Podcast

Finding Nourishment in God’s Word When You’re Weary: Lynn Jackson E119
[00:00:00] it just ravaged her. As the years progressed, I stopped counting after 30 doctors, I had this feeling , if I was a good mom, I’d find out how to help her.
And that’s just a lie from the enemy, but , looking back, I think that’s what was driving me. If I was really a good mom, I could find the root of this problem, and we could conquer it, and she will live a normal life. The only thing that kept my head above water was the word of God,
welcome to the Unshakable Hope podcast, where real life intersects redeeming love. I’m Kelly Hall, and this is where we wrestle through faith questions, such as how do I trust God’s heart when His ways and delays are breaking mine? We’ll hear from people just like you and me who have experienced God’s faithfulness when life didn’t unfold as they expected.
My prayer is that God would renew our hope in His Word and His love through these [00:01:00] conversations
Hey, friends. I’m so glad you’re here. God invites us in Psalm 34 to taste and see that the Lord is good. If you have ever experienced a season where you struggled to read the Bible, and maybe the distance between you and God just felt too great to overcome, I believe you’ll find some encouragement in this conversation.
Just like we need food to nourish our physical bodies, we also need spiritual food to nourish and strengthen our souls. My guest today, Lynn Jackson, recently released a book called The Recipe: Food for Your Soul. This book is written for women who feel too weary to open the Bible. The Recipe offers a simple, doable method to help center your hearts on God’s help and presence found in the Word.
As Lynn walked through some heart-wrenching seasons of life, she experienced what she calls [00:02:00] spiritual malnutrition. During that time, God taught her to gain strength and encouragement from His word.
As Lynn has shared this approach with women over the decades, she has watched tired, weary souls come alive. She’s seen desperate hearts filled with fresh courage as women have tasted and received instant nourishment from the Bible.
Lynn’s greatest desire is for women to know without a doubt that God is lovingly present and active in their lives, especially in the most difficult moments. Lynn and her husband, Scott, served for 22 years in the pastorate and another 11 years facilitating mission trips in the US and abroad.
They co-founded Thrive Leadership Foundation, which is a ministry of encouragement to couples and individuals who are in full-time ministry. They live in Pennsylvania, and their hearts are full because they have four adult children, three married, [00:03:00] and eight beloved grandchildren.
Lynn, I’m so glad you’re joining me thank you for being here.
Lynn: Thank you for having me, Kelly. This is such a privilege, and, your podcast, I was just thinking, you, reach into corners that hardly anybody sees, lives that are suffering or people who are taking care of those who are suffering.
Lynn: And Eugene Peterson, he summarizes the Book of Job, and he says, “Suffering is a mystery, and Job learned to respect the mystery and look for God along the way.
Lynn: And while he did that, God eclipsed the suffering.” Mm-hmm. And I love that picture because it doesn’t deny the suffering-
Kelly: Right …
Lynn: and yet God eclipses the suffering, and that is what gives the strength to those who are suffering. It gives the strength and courage for those who are caring for those who are suffering.
Lynn: And He uses … I, [00:04:00] I’m just in awe how He must use this podcast to reach into corners that just need His light. The God of hope gets to shine into those corners, and I pray today that this will be a sweet aroma to Him and encouragement to, to anyone listening.
Kelly: Oh, thank you, Lynn. That was beautiful. Amen.
Lynn: Well, I’ve held onto that for years.
Lynn: Trying to understand the mystery of suffering, trying to respect suffering. I mean, ooh, there’s a lot.
Kelly: That is the truth.
Kelly: It is a lot, and I love that quote so much. I’m so glad you shared it.
Kelly: In your intro of your book, you just describe this fascinating journey with God’s word, how you’ve actually learned to fall in love with Jesus.
Kelly: So you went from being frustrated with God’s word to falling in love with your savior. And I’m wondering if you could just explain that journey , and how God ministered to your heart in those places.
Lynn: I did not grow up in a … i’d [00:05:00] never read the Bible before, and I picked it up when I was, 18.
