The Local Vineyard Church Podcast
The Local Vineyard Church is a church located in Richmond, Virginia. The Local is a part of the VineyardUSA network. You can find more information about The Local and VineyardUSA by visiting https://localvineyard.church
The Local Vineyard Church Podcast
Through The Lens Of Motherhood
Have you ever noticed how the messiest, most unfiltered family photos often capture the truest moments of joy? Through the chaos of missing shoes, juice spills, and impromptu glitter projects, motherhood reveals profound spiritual truths that transform our understanding of God.
This Mother's Day message explores three powerful "snapshots" from God's photo album that illuminate His heart toward us. First, we discover that love—both divine and human—is fundamentally a choice rather than a feeling. When the newborn glow fades and 3 AM feedings stretch our patience thin, parents choose love daily, mirroring God's decision to love us "while we were still sinners." This realization liberates us: since love is a choice, it remains possible even when emotions falter.
The second snapshot reveals the sacred power of presence. Just as children demand our full attention ("Mom, mom, look!"), God prioritizes being present with us. We witness Jesus pausing amid a pressing crowd to acknowledge one desperate woman's touch—demonstrating that being present isn't a detour from purpose but is precisely the point. This challenges our achievement-oriented mindset, reminding us that relationship itself constitutes our primary purpose.
Finally, we explore God as the ultimate provider, prepared for every circumstance yet sometimes offering protective "no's" rather than harmful "yeses." Like parents denying a toddler's request to lick the flyswatter, God's refusals often reflect perfect wisdom rather than indifference.
Through practical spiritual practices like gratitude journaling, prayer of examine, and faith "scrapbooking," we can train our souls to recognize God's presence in both extraordinary and ordinary moments. What holy snapshots might you capture this week as you walk with Him?
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Good morning everybody and happy Mother's Day to all of our moms and our grandmas and our aunts, and especially all those mother figures or our future moms that don't have kids yet. But we know, one day you'll have either spiritual kids or kids of your own. We're just glad that you chose to celebrate Mother's Day with us Now. I am sure that every mom in this room is very different I know many of you but there's almost one thing that I can guarantee from all my moms, aunts, aunties and grandmas is that, if asked, any of them could show you somewhere between 10 to 970,000 photos of those babies in their phone right now unsolicited maybe or not. All of us.
Speaker 1:As a mom, I feel like I can confidently say that we are the picture takers. If you've ever had a mom, I am sure that you have been made to pose and smile and capture a moment, because, as moms, we love to capture a moment to be able to freeze feelings and stages of life and look back on them. Now I'm going to let you guys in on a secret. In our family, we have a pretty clear agreement and it keeps everybody happy. We do not do posed professional photos ever again. Because, first, there's two reasons. One is that I absolutely, completely traumatized my husband, jacob, with somewhere in the approximation of about 15 hours total of wedding and engagement photos in that season of our life where you know where you're walking around hand in hand, smiling like you're in a toothpaste commercial. Yes, that didn't go over well for him. And then, to top it off, once we had our daughter, we scheduled one of those very sweet, serene newborn photo shoots. You know where the baby is sleeping and everybody's looking, except that Kingsley screamed for a solid two hours as our photographer desperately tried to get a couple of pictures of us looking joyful and happy and photoshopping the screaming baby out of the picture. So let's just say that I have three kids and Kingsley is the only one that has any newborn photos. And now Jacob is permanently scarred. Anytime that somebody pulls out a camera he is instantly suspicious.
Speaker 1:Now also, once I had kids, especially more kids. Maybe it's just my kids, but let's just say that nobody wants to dress up or sit still or smile on command. So I've seen other families. I don't know what kind of magic bribery you use, but some of you can pull off these beautiful magazine-worthy photos where everyone is in matching neutrals and we're joyously frolicking through some sort of field somewhere and nobody's crying and there's no crumbs and everyone's faces are clean, and I'm really unsure how that happens, because when we try to do that, this is what happens and this and I just asked for one picture on Easter there wasn't even a professional photographer, and that is how it goes for me. So eventually I learned that those photos they're just not in the cards for me, they're not in the cards for us, and somewhere along the way I just let go of chasing those beautiful, gallery-worthy shots.
Speaker 1:But it turns out that my family are pretty much pros at capturing something even better for me, which is hilarious, unfiltered, joy-filled moments full of movement, full of puddles and lots of jumping in them. And there's lots and lots of pictures of cookies. If you know my youngest child, hayden, this is his absolute favorite thing and most of his photos involve some sort of chocolate or food. But there is so much love in these and, honestly, these pictures are my favorite, and they're my favorite because one what you see is what you get. There's no false advertising here, and then you know, looking back at the pictures, it's not whether the lighting was right or the clothing matched or it didn't have something spilled on it, or that everything was. Everyone was smiling at the same time.
