Category Archives: miracles

making it: we rise above fear by changing our minds

Posted on by September 25, 2024

It seems like when you live with boys, your immune system has the choice to either toughen up and be stronger than average, or to keel over and just let you die. So far, five boys later, I think we’re making it.

making it: we rise above fear by changing our minds | Shannon Guerra

But here’s why it’s such a miracle: Boys do things – all kinds of things – except for washing their hands. Did you scrub the toilet? Check. Clean the catbox? Yes, ma’am. Scoop out the chicken coop? Uh huh.

And we, silly parents, ask these questions as we are watching them in the kitchen, spreading peanut butter on a tortilla. And then – and only then – do we remember to ask the obvious question, which should have been the first question, even though it’s too late anyway, the damage is done:

Did you wash your hands?

“Ummmmm….” Stalling is always a bad sign. Especially when it’s followed by an almost silently whispered, “nope.”

Serenity now, Lord Jesus.

Vince and I sit on the couch dumbfounded as the boy drops the lunch implements on the counter and runs to the bathroom. I consider donating the entire container of peanut butter to the chickens, and Vin quietly but dramatically pleads the blood of Jesus over our entire home, asking for a special consecration over the fridge and silverware drawer.

(Side note: This post might prevent any dinner guests from accepting invitations for the next three months.)

There are so many things that could go wrong, and it’s best not to think of them. It’s best just to be grateful for grace, for strong immune systems, for a life that allows for such activity, and for healthy boys who are (please God) learning good habits.

And this is good to remember at night, or more accurately, at 3 or 4 am, when panicked thoughts about chickens and homeschool and kids’ behavior and inflation and taxes and paperwork and vehicle woes and world events and a million other valid concerns start crowding in as you lay there, wide awake, wondering if you’re going to make it. There are so many things that could go wrong, and it’s best not to think of them.

But we do think of them. Many of them require action on our part – like making an appointment, or paying a bill, or filling out forms, or disciplining children, or disciplining ourselves, or being more frugal…and all these actions require thinking.

But what is not required is worrying, or partnering with fear, or expecting the worst. None of those have to be in our thinking, though they tend to be our default.

So we need to be rewired. We need to forge new pathways for better thoughts.

For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ.

– 2 Corinthians 10:3-5

Have you ever considered that agreeing with fear – which is what worry is – is making a “lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God?” It is.

God is not worried or fearful. And we have the mind of Christ, and we can trust God…so we need to agree with Him. (Listen, self.)

Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity.

– Ephesians 4:17-19

This isn’t usually how we apply this scripture, but roll with me here: If we have a belief that truly sets us apart from our old ways, our thinking should demonstrate that. But worry is futile, a darkened understanding. Worries are ignorant of God’s love and trust; when we worry we are hardened in our old paths and ways of thinking.

And we wouldn’t normally associate it with making us callous or greedy, but consider…when we indulge in fretting and fears, are we not giving ourselves up to a sort of sensuality? Isn’t the distrust of God’s goodness and love an act of impurity?

Huh. Still thinking on this. It goes on:

But that is not the way you learned Christ!— assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires,

and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds,

and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

– Ephesians 4:20-24

We have lain there awake in seasons of waiting and waiting, crying out for breakthrough, telling God, “I know You’re good and faithful, but this is still so hard, so it must be that I’m not good and faithful.”

And He reminds us that victory is not a pass/fail test or a zero sum game because things are much more complicated than what we are seeing. We are seeing “if not this, then this” but reality is “not this or this or this, but all these other things in varying degrees and intensities.”

Many, many things are actively in the process of working out. Together. All at the same time, and all at different times. And in the meantime, it looks like a mess.

Will we make it, though? we ask in desperation.

Did you make it in 2004? He asks, turning the question around. Did you make it in 2007, and 2008, and 2011, and 2012, 2013, and every year since then? Did you make it when you didn’t know where you’d go in 2017? Did you make it when the rug was pulled out from under you in 2018? Did you make it through the chaos and stupidity of 2020, and the upheaval in 2022?

Did you make it last year, Love?

Yes. Over and over, in every crisis, real or perceived – we made it.

So we have something still to do:

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. 

Wait, this is me interrupting again. Is our mind – our brain – part of our bodies? Yes? So our thoughts also should be presented as a living sacrifice. This is where we make the sacrifice of praise even when it still doesn’t feel praiseworthy yet. We lay there in the midst of the flying fears and whisper Thank You because we know He’s in control and He loves us and He has this all covered, even when we don’t know what to do. (He knows how dumb we are, remember. And that is a huge comfort.)

