did not expect anyone in the room to meet their need voluntarily; they were ready to fight for it.

If you meet a need, even a small one that’s not the subject of the conflict, it greatly lowers the perceived level of threat. Ask the Holy Spirit what need you can meet. It could be as simple as offering a blanket because they look cold. Or a glass of water before you start.

Your Turn

Does this resonate? Have you used, or seen used, any of these techniques to de-escalate conflict? Tell us your story in the comments. And please share this post if it would bless others.

3 Practical Signs that You’re Missing Your Calling

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I am passionate about walking in the fullness of what God has called me to do on this earth. I hope you are too. I don’t want to miss my calling and just come close.

Our new favorite Internet-TV series is The Chosen, a dramatization of the gospels that is done extremely well. Instead of trying to cram everything into a two or three-hour movie, they are presenting the life and ministry of Jesus as a multi-season series. This gives them the luxury of developing fictional but plausible back stories for the various characters that met Jesus, like the disciples and others.

Jesus is not the main character, although he becomes more and more of a central character as the series develops. The main characters are the people who meet Jesus. The vision of the production is to introduce Jesus to viewers through the eyes of the people who met him, so viewers can have similar experiences meeting Jesus. The stories surrounding its production and the impact it is having around the world are truly the fingerprints of God. This series is reaping amazing Kingdom fruit.

No spoiler here, but there is a character that Jesus asks to follow him. This character has a very involved life he’d be leaving behind to follow Jesus; this is not an easy choice at all. Jesus tells the person in two days they are leaving Capernaum from the Fountain in the Southern Quarter of the city. He can meet Jesus and his disciples at the fountain if he decides to come.

When Jesus meets up with his disciples at the fountain, they find a money bag left by that man to finance their journey. A complete mystery to the disciples, Jesus knows who it is from. He also knows the man is hiding just behind the fountain’s wall, desperately wanting to come but not being able to.

Jesus calls out, “Are we all here? Is there anyone else who wants to come with us?”

The disciples look around, counting each other, and say, “Yes, we’re all here,” not realizing the invitation Jesus is giving to the unseen man. It’s a heart-wrenching scene: The man is silently weeping behind the wall, desperately wanting to go with Jesus but unable to tear himself away from his career and family.

Jesus looks directly at the wall where the man is hiding and says with sad longing in his eyes, “You came so close.”

I don’t want that to be my epitaph. I want to accomplish the calling and the work God created me for here on this planet, not get right up to the edge and back out.

Dominoes

When I began this writing journey in earnest, God showed me a vision of dominos, stood on end like we used to do when we were kids. You know the deal. Knock over the first one, and it knocks over all the others.

What if, on That Day when I see Jesus face to face, he shows me all the resources Heaven had lined up to use my writing for the Kingdom of God? What if it was an impact beyond anything I could ever ask or think (Ephesians 3:20)? But it never happened because I never tipped over that first domino. How tragic would that be?

That’s a conversation I never want to have. I don’t want to spend an eternity in regret, wishing I hadn’t been afraid to step out into what I knew God was calling me to.

3 Signs that You’re Just Coming Close

Here are three practical clues that you’re missing the calling God has on your life. Do any of these resonate? They did for me, and they continue to help me check myself, get off the eternal hamster wheel,  and actually make real progress.

1) Always planning but never doing. Planning is so much safer than doing. I want to do it right, so I just have to figure out a few more things first… You know the drill, needing to have everything figured out before doing anything. I perfected this to an art form.

Perfectionism is just socially acceptable procrastination. The truth is we keep planning, instead of doing, because we’re scared. But the only way forward is to start doing things, taking intentional steps, toward the calling we know God has on our lives. Stop ducking it by eternal planning. Enough with the excuses, already.

2) It never gets done because it’s not scheduled. Darn, another week went by without doing anything to move my calling forward. Oh well, I’ll do it next week. No, actually I won’t. Next week, life will happen and crowd it out just like it did this week. Unless.