Lynn: And I thought, “I’m gonna, I’m gonna read the Bible.” I started in Genesis because that’s the beginning of any book, you know, the very beginning. And my mom came in my bedroom and I threw it under the covers like I was doing something wrong, just to hide it from her. And then I didn’t pick it up again until I was 22, and, I read that Jesus cursed the fig tree because it didn’t produce fruit, and this was my attitude. Who does this Jesus think He is? Mm. Maybe it wasn’t the, the fig tree’s season. But I didn’t stop reading. I kept reading, and I had a couple of friends who were Christians. Just they were Jesus in the flesh, I was very broken and bruised.
Lynn: But I started thinking, ” Hmm, if these good girls could love me, maybe God could.” And then I started reading about who He is, and that He was a God of hope, and a God of [00:06:00] compassion, and a God of kindness, and a God of wrath, and a God of judgment, and a God of mercy and forgiveness. And the more that I read about and discovered His heart toward me- I began to rest in what I didn’t understand about God.
Lynn: Because of what I learned about who He is, I started to rest in His bigness. He is God. I am not. I’m not gonna understand everything. I’m His creation. He’s the creator. He sees more than I do,
Kelly: So you were learning to fall in love with the heart of God, that you never understood.
never read the Bible but I just couldn’t get enough of it, and I just, oh, it was like food. And God groomed me as, as my journey continued in Precepts, which is in-depth Bible study and, I began to learn that the Bible is God’s pantry, and it is full of food for our [00:07:00] souls.
Lynn: And as our spiritual, all of us, our spiritual journeys continue to grow and evolve, I found myself over the years, In my prayer life, in the beginning, “God, what loaf of bread do you want me to choose off of this shelf? I know you’re in everything.” And then fast-forward to, you know, my s- journey of learning about him, and then we’re in the pastorate, and we have four children, and I’m homeschooling, and I found myself, my prayer life was numb.
Lynn: And I was to the point of, “Why pray? God is sovereign. He’s gonna do what he wants to do anyway.” And my prayer life was so numb. My husband shares openly in our ministry that he, uh, he was facing burnout and didn’t know it, and he, it was like he was at the tips of my fingers and I couldn’t reach him. And I didn’t know what to do, but I still knew, I knew who my God is and was.
Lynn: So I be- I went to the Psalms, [00:08:00] and I just started picking just one verse at a time, and that’s where this recipe came from, was out of that hardship. But I had no idea that God was preparing me for even a more difficult journey, where our daughter was diagnosed with systemic lupus, which about three years ago started to attack her kidneys.
Lynn: Mm. She’ll be 30- This August. So it started when she was 15. So we’ve been on that journey alongside of her, and the recipe is what has helped my heart not get bitter or angry. It’s helped me do what I need to do in front of me. It’s helped me hold onto God. It’s helped me realize that God is present, that He’s not abandoned us, and He’s not only present, but He’s active.
Lynn: He’s an engaged father. He’s not a deadbeat dad. He’s a very engaged father. So that’s where the recipe came from.
Kelly: Oh, that is so powerful. He’s [00:09:00] not a deadbeat dad.
Lynn: He’s a very engaged father.
Lynn, I know your heart was so broken by the things that God allowed in your life through your daughter, and I’m just wondering if you can tell us a little bit about that.
We have four children, and my husband and I were in the pastorate for 22 years. Our daughter, our youngest she was nine when, we changed from being in the pastorate to going into missions, taking churches on short-term mission trips.
So everybody was transitioning and doing well. And then when she was, 14, and we were getting ready to go for a trip to Brazil, and, she said, “Mom, I’m just really, really tired,” and she had a rash on her face.
And I thought it was ringworm. I got something over the counter,” and I said, “Why don’t you put this on, and, if it doesn’t go away, we’ll go to the doctor when we get back from Brazil.” So we came back from Brazil, and it was stubborn.