Okay, carry on:

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

– Romans 12:1-2

If agreeing with fear is an example of being conformed to this world (and it is, I’ll fight you over it) then rising above the fear and thanking God that we can trust Him while we let go of our regrets and insecurities and assumptions and negative imaginings…is one way we are transformed by the renewal of our mind.

We choose the thoughts that get to play. Fear wants us to just keel over and die, but God has made us to be stronger than average.

Has everything always turned out the way we wanted? No. It’s still a fallen world, a clean-up operation.

But so much has turned out better than we could’ve imagined. We’re all making it. And as we’re grateful to God and trusting Him, renewing our minds and offering the sacrifice of praise, we’ll continue to do so.

After car accidents and miscarriage and illness and grief and bank failures and huge expenses and big risks and unexpected pregnancies and medical corruption and corporate gaslighting and global deception and financial loss and leaving the familiar and starting over when it seemed like the most foolish thing to do… we made it. And you did, too.

We all made it. And here we are, by the mercies of God.

stubborn prayer: unleashing fire where others fear to tread

Posted on by July 26, 2024

It took two and a half years, but I finally finished reading Les Miserables (insert wild, nerdy rejoicing). In it, I read about a major cleanup operation – the saturated underground sewer system in Paris.

It was a formidable campaign; a nocturnal battle against pestilence and suffocation.

Trust me, it’s safe, nothing graphic. Let’s keep going.

The operation was complicated; the visit entailed the necessity of cleaning; hence it was necessary to cleanse and at the same time, to proceed…They advanced with toil. The lanterns pined away in the foul atmosphere. From time to time, a fainting sewerman was carried out.

Still with me? One more little section:

At certain points, there were precipices. The soil had given away, the pavement had crumbled, the sewer had changed into a bottomless well; they found nothing solid; a man disappeared suddenly; they had great difficulty in getting him out again.

— Victor Hugo, Les Miserables

The project was tackled in 1805 because one man was willing to go into the putrid darkness and do something about it.

stubborn prayer: unleashing fire where others fear to tread | Shannon Guerra (excerpt from Oh My Soul: Encountering God in Honest, Unconventional (and Sometimes Messy) Prayer

His name was Pierre Bruneseau. He did what needed to be done in the place and time he lived in, willing to be the cleanup operation and go into the dark when others shuddered at the thought of it.

God nudged me as I read it. What would happen if each of us took this approach with prayer?

What would happen if those darkest, most hopeless places, institutions, and people were tackled in prayer on a level that no one has had the grit and persistence to take on before?

What if we prayed – really prayed, with bright, life-giving detail – over those who’ve grown wild, refusing to admit fault, admit reality, admit their own weakness? What if we were brave enough to picture what it would look like if the darkest businesses were replaced with those that breathed life in a community – and then we prayed it into existence?

A friend said this in a sermon and it stuck with me: The presence of fire in the Bible often symbolizes the presence of God. The fire on the mountain, the burning bush, the pillar of smoke, the tongues of fire that could not be contained in a room.

His presence sanctifies, purifies, covers, and brings light.

Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.

– Hebrews 12:28-29

The light yoke of responsibility, maturity, and surrender are only a breath away. The heavy yoke of filth and blackness costs so much, and lies to those who are in it that the effort to take the deep breath of surrender isn’t worth it. What if we made the road smoother through prayer that refuses to give up on them?

I’ve also been the one who was lost, and losing, and needed someone to fight in prayer for me. Many of us would not be who we are today without those who fought the darkness for us.

We have loved ones stuck in this kind of mire, and this is where the fight comes in for those of us who love them and are tempted to just wash our hands and give up on them. Giving up seems easier to us, just as it seems to them, because the pain of disappointment after raised hopes is so hard to bear.

But this stubborn, unyielding prayer is where we fight, because the decision between hope and despair is where the battle rages. This is where the outcome of victory or defeat is decided. And we should take someone with us, because even spiritual proximity to the morass can threaten to suck us under, too. We can be the powerful loving ones, clinging to a healthy vision of the one who is lost in darkness, refusing to let it go.

Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world.

– 1 Peter 5:8-9

We cling to this hope and pray it into existence regardless of the blackness that pulses and threatens. We could fade away and give up, but heroes run into the battle and not away from it. Our loved ones need us to be those heroes – because they too are meant to be heroes, and that’s why the enemy fights so desperately for them.

