Abba’s Child – By Thomas J. Koester

Sometimes, it’s the simple prayer of a desperate heart that changes everything!

I know my Heavenly Father has me where he wants me, in his capable hands. But sometimes I forget. It’s not always easy to place my life and my prayers into his hands. When the struggling is over, and I rest in who he is, I find peace and the assurance that he hears my prayers.

I can, and do, at times, recount the prayers in which he’s answered. Since, in most times, my prayers are about major issues, they indeed are worth remembering and thanking him all over again. But those desperate, little prayers are just as meaningful too and worth remembering.

This is why the first word His Holy Spirit teaches us to say is “Abba Father,” which actually means “poppa,” or “da-da” in Hebrew. He wants that kind of trust and familiarity from us. The God of All Creation invites us to call out to him as an infant, frail, dependent, and trusting.

My favorite title in all the world is “Daddy.” It was my precious daughter, Tessa, who’d call me daddy, while my boys would call me dad or pops. Daddy is the title that would melt my heart and soften my face.

I truly believe that our Heavenly Father loves us to call him “daddy,” “poppa,” or even “da-da.” I think he wants to hear that name and title from you. I believe that Abba may be God’s favorite name.

One lonely and rainy morning, I was traveling to Castro Valley, California, for work. It was 5:30 a.m., still dark, as I was approaching Vasco Road in Brentwood. I had been prayerless for weeks, as I had drifted away from God. I desperately wanted to pray, but I had lost my words and was filled with shame.

I remembered a simple prayer that I read in a book by Brennan Manning, titled: “Abba’s Child” – The Cry of The Heart For Intimate Belonging.

I began reciting the words:

“Abba-Father, I belong to you—Abba-Father, I belong to you!”

Over and over again, this prayer bubbled up from my desperate and lonely heart.

With the rain pounding my windshield, tears began streaming down my face, making it harder to see.

With more than a few dozen cars ahead of me, I came to a stop at the dreaded lighted intersection of Camino Diablo and Vasco Road. While traffic was inching along, I kept desperately praying that simply prayer, “Abba-Father, I belong to you.”

In my desperatness, I added, “I am my beloved’s and he is mine, his banner over me is love,” taken from the Old Testament book, Songs of Songs.

I finally made it to the intersection, as one by one, each car negotiated their turns. The rain still pouring down, I completed my turn onto Vasco Road, heading towards Livermore to catch HWY 580, still crying and praying with all my heart.

As soon as my headlights illuminated the car in front of me, their license plate frame brightly reflected to me the following words:

“ABBA’S CHILD.”

I had to wipe my eyes, just to confirm what I was seeing was real! My heart became instantly alive again. My soul began to soar! I heard God, loud and clear, in the depths of my heart and with my own eyes!

God had heard my simple but desperate prayer. He reminded me in that moment at Camino Diablo and Vasco Road that I am still his child.

I am Abba’s Child! God’s miraculous reminder changed me in an instant and restored my soul!

God hears our prayers! Even when we’ve brushed him off or drifted far away from him. Abba-God rushes back at the sound of our cries—at the sound of our awkward prayers, he comes back into our lives just as a real daddy does.

I ask you to look at the photo below and imagine yourself in Abba’s embrace. Now, release your fears, worries, concerns; your sicknesses, and diseases; your loss of love or marriage; your suffering and finances, and all your loneliness and let it all go into Abba-God’s strong and sure embrace. Take a deep breath, relax—let it go, he can handle it all.

“The steps of a [good and righteous] man are directed and established by the Lord, And He delights in his way [and blesses his path]. When he falls, he will not be hurled down because the Lord is the One who holds his hand and sustains him.” –Psalm 37:23-24 Amplified Bible

Do you see? You belong to him, as a legitimate son or daughter—you’re his responsibility.

Now thank him and sleep well tonight, and when you wake up, remind yourself of this little prayer:

“Abba Father, I belong to you—Abba Father, I belong to you.” I am my beloved’s, and he is mine; his banner over me is love. Amen

Healing of A Woman’s Heart – To Be Seen or Not To Be Seen – by Thomas J Koester

A little girl understands the significance of inner beauty from her daddy. Her mother may teach her the practicality and meaning of femininity, but her daddy will teach her the importance of feminine beauty and being captivating in heart and soul.

To ignore this writes John Eldredge:

“… to dismiss her little twirls, bashful smiles, and cries, of: “Daddy, do you see me? Daddy, do you delight in me? Daddy, do you have time for me?”

To ignore these important things, can create ugliness on the inside and an overemphasis on external beauty.

So many little girls are wounded in heart and soul by a brute father, cruelty, or physical violence. This is not to marginalize or diminish the pain of abuse, which so many little girls and women have suffered. However, a father’s absence, busyness, or silence can damage her inner beauty and feminine heart too.

