Is Your Heart a Refuge for Others?

I read those words this morning as a prayer by Sharon Foster in a Daily Guideposts devotional:

Lord, give each one of us a place of refuge and help our hearts be a refuge for others.

I read books and stories and devotionals by others because I am always challenged by what God has led someone else to say.

I was stopped in my tracks by this question: is my heart a refuge for others?

Wouldn't that be at the top of God's to-do list for me, for any of us?

I tried to imagine three practical ways my heart could become a refuge for others.

1. Listen: don't people feel recognized when we truly listen?

2. Prepare: spend private time with God praying for those for whom you are a refuge and learn how He wants you to respond.

3. Keep: keep God as the refuge of your heart or you will go off wildly in unhelpful ways.

Thank you to the many who have been a refuge for my heart, even when they were unaware.

And thanks, Sharon Foster, for allowing God to speak so beautifully through you.

Fitting Into...

Fitting into...a certain clothes size is great if it means you are contributing to your physical health.

Fitting into...a certain group of friends is great if they contribute to your social health.

Fitting into...a certain workplace is great if it is where your passion and gifts are ignited.

We spend certain energy and strategy on fitting into things that seem important to us.

But just so we won't miss the big picture, is there a space--an overall space--designated by God that is a perfect fit for each of us?

If so, how do we find it?

Maybe we ask. God, if you have a space in this world designated just for me, I am asking that you lead me into it, because I trust it will fit me perfectly.

Fitting into...God's space designated just for me.

That would be amazing.

How to Have God Return to Us

There is shocking news in Malachi 3 in the Old Testament.

God says, "Return to me so I can return to you."

When we ask how he says, "Begin by being honest. Do honest people rob God? But you rob me day after day."

When we ask how we rob God, he reminds us that we do not tithe. We do not trust him to show up if we give him what he directs us to give without thought of how much is left.

But he says, "Bring your full tithe to the Temple treasury so there will be ample provisions in my Temple. Test me in this and see if I don't open heaven itself to you and pour out blessings beyond your wildest dreams."

The most heartbreaking part of this is that we rob him of our trust.

He died so we could trust.

I wonder how we keep missing that.

Test me in this = trust me in this.

Tough and Tender Truth

God paints love in broad brush strokes.

Like a magnificent sunset exploding across the evening sky, God sets us on fire with love for the downtrodden.

But...only if we give Him permission.

This love is terrifying: you want me to love whom?

This love is uneven: if we accomplish it at all, it is in fits and starts.

This love is electric: when we paint love like God does, we enter an arena of relationship that has God's blessing and mercy and supernatural intersection.

This love is raw: it will burden your heart like no other.

This love is unpredictable: it will strike you when you least expect it.

Does He have your permission to set you on fire with His love?