[00:10:00] It wasn’t going anywhere, and she just kept saying, “I don’t know why I’m so tired.” So we went to our doctor. She referred us to another doctor, and it came up that she was, she had lupus. Oh … but not just lupus. There’s different types of lupus. It’s a systemic lupus, which is the type that when it takes off, it starts to attack organs in your body, and you’re typically 40 years old if you are to get this.
Wow. So here’s our baby, our youngest. She’s 15, just starting the teen years, and she gets hit with systemic lupus, and it has been a 15-year journey. So to watch our, youngest being hit with such it just ravaged her. It ravaged her. As the years progressed, and we tried to do so much naturally, and we tried to do the traditional medicine.
We were trying to take the best of both worlds, [00:11:00] and, it was like we were in a new land. We didn’t understand the language. We went to … I stopped counting after 30 doctors, just because I had this feeling as a mom, if I was a good mom, I’d help her. Oh, gosh. So much guilt.
And that’s just a lie from the enemy, and from self, it all just comes in like a monsoon. But I, looking back, I think that’s what was driving me. If I was really a good mom, I could find the root of this problem, and we could conquer it, and she will live a normal life. The only thing that kept my head above water was the word of God, and to be able to be honest with him.
But she suffered … I mean, lupus is nasty. It’s chronic. It’s fatigue. It’s joint pain. It’s muscle pain, loss of hair. You don’t know what you’re gonna feel like from one day to the next, so you, can’t even plan. And these were her teen years, you know? . These were her teen years, [00:12:00] and it has continued.
It finally, it started to attack her kidneys. So it’s, it’s been a rough, rough road for her for sure. And as a mom standing next to her, you feel it as a mom. Oh, yeah, you do. To the core. Yeah. And it’s so isolating as well. When you’re in those young years … I mean, it’s isolating no matter what age you are.
Right. But when you haven’t established your identity yet in the Lord, it’s, you’re so vulnerable as a young teenager, and people- Mm … don’t know how to make sense of you, and they don’t know how- Mm … to make time for you, and they don’t know how to be empathetic and understand,
Lynn: and it’s hard to watch. And, you know, you feel vulnerable even as a solid Christian in the face of disease and crisis. And it’s just- … not how it’s supposed to be in your heart. That’s right. Dog-gone-it. This is not how it’s supposed to be. I think you feel it, you feel it doubly when it’s your child, you know? Since then I’ve had [00:13:00] some medical issues, and I’m like, ” This is easy compared to watching her.” I just can’t explain the depth of the grief. Yeah … have to grieve for them that , they don’t get to do, you know, the normal.
Kelly: Yeah. So hard. When you were walking through that heart-wrenching time, you gained power and nourishment from the word. I could just so relate to the emotional pain of watching your daughter suffer and the feelings of helplessness you describe.
Kelly: But I’d like for you to help us understand how you held onto hope in that journey, and how the Lord met you.
Lynn: When I, and it continues today in the, the unknown places. I remember every morning, I m- I mean every morning, my floor was covered with used tissues because I was crying. Every morning, I was just crying before the Lord because I didn’t like what my daughter was going through.
Lynn: I didn’t understand [00:14:00] it
Lynn: I was being very real with God. And using this method helped me realize how real God is with me and how present.
Lynn: I believe, believed so much that He heard me and that He was with me. And just, you know, knowing that you’re loved and knowing that you’re heard, there’s strength in that. There’s beauty in that. Like, if you know you’re loved and you’re heard, we are very strong. We can do anything if we know we are loved and heard.
Lynn: And so the Psalms helped me realize that God heard me, and I was just raw. I was real with Him, and I would share that I hated what I saw happening to my daughter. I shared that I was confused and that it made me angry, and I would just pour it all out, and it was like a cleansing.
Lynn: And then as I poured it out and then I read His word, it was like, “Okay, here’s some food for you, now that you’re depleted,” because we know how [00:15:00] tiring it is when you cry.
Lynn: That I needed food after that. And, , I got the spiritual food then to pick up myself and do the next thing. You know the country song, put your lipstick on and wipe your tears and do the next thing.