I know this because I have a fantastic, graceful, brilliant, and gentle daughter named Tessa. She is blessed with a natural outer beauty, and, despite my long periods of absence in her younger years, she radiates inner beauty and a love for life. She is also very creative and has become a very bright and savvy businesswoman.

Yes, I know about wounded little girls and wounded wives. I wish I could undo the absent and silent years while I was too busy with career and acclimation, fame, and fortune. I hate that not only did I validate much of my wife’s wounding, but I created wounding within the heart and soul of my precious daughter.

But, as fathers and daddies, if we turn our hearts back towards our daughters, they can be set free to twirl, smile, and light up with inner beauty, no matter how young or old. It is never, absolutely never too late to heal the damage we men, young and old, have inflicted on the most precious gift as a little girl.

If we don’t, she’ll go on, accentuating her outer beauty and cultivating and shaping her femininity as a weapon against other women and allurement to capture men’s primal instinct and attention, whereby she’ll ruin herself repeatedly.

The hole in her heart is caused not by strangers, boyfriends, or lovers but by a father, and no other man on earth can make her whole again except the man called, daddy.

A wound where there are no tears, but only a hardened heart and dry soul, is a heart and soul that a miracle can only heal. Fathers, you are that miracle!

My daughter has told me many times, while we’re in public, “did you see the way that girl looked at me?” It took me a while to understand and catch what she had experienced, but one day, I saw the snarling look girls give to pretty girls. The irony is that the angry or jealous girl may be blessed with outer beauty.

But doesn’t this speak to the real issue—the real battle within the wounded feminine heart and soul?

She feels threatened and at war with outer beauty, no matter how unattractive or beautiful an opponent may be—she can’t help but constantly compare herself to them. Her extreme focus blinds her to the inner emptiness of others. This is because she has long forgotten or is unaware of her inner beauty. So all that is left is the shell and not the substance of who she truly is—she is lost.

A wise and good father will point his daughter to a greater Father by loving her from the inside out. By loving her from his heart to hers, he grants her the belief and faith in a Loving and Father-Hearted God.

“No one can come to the Father, Jesus has said, except through me.” John 14: 6. And, with the passageway and destination to God being both males, a father-wounded girl may have difficulty trusting these words of Jesus, or the goodness of the heart of a Father-God.

The Evil One uses a father’s inexperience and his childhood wounding from his own father to harm the daughters and sons that he’s begotten. This is called a schism, a well-planted wedge of hurt and pain from one victim to the next, from one father to daughters and sons, until generations are inflicted with heartlessness, self-loathing, and with an over-emphasis on the flesh.

If we fail to turn to our daughters, a wounded girl will compete aggressively among other sufferers, among other wounded girls. The only difference between a wounded little girl and a wounded and grown woman is the cost of their hair, makeup, clothing, and accessories.

I have nothing against makeup, clothing, or a little bling. But, if you want the right kind of man, wouldn’t you instead captivate him with your heart and soul? If not, you may fall for a guy who’ll not see you, not delight in you, and not spends time with you. You’ll settle for the abuse of silence and busyness, a hollow man only satisfied with your competitive and external beauty, which you must constantly fight against, foods, fads, and aging.

Wouldn’t you want a man who values and is captivated by your heart and soul? After all, your heart and soul are eternal and not external.

Healing is possible. Life is possible. And Love is worth fighting for, and a daddy’s love is worth risking the hurt of possible rejection. But, “faith, hope, and love are eternal,” and, as it further says in 1 Corinthians Chapter 13, the Love Chapter, “Love keeps no record of wrongs.”

… Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy; it does not boast; it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, and it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hope, and always perseveres. Love never fails.

…And now these three remain faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love. –I Corinthians 13: 4-8,13.

If you want “Happily-Ever-After,” you must find the guy who’s after your heart, not your body or made-up face. When you do, you’ll be happy and free to live and be truly loved.

It is the heart—it’s always been the heart. And not only is this the part of you which Christ came to heal, but also to make his home with you— inside your heart.

“The Spirit of the Lord, the Eternal, is on me. The Lord has appointed me for a special purpose. He has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to repair broken hearts, And to declare to those who are held captive and bound in prison, “Be free from your imprisonment!” He has sent me to announce the year of jubilee, the season of the Eternal One’s favor:

For our enemies, it will be a day of God’s wrath; For those who mourn, it will be a time of comfort. As for those who grieve over Zion, God has sent me to give them a beautiful crown in exchange for ashes, To anoint them with gladness instead of sorrow, to wrap them in victory, joy, and praise instead of depression and sadness.” –Isaiah 61: 1-3 (VOICE)

To be seen or not to be seen? That is a great question. Start with the healing of your heart, so all will go well with you.

