\u201cJesus, keep me open. May my heart stay available.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That\u2019s been my prayer for years, but even more so recently as I\u2019m learning to juggle my ever growing responsibilities of wife, foster mom, manager, second job, meetings, more meetings, friends, family out of state, etc. I pray this mostly because it\u2019s easy for me to isolate when I feel pressed down by life\u2014and I\u2019ve felt pressed down a lot lately. In response, I can become closed off to God and the world around me\u2014or I become entirely consumed by the rush of life and struggle to stay present. But that\u2019s the furthest thing from living out the gospel in tangible ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I think most of us feel overwhelmed by life these days and have little margin to actively \u201cgo after the things of God\u201d as some would say. And yet, more than anything we want the fruit of the gospel to be evident in and through our lives. We deeply desire for Christ to get every ounce of glory. So we\u2019re invited to lay down our own ways of isolation, self protection, or whatever else it may be and open up to His ways of love and availability trusting that He has great things in store and that there\u2019s always more than enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Whether you\u2019ve been hurt in relationships, busyness has been a (valid) excuse, or you\u2019ve just lost hope or the ability to dream, I pray that you are able to reevaluate and make space in your heart and life to stay open to the possibilities of God moving beyond your walls. Let your pursuit of the kingdom look less like going after something and more like a willingness to foster an open and soft heart.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cJesus, keep me open. May my heart stay available.\u201d That\u2019s been my prayer for years, but even more so recently as I\u2019m learning to juggle\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":543,"featured_media":220763,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":170,"footnotes":""},"categories":[141,87],"tags":[242,138,243],"class_list":["post-220751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-church-and-ministry","category-encouragement","tag-busyness","tag-heart","tag-isolation",""],"blockli_fields":{"post_type":"","post_action":"","post_type_icon":"","background_image":""},"bb_bookmark":{"bookmark_id":0,"is_bookmarked":false,"bookmark_date":0},"app_bookmark":{"bookmark_id":0,"is_bookmarked":false,"bookmark_date":0},"comments_count":"0","content_native":[{"type":"core\/paragraph","render":"
\u201cJesus, keep me open. May my heart stay available.\u201d<\/p>","content":[{"type":"text","data":"\u201cJesus, keep me open. May my heart stay available.\u201d"}],"data":[],"style":{"textAlign":"left","color":"","dropCap":false,"parent_style":{}}},{"type":"core\/paragraph","render":"
That\u2019s been my prayer for years, but even more so recently as I\u2019m learning to juggle my ever growing responsibilities of wife, foster mom, manager, second job, meetings, more meetings, friends, family out of state, etc. I pray this mostly because it\u2019s easy for me to isolate when I feel pressed down by life\u2014and I\u2019ve felt pressed down a lot lately. In response, I can become closed off to God and the world around me\u2014or I become entirely consumed by the rush of life and struggle to stay present. But that\u2019s the furthest thing from living out the gospel in tangible ways.<\/p>","content":[{"type":"text","data":"That\u2019s been my prayer for years, but even more so recently as I\u2019m learning to juggle my ever growing responsibilities of wife, foster mom, manager, second job, meetings, more meetings, friends, family out of state, etc. I pray this mostly because it\u2019s easy for me to isolate when I feel pressed down by life\u2014and I\u2019ve felt pressed down a lot lately. In response, I can become closed off to God and the world around me\u2014or I become entirely consumed by the rush of life and struggle to stay present. But that\u2019s the furthest thing from living out the gospel in tangible ways."}],"data":[],"style":{"textAlign":"left","color":"","dropCap":false,"parent_style":{}}},{"type":"core\/paragraph","render":"
I think most of us feel overwhelmed by life these days and have little margin to actively \u201cgo after the things of God\u201d as some would say. And yet, more than anything we want the fruit of the gospel to be evident in and through our lives. We deeply desire for Christ to get every ounce of glory. So we\u2019re invited to lay down our own ways of isolation, self protection, or whatever else it may be and open up to His ways of love and availability trusting that He has great things in store and that there\u2019s always more than enough.<\/p>","content":[{"type":"text","data":"I think most of us feel overwhelmed by life these days and have little margin to actively \u201cgo after the things of God\u201d as some would say. And yet, more than anything we want the fruit of the gospel to be evident in and through our lives. We deeply desire for Christ to get every ounce of glory. So we\u2019re invited to lay down our own ways of isolation, self protection, or whatever else it may be and open up to His ways of love and availability trusting that He has great things in store and that there\u2019s always more than enough."}],"data":[],"style":{"textAlign":"left","color":"","dropCap":false,"parent_style":{}}},{"type":"core\/paragraph","render":"
Whether you\u2019ve been hurt in relationships, busyness has been a (valid) excuse, or you\u2019ve just lost hope or the ability to dream, I pray that you are able to reevaluate and make space in your heart and life to stay open to the possibilities of God moving beyond your walls. Let your pursuit of the kingdom look less like going after something and more like a willingness to foster an open and soft heart.<\/p>","content":[{"type":"text","data":"Whether you\u2019ve been hurt in relationships, busyness has been a (valid) excuse, or you\u2019ve just lost hope or the ability to dream, I pray that you are able to reevaluate and make space in your heart and life to stay open to the possibilities of God moving beyond your walls. Let your pursuit of the kingdom look less like going after something and more like a willingness to foster an open and soft heart."}],"data":[],"style":{"textAlign":"left","color":"","dropCap":false,"parent_style":{}}}],"app_access":{"can_access":true,"restrict_message":null},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lwrv.org\/resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lwrv.org\/resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lwrv.org\/resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lwrv.org\/resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/543"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lwrv.org\/resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220751"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lwrv.org\/resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220751\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lwrv.org\/resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/220763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lwrv.org\/resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lwrv.org\/resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lwrv.org\/resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}