Unless we schedule it and protect that time. For example, if God’s calling you to write a book, schedule regular writing time and protect it. If, say, a friend wants to do something during that time, just say, “I’m sorry, I have another commitment.” You don’t have to explain. Protect it like you would any other appointment on your calendar.

3) Always busy but never making progress. We’re all busy. But are we just letting life happen to us? Are we drifting, endlessly careening from one emergency to the next? Or are we intentionally taking steps into what God’s calling us to?

Moving Forward Is Simple, but It’s Not Easy

If this is resonating with you, ask the Holy Spirit to help you move forward by doing two things:

  1. Identify the next right thing to do. What’s the next baby step you need to take?
  2. Schedule time to do it. Pick a date and time and write it on the calendar or in your phone. Make an appointment with yourself to move forward into God’s calling on your life.

Simple, obvious, but not easy. Yet, you can do this. God wouldn’t have called you to it otherwise.

Your Turn

Does this resonate? What is your next right thing? What’s holding you back? Tell us your story in the comments, and please share this post to bless others.

How to Walk a Hard Road with 4 Mindsets

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Too often, “how to walk a hard road” isn’t something we talk about enough in Western Christianity. Our life is so comfortable, on the outside at least, that too often we neglect talking about walking hard roads. And yet, although we have freedoms and conveniences, our lives can be just as painful and torn as those suffering in third world countries.

Our favorite TV series, The Chosen, has a scene in Season 1, Episode 8, about 16 minutes into the episode, where Nicodemus and his wife Zohara talk about walking hard roads. They are talking about Hagar, who bore Abraham’s son Ishmael. (You can read the story of Hagar, and how God met with her twice, in Genesis 16:1-16, 17:24-26, and 21:9-21.)

Nicodemus: “Hagar was caught up in something complicated and fraught, but not of her choice. And yet, God saw her, and he knew the path she was forced to take would not be an easy one.”

Zohara: “When we stumble onto hard roads, he finds us and comforts us.”

Nicodemus: “Or does he call us to them?”

Too often in Western Christianity, we approach life with Zohara’s response: It’s God’s job to comfort us in our pain. There is an element of truth to that. God does find us and comfort us. After all, Jesus calls the Holy Spirit the Comforter (John 14:26).

But I think Nicodemus was on to something here. While, yes, God comforts us when we find ourselves on hard roads, often he’s the one calling us to walk the hard road.

But we have a choice. The world gives us a plethora of other alternatives. Plenty of ways to medicate the pain. Plenty of distractions to otherwise occupy our time. Anything to keep us off that hard road God is calling us to and the impact it will have. Because walking our hard road will encourage other to walk theirs.

“A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you.” – Psalm 91:7

One person choosing to walk one hard road shatters ten thousand demonic strongholds for others. While we won’t know the full impact until we see Jesus, our walking our hard road terrifies the Kingdom of Darkness, which does see the effects. They see strongholds they’ve invested generations building up come crashing down in a day, all because one follower of Jesus chose to walk a hard road. That could be you. If you choose to walk your hard road, demons will need therapy. It sucks to be them.

So you matter. Walking the hard road Jesus is calling you to matters. So how do you do it? Here are 4 mindsets to choose while walking a hard road.

1) The “Uncompromising Decision” Mindset

My dad always used to be first in line for birthday cake or whatever other sweets were offered around the office. Until he was diagnosed with diabetes. Then he dropped sweets cold-turkey. People would ask him how he did that so consistently, without cheating at all. He’d answer, “Simple. I can’t have them.”

“100% is easier than 98%” — Benjamin Hardy

Decide. The mindset of uncompromising decision is our primary defense against the world. My dad found that “I can’t have any sweets” was a much easier road to walk than “how many sweets can I have?”