Be seen as radiant and beautiful of heart, and let all other fads, fashions, and accessories go. Nothing is more important than you and the little girl who was once lost and is now found, loved, and celebrated of heart and soul.

I see you!

I love the scene from the movie, “The Last of the Mohicans,” when Cora Munro, played by Madeleine Stowe, is seen by Hawkeye, played by Daniel Day-Lewis.

Cora: “What are you looking at, Sir?”

—She neither expected nor anticipated the answer she received and appeared awkward and bashful, but she is captivated by his seeing her.-

“I’m looking at you, Miss,” Hawkeye said steadily.

I’m looking at you, Toni Koester. You are a captivating and radiant woman of heart and soul — I see you!

It’s All Just Cornflakes – By Thomas J. Koester

Toni and I often talk about life changes, boundaries, and priorities. But family always tops our list.

Watching our children grow up, getting married, and seeing them succeed in their careers is what brings us joy. But what’s much more important is their relationships with each other and their commitment to our family and to the families they’re building.

The older I get, inching closer to the end of life, the irony is that it forces you to live a more meaningful life now, or at least it should. To wait until retirement to prioritize family is a sad mistake that I think too many make.

We do need to die, in some respects, to those things which promote death and live more towards those things which promote life. It’s like choosing between bacon, which I love, but it fosters death, and beansprouts, which I hate but promote life. However, living life on hospital food is certainly no fun either. So, we strive for a balance. And, this is what my brush with death has taught me.

The movie “Click,” with Adam Sandler, has some great truths running through it, along with its great humor and satire.

Morty (The Angel of Death), played by Christopher Walken, tells Michael Newman, played by Adam Sandler, who’s fast-forwarding his way through life with an enchanted TV clicker:

Morty remarks:

“He’s always chasing the pot of gold, but when he gets there, at the end of the day, it’s just cornflakes.”

Towards the end of the movie (WARNING SPOILER ALERT), Michael finally gets it and cries out, in his throes of death:

Michael Newman: [dying] “Family, family… … FAMILY COMES FIRST.”

Isn’t it so true? Family should come first, and I can promise, in the very moment when life is quickly or slowly draining from your body, it’s family that first comes to your mind…

… I want to see our two grandchildren, with Josh and Jenny, grow up.

Oh my goodness, it’s Tessa’s 24th birthday, and I will miss it!

Tears began rolling down my face as I saw those moments of life fast-forwarding before me. That was my wake-up call at 2:30 in the morning, Friday, October 11, 2013, as I sat in triage at the Sonora Adventist Hospital all alone, and when the reality of “heart attack” was suggested by the ER physician.

I wanted to exchange “I love you” with my wife and children again! I wanted to see who’d become my son, Jordan’s wife, and welcome her into our family.

I confess that not one of my projects, clients, or deadlines entered my mind while facing the prospect of a heart attack. Not one more contract signing or one more insurance settlement, which I have to face, is most likely what put me in the hospital in the first place.

As it turned out, it wasn’t a heart attack, but me, attacking my heart because of too many “yeses” and not enough “nos.” My physician told me that too much stress could cause cardiac arrest.

I need to say a serious “YES” to life and a meaningful “NO” to death. It’s the wrong choices in those subtle moments that can soon pile up into a health crisis. It is all those times when the tyranny of less critical things overrules the more essential things of life.

“Let your yes mean yes, and your no mean no; anything more than that is from the Evil One.” Matthew 5:37 – Jesus of Nazareth

I don’t think striving to love your family correctly, keeping your promises, being home on time for dinner, or kissing your wife and kids goodbye in the morning has put anybody into the hospital.

Proverbs 4:23 says it best: “Guard your heart more than anything else because the source of life flows from it.”

It’s the redeemed heart where God lives that is our source of life. This, too, is where our families live and dwell. This is also where the love of our life resides. Work should never enter our hearts the way God and our loved ones do, for it will always push God, family, and our loved ones out! Guard your heart more than anything else! Not your reputation, ego, pride, or being right—but your HEART!

Our misplaced priorities will always attack what truly matters to our hearts and, if ignored, may eventually cause you to attack your heart, like I did.

So, my new motto for life:

“Family, family… … FAMILY COMES FIRST!”

In this, we find all the treasures of life, and it’s those relationships and memories that are worth living and fighting for.

After all, everything else, “at the end of the day, is just cornflakes!”

Are You Bitter or Better? — By Thomas J. Koester

“Be careful that no one fails to get God’s grace. Be careful that no one loses their faith and becomes like a bitter weed growing among you. Someone like that can ruin your whole group.” —Hebrews 12:15 (ERV)

A simple yet profound question from a friend has stayed with me:

“Tom, are you bitter or better?”

