Category Archives: peace

open hand: how we fight pride, presumption, & other delusions of grandeur

Posted on by September 2, 2026

Up way too early. Out of bed, throw on jeans, a belt, a hoodie. All is stealth-mode until I hit the stairs, where the floorboards creak like books that have never been opened.

Turn on the teapot, turn over the quail eggs in the incubator. The light slants sideways through leaves on trees, and at this hour it’s golden like sunset but coming from the opposite direction.

I usually miss this.

The cats yawn and stretch in lazy suspicion, and I hear Kav, our youngest, sneeze in his room. He’s usually the first one up and you don’t sneeze in your sleep, so I peek in and his skinny arms stretch out for me, for a warm hug that comes with a silent grin.

open hand: how we fight inflation, presumption, & other delusions of grandeur

Back in the living room, it feels like forever extends before me. Like hours. I could do anything – clean the house, work on a class, read a couple chapters, bake something special for breakfast.

But really, I make tea and sweep the floor. That’s it.

Because it’s not actually hours that I have, or even a single hour. It feels like it in those first minutes, but this is Sunday, our only early morning of the week. Everyone’s got to get up and moving in forty minutes.

There’s nothing wrong with an extra forty minutes. But the delusions of grandeur threaten to make the found time seem small, insignificant, not enough. They aren’t, though; it’s just that unrealistic expectations take up too much room, crowding out gratitude for what really happens.

It was still bonus time, and quiet space. It’s all gain.

But inflation, as it tends to do, makes it seem like loss.

We have a good thing going, but something subtle sneaks in and steals from it.

Which leads me to the service.

It could be any Sunday morning service. It’s probably most of them, in fact.

But on this particular one, in the middle of amazing worship, I saw a picture in my mind of a 40,000-foot view of the churches of the Valley. It happened during a moment of noticing our congregation leaning into the song – the Spirit-filled singing, the off-the-page adoration of Him – and I felt like in that 40,000-foot view, the Lord was super pleased with our church and several others that morning.

There’s nothing wrong with feeling the Lord’s pleasure on something, by the way.

But in that moment, I also felt pride in our church and the way we were pursuing Him.

And the Holy Spirit very quickly squashed that and corrected me, and said that our leaning toward Him cannot be anything — ANYTHING — about our church or any particular church, or who we are, or our particular style. It can only be about Him.

If it’s about anything else, even (or, especially) in the guise of being about Him when it’s really about us, it’s idolatry.

Look at us, how humble we are, how we’re looking to Jesus, how good we are at holding this fragile bubble of genuine worship— pop! It’s gone as soon as we touch it.

We are not meant to hold this for ourselves. As soon as we’re aware of it, we’ve lost it.

I probably don’t need to tell you how many churches I’ve worshiped in where this kind of pride was just the status quo, part of the air we breathed, even as we were singing that He was the air we breathed.

So hey, let’s talk about Uzzah. We have something in common here.

Uzzah’s story happens in 2 Samuel, right after David is anointed as king over all Israel. David wants to bring the Ark to Jerusalem so he chooses his closest 30,000 friends to help, and here we are in verse 3:

They carried the ark of God on a new cart and brought it out of the house of Abinadab, which was on the hill.

Uzzah and Ahio, the sons of Abinadab, were driving the new cart with the ark of God, and Ahio went in front of the ark.

— 2 Samuel 6:3-4

So the Ark had been in the house of Abinadab, and the reason it was there is a whole other story, but it had been there for twenty years. A long time, at Uzzah’s dad’s house.

So Uzzah was pretty familiar with it. Probably too familiar. He may have felt a sense of entitlement, ownership, and authority over it, as we tend to do with things we feel inflated over due to our proximity to them.

When they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah reached out his hand to the ark of God and took hold of it, for the oxen lurched.

The anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzzah, and God struck him there, and he died there beside the ark of God.