That enemy whispers, “Give up. Lower your weapons.”

And we respond, “Fire.”

This is an excerpt from Oh My Soul: Encountering God in Honest, Unconventional (and Sometimes Messy) Prayer, shared now because it seems like a good time to lean deeper into praying light into dark places. Got a dark place you’re praying for? I’d love to hear about it in the comments, or pray with you for it if you’d like to contact me.

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loud freedom: how we fight back, and stand against

Posted on by August 29, 2024

This, like last Saturday’s news, is not about political parties or an election. This is about a fight for our culture.

Last week’s assassination attempt was meant to do more than kill one man, which is horrific enough; we need to recognize that that man was not the only intended target.

loud freedom: how we fight back, and stand against

Every American watching on live TV – plus those who would see the videos replayed ad nauseam in the future – was a target, because it was intended to horrify and traumatize every witness: Not just those attending the rally, but every man, woman, and child who watched, live, with cameras rolling.

All were meant to see the gore and blood and terror.

And it was meant to be replayed and replayed and replayed until all were desensitized to the horror and it became ho-hum in our culture.

So this was a message, too: Don’t threaten the status quo, and stop fooling yourselves about how “free” you are. Just so you know, this is what happens to people who threaten those in power.

Some of them will do whatever it takes to stay there.

So yes, we are under attack. There are people who want to make our everyday activities a war zone of fear and panic – and if that strikes you as hyperbole, you’re just not paying attention.

I “just happened” to be reading about another attack this week – in a less dramatic way than Trump “just happened” to turn his head at the pivotal second, but the source of both moves was the same, no doubt – and have been praying through its lessons all week.

It’s one of the most famous battles in the Bible so you’ve probably read about it and heard it mentioned in a hundred sermons before. But there’s good news for us here, and it, too, takes place after there has been exposure of evil, followed by government reform:

After this [King Jehoshaphat’s reforms] the Moabites and Ammonites, and with them some of the Meunites, came against Jehoshaphat for battle. Some men came and told Jehoshaphat, “A great multitude is coming against you from Edom, from beyond the sea; and, behold, they are in Hazazon-tamar” (that is, Engedi). Then Jehoshaphat was afraid and set his face to seek the Lord, and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah.

– 2 Chronicles 20:1-3

The first part of this last sentence is key because two things happen in conjunction that don’t always go together:

1) Jehoshaphat felt afraid, and 2) he sought the Lord.

Wait, why is that weird? Isn’t that what we’re supposed to do?

Yes, it is. But it’s not what we always do when we’re afraid. We know it’s what we’re supposed to do, but that’s totally different.

What tends to happen when we’re afraid? Often we panic and look for the obvious answer rather than seeking the Lord (we see this throughout the Bible, too). Alternatively, sometimes we feel shame immediately after fear because we know we’re not supposed to be afraid, and that drives us from the Lord too, because shame is a separator.

But Jehoshaphat didn’t fall for those. He did the right thing, sought the Lord, and led his people in doing the same thing, per verse 4:

And Judah assembled to seek help from the Lord; from all the cities of Judah they came to seek the Lord.

Then King Jehoshaphat prays. And as he recognizes who God is and what He does, he’s also reminding himself and his people:

And Jehoshaphat stood in the assembly of Judah and Jerusalem, in the house of the Lord, before the new court, and said, “O Lord, God of our fathers, are you not God in heaven? You rule over all the kingdoms of the nations. In your hand are power and might, so that none is able to withstand you.

He continues: You cleared the land for us. You gifted it to us. We’ve lived here and made a sanctuary for Your name, and remember? Ages ago, back when the Ark was brought into the Temple and Solomon prayed, we made a deal together: If disaster comes, and we cry out to You, You will hear and save us. And here we are, under attack.

Then he says this:

O our God, will you not execute judgment on them? For we are powerless against this great horde that is coming against us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you.”

– 2 Chronicles 20:12

There they stood, like we do, with their families: husbands, wives, little ones. Waiting. Wondering what to do. Knowing that anything we can do on our own is just a drop in the bucket, so futile without God’s help.

And then the Spirit comes.