Life’s trials will come, but our choice determines our sense of peace. Bitterness isolates; betterness unites. By embracing God’s redemptive grace and forgiving others, we unlock a life of freedom, love, and meaningful relationships.

We are all confronted with hurt and pain from others. The choice to become bitter or better is available to all of us. The choice always comes down to two letters, the letter i or the e, b(i)tter or b(e)tter.

Bitterness is a collection of wrongs done by others, causing emotional constipation, psychological disfigurement, and spiritual disconnection from God and others.

The Holy Spirit wants to move us away from bitterness and leads us towards betterment. That is what God’s grace means here—the empowerment to avoid bitterness.

Matter of fact, the verse from Hebrews warns us to be careful that no one fails to receive God’s grace and that no one loses their faith. In other words, we need to watch each others back, rather than plunging knives into them.

Bitterness is the absence of God’s grace, as it displaces his presence, his wisdom, and conviction of the Holy Spirit. A bitter person is always looking to recruit people into their cesspool of bitter complaints. If you join them you’ll get drawn into their emotional quicksand with no one to rescue you!

We become bitter only when we reject God’s grace whispered to us by the Holy Spirit, and when we follow and listen to bitter people. Bitterness is a contagion; it is contracted through casual gossip and always corrupts the mind before it rots the soul. Bitterness has destroyed marriages, families, businesses, and especially churches.

Stay with God’s Word and his distinct and clear voice. Obey the Holy Spirit and become better. If not, you’ll destroy your faith, and walk away from God and the people who truly love you!

Even if you are bitter, you can become better. According to Hebrews 12:15, the antidote against bitterness is ensuring that not one person is missing out from God’s grace. Doing that leaves little time and opportunity for bitterness to take root.

When you stab yourself and others with bitterness, you also forfeit God’s grace that could be yours.

People will love a better you, but bitterness will drive even your closest friends away. Bitterness is a pill, whereby its side effect causes loneliness and detachment. Not only between those who love you, but even within yourself. Your bitterness makes you dangerous—a danger to yourself and others.

Bitterness grows within your heart and soul, like a destructive and evasive tree root. It enters into areas it doesn’t belong, causing emotional disfigurment, and psychological damage. But its damage is reversible. There is hope and healing!

Do you want to live a better life?

Then forgive the offense of others, and you’ll live a bitter free life.

I know—I know, you’ve been terribly hurt or offended. But your bitterness puts you in competition with God. You’re actually saying, “I know better than God,” and therefore you feel justified to condemn. That’s pretty tragic, don’t you think?

But the longer you hold onto bitterness, the more impossible it is for you to forgive. The longer you wait to forgive those who’ve hurt you the further away God’s grace becomes.

I don’t want you to miss out on God’s grace, I want you free and full of life, just like you used to be. I want you to find your faith again in God and to enjoy his presence in your soul.

I want you to love and to be loved again. I want you to stop the cruelty to your heart and soul!

Don’t you see?

Bitterness is not the cure—it’s a poison! The real cure may seem impossible, but it’s the only cure that will set you free and put you on the road to recovery.

The only cure to bitterness is forgiveness. Forgiveness is even more powerful if you were to lead in it. I promise that if you do, you’ll be right as rain and feeling better and not bitter.

Healing For The Splintered Mind –By Thomas J. Koester

We can’t live a happy life with an unforgiving soul and a stubborn heart.

When we refuse to forgive ourselves and others, we split our identity. One part loaths the offender, and the part hates self. It is the inner voice of self hatred and toxic unforgivness, which curses the outer self of life and the inner self of peace.

I know you know what I’m saying. I’m not trying to gulit you, but to help you!

I don’t want you to end up with two personalities in one body. That’s a horrible way to live!

One world is real, full of life, hope, and dreams. The other is false — filled with lies, masks, and illusions. Sure, you can survive in your false world, but you were made for so much more than surviving…

… and I think you know that!

You’ve felt it your entire life, that there’s something wrong. You don’t know what it is—you feel trapped inside—imprisoned by offense. Maybe you feel like a hostage, only it’s you that holds the key to your own prison cell.

In the movie The Matrix, Neo asks Morpheus a question:

“If you’re killed in the matrix, you die here?”

Morpheus:

“The body can not live without the mind.”

The book of James puts it this way:

“The splinter of a divided mind shatters your compass and leaves you dizzy and confused.” —James 1:8

Do not yield to thoughts of condemnation for others and hatred of self, for the end of such thoughts are self-destruction and death. You need to yield to, and desire wisdom from God, who understands both the body and the mind. But if you reject his wisdom and truth, your inner thoughts, no matter how untrue and false, will become reality. For either the wisdom from God and the belief of self-hatred are both initiated by faith. You see, faith activates the power of both truth and lies.