Lynn: But every morning started with tears before my God. Sometimes I’m pounding His chest with, “I don’t get this. Where are you? I want you to move. I want you to do these things,” and I was just very real. That’s what gave me strength, is to be real, and then His word just gave me the nourishment to be strong enough to do the next thing.
Lynn: And that’s it. I’ve used this recipe for 18, 20 years, and it’s still… I use it every day. Every day.
Kelly: That is beautiful. Well, I wanna respond to that, and then I want you to explain the recipe to us, but one of the things that you had just described is
Kelly: something I experienced that changed my life. When I was overwhelmed with four little kids, three of them profoundly deaf, and a five-year-old daughter whose speech was completely unintelligible, and I didn’t know [00:16:00] how in the world we were ever gonna get through this. I was full of fear- Yes … and very distraught.
Kelly: I was talking to my husband about it actually, and he said, “Don’t you know God loves you?” And I’m thinking, “I do know God loves me. Why isn’t His love healing this part of my heart?” I was confused. But I went to the Lord, and I poured out my heart just like you’re describing, lamented and poured out all my fears and all my worries.
Kelly: And like you said, it was cleansing, and it’s as if it made space then for me to hear God’s word. And He just very gently began to remind me of all the ways He had ministered to us in the past- Mm … promising He would do it again through His word, reminding me of scripture. And that’s what the Holy Spirit does, right?
Kelly: Mm-hmm. Reminds us of what He’s taught us, reminds us of ways He worked. And it was there that I realized, wow, God is present in my grief in ways that [00:17:00] heal my heart. Mm-hmm. His word, His voice heals my heart, and that was powerful.
Lynn: Love is the most powerful thing. You know, we hear it over and over, but it truly is, spiritually and physically,
Kelly: that was his love at work. God loved me in that space. I’m just wondering if there was a particular verse that really helped your heart during those scary times.
Lynn: Yes. So my husband and I were at a conference and we were both speaking, and we were waiting for some test results for our daughter.
Lynn: And I remember looking out the window and there were all these electrical lines just crisscrossing, crisscrossing, and it looked so ugly. But I kept looking out the window and I saw this park bench, and it had beautiful grass and flowers around it, and I thought, “Lynn, you can focus on the ugly, what you don’t like, or you can find the beauty along the way.”
Lynn: The keynote speaker was speaking in Numbers, this [00:18:00] verse I have held onto for now over 15 years, he said “my servant Caleb has a different spirit and follows me wholeheartedly,” Numbers 14:24. So that has been my prayer for over 15 years, we are following you in a land I don’t wanna be in, a foreign land, but
Lynn: father, I want a different spirit. And I just continue to ask God for a different spirit. And what I’ve discovered is the only way … Because those 12 spies, everybody had seen God work in different ways. Why did Caleb have a different spirit? And I’m like, the only thing I could think of is to strengthen my spirit with the word of God so that it can be different.
Lynn: That’s right.
Lynn: And that’s where I’ve learned to be honest, lament, be truthful to God, and read the word and eat it like it’s food [00:19:00] for my soul so that my spirit will be strong enough to be different in this foreign land as a mommy.
Lynn: Amen. Yes. I love the connection between having a different spirit and being strengthened in what was true about God.
Lynn: Yes. ‘Cause that’s the only thing that makes me strong, is the word of God. I could be encouraged in all kinds of ways, but strength is from the truth. Amen.
Lynn: Yeah. Beautiful.
Lynn: I just want you to describe how you have ministered to weary women who go through the motions. You know, come to Bible reading, and just like you, they felt malnourished. Struggling to connect with God’s word. Weren’t getting anything from it. And maybe would even say it was boring and useless.
Lynn: So how do we cultivate delight in God’s word and receive daily nourishment in those spaces of feeling like we’re missing God?
Lynn: Yes. A- and that’s exactly who this book is for. The [00:20:00] recipe is for women who are– they’ve hit a crisis, and they’re just– the wheels have fallen off of their quiet time.