2) The “On Your Face” Mindset

When you’re walking a hard road, I highly recommend lots and lots of facetime before God. No, I’m not talking about the Apple app. I’m talking about physically lying, face-down into the carpet, before the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. This mindset is a posture of the heart (and often of the body) of humility before the Lord.

I was literally on my face before God, crying out for his intervention in my marriage and my family, for at least 18 months. I’d be on the floor in the corner of the room during worship time at church. I’d be on the floor of my office at home in the early morning hours when no one else was awake. I’d park in some distant spot in a remote parking lot during the day, because home wasn’t safe, and pour out my heart to God.

And I eventually saw God move, although not the way I wanted. Everyone has a choice. My wife left. The divorce devastated my children and continues to. It was the worst time in my life. But God was faithful and brought Janet. God has restored my calling, brought tremendous healing, and Janet and I walk out our callings that dove-tail so beautifully together.

3) The “Manage Your Influences” Mindset

After being diagnosed with diabetes, my dad didn’t frequent bakeries. While he could say “no” to sweets offered to him by others, he didn’t put himself in situations where it would be any harder than it had to be.

If you’re struggling with pornography, don’t watch movies with nudity or that glorify sex outside of marriage. Don’t listen to music that glorifies sex outside of marriage or objectifies women.

“The eyes are the window to your soul.” – William Shakespeare

Your senses are the toll booths guarding your heart. Guard your eye gates and ear gates.

If you’re trying to stop smoking, don’t go to the vape shop or hang with friends who smoke. If you’re struggling with alcoholism, don’t go to a bar or hang with friends who drink.

This mindset removes negative influences from your life. This means you might have to let go of certain friends. Ask the Holy Spirit to bring you godly friends who support the hard road you’re walking, instead of trying to pull you off it.

But I’m trying to reach them for Jesus! That’s good, that’s noble. But if they are pulling you back into a sinful lifestyle, you’re not reaching them for Jesus. They are reaching you for Satan, and you need to let them go. Put them in God’s hands, and trust that he will reach out to them through someone else who will not be compromised by them.

There is one relationship you can’t walk away from, and that’s with your spouse. If your spouse is a wet-blanket on your calling, I’ve put together a one-page resource just for you. You can download it here. Let me know if it’s helpful and how we can pray and support you.

Download the Guide
“7 Ways to Deal with a
Wet Blanket Spouse”

4) The “Focus on Eternity” Mindset

This mindset focuses on eternity, knowing that our hard road in this life is only a vapor compared to our eternity with Jesus (James 4:14).

Francis Chan says it much better than I can. Please watch this 4-minute video of The Rope.

So How About It?

What hard road are you walking? How can we support you on it? You’re not the only one, and your story will help others. So please leave a comment, and share this post to bless others.

How to Partner with God in Reclaiming Your Identity

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The most common malady in the human experience is loss. We have all experienced it in the past. We will all experience it in the future. It is a sad fact in this fallen world. By far though, the greatest loss is ourselves. That is trauma’s worst consequence—the loss of our identity. The good news is God wants to restore our lost identity. We can partner with God and reclaim our lost identity. I recently saw a brilliant illustration of this process.

Our new favorite Internet-TV series is The Chosen, a dramatization of the gospels that is done extremely well. Instead of trying to cram everything into a two or three-hour movie, they are presenting the life and ministry of Jesus as a multi-season series. This gives them the luxury of developing fictional but plausible backstories for the various characters that meet Jesus, like the disciples, Pharisees, and others.

Jesus is not the main character, although he becomes more and more of a central character as the series develops. The main characters are the people who meet Jesus. The vision of the production is to introduce Jesus to viewers through the eyes of the people who met him, so viewers can have similar experiences meeting Jesus. The stories surrounding its production and the impact it is having around the world are truly the fingerprints of God. This series is reaping amazing Kingdom fruit.

(You can download The Chosen app on your device from your app store, and watch the series for free.)