If you believe in the truth and wisdom from God, you will live and thrive. Conversely, if you believe in self-hatred and unforgivness, you will become lifeless and die. For the body obeys the mind, and a double minded person is unstable, confused, and lost.

I don’t want you lost—I want you found and freed!

The standard of God’s Word, Wisdom, and Truth never changes, so anchor all your thoughts, fears, and doubts on him, and you will find your way again.

This very moment, you are standing at the crossroads—as Jeremiah puts it:

Yet the Lord pleads with you still: Ask where the good road is, the godly paths you used to walk in, in the days of long ago. Travel there, and you will find rest for your souls. But you reply, “No, that is not the road I want!” —Jeremiah 6:16 (TLB)

Don’t yell an angry, “NO!” Cry a humble “yes,” and find rest again.

If you will not turn to God, The Holy One of Truth and Wisdom, not even your loved ones can help you. Until you’re willing to expose your false self and cease your fake salvation, you can’t be helped. Until you ask to be rescued, you’ll continue to drift further and further away.

Unrelenting unforgivness hurts no one but yourself. The one who offended you is unharmed by your hoarding of anger and offense. They’re free, but you’re not!

I plead with you, turn to God and be honest. Be brave. Be loving to yourself again and live! You may not realize it, but you’ve had the keys to your own prison all along.

“… You will weep no more. He will be gracious if you ask him for help. He will surely respond to the sound of your cries.” —Isaiah 30:19

Jesus Christ died that you may live and was raised to life that you may never die.

For there is no peace and no rest in wasting your life being unforgiving. There is life and peace in Jesus Christ.

Here, please read Psalms 23 — it’s a beautiful passageway to life!

“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” —Psalm 23

Trust Him—He will give you rest for all your weariness and heal your splintered mind!

Maybe you’ll be restored enough to even feast in the presence of those who once hurt and offended you.

I’m here, if you need me.

Beautifully Broken – By Thomas J. Koester

What stands between many of us and the life we’re supposed to live is our ability to bullshit.

No, this is not a treatise on global warming or climate change or the negative impact of cow flatulence on our environment—far from it!

This is about fleeing pretense and duplicity and becoming the real you. It’s about breaking down the fake areas in our lives and being honest with ourselves and others.

Wholeness can only be achieved by utter and complete brokenness. This is a universal principle. This is also the opposite of what the world thinks.

I like what Jerry Maguire said in his moment of a breakthrough:

“… Two nights later in Miami at our corporate conference, a breakthrough. Breakdown? Breakthrough. It was the oddest, most unexpected thing. I began writing what they call a mission statement for my company. You know—a Mission Statement—a suggestion for the future. What started out as one page became twenty-five.

Suddenly, I was my father’s son. I was remembering the simple pleasures of this job, how I ended up here out of law school, the way a stadium sounds when one of my players performs well on the field… And suddenly, it was all pretty clear. The answer was fewer clients. Caring for them, caring for ourselves, and the games, too. Starting our lives, really. Hey, I’ll be the first to admit it. What I was writing was somewhat “touchy-feely.” I didn’t care. I had lost the ability to bullshit. It was the me I’d always wanted to be.” —The Movie “Jerry Maguire”

You see a breakthrough, I mean, the kind of breakthrough we know we really need is always preceded by a breakdown. And, when we lose—no, rather, when we refuse to bullshit ourselves and others, we’ll become the people that we’ve always wanted to be.

You’re divinely purposed to become a living act of God’s love and glory. You can’t become what your Creator has intended until you surrender your own mess. That is, your constant self-effort to holding the broken pieces of your life together. Living in fear and dread that your secret life will be exposed at any moment to a live audience.

Living life on constant defense and acting co-dependently, or as a self-enabler, justifying the actions of your false self at the expense of your true self. This is the definition of what I’m referring to as a “mess.”

You can not become assembled in body, mind, and spirit, all the while holding everything together. You are robbing yourself of the very strength and energy you need by wasting it on supporting your falseness and phony facade. Stop being driven by voices inside your head, echoing the curses from your mother or father, or from the other significant persons in your life.

These curses are the voices of “false coaches,” driving you to repeat a cycle of self-destruction and family dysfunction. These curses are carcinogenic to your desire for wholeness and wellness. They are the cancerous agents eating away at the divine purpose for which God has created you.

“Gloria Dei est vivens homo,” wrote Saint Irenaeus, which means:

“The glory of God is a living man.”

The glory of God is you fully living, and not your daily self-destruction and learned dysfunction.