— 2 Samuel 6:6-7

We often read this like, Ohhh, poor Uzzah, he was just helping! Dude, that was harsh. Even David thought so. And, sorry to keep picking on David but this wasn’t the only part of this situation he got wrong, because they weren’t supposed to be carrying the ark on a cart in the first place. They were supposed to carry it with poles, because it was not to be touched.

Uzzah had become so familiar with something sacred of the Lord’s that he thought the Lord needed his help in caring for it. You could argue it was just a sudden reaction and there was no thought involved at all, but you could also argue that our knee-jerk reactions are the tangible result of thoughts we’ve allowed to percolate.

I know the rules, but God needs my help; He’ll make an exception for me.

This is called presumption. A person who knows the rules but wants to see how far they can stretch them or get away with them is often also a person who is neither honest with themselves nor God…nor anyone else.

God knew exactly where Uzzah’s heart was, just as He knows our heart when we make excuses.

That is a sobering, fearful thing, especially in our culture (and even our churches) where we take such pride in our roles, associations, and privileges.

Because if Uzzah can’t get away with this, what does that mean for us?

It means we cannot treat what is holy as something that is common.

Uzzah, instead of being humbled by proximity and stewardship, seems to have made it about himself and became arrogant.

All of Israel had been warned against this:

As for anyone who presumes to disobey the priest appointed to minister there to the Lord your God or the judge, that person shall die. So you shall purge the evil from Israel. All the people will hear and be afraid and will not act presumptuously again.

— Deuteronomy 17:12-13

I don’t know how it works for other people, but for Christians, pride usually sneaks in masked as righteousness: the sneaky humble brag, the fancy prayer, the exaggerated testimony, the subtle judgment of “those people” (whoever they are) that we distance ourselves from, not wanting to be inadvertently associated with. Or the desire to have (or be) the answer for someone, instead of seeking The Answer with them.

Inflated superiority takes up too much room, and crowds out gratitude for who we really are, what we really have privilege to access, and the sacred space we get to live in.

(Knightley also takes up a lot of room, but none of us mind too much.)

We have the privilege of proximity to so many holy things: His presence. Our families. The gifts we’re endowed with. The hearts of each other.

We have these sacred things but as soon as we get too familiar, we can take them for granted and treat them as common. Our hand closes over instead of staying open, and we begin to act like we are the one to be served, rather than the one serving.

When I’ve looked back honestly (facing all the cringe), I see this in so many of my old ways, and even in recent ways that I just thought were fine. They were so much a part of church culture that I didn’t realize how opposed they were to Kingdom culture, until He confronted me.

For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christand be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith.

— Philippians 3:8b-9

It is so good to be confronted by Him, when our hands are open to His ways and not close-fisted to ours.

Perfection doesn’t qualify people for ministry; repentance and obedience do. Humility does. Surrender to Him does. These things expand us without inflating us.

Pride is a disqualifier, though often a delayed one. God is so patient with us, giving us so many second chances to see ourselves rightly.

(I wonder how many second chances Uzzah already had?)

One of the things I have learned over decades of intercessory prayer and prophetic ministry is that when you are an intercessor, you pray about things you can’t talk about. God tells you things you can’t talk about, and when you minister, people tell you things you can’t talk about, too.

If you’re an intercessor, you know. It’s not our job to talk; it’s our job to pray, watch, and speak in agreement with God.

He never tells us something to hold over someone else, though. He doesn’t entrust secrets to those who get an ego boost or otherwise abuse them.

And we want to be those He can trust.

He is breaking off pride in our Valley and elsewhere, where we have taken something holy and perverted it into elevating ourselves, our individual churches, or ministries. If we want the spotlight on what we are doing instead of what He is doing (and it must be said, these are often not the same things), we have gravely lost focus.

Let love be genuine;
hate what is evil; hold fast to what is good;
love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor.

— Romans 12:9-10

It’s not that He wants us to be nameless or unidentifiable, but that He wants us to be so attentive to Him that we are oblivious to any name we are making for ourselves. This is for our protection.

Live in harmony with one another; do not be arrogant, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are.

