It would seem that I am at a loss as I come to this coversation about loss and expansion. I've been struggling to get any coherent thoughts streaming long enough to get them down in written form.  So I revisited the articles that our Pretty&Wise women had written on this subject. 

After reading through these beautifully written articles, I am struck with wonder at the wisdom of these  young women and their hearts on this matter.  So I just want to highlight some things that struck me as I was reading and contemplating what ways loss can make room for and even fascilitate expansion in our lives. 
Angie wrote about loss of self in her article and two of her thoughts struck me. 

When we are willing to take the loss of self and surrender to Him, we get to be involved in the expansion of God's Kingdom. 

God calls us to lose ourselves so that He can expand His kingdom, His love, and His salvation in this broken world.

God's expansion doesn't always look clear and make sense to us. 

Just this week I experienced hearing God speak clearly to me to do something that was a bit uncomfortable.  To lay down my sense of self confidence...to lose a bit of myself. 

As the hubs and I were enjoying breakfast with friends at a nearby restaurant, God told me to pray for our waitress. Now...I sat there for a minute, because I knew He meant I was to pray for her so that she knew I was praying...not just say a little prayer as I sat there enjoying conversation with friends. I did not want to announce this to everyone at my table, so I waited for the right moment, or so I thought. 

There she was, standing by herself at the hostess counter. No one was in line waiting to be seated, so I uttered a weak, 

"Excuse me,"  

to my table mates and walked over to the counter. 

As stepped up to tell my waitress that God had asked me to pray for her, I noticed that a line of patrons waiting to be seated had quickly formed in front of us. So, I asked her first name and said, 

"I can see that you are busy and I don't want to keep you from your work, but I just believe that you are experiencing pain and God wants me to pray for you."  

Now I'm not completely sure, but I believe she smirked when I said that. I could be wrong and it could have been a smile that I misread...but it really seemed as if she smirked. 

SMIRKED. 

I went back to my table and sat down and joined in the ongoing conversation with our friends. But the thought kept nagging at me. Why Lord? Didn't you ask me to pray for her...to let her know that I was praying for her? This was definitely nothing like what Beth Moore experienced when she listened to God's voice prompting her to brush a man's hair at the airport. (If you're not familiar with this story, go listen now: The Hair Brush). 

I'm certain that I did what I was supposed to do. I have written her name down and continued to pray for her. Because God said to pray. I may never know why or to what effect my simple action and prayers may have in the expansion of His Kingdom. I know that God's expansion sometimes takes unexpected pathways. He doesn't always gift us with the mystery of His ways wrapped up in the clarity of a hair(bush)bow. I can only trust Him because I know that HE KNOWS. 

In reading Olivia's article, When Surrender Feels Like Loss, once again I am reminded that when I surrender control over everything within the realm of my own influence and give it over to the Holy Spirit and His prompting...that giving up...that loss...becomes gain. 

Could it be instead that a surrender of control.. even a surrender so deep and transforming that it initially feels like a great loss.. could actually be a great gain? That it could be a beautiful expansion of faith; of obedience; of the Holy Spirit's work in and around us- for the Kingdom?

Such wisdom. Lord, help me to give up my own selfish gain, to lose myself in obedience to you, to walk in surrender to you, so that your Kingdom may be expanded here on earth. Even, and most asurredly in the small things such as speaking up and praying for others.
  
That's what Jonah did, eventually. He experienced some pretty serious loss and expansion as Lyndsay writes in her article Jonah's Loss and Expansion.
I've done some study myself on Jonah's situation. The lesson I gleaned from this Minor Prophet in the Old Testament was a bit different than those Lyndsay shared with us in her article. I wrote about it here: Run to Him, but I love that she found such an important truth and am so thankful she shared it with us. I might have been thinking of Jonah more as the deadbeat prophet until I read these words of wisdom:

It wasn’t until Jonah was ready to lose his life that God saved him. It wasn’t until Jonah was ready to give his life that God saved everyone else on that boat. 