In the human body, you can not build muscle without first tearing down the muscle you have. Tearing down the muscle requires a determination to submit to the pain and deny yourself comfort. Likewise, you must have a willing determination to submit your very life and comforts to God.

James says it this way:

4-6 “You’re cheating on God. If all you want is your own way, flirting with the world every chance you get, you end up enemies of God and his way. And do you suppose God doesn’t care? The proverb has it that “he’s a fiercely jealous lover.” And what he gives in love is far better than anything else you’ll find. It’s common knowledge that “God goes against the willful proud; God gives grace to the willing humble.”

7-10 So let God work his will in you. Yell a loud no to the Devil and watch him scamper. Say a quiet yes to God, and he’ll be there in no time. Quit dabbling in sin. Purify your inner life. Quit playing the field. Hit bottom, and cry your eyes out. The fun and games are over. Get serious, really serious. Get down on your knees before the Master; it’s the only way you’ll get on your feet.” —James 4:6-10 (MSG)

Pride is self-destruction, low esteem, self-loathing, and such, is what’s been behind your self-effort of “holding it all together.” This is why pride always precedes a profound fall. There is nothing good in this kind of a fall because it’s always a fall from grace and not towards it.

Do you want God’s grace? Become truly humble. Oh yes, it is painful to stop your self-salvation and accept the truth, and act on it. But the light, which will come flooding into your darkness, will bring the wholeness and wellness you’ve been searching for.

The problem with bullshit is that it is no respecter of person, race, religion, or age—it flows from all of us! Far too many of us hide behind B.S.

“Men love darkness, rather than light,” this is true. But you can not become the man or woman you were meant to become all the while remaining in darkness. Just as painful as it is to build muscle, is it painful at first to step out from darkness into God’s marvelous light!

The gain from the pain of coming into the light is worth the life of wholeness and holiness.

Did you know that embracing your brokenness rather than hiding it will cause collateral beauty?

There may be a divine and strategic purpose behind your brokenness that, when shared with others, may cause a chain reaction of hope and healing in you and in them.

At this very moment, you’re standing at a crossroad—at a turning point; your next decision can create a paradigm shift of unprecedented emotional and spiritual change.

“The Lord said to his people…

“’You are standing at the crossroads. So consider your path. Ask where the old, reliable paths are. Ask where the path is that leads to blessing and follow it. If you do, you will find rest for your souls. But they said, ‘We will not follow it!’” —Jeremiah 6:16 (NET)

Stop hanging out with the “We will not follow it” crowd!

You no longer belong to the crowd who refuse to follow the right path.

Stop staring at the crossroad in front of you and follow the right path. Stop saving yourself and fall into the grace, mercy, and love of God, and you will become the man or woman you’ve always wanted to be. After all, God put the desire to be his love and glory in you so that you may be fully living, fully alive to a world content with dying and taking you with it.

A breakdown is always before a breakthrough. God is waiting if you are willing. Open up to God or find a trusted friend to help lead you to God’s grace.

God can turn the ugliness of your brokenness into something beautiful!

May I be honest and a bit crass?

… It’s my prayer that you’ll lose your ability to “bullshit!” – Amen

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE | FAITH AWAKENING – BY THOMAS J. KOESTER

Because asking “how” is the faithless question.

The correct question believers should be asking when it comes to obeying God is—is it impossible?

Would you happen to know why?

Because it’s rare. It’s a question that heaven rarely hears. But it is precisely the right question that we should be asking. The Word says in Hebrews 11:6 the following:

“… And without faith, it is impossible to please God,”

To start with, the impossible, I believe, is very stirring to the heart of God. When we approach God with faith enough to join Him in His impossible work, we say, “I trust you so much that the details don’t matter.” The challenges don’t detour me. The dangers won’t stop me. These “faith qualities” are what God is after in you and in me, too.

Here’s the rest of Hebrews 11:6

“… because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.”

So, start with the impossible—the most difficult, the most unlikely, and even the most ridiculous. Only be sure you’re following God’s Word and His will. God wants to reward you with each impossible step you take.

Faith is not what you can do but what you can’t do. It’s not where you can go but where you can’t go. Faith moves you towards the impossible, or it’s not faith!

How many biblical stories have you read whereby God sends his man or woman to face impossible odds?

God’s missions are not missions unless they are impossible by human standards. But you’ll never know until your faith meets your obedience to his will and purpose.

Belief in God is not only about his existence but more about your obedience to his calling on your life.

If we can not see the Father’s works, it’s because we’re too wrapped up in our own work- and yes, this can include “church work!” We may not need faith for our work, but we can only do God’s work by faith.

Christian populism and “the power of positive thinking” have diminished faith to mere “tips and techniques” or following “principles” without a relationship to the Prince of Peace.