— Romans 12:16

Also, it’s not the desire to do something big or significant that’s wrong. There’s nothing wrong with healthy ambition or wild exploits or the desire to accomplish a whole list of things in an hour that you would normally sleep through.

And it’s not wrong to feel the relief or sense of achievement that comes from getting those things done, or from leaving something — or someone — better than you found them.

Making something or someone (even if it’s ourselves) better than before isn’t what’s wrong.

It’s thinking that we are better than [insert name or group here] that’s wrong.

If I’m understanding this right, the only person in the Kingdom I’m better than is myself, yesterday.

For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.

— Romans 12:3

Don’t miss this: He is right there with you, as He is here with me, at the desk, in the car, in line at the post office, and as we are wandering the aisles in the grocery store, trying to find where they relocated the dairy. He is in the tension-filled meeting, and in the garden where the weeds are threatening to take over.

His presence is right there, the air we breathe, but we will miss Him if we are distracted by our preconceived notions and focused on our superiority masked as righteousness.

This is holy ground. We hold it all with an open hand, because we want to steward it well.

P.S. Along these lines: What does the Bible really say about leadership in the Church? Two theologians — a Hebrew scholar and a Greek scholar — untangle where we’ve often confused man made traditions and assumptions with what the Word (and words) actually say. Important info and perspective here.

Teaching & sharing wholeness, hope, and Kingdom culture is our family’s full time job. You can learn more about what we do here, or support our ministry here. Thanks!

turn dread on its head: maturity is for the motivated

Posted on by August 19, 2026
turn dread on its head: Maturity is for the motivated || Shannon Guerra at Copperlight Wood

Stubborn. That was me – as a kid, a teen, a youngish adult.

But I turn fifty this year (can’t believe I just wrote that) and as I’ve gotten older, I am less stubborn. In fact, there are times when I can change my mind with great rapidity.

Like recently when a huge spider scuttled across the floor.

You may already know about my favorite method of dealing with spiders, and a hardcover copy of The Wings of a Dove by Henry James was closest. I haven’t read it but was thinking of starting it soon, which is why it was handy.

Whump, I dropped its hefty weight on top of the spider.

Mostly on top, that is. I looked at Vin and cringed.

“Um…it’s like the wicked witch under Dorothy’s house.”

“A leg is sticking out?”

“Two legs.” Shudder. “Maybe I’ll read that book in a couple years, and start The Great Gatsby instead.” And I did; I finished it last weekend. (Three stars.)

Dear fellow humans, we are allowed to change our minds, to change our ways. It’s required for our maturity, in fact.

turn dread on its head: maturity is for the motivated | Shannon Guerra at Copperlight Wood

Also, speaking of spiders, we are allowed – commanded, even – to ward off the enemy’s attempts to encroach upon our space. Our homes, our hearts, and our habits should be free of spiritual creepy crawlies. This is how we take the land and hold our ground, also known as stewardship and obedience.

Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of the mind, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.

– Romans 12:2

But how do we mature past our own stubbornness, when we don’t want to change? There’s no single answer, but since it came up recently, let’s talk about motivation.

Unmotivated people rarely mature. But when we’re motivated, we obey with enthusiasm.

I want that spider to die, so I’ll use whatever book is at hand, whether or not I’ll have to burn it afterward.

More spiritually, I want this sin/habit/prejudice/addiction/hangup removed from my life so badly, I’ll do whatever it takes because I want the joy and freedom on the other side of obedience.

Or, alternatively: I want this discipline/accomplishment/victory/breakthrough/understanding so much, I’ll surrender anything to follow Jesus into it.

We’re motivated by a lot of things, but sometimes maturity isn’t one of them. And let’s be honest – the Lord knows this about us.

Sometimes we’d rather be in control and keep the predictable status quo. Sometimes we’re deceived by lies we’ve convinced ourselves of until God confronts us, or the pain is so bad we are pressed into action, like…

We may not have such dramatic stories, but God confronts us in any number of ways. Then we have a choice to make: Stubbornness, or willingness? Stagnancy, or repentance that moves us forward?