And through Jahaziel, a man who is never mentioned anywhere else in the Bible, He speaks:

And he said, “Listen, all Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem and King Jehoshaphat: Thus says the Lord to you, ‘Do not be afraid and do not be dismayed at this great horde, for the battle is not yours but God’s. Tomorrow go down against them. Behold, they will come up by the ascent of Ziz. You will find them at the end of the valley, east of the wilderness of Jeruel. You will not need to fight in this battle. Stand firm, hold your position, and see the salvation of the Lord on your behalf, O Judah and Jerusalem.’ Do not be afraid and do not be dismayed. Tomorrow go out against them, and the Lord will be with you.”

– 2 Chronicles 20:15-17

Isn’t that nice? I mean, the Holy Spirit was right there telling them exactly what to do, where to go, and what would happen.

That would sure be handy for us right about now, too.

But what if He has already told us what to do?

What if we just need to be focused on those things? And rather than apologizing for how insignificant they seem, what if we realized how powerful they are?

To sum up, let’s look at their instructions:

Do not be afraid. There it is again.

Do not be dismayed. Not the same as fear; more like “disillusioned” or “discouraged.”

Okay, those are the things we don’t do. Got it, easy peasy…riiiiight.

But now, for the things we do:

Go meet them tomorrow, stand against them. On the offense, not the defense. And this is interesting because I was just looking at this other passage recently:

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

— Ephesians 6:12

Ready for some Fun With Greek? Of course you are, yay!

The repeated use of the word “against” struck me in this verse. The Greek word is “pros” and some translations use the word “with” (“we wrestle with the rulers” etc).

But it means a motion TOWARD something to interface with it. It’s not defensive, but offensive — we are to make the move forward, against, toward the threat, not simply to stand where we are and hold our current ground.

We offensively oppose the spiritual forces of evil — pressing forward and even plowing over (or through) enemy ranks.

So we’re looking at two different instances of “standing against” in Scripture: One in Hebrew and one in Greek, but both are in the context of battle.

We do not step back and diminish anything we’re already doing. We don’t cower or cave or shrink; we take what we have and press onward, against the threat. We don’t give the enemy room; we take the land and make him shrink back. We don’t give ground; we gain it.

We do not turn down our volume or our voices or our beliefs. We destroy strongholds, arguments, and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ.

And then we see this final instruction:

Stand firm, hold, and watch the Lord save you.

If you know this story, you know Jehoshaphat and his people ended up battling through worship. They fell down in worship, stood up in praise, and they weren’t quiet about it. And when they did that, the Lord set an ambush against their enemies, so that they were routed.

The daily small things we do are notes in the song as we march our days forward: making these sandwiches, learning this skill, memorizing that verse, reading those books with the kids, having that talk with a friend. We will not cede this ground; we will not live in terror; we will not let our children grow to know a country that is less than what we ourselves were raised in.

We will not be intimidated into shrinking silence and survival mode, pursuing safety over sanctification, choosing the idolatry of living in fear of man.

We will live in loud freedom, instead.

They set a net for my steps; my soul was bowed down.
They dug a pit in my way, but they have fallen into it themselves.
My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast!
I will sing and make melody!
    Awake, my glory! Awake, O harp and lyre!
    I will awake the dawn!
I will give thanks to you, O Lord, among the peoples;
    I will sing praises to you among the nations.
For your steadfast love is great to the heavens,
    your faithfulness to the clouds.

– Psalm 57:6-10

Our steady, life-giving routines are the chorus we keep coming back to: Turn this page in the Bible and move on to the next chapter. Pray with your spouse, pray with the kids. Weed the garden, harvest the veggies, delight in the flowers blooming. Make the meal, gather with friends. Take something to the neighbor, pick up the trash along the road. Call your grandparents, or your grandkids. Chat with the grocery clerk you see every week.

For our boast is this, the testimony of our conscience, that we behaved in the world with simplicity and godly sincerity, not by earthly wisdom but by the grace of God, and supremely so toward you.

– 2 Corinthians 1:12

Seek the Lord, and assemble, because of the increase of his government and of peace, there will be no end.

The Kingdom is here, at hand, all around us and within us. The Kingdom is peace, joy, and righteousness, and every move to abide and reflect Jesus makes earth a little more as it is in heaven.

God is setting an ambush and routing the enemy as the Word reigns in and around us. That Word hovers through the land as we read, sing, remind, write, recite, and declare.

We don’t need to be on stage; we’re all leading worship.

All were meant to see gore and blood and terror, but instead, we witnessed a miracle. And singing and rejoicing as we take the land, we will continue to do so.

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