And this:
 
Even in Jonah’s sin, God was glorified. Even in Jonah’s disobedience, others were made right with God. But it took Jonah owning up to his sin, bringing to light his disobedience, and committing himself back to God for the others to be saved.
 
​I'm so thankful that we have the book of Jonah and all of God's Word to teach us that His compassion and grace and active presence in our lives are not given to us based on what we deserve, but on our responsive steps in the right direction.
  
So...what is the right direction? 

This thought brings me to the final article, Loss/Expansion, from Alexandria. In her article she shares with us this verse, John 1:12(TPT), 


But those who embrace Him and took hold of His name He gave authority to become the children of God!And then she makes this observation,

Embrace can only happen within proximity. We can only embrace someone if we are close to them. Close enough to hold. How often am I that close to God?

...everything in the Kingdom comes from proximity. It comes from being close to the Father.

And there it is. The right direction is always a step closer toward our heavenly Father. A step closer to His leading through His word and through Holy Spirit's promptings.  

I just want to say thank you to my sister's at Pretty&Wise for allowing God to use you as you write to the Glory of God with wisdom that comes from His word and His leading. You have made possible the writing of this particular article . The loss I experienced in my writer's block allowed my vision to expand as I read and was blessed by your words. 

To you my reader, thank you for reading. You are here for a reason. So please allow me to pray for you...for us all. 
​
Father, 
I thank you for my sister/brother reading these words. 


I ask that you make yourself known to us in the midst of these uncertain times. I ask for your peace...the peace that doesn't always make sense in the midst of the crazy going on all around us.

Help us all to take the time to pause and listen to You...through Your word...through Your gentle prompting throughout our days. Help us to see those who are suffering, and to know how we can reach out.   

I thank you, LORD, that You are good and that You work all things for the good of those who love You, and You work it all for your glory. I am comforted in the truth of these words...Your Word. 

I am humbled that you would use us to advance your Kingdom. I pray that you would open our eyes to see where we can join you in your work here on earth. 

I thank you that your words assure us that you will draw near to us if we would but draw nearer to you.

I ask that You work through it all and in all for Your will to be accomplished...in the precious name of Jesus, Amen. 

Blessings,
Gay

You know how sometimes you just can’t. We just can’t do anything right. We miss appointments. We miss communication. We forget to do something. Maybe it is because recent our life has been upside down and turned around. Maybe we have over committed. Maybe things have changed completely and totally out of our control. Either way at some point, I think most of us can relate to this on some level. 


If and/or when it happens in my life, I find it is really easy for me as woman to slip into the mindset of disappointment. It can make us feel like we are not enough, like we will never be enough. Like we have somehow failed and all of a sudden all of our accomplishments, all of our truth, all of how God sees us goes right out the window.


Why do we do that to ourselves? Why do we so easily let the enemy come in with lies and make room for them while we lock our God given truths of who we are away? And we begin to allow our losses, our pain, our struggles to dictate where we are, how we act, and what we do. It seems that God is far and out of reach. 


1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 says,
"Rejoice Always
Pray Continually
Give Thanks In All Circumstances"


At our church for the last year or so we have been very intentional about one thing.
Everything is done in proximity. Abiding. Presence. Abiding in and with the Father, Jesus and Holy Spirit.


You see everything good in the Kingdom comes from proximity. It comes from being close to the Father. Not from good works, not even god-works (Matthew 7:21-23). It comes from nearness to the God who adopted us when we received Him. The more we are with the Father, the more fully we know we are the daughter, His daughter. We are not slaves; we are children. Let that sink in…


We are His daughters. He is our Father. We have been completely and totally adopted into His family when we accept Jesus.


But those who embrace Him and took hold of His name He gave authority to become the children of God!- John 1:12(TPT)




I love the phrasing here. Can we sit on that for a moment…


…those who embrace Him…took hold of His name…




Embrace can only happen within proximity. We can only embrace someone if we are close to them. Close enough to hold. How often am I that close to God?


So close that I can hear His heart beat. So close that I begin to look like Him.


