For each of of the next 21 days, I will be sharing specific ways believers can set themselves apart for Christ through prayer, fasting, and intentional focus. Yesterday was "despite a lack of time," and today is "despite your failures."Call me a classic perfectionist. My whole life, I've wanted to do things right. Not just right, but perfectly. Better than anyone else. I've had a need - a compulsion, really - to excel. So for someone like me, not being excellent is more than just an inconvenience. It's a nightmare.Messing up comes with being human, though. No matter how hard we work or how much effort we give, we will fall short - and sometimes fall on our faces. It's true in our jobs, our parenting, our marriages, and even our walks with the Lord. Failures happen. We mess up. shewearsmanyhats.comWhen we look in the mirror and see nothing but mistakes, God sees righteousness. He sees the blood of His son covering all of our shortcomings, and He doesn't write us off. He doesn't have a supernatural scorecard where He rates us like we rate ourselves. Our failures don't disqualify us from being His children. Rather, our weaknesses are opportunities for His...

For each of of the next 21 days, I will be sharing specific ways believers can set themselves apart for Christ through prayer, fasting, and intentional focus. Today is day 3 of "Setting Ourselves Apart IN...

For each of of the next 21 days, I will be sharing specific ways believers can set themselves apart for Christ through prayer, fasting, and intentional focus. Today is day 3 of "Setting Ourselves Apart IN...

For each of of the next 21 days, I will be sharing specific ways believers can set themselves apart for Christ through prayer, fasting, and intentional focus. Today is day 2 of "Setting Ourselves Apart IN...

For each of of the next 21 days, I will be sharing specific ways believers can set themselves apart for Christ through prayer, fasting, and intentional focus. Today is day 1 of "Setting Ourselves Apart IN...

Tomorrow morning, I will begin a 21 day fast along with other members of my church. We are choosing to abstain from something (food, social media, etc) in order to set ourselves apart and purposely pursue God.For each of the next 21 days, I will be posting about the fast and 21 different ways in which we as believers can set ourselves apart. (I will be doing the Daniel Fast, in case you're curious or need a place to start.)I invite you to join us and deliberately walk away from something that draws your heart, time, and attention away from God. We're believing the Lord will do amazing things through our decisions to focus solely on Him. We'd love to have you join us!...

I sometimes lie in church.I don't mean to, but words come out of my mouth that aren't true. I sing lyrics during worship like "I'm giving it all away...

Surprised by Motherhood: Everything I Never Expected about Being a Mom by Lisa-Jo BakerI love books that make me underline thoughts. I adore books that make me cry. When I'm underlining as I cry, I know I've hit the mother lode.Lisa-Jo Baker was a speaker at a conference I recently attended, and while I knew of her, I had never read her book Surprised by Motherhood. The conference was selling copies, so I bought one - and consumed it in a day.Throughout the book, Baker traces her journey to motherhood (which she never thought she'd take) and recounts hilarious and poignant stories of mothering. She also writes of her own mother who died when Baker was still a teenager and how her experiences without a mother have shaped her as an adult.If you have children, you need to read this book. She writes about how "...

When was the last time your faith was anything more than ordinary?This Sunday, Pastor Dean of 5 Point Church challenged me by showing me myself - an American Christian whose faith is often not obvious to those around me and often not bold enough to believe God for something crazy.We use the word "crazy" to identify people who appear absurdly out of place: the teenager with rainbow colored hair, the person whose outfits do not meet "acceptable fashion,' people who say things no one else would utter. "Crazy" really should describe anyone who follows Christ. When we trust and follow Him, our citizenship belongs to heaven, and as a result, we are aliens and strangers in this world. We should appear crazy because we are no longer of this world. Our behavior should be obviously different from everyone else's. We should stand out, but far too many of us are consumed with anything other than Jesus.Crazy faith is what I say with my mouth that I want, but it is something I rarely step into. I realized Sunday that I rarely do anything that requires crazy faith because I am afraid. I am afraid of what people will think, afraid...

Fat pigs.Dogs.Slobs.Disgusting animals.These are some of the names that a man who desires to lead our country has called women. As he was asked about it, there were boisterous laughs and cheers from the crowd as he made it into a joke. There were more cheers when his answer was that a big problem in this country is being "politically correct."It's the year 2015, and a Presidential candidate - in the United States in 2015 - suggests that it's acceptable to use these names for women because he doesn't have time for "total political correctness." Sure, because it takes a lot of time to be respectful to other human beings, and it's only about political correctness.He said during the debate, "What I say is what I say, and honestly...