Speaker 1:But it's the feeling that those pictures carry and the story that they tell right. Every one of them reminds me of something a season, a lesson, some sort of story. They remind me of the joy in the middle of the crazy and the chaos. Some of them remind me of how much we've grown. Some of them remind me how we fought for happiness in the middle of hardship, when things were messy.
Speaker 1:And then I started thinking, as I reflected on this, for Mother's Day, that's exactly what the Bible is for us. The story of Jesus is truly God's photo album of snapshots that capture his heart that he gives to us. Every story, every interaction, every moment captures the Father's heart for us. So the Bible is like God's photo album, these snapshots of his heart captured for us to remember, to return to and to hold on to when our lives get blurry or broken. And today I want to invite us all to go on a journey and we're going to flip through some of those pictures and we're going to see three snapshots that show us exactly who God is, through the lens of the Bible and through the lens of motherhood, because in my experience, motherhood for me has been like holding a camera up to God's heart as I've raised my three little kids, who are six, three and four right now. It has been those real raw moments of getting to see who God really is, who God really is to me, and I've caught these glimpses of the magical moments and then the messy moments and the quiet ordinary in between, where God meets me most, and I've started to see in that how God is parenting us too, all through our lives, with patience, with love, with his presence, with his protection and joy. And we can see what these snapshots show about him. So I want to share three of those today. So we'll jump in to snapshot number one, which is that love is a choice.
Speaker 1:So let's talk about patience for a second. I used to have some somewhere some time ago, but getting three kids out the door to go anywhere is an Olympic sport and it is not one that I medal in. I can assure you that, because typically it goes like this One of my kids absolutely can't find their left shoe, the other kid was dressed but now has spilled juice all over himself, and then my third. Now is right about the time that she should start a glitter project, because nothing says we're late by like being covered in glitter. So I am raising an artist. If you have met Kingsley, you know that she absolutely loves art and we go through tape in our house like it is an endangered resource. I have a secret tape drawer there. I hide the tape for, like other things, christmas and birthday presents and when she is on one of her inspired moments, it normally hits about two and a half minutes before we absolutely have to leave the house.
Speaker 1:And somehow in those moments when I say hurry up, it translates to move slowly and just build something absolutely monumental. So in these moments I say hurry up, it translates to move slowly and just build something absolutely monumental. So in these moments I have had to stretch my patience far beyond what I ever thought was humanly possible and I've had to choose love, to choose kindness, to choose patience in my responses and in my actions. But God, god is never rattled, god is never flustered, god is never pacing. Heaven asking us to put on our shoes for the 50th time, that's me for sure this morning. God's patience, instead, is rooted in his love.
Speaker 1:The Bible gives us this beautiful and challenging picture in 1 Corinthians 13. Many of us know this as like the wedding verse, but I want to read it to us in the Passion Translation because it says love is large and incredibly patient. Love is gentle and consistently kind to all. It refuses to be jealous when blessings come to someone else. Love does not brag about one's achievements nor inflate its own importance. Love does not traffic in shame or disrespect nor selfishly seek its own honor. Love is not easily irritated or quick to take offense. Love joyfully celebrates honesty and finds no delight in what is wrong. Love is a safe place of shelter, for it never stops believing the best for others. Love never takes failure as defeat, for it never gives up.
Speaker 1:I could end the sermon there, because that's what we need to take with us into our day. But I don't know about you guys. But that kind of love is not something that I feel naturally. It's especially not something that I feel naturally when, like, somebody doesn't have a shoe on and the other one is covered in juice. That kind of love is a choice. The world tells. That sells us this idea that love is a feeling, that it's this emotional experience and that it should come effortlessly if it's really there.
Speaker 1:But let me tell you, motherhood will expose that lie real quick, because of course there are moments when you look into your newborn baby's eyes and you just start crying in the middle of Target. That does happen. But it's a completely different feeling at 3 am, when that same baby wakes you up for the seventh time, or when they're four, and they still wake you up every two hours, and then they need a snack and then they spill the snack. That is when you have to choose love. Even if you don't feel it in the moment, love becomes a decision, a posture, a daily, sometimes hourly, act of the will. But there is a beautiful and freeing truth in that, because love is a choice, it means that it's not out of your control. It's not always easy, but it is always possible. But the only reason that we can even begin to love like that is because God loved us like that first. God didn't wait for the feeling. He certainly didn't wait for us to get it all together. He chose love. In Romans 5, 8, it says but God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. God chose love in action. He chose to conquer death just so that we could have access to a real and authentic relationship with our Father, to have a life-giving relationship. And then he turned around and he gave us the choice. That's why we have this choice, that's why we have free will to choose him back, because love is not an emotion, it is a decision, it's