(Have you ever seen those photos when people look like their pets?LOL) 


I want to look more and more like my Daddy. The one who breathed out the stars. The one who created me in wonder. Who knows every strand on my head. So I have to get close. I have to lean in. I have be so full of God, so close that it leaves no room for the lies of the enemy. 


I am blessed and surrounded by amazing women in my church and my tribe. Women who speak their relationship with the Father not with their words, but by their actions. I am surrounded by women that I get to witness come closer and closer to the Father with every passing day. 


I have a tribe of women around me that regardless of what is going on in their lives they are actively pursuing the Father. They have tasted what it is to be a daughter of the King and they are shaking off the lies and titles that they have had placed on their lives by themselves and others around them. 


These amazing women are not afraid to shed the I am “highly blessed and favored” in the public and just be real. Just be open and honest about where they are in that moment. 


These woman have had hurts, been hurt, done the hurting, and with everyday they release more of that hurt and loss and receive more of the Father’s truth about who they are. These women are real with where they are at. They do not fear it. They do not dwell in it. Instead they walk it to the cross and lay it down. 


We will never be able to receive what God has for us if we are not first willing to lay down our hurts, our losses, our struggles, and open our arms to our Good Good Father. 


Embrace Him. He WILL embrace you! And I will promise you that it will be better than you could ever imagine. 


In Matthew 7:11 it says, 
"If you, imperfect as you are, know how to lovingly take care of your children and give them what’s best, how much more ready is your heavenly Father to give wonderful gifts to those who ask him?”


I was amazingly blessed growing up with a step-father who loved me as his own. He was and is an incredible role-model who gave and showed me love and still does to this day everyday. He raised me in such a way that Matthew 7:11 is not hard for me to believe, but instead quite easy. I can trust that Jesus meant what He said. That Father God is a Good loving Father.


I understand that not everyone has had that same childhood… but sis… please take that chance… 


Give Father a chance to right the wrongs and breathe life and love into your world. To restore what the enemy has taken. 


Embrace Him and let Him embrace you. 


Who told you ‘you were not enough’? 
The Father says “YOU, you daughter have always been enough for Me.”


He just wants us. He just wants you.


Beautiful daughter, give Him a chance. It may not be what you think it should or look how you think it would, but give it to Him and He WILL make something good for you. Come close. Draw near. Abide. Embrace.


Love you!


Alexandria
​

Lately, I’ve been reading my way through the minor prophets. To be honest, I have a hard time following many of the books without a commentary to help clear things up a bit. “What is God really getting at here?” “Is there any hope for Israel?” “These are terrifying consequences for their disobedience; how are they not turning back to God sooner?” 


These are the questions I find myself asking throughout these books. So much loss. So much pain. So much sin. So much disobedience.


I just wrapped up the book of Jonah. I felt a sense of relief as I finally jumped into a book that I could understand without consulting a theologian immediately. As I was reading, the Lord opened my eyes to see Jonah’s story in the light of loss and expansion…


Most of us who grew up in the Christian Church know his story. He was the guy who was told to go to Nineveh and ran way instead. Somehow, he got into the belly of a giant fish and stayed there for 3 days - ALIVE. When he was spit up on the shore, he finally obeyed God and went to Nineveh to preach. Nineveh was saved.


That’s the gist of it. That’s what I understood for much of my younger years. That was the whole story, I thought. Well - save a few key pieces of the story. How about Jonah being thrown out of ship into stormy waters? How about when Jonah was angry that God was going to save Nineveh? 


Something that hit me differently while reading it this time was the part of the story when Jonah found himself in that boat. They came upon a huge storm that was growing worse and worse. It was such a terrible storm that the boat was almost ripped apart! I can’t imagine a storm that terrible. I don’t want to imagine it. 