Lynn: Or maybe they’ve never been able to develop a rhythm of a daily being in God’s word on a daily basis. Or maybe they’re in circumstances that are not changing, and they continue to be hard, and you’re weary. You s- know who God is, but you are so battle weary that you don’t even have the energy to open your Bible.
Lynn: And you know, like I said, I was groomed in in-depth Bible study, and I have women at, at workshops… i’ll do this as a workshop, and inevitably somebody will say, “But I’d like to get out all the translations, and I’d like to get out the, commentaries, and I’d like to explore the original language.”
Lynn: And I’m like, “And that is beautiful,” and that’s called creating a Thanksgiving meal that you’re, you know, you get to sit down and you just get to have this big, huge, beautiful meal with the Lord, [00:21:00] or you’re creating that meal to share with other people. Maybe you’re public speaking or whatever. But the average woman, especially those who are, live in the land of suffering or are taking care of those who are suffering, girl, you need a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
Lynn: You don’t have
Lynn: energy to drag all those books out, or apps, or however you do it these days. I still drag out the books. You need enough protein, like the sweet and the savory, for the day, and that is a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. And weary women, I tell them, “Go to the Psalms, do one verse with using this method, and if it’s, if it’s still yummy and tasty and you wanna keep going, then do two verses, but never go beyond four.”
Lynn: Even if you think you can, stop. Stop at four. You’re making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for the day. You just are doing today. You’re getting your [00:22:00] manna for the day. And, I got peace from that. There was a quote from a pastor in another country, and he said, “It’s dangerous to learn more truth than you can live.”
Lynn: And I think that we’re so malnourished and we’re so weak that we’re, you know, we’re going to friends, and we’re going to these apps, and we’re going to podcasts, and we’re going to music, and all these places can encourage you, but if you are living in a desperate place, you need strength.
Lynn: Your spirit needs strength. And we’re, I say it’s like a brown dog and a black dog, and they’re self and spirit, and they’re in a dog fight.
Lynn: The one who gets the most food wins. And we have got to strengthen our spirit if we’re gonna have strength to maneuver the waters where we find ourselves trying to doggy paddle swim.
Lynn: ‘ Cause a lot of us are in unknown waters, they’re choppy, they’re scary, and we need strength [00:23:00] to maneuver our way through
Kelly: Amen. I love what you said about the Psalms in your book, that it’s like real life and real Jesus clasping hands. Yes. And that is honestly what I learned when I started reading the Psalms as a teenager, praying through the Psalms, is that I saw you could tell God the truth about your pain, and then you could discover who God really is in that space.
Kelly: And so I would just praise God through the Psalms for who He was, I knew that was the same God that I was talking to in that moment, and it really helped- fill my heart with His presence and the reality of His love. It’s so good.
Lynn: It won’t come from but the Bible. And I feel, you know, part of me is like women can feel whipped. You gotta be in the word. You gotta be in the word.
Lynn: You gotta be in the word. And it’s just another thing to feel guilty about. But if you could just get a peanut, make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for your spirit, peanut butter and jelly sandwich. And the next [00:24:00] day, if you’re too tired to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, in my book I talk about then eat leftovers, and that’s what you did the day before or four days before.
Lynn: And sometimes leftovers are, taste a lot better than the first day served. Yeah. And maybe the Lord just wants you to hear that again and again and again. It’s just, we just need enough for the day.
Lynn: Yeah. So when you say leftovers, you’re talking about going back to your journal, looking at the three or four verses maybe that you read a few days before, and you talk about this process of writing down the character of God that you find in the scripture.
Lynn: And so you have it, you have the, the powerful points already journaled in a really simple way. And so I’m gonna have you explain that more, but you were describing that quote you heard from a pastor.
Lynn: Mm-hmm. Don’t, don’t study more than you can absorb or take in or live. Don’t study more than you can live. And I’ve [00:25:00] certainly done that before because I, I love learning, and so I’ll do all this, but yet my soul still feels empty. And so I love how you describe in your book, you know, just take this little bit, take your peanut butter and jelly sandwich, pray it, and then sit with silence, sit in silence with the Lord.