Spoiler alert. The first episode of season 1 is all about Mary Magdalene, whom Jesus delivered from multiple demons (Luke 8:2). There is nothing in scripture about her initial encounter with Jesus, so The Chosen gives her a fictional but plausible backstory. The trauma in her life has completely robbed her of her identity, even to the point of her name. She goes by the name of Lilith, which means “night monster.” None of her friends even know her real name.

3 Steps to Partnering with God in Reclaiming Your Identity

At the end of episode 1, Mary meets Jesus, who restores her identity in a way that’s amazingly practical for us. There are 3 steps, and Jesus wants to partner with us in each one.

1) Jesus Called Her by Her True Name

When Jesus shows up, the demons plaguing Mary aren’t happy being around him. Mary bolts. Jesus goes after her, stopping her dead in her tracks with one word:

“Mary.”

He calls her by her true name. Not the false name, the false identity, the trauma has given her, that everyone else knows her by. But her true name. Her true identity. The one she thought was lost forever. BTW, “Mary” means “beloved.”

How to Partner with Jesus when He Calls Our True Name

Agree with him. Mary stopped and turned. He had her attention. Does he have ours? Do we acknowledge our true name?

Agreement means action, not just an intellectual nod while we continue on with nothing changing. We stop. We turn to him. And we, in our heart of hearts, buy into the truth of our real name, the one he gave us.

Don’t buy into the false identity anymore. Mary stopped going by the name Lilith. And whenever someone calls her Lilith, she reminds them, “I’m Mary now.”

At one point Jesus says, “You always were” (episode 8).

One area where we are actively encouraging people to keep, and even celebrate, their false name is by condoning transgenderism. These individuals have suffered such deep trauma that it has completely stolen their identity down the most basic, fundamental level: their gender. Rather than helping them reclaim who God created them to be, we slam the door of God’s healing in their faces by celebrating the false name they give themselves when they “switch” genders. (“Switch” in quotes because they aren’t really switching genders; they are just pretending. They still have the same XX or XY chromosomes God created them with.)

2) Jesus Quoted Her Life Verse to Her

In the episode, there was a particular verse from Isaiah that her father had taught her. She’d saved the paper with that verse for many years, but finally had given up. She tore it up and threw it into the sea. Goodbye identity.

After he calls her by her true name, Jesus miraculously quotes her life verse to her. He’s reminding her of who she really is.

How to Partner with Jesus when He Quotes Our Life to Us

Agree with him. Let your heart leap! It may not be a Bible verse per se, but Jesus will remind us of our life’s passion. That part we thought could never happen, that we’d given up on.

Agreement means action. Think about it: If this passion, this calling I thought was dead, were really to happen, what’s the first thing I’d do? Then do that. One step at a time. Keep doing the next right thing.

3) Jesus Claimed Her

Finally, Jesus says to Mary, “You are mine.” He claims her. It’s in that place of holy surrender to him that the healing happens. Mary collapses into him sobbing tears that were many years overdue.

How to Partner with Jesus when He Claims Us

Agree with him. We have a choice. We can surrender to him, or we can go our own way. Will we release our defenses and trust him, or will we continue to protect ourselves? The choice is up to us.

Agreement means action. What does this look like? Being claimed by Jesus is all about lifestyle. If you agree with his claim on your life, you can’t live a lifestyle that breaks his heart. For example, we get healing for addictions through a recovery process. We save sex for marriage. We start tithing and our tips at restaurants substantially increase because we’re living in generosity. We love hanging out with God’s people, the church.

It’s All in Our Agreement

Are you noticing a pattern here? Although healing can be a painful process, Jesus is doing all the heavy lifting here. We partner with him through our agreement and our actions coming out of that agreement.

There are many voices vying for our agreement. Who are you agreeing with today?

Tell us your story in the comments. It will help others when they see they aren’t the only one. And please share this post so we can bless as many people as possible with the freedom that comes from agreeing with Jesus.