To make the right choice, we have to kill the silent partner that rides shotgun to stubbornness.

Stubbornness is often linked to Dread, which I already mentioned.

Wait, I didn’t?

No, I promise you I did. I just used a code name for it: Control.

Control – or its alter ego, Dread – holds a gun to the back of our head and makes us a slave to it. If I change (surrender, repent, forgive, stop judging others, acknowledge the log in our own eye, stop lying to ourselves and others, or any other form of obedience), I don’t know what will happen. So I won’t.

An immature person does not trust God, therefore they require an illusion of control.

I’ve been watching a version of this lately that takes this to new, off the charts levels. By “lately,” I mean roughly the last decade and a half, but also more vividly, the last few months.

Imagine a person playing darts: They’ve seen the game played a million times, and played it themselves a million times more. But suddenly they insist that the way to play is by holding the dart backward, fletch first, and throwing aimlessly.

Then they blame you for not teaching them. For lying to them about the right way to hold, to throw, to play. For giving them the game in the first place. And when they play at all, they continue to throw fletch first.

And you realize after some prayer that this person is still afraid of winning a game. So afraid of what comes after this game that they will do whatever it takes to avoid it, destroy it, ruin the experience of anyone in the vicinity who wants to play.

If you dread the unknown, you’ll do whatever it takes to contain it – even if your world is the one that shrinks.

We dread all sorts of things, and change is a big one. But we also dread the worst case scenarios our unsanctified imaginations come up with, and the work that repentance demands.

We dread the disapproval of others, and their gossip and rejection. And we dread identifying with those we’ve previously judged – those whom we suspect may actually have been right all along, or at least not as wrong as we accused them of when we were busy ignoring the logs in our own eyes.

We dread failing to live up to our own expectations. So we put ourselves on pedestals, instead of going to the altar where we’re supposed to be the living sacrifice.

I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, on the basis of God’s mercy, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable act of worship.

– Romans 12:1

We dread dying to ourselves, and we dread the altar until we trust His fire.

But the only way we get out of here alive is by dying to ourselves, and surrendering to Him.

And unless we know His goodness, that’s not something we’re naturally motivated to do.

How many times has the Lord sent us somewhere kicking and screaming, and when we finally got there, we realized it was so much better than we’d dreaded?

I’m sorry to say that it wasn’t until my mid-thirties when I started learning that I can trust Him with the things I dread.

(Insert narrator voice: It was August of 2012. A living room in Wasilla, Alaska. At the end of a two-year-long adoption process. And there she was, swearing at online travel websites.)

We were trying to nail down the itinerary for our pick-up trip to bring Andrey and Reagan home. The flights from Alaska to Bulgaria were fine, but the best option available for our return trip – at which point we would have two young, mostly non-verbal children with us – included an overnight layover in Frankfurt.

I fought hard and stubbornly against it because the idea of sleeping ONE MORE NIGHT OVERSEAS launched me into all kinds of fretting and angst and frustration: We’d be away from our bio kids for two weeks, and coming back with our two other kids who (in my mind) just needed to get home asap so we could begin the work of adjusting into a family.

But the Lord knew better. He knew we would need sleep for our sanity, and He knew we had family in Frankfurt waiting for us. He knew we would love it, that I would love it in the end, and that this lesson would teach me to trust Him instead of fighting against Him.

Since then, we’ve seen this in more recent years with the dreaded situation of guardianship that ended up being a huge unforeseen blessing, and with medical issues and hard relationship boundaries, and various moves and countermoves the Lord has had us make in obedience.

I am learning that dread – not healthy alarm, but any fear that keeps us in an attitude of stubborn resistance – is usually smoke and mirrors for something the enemy doesn’t want me to advance into. The Lord is teaching me to turn dread on its head, because I can trust Him for what is on the other side of it.

So, dread is actually something that can be flipped into anticipation. What are You trying to do in this? What do You want me to see beyond my own assumptions?