Lynn: Maybe 5 to 10 minutes where you really get to hear , from the Lord, and you really get to connect with the heart of God. Mm-hmm. And one of the phrases you use, which I love, is go at the pace of your soul.
Lynn: Like, this, God says, “Be still and know that I am God.” And that Hebrew word is an intimate knowing.
Lynn: That’s not something that can happen when we’re just constantly rushing past him or gaining more head knowledge. We need that heart knowledge. I love so much how God can speak to us in those deepest needs of our soul.
Lynn: And, you know, I liken that to go the pace of our soul with if you’re physically sick, you don’t eat a steak. To get your strength back. That just [00:26:00] makes you wanna, mm, you know, nauseous just looking or smelling it even.
Lynn: It’s just too much. But when we’re physically sick, what do we do? Or if you’re so malnourished you can’t even hold anything down, you nibble on a cracker. , And you can take more in.
Lynn: That’s what I mean by going the pace of your soul, is that you don’t want… It is dangerous to learn more truth than you can live, because what does that do? I just read a whole chapter in the Bible. And I listened to three sermons today, and a podcast that I love.
Lynn: But look at all that information. It piles on. Oh, well, this podcast said I should do this. Oh, this sermon said I should do this. Oh, I read this in the Bible, I should do this. You begin to live a life of should Christianity. Yeah. It’s should Christianity. It’s empty, and it’s just full of guilt. So take one verse, just one verse, and chew on that,, and try to live out that [00:27:00] truth.
Lynn: And if you can’t, you know, “Find rest, O my soul, in God alone.” Okay, just that. Find rest in God alone. Just that itty, bitty, bitty, bitty… That’s not even a whole verse. But your whole quiet time could just be that part of a verse.
Lynn: What does the word find mean? You know? Soul. It’s not just physical, it’s my inner being.
Lynn: In God alone. What else am I looking for for rest? Where, where else am I trying to find my rest? Can I just settle myself and just be still with God alone, by myself, with him? So it’s that slowing down.
Kelly: Yeah.
Kelly: I have found that to be true in my life. I can remember teaching a Bible study, and we had l- a list of verses.
Kelly: We wrote them on index cards, and every morning, I was praying those verses, and yet I was still very stressed out. I was a young mom, so much on [00:28:00] my plate. And so I said to the Lord, “I don’t have any peace, and I know that’s not what you have for me, so something’s wrong. Help me.” And God brought to mind, it was as if He was telling me, “Why don’t you just focus on one verse?
Kelly: Proverbs 3:5-6. Start there.” And for the next 20 years, I can tell you, that was like the theme of my life. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, Kelly. Don’t trust on your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge me, surrender to me, know me, and I will show you the path.”
Lynn: And that’s true nourishment.
Lynn: That’s true strength. That’s not positive thinking. That was food for your soul that still feeds you today.
Lynn: You know? It’s, his word is so beautiful, and why? Because it reveals Him- Yeah … and who He is.
Kelly: And it, when he speaks it, it, he speaks to the deepest needs of our soul. We don’t even know what they are.
Lynn: Mm-hmm.
Lynn: I [00:29:00] didn’t even know what I needed. Yeah. But God does, and so we can trust him to speak.
Kelly: I love how you explain how healing it is when we know we’re loved and we’re heard-
Kelly: … by God. Mm-hmm. And that’s what happens. Mm-hmm. As we go to his word and as we tell him the truth, and we trust him with our pain- Mm-hmm
Kelly: and we expect him to speak to us through his word, believing that his word is living and active- Mm-hmm … and that his Spirit indwells us and reads with us. Mm-hmm. Well, I want you to take our listeners through the process.
Kelly: So why don’t we go to Psalm 62:5-6.
Kelly: And then talk to us about your process.
Lynn: And let me just say that the book, for the weary ones out there,, it’s small. You can read my story and you can read the book in an hour, and then there’s a, a, a workbook just to get you started on how to use the recipe.