When I was a teenager, I went on a cruise with my family. One night, on the ship, we hit a huge storm while at sea. The ship was rocking so badly, all the furniture on the deck was flying off into the ocean. Everyone was rushing to get back to the safety of their rooms, however the storm was so wild that we all had to crawl to our rooms - no one could stand to walk! I sat in the window sill of my room and pulled the curtains closed around me so I could see the ocean. Wild, angry waves were crashing everywhere. It was a terrible sight, but I knew we were safe. Our ship was so much larger than the waves.


Sometimes, when life’s storms hit, we find ourselves in a tiny boat, like Jonah. It is so much smaller than the waves that we are threatened to be crushed and smashed to pieces by the storm. Our boat can’t withstand it. 


This is where Jonah found himself, but initially, he wasn’t aware of how much trouble was surrounding him. He was sleeping down in the bottom of the boat. Who could sleep in a storm like that? Everyone on the ship was praying to their gods, hoping that one of them was real and would stop the storm. Someone went to wake up Jonah and yelled, “PRAY TO YOUR GOD THAT HE MAY SAVE US!” Jonah realized why they hit this storm. It was his own disobedience. He had been running from the Lord, he was living in sinful defiance to God. He was faced with his own reality and that his sins were going to be the death of everyone around him if he did not do something about it. He told the men, “This is because of me. Throw me overboard and God will end this storm.” 


Hang on. This is where I was stuck. How in the world was Jonah able to say, “This is my fault; throw me overboard.” That was as good as saying, “Go ahead and kill me.” Then I heard the Lord ask me, “Lyndsay, do you feel the gravity of your sin the way Jonah did? He recognized the true consequences of sin. He FELT that death was the payment. Do you feel that?” Immediately, I felt conviction. For all my “regular, everyday” sins, I don’t feel that kind of grief. I don’t feel what those sins really cost to cover. I don’t feel the weight of what Jesus has done for me when I gossip, when I stretch the truth, when I lash out in anger, when I am deceitful, when I am lazy, when I am gluttonous. That is a loss I don’t allow myself to feel very often. I don’t think about what those “small” sins really cost. Someone has to be thrown into the wild and angry ocean to pay for those sins. And I deserve that. Like Jonah, I should be thrown in. 


YET GOD. He didn’t allow Jonah to die. Jonah proved his heart in that moment; he knew what he had done and how it had grieved the heart of God. He knew he sinned against the LORD. He knew the cost of his sin and he was ready to pay. He wasn’t going to run away anymore. The LORD saved Jonah - in an unconventional and uncomfortable and unlovely way, yes - but He saved him nonetheless! 


There’s so much more to unpack here in this story of Jonah’s life, but we’ll just hang out here today letting it all sink into our hearts and spirits. 




How are you running from God? 


Do you feel the weight of your disobedience? 


Do you really know and feel the cost? 




God is gracious and merciful. Just like He prophesied to Israel time and time again, if we would just turn our hearts back to Him and quit running to other lesser gods. If we would just praise His name again and obey Him again, He will save us. It may be a big, smelly fish, but it’s still salvation. It may be unconventional, uncomfortable, and unlovely, but it’s still salvation. It may be a baby in a manger to a poor family and an unwed mother, but it’s still salvation. 


It wasn’t until Jonah was ready to lose his life that God saved him. It wasn’t until Jonah was ready to give his life that God saved everyone else on that boat. And not just physically either. When the storm stopped, the men realized they had been worshipping false gods all along and have now seen the TRUE God. They bowed down and started to worship the LORD. Even in Jonah’s sin, God was glorified. Even in Jonah’s disobedience, others were made right with God. But it took Jonah owning up to his sin, bringing to light his disobedience, and committed himself back to God for the others to be saved. 




What might God do with your life when you quit running from him, bring to light your sin, and commit yourself back to Him? 


How might people around you come to believe in the TRUE God because of your repentance? 


How might the Kingdom of God EXPAND because of your obedience? 




Jonah was ready to lose everything. Jonah really felt the loss. And it was that LOSS that made way for EXPANSION. 




The men in the boat were saved. Then the whole city of Nineveh was saved from destruction. All because Jonah decided to quit running and start obeying. 




Will you quit running today?