Because understanding His goodness and love for us is incredibly motivating.

When we let Him lead us, He trains us in the steady mundane. The character and discipline we develop there gives us the guts to obey when He calls us into something completely beyond what we expected.

And this is how we mature.

I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

– Galatians 2:19b-20

How badly do we want to live and die for Him?

Our maturity comes down to this: Are we willing to see the way Jesus does? He is under no illusions about how good He is, about how much He loves us, or how much our freedom means to Him.

I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved and will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

– John 10:9-10 (Jesus speaking)

Motivation, excitement, and anticipation require trust. And trust requires that we know and see Him rightly. When we do that, we can’t help but be excited.

You will grab that book and fling it at the spider, not thinking of anything else.

But those who don’t will continue in their old ways, and make excuses for living with creepy crawlies. The religious will justify the status quo the same way the Pharisees did, by claiming it’s for the Lord. They’ll declare that their ways are His ways, regardless of how opposite those ways are to His character, because to them, the means justify the ends.

But that is not His way.

His way is to reach down when we don’t realize we’ve sunk in our own mire, kicking and flailing and resisting and trying to get out on our own, but our own ways are only increasing the rate of our descent.

This way, we demand.

Really, it’s for You, Lord, we insist, but we sink further.

But this is what I was always taught, always believed, always told myself, we plead.

We are the ship in the storm, demanding that the opposing light moves out of our way, only to discover that it’s a lighthouse.

We will crash upon its rocks if we do not yield to the immovable.

The Immovable is waiting to receive us with warmth, shelter, and healing.

But I can’t let go; if I let go, I’ll die, we agonize.

Yes. Yes, we will.

We release the idol of fearful control, and His hand grabs our outstretched fingers. Our inflated sense of righteousness is pricked by niggling facts that are more stubborn than we are, and our bold defiance deflates a little.

Let the wicked forsake their way
and the unrighteous their thoughts;
let them return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on them,
and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

– Isaiah 55:7

All this time, we were afraid He would suck us under, but instead He’s right there, pulling us out.

Stubbornness, dread, and all other forms of resistance are powerless when we see and understand His goodness and love for us.

We realize His ways are not our ways, and it is the best news ever because once we’re honest, we admit our ways – which were shrinking, striving, demanding, judging, cringing, cowering, fawning, gaslighting ourselves and others – were miserable.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.

– Isaiah 55:8-9

We stop finding strength in weak things: puffing anger, naval gazing, narcissistic offense, petty condescension, inflated presumption, conceited superiority or ignorant posturing that made a mockery of who we were meant to be, what Jesus died for so we could become like Him.

Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world.

– 1 John 4:17

Emptied, and filled. Surrendered, and light. Dreading nothing, hopeful for what’s ahead. Free, and brave. Dead to sin, alive to Christ.

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love.

We love because he first loved us.

– 1 John 4:18-19

We’ll get out of here alive. But we have to die first.

And before we let go, He is already reaching for us.

P.S. Photos taken from a foggy evening last week at Independence Mine in Hatcher Pass, Alaska.

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move me: asking God to give us the want-to

Posted on by August 5, 2026

I was up in the wee hours that morning, trying to get a head start on the day. Computer on, coffee steaming, papers right there, I was ready to work.

But also, our baby was playing at my feet with our three cats, and every ninety seconds I was interrupted by trying to protect them from his violent affection..except for Knightley.

move me: asking God to give us the want-to

I didn’t have to move her, because she moved herself. A few days earlier, little Finn had attempted to use her tail as a leash and now she didn’t need my protection; she was highly motivated to stay out of his reach.

Sometimes we need a little motivation to move us.

That morning, I needed some myself as I was looking at ten pages of fine print that needed read and signed. I scanned ahead for any pictures or graphs to break it up a little, but nope, no extra white space at all, just big words in tiny font, all the legal details about Us, Them, and the Agreement.

We were in the process of revising and re-launching my first book with a publisher, and I needed the motivation of partnership and accountability. Because I know me.

I wanted to do the project, but on my own, I’d put it off, think about it for a few more years, and feel incompetent and not-enough about the hard parts until I finally gave up on ever doing it and felt like a loser. Big sad face.

But now, with this paperwork in hand, I was highly motivated to move – not only to get it done, but to also pull other projects forward that had been simmering on the backburner.

God was talking to me a lot then (as He is now) about cooperating with change: How do we do the work that needs to be done, and find joy in the process?

That was one of the seasons with nursing babies, middle of the night wake ups, and diaper changes in a dark room. He was my fifth baby so I knew all the moves, but sometimes babies still fight like mad against being changed.

So there I was, in an exhausted stupor, barely conscious. It was like trying to put a snowsuit on a fractious baby kangaroo while blindfolded. And also, bonus challenge: If you don’t hurry up and finish in time, the kangaroo will pee on you.

If you’d stop kicking, we could do this faster and get it over with. The second I thought it, I realized God had been telling me the same thing for who knows how long. I had my own things I was writhing and whining and trying to sleep through, ignoring the need to change.

These restless and edgy seasons warn us that change is ahead. But unless we’re really motivated, our relative comfort will keep us from being willing to expose ourselves to something new and fresh that is better for us.

We will all be changed, though. So, how long will we waste time resisting it?

Sometimes we’d rather wallow in fitfulness. We’d rather ignore it until it reaches the tipping point, and something motivates us to move, to get up and do the thing we’ve been avoiding.

Motivation is important; it’s the fuel behind our choices, our work, and our change. In Him we live and move and have our being, and we are meant to live and move and be in joy, not resentment or reluctance.

Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my thoughts.
See if there is any wicked way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.

— Psalm 139:23-24

We don’t always need more tools or help or clarity to convince us to do what needs doing.

We need the want-to.

For example, if dentists really wanted us to floss, they wouldn’t lecture and send us home with another packet of tooth floss destined to be used twice and then lost in a bathroom drawer.

Nope. You want someone to floss? Send them home with kettle corn and little samples of beef jerky. That’s motivation.

We might make excuses about needing the right tools, time, or ability, but usually it’s not about those things at all. If we’re procrastinating or resisting the Lord, we probably already have everything we need to get what we want. We just don’t want it bad enough.

I’ve always known that drinking plenty of water keeps us healthy, but I never drank enough of it because the reasoning was just so…vague. Water, boring; coffee, better. But then I had emergency surgery and learned, Wow, water helps you keep your organs. That’s highly motivating.

I started eating more spicy food to motivate myself to drink more water. I also constantly encouraged our kids to drink more water, which they totally loved, as you can imagine.

Sometimes it went like this:

Teenage boy comes to the kitchen and asks for a drink from the fridge. I tell him, Yes, but drink some plain water first.

He says, No thanks, he doesn’t want it that bad.

(That’s my boy. Spitting image, sometimes.)

But then in a move of brilliance that can only be credited to the Holy Spirit’s prompting, I start eating pico de gallo. For the sake of this story, you should probably know that Vince got tired of me eating all of the pico and he made that particular batch with an extra serrano pepper and the tears of Hades. He denied it, but I know his tricks and ways, and I persevered, anyway – two extra glasses of water down the hatch, no problem.

And this was the batch I was eating when I offered Afton a chip. And if you give a boy a tortilla chip, he’s going to want some pico to go with it.

“Whoa,” he said, and coughed a little.

“Now you want some water, don’t you?”

And he did. Two cups down the hatch, no problem.

God can show us how to want something badly enough if we ask Him. But are we willing to ask?

I think He longs to make it easier on us. He wants us to see the way He does.

Even in that hard thing — the one we know we need to do but we just don’t aren’t motivated enough — God knows us. He’s a good father, and He knows how to give us the want-to. If we’re willing to change, we’ll get it faster.

This post was adapted from a chapter in my book Obedience to Move Forward, book 5 in the ABIDE series.

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