Lynn: So weary ones, it’s not overwhelming. It’s very, very simple book. But yes, the recipe I still get [00:30:00] excited over this. You know, I did this on my own for so long and then it was like, “Lord, do you want me to share this with others?” And that’s when I started doing workshops, and then people were, “Do you have this in print so I can share this with my sister?”
Lynn: So that’s where the book came from.
Kelly: So Psalm 62:5-6 says, “For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from Him. He only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress. I will not be shaken.” And these two scriptures go right along with this podcast, Unshakable Hope. Like walking with Him in an unshakable way, not because we’re unshakable, but because He is.
Lynn: Yes, and the way you use the recipe is just like if you’re in your kitchen and you have, you put all the dry ingredients in one bowl, you put the wet ingredients in another bowl, and then you have another,
Lynn: so kind of visualize three columns or three bowls. So you put your name in the first column. The next column is God, and the third column is enemy. And [00:31:00] as you read a verse, anything that describes the, the believer- God or an enemy, you put into the present tense because this is your everyday life that you’re coming to Jesus with.
Lynn: So you put everything in present tense, and I’m at total peace with doing this because in the Book of James, it says God never changes, not like the shifting shadows. So he’s the same, Old Testament, Psalms. You know, he’s the same in the Psalms as he is today and will be forever. So anything that describes God, his feeling or his movement, okay?
Lynn: So let’s just take the very, very first part. Find rest, oh my soul. , So the believer column, finding rest. Present tense. Finding rest, oh my soul. Just put in there soul, just to remind yourself that you have a soul.
Lynn: It’s not just this physical body, in God alone. In the God column, I put God because I have to [00:32:00] remind myself that he is God, I am not. And then alone. God alone, my hope comes from him. So I put hoping in God in my column, and then I put hope comes from him.
Kelly: So my hope comes from Him. Yes. And then you’re just capturing this all in the present tense because- Yes … God is alive and active right now, right here today.
Lynn: Yes. That’s the most important thing present tense, .. this is real life and real Jesus, what you’re experiencing.
Lynn: He is alive and He is well. And just for sake of time, so I would do the rest of that whole verse and separate things out.
Lynn: And then pray. And always start in the God column. If you get no further, we wanna focus on God. So I, this is how I would pray this, ” God, you are God. You’re creator. I’m not God. You [00:33:00] know more than I do.” And just anything that would remind you that he is God.
Lynn: And then, “You are the giver of hope. I can’t make myself do that, and if I do, it’s so short-lived. Would you please fill me with your hope? I need your hope.” Or, ” I am hopeless. Help me.” “Thank you for the hope that you have given me. Help me hold on to that hope, and remind me today that this hope that I have comes from you, and I can, I can rest in it.
Lynn: And you are my salvation alone. The blood on the cross is what made me your child, nothing else, and I don’t have to make that happen over and over again. You are my salvation. Whatever comes our way, you are my fortress. You are my protector.”
Lynn: Before you pray, I encourage women to look up a couple of words, in the Webster Dictionary. Again, While I’m making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, [00:34:00] I’m trusting that the theologians have chosen the best English word possible.
Lynn: Look up, like, two words in what you’ve separated out. Before you start praying, because this will help you slow down and chew the food that you have found. We are too busy.
Lynn: We take a gulp. You chew it twice and gulp it down.
Lynn: So am I in your word? Do I really know who you are so I can rest in you? Help me rest in what I’m finding out about you, that you are God alone, that you are the giver of hope.
Lynn: You just pray through that. But bring your everyday life, , fold in your everyday life into these, this, the word of God. Because he wants to hear.
Lynn: And you begin to dine with him then. Yeah. It’s kind of like if we’re dining over, Kelly, you and I went out and, and we got sushi and I’m like, “Ooh, I don’t know.
Lynn: I’ve never eaten raw fish before. I don’t know if I wanna even take a bite of that.” And you’re like, “Oh, no, it’s really good. Take a bite.” We talk about the food when we’re dining. This is a [00:35:00] way to talk about the food when you’re dining with God, and it just helps you to slow down and enjoy the meal and be real with him.
Lynn: To be real with him. Does that make sense?
Kelly: Absolutely. And you know the other thing that I think is so helpful, Is taking a moment to be silent just sit in the presence of the Lord, aware that he is with you, he sees you, he’s loving you, he has something for you, and as you sit in that place you can even ask the question, “God, what do you want me to know from this passage today? You may just sense his love, that in the troubles that you’re facing and in the things you prayed about, that God is loving you with all of his heart.
Lynn: For some people, that’s gonna feel really long, but start just with a minute, and then if you can increase it, I encourage you to try to get to five minutes. Just, again, the pace of your soul, because it’s okay, baby girl. It’s okay if you’re having a hard time sitting still. And if you’re sitting there and you’re like, “I have [00:36:00] nothing.
Lynn: I’m hearing nothing,” it’s okay. Because you know what? The people I’m most comfortable with, they’re the only ones I can sit in the quiet.
Lynn: There are very few people I’m comfortable with the quiet. So if nothing is said, you don’t hear God, it’s okay. It’s, just be in His presence. And I encourage you, after that w- couple of minutes of quiet, think of one or two words that would summarize your time with God.
Lynn: I call that a protein bite. Because as the day goes on, sometimes, you know, you forget what you even read in the Word. But you, if you go back to that protein bite, it’s like when you’re physically hungry, weary, you take a ta- tablespoon of peanut butter and you got energy to go for the next thing.
Lynn: Well, this is a spiritual bite,
Kelly: So you would just write down a word.
Lynn: A word or two, and I write it on my hand. So that when I’m folding laundry, I look down and I see [00:37:00] alone.
Lynn: I think, God alone. I need nothing and no one else, just God alone. “That’s right. It’s not the good blood work that I need. It’s not the good doctor I need. I need God alone to strengthen me for the next thing that I need to do.” And then I fold laundry, and I make a meal or do the next thing. That’s my spiritual protein bite, “Yes, God alone. That’s who I need.”
Lynn: So that’s the recipe in a nutshell.
Kelly: Yes. You make it so simple it helps us focus our distracted minds on the word of God, and to know God is gonna meet us there, another thing that I’ve started doing recently is just walking through the character of God. Mm-hmm. And so this week I’ve been looking at the truth that God is good,
Kelly: Nahum 1:7 says, “The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble. He knows them who take refuge in Him. He’s good, and He’s a stronghold. He’s a refuge, and He [00:38:00] knows- he knows me. That’s the word that I, I defined, but just thinking about the fact that I am known. How well God knows me. And so on my hand, I wrote, ” knows,” . And that reminded me all day long about how well he loves me
Lynn: This is so exciting it’s like women in the old days. You know, you would share a recipe across the fence. It’s like, “Oh, honey, you’ve just gotta try this. It tastes so good.” , And you enjoy looking up the words, you know, some words in the original language. Tweak it and just make it your own. And that, to me, is so exciting.
The title of her book, again, is The Recipe: Food for Your Soul, you just don’t want to miss out on her beautiful heart, her beautiful story, and the examples that she gives you as she walks you through the workbook. So you’re not alone. Even as you’re learning the process, she helps you.
But Lynn, as we close, please leave our listeners with some words of encouragement for, [00:39:00] maybe encouragement for the one who’s just weary right now and feeling overwhelmed. I just hope that you realize how much God loves you, He sees you, you’re not alone, He is present, and He is active.
And I pray that you will be reminded that your name , is engraved on the palms of His hands, and you are His beloved. Amen. Mm. Thank you, Lynn. What an honor it’s been to have you here today. Oh, what an honor it is to be here. Such a privilege. Thank you, Kelly. Thank you for what you do. I pray that God just, strengthens you to keep going. Thanks, lynn.
If you were encouraged in your faith today, i’d love to hear from you. You can reach out through my website, kellyhall.org, and pick up some free resources while you’re there. Thanks for listening to the Unshakable Hope podcast.