His work often makes us risk our comfort and, sometimes, our safety. His will requires passionate courage to obey. Our work brings enslavement, sweat, and, at times, depression and boredom. Many of us are killing ourselves for a paycheck!

… Is that how you dreamt you’d live your life, running after a paycheck?

If we believe and obey God and join him in his work, we will no longer live as enslaved people but as free people.

“Wherever the Spirit of God is, there is freedom!” – 2 Corinthians 3:17

Freedom to move towards adventure and risk with God is core to walking by faith with him.

As noted, the author, John Eldridge, has penned;

“Asking God, how? … Is a faithless question.”

Obeying God and following his will means God has already worked out the ” how. ” Trusting God with the unknown details and acting on his will without knowing “how” is the definition of faith.

God’s will for us must become as essential as eating food. To move in faith, we must become vitality dependent on God’s will and preplanned purpose.

“My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.” – John 4:34

“For whoever does the will of My Father who is in heaven, he is My brother and sister and mother.” – Matthew 12:50

Jesus answered, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.” – John 14:23

Faith and obedience lead to closeness with God. Asking Him “how” all the time before you obey shows you don’t trust Him. So, stop asking faithless questions! You can’t exercise faith apart from an intimate relationship with the Father and the Son. You’ll need the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit to do the impossible!

If you try and do things apart from knowing God, you’ll be in danger of practicing lawlessness or unauthorized acts of whatever you call “righteousness.”

“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’ – Matthew 7:21-23

“I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit, for apart from me, you can do nothing.” – John 15:5

Find where God’s Spirit is working and go there quickly and passionately. Only there can you do the impossible and find a real and meaningful life.

Ask yourself, do I need God to accomplish this? The answer may require you to do the impossible…

“… That is your mission if you choose to accept it.”

Be brave. God’s equipped you for the impossible mission!

How To Heal A Broken Heart – By Thomas J. Koester

“A wound where there are no tears, wrote John Eldredge, is a wound that can’t be healed,”

A splinter under the skin, if left alone and ignored, will eventually fester to the point of infection. Your body rejects the foreign object no matter how small; the pain calls out for your attention. If you ignore it too long, you could end up in the emergency room.

How about your heart?

Why ignore the pain?

Your heart is more precious than a finger; you can live without a finger, but you can’t live without your heart.

Sometimes, we’re strong in the wrong things and at the wrong times, but to be weak in the right things brings true courage.

If you are hurting, in pain, and are crushed in spirit, heart, and soul, you may be at the most significant turning point of your life. You may be dwelling with God in a high and protected place, but you must share your tears with God, or you’ll be swallowed up in bitterness and left alone on earth.

Isaiah 57:15

“The high and lofty One who inhabits eternity, the Holy One, says this: I live in that high and holy place where those with contrite, humble spirits dwell; and I refresh the humble and give new courage to those with repentant hearts.”

Psalm 51:17

“The sacrifice pleasing to God is a broken spirit. God, You will not despise a broken and humbled heart.”

Let God encounter your tears; after all, he is the Everlasting Father. Please share it with him as your sacrifice of pride. Come to him crushed, broken, betrayed, rejected, and despised. He’s well acquainted with all of this and more. He allows it to touch your life, not to destroy you, but to draw you closer to himself so that you may be healed.

God wants to father you …

Trust and turn to God and surrender your rights to be offended, your anger for being abused, and your self-hatred for being molested, raped, and violated. God specializes in hurting and wounded people, and he’d rather be with you than with kings and queens.

The moment you offer up to God all your tears and pain, you are with him in spirit and truth.

Isaiah 42:3

“He will not break the bruised reed nor quench the dimly burning flame. He will encourage the fainthearted, those tempted to despair. He will see full justice given to all who have been wronged.”

God won’t exploit your bruises. He’ll not snuff out your heart, even if it’s barely lit and barely alive.

God desires to be your daddy …

Give it all over to God. If you do, he’ll see that justice is served, and you can give your anger and revenge a proper burial.

Then, you’ll knock down your walls of despair and make them into a dance floor, and you’ll dance with your Abba, just as He’s always wanted to.

Don’t live with the pain. Time is not the healer of all wounds; that’s a lie.

God is the healer of all wounds, and he’s waiting to hear your cries directed towards him so that He may act.

Isaiah 30:19

“O’ my people in Jerusalem, you shall weep no more, for he will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry. He will answer you.”

Give it up to God. Let it drink in God’s presence and love, and so be healed and restored.

Become healed in the name of Jesus!

He came to seek out the lost and broken, and there is no one he cannot save or heal.

This may be one of your greatest moments and your most significant turning point.

Your heart and soul are God’s specialty. Don’t ignore this opportunity – don’t let your heart become hardened again. Act now while your heart has softened.

Don’t live with a wounded heart. Jesus is dying to heal you. Amen

If We Only Had A Heart – By Thomas J. Koester

It’s what’s in your heart that will change your family and not what’s in your wallet.

“Keep your heart with all diligence,
for out from it flows the wellspring of life.” – Proverbs 4:23

Notice it doesn’t say wallet!

It also doesn’t say Capital One either! … It says your heart.

In the original book by L. Frank Baum, Wizard of Oz, it is revealed that the Tin Woodman used to be a man of flesh and blood, but a Wicked Witch cursed his axe to cut off all his body parts, which ultimately caused him to lose his heart. Thus, loosing his love for a Munchkin maid named Nimmie Amee.

The tinsmith replaced the woodsman’s torso, but was unable to replace the heart. Now completely made of tin, but without a heart, the Tin Man became cold and indifferent to the girl and the marriage never occurred. He wants a heart so he can rekindle his love for the girl and marry her.

You see, sin cursed our hearts, deadening our souls and separating us from God. Without a good heart, we remain lost and loveless, with no way to God. We too become cold and indifferent, losing our desire for God. Religion is like the tinsmith that can give us a tin torso, but can’t replace the heart.

Rather than an all powerful Oz, we need an all powerful Savior.

For those who believe in God and are faithful Christ followers, we’ve received a new heart!

Ezekiel 36:26 puts it this way:

“A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you, and I will take away the stony heart out of you, and I will give you a heart of flesh.”

Notice that God also says He will put a new Spirit within us. This is because our new heart becomes His dwelling place, and from our restored and cleansed heart flows new life for God and others. We become living temples for God.

Now we can obey God from the inside out. Something that the Old Covenant could not do.

“… I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.” – Ezekiel 36:27

So God places his Spirit inside our new hearts so that we have the ability to do his will, keep his laws, and create a new relationship within us.

Romans 2:29 tells us that the Holy Spirit changes our hearts. This is not an act of our will or effort but an internal operation done by God’s Spirit to those that believe the Gospel.

So, do what you’ve been born again to do, live a changed life because of your changed heart, and so, become that wellspring of life for your family and friends and to the stranger you meet; to your neighbors and coworkers.

Be the best life-giver because the Giver of Life dwells in your new heart!

The Father-Hearted God – By Thomas J. Koester

We are children of the Father-hearted God.

With long days and even longer nights, I have written more and have done a great deal of thinking and searching. Each time I do, more memories and tears bubble up. But these are good tears because what was once tragic is now increasingly becoming a blessing.

So, I’ve added more stories and more insight. It’s been the hindsight, coupled with new understanding, which has been revealing the fingerprints and mastery of a loving Father-hearted God, who, by the way, took all my days of good and evil and is progressively showing his artistry through all of it.

His color palate contains far more colors than just “black and white,” which is what many cold and lifeless religions preach to us. He is an unlimited God, with shades of an eternal spectrum yet to be discovered, and a profoundly intimate God, motivated with an ever-expanding Father-heart. He is filled with grace and wisdom. His love utterly humbles me, and if you can believe it, speechless at His unconditional grace and mercy towards even a guy like me.

Thank you all for your prayers and kindness. I genuinely hope and pray that whatever you may be battling or struggling through, it too is woven into something beautiful, no matter how difficult or painful. God loves a “stacked deck,” the more complex your life may be, the more impossible for a solution or cure, the more grace will appear — for our God loves, absolutely loves to come through!

So then, in our weaknesses and fragility, we can boast about God’s grace and that we’re also co-siblings with The Great Overcomer, Jesus Christ. We are children of the Father-hearted God. We are vastly wealthy and greatly loved.

I was at a water damaged home in Walnut Creek several years ago. I was speaking with the mother of this cute little, “Shirley Temple” like 3-year old. A few minutes later, the front door opens, and the little girl lights up and runs to her father, excitedly yelling, Abba, Abba, my Abba is home! I gotta tell yah, that brief moment tugged at my heart. I think it’s because that’s how we’ll one day greet our Heavenly Father. That’s how he wants us to greet him each new day. I think God’s favorite name is Abba!

So, notify your soul and face too, and show the world how great our God is. From your sick beds to your busy offices and lives, from your living rooms to the dressing rooms of Macy’s and Kohl’s — in every shopping line, and especially at Walmart, For our God is a great God, 24/7!

He loves to reveal his Father-Heart to broken and lost people. Our God would rather hang out with the despised and rejected than dwell with kings and queens — that’s just how special you are!

There’s no need to be anyone else than you. No need to be with anyone else than with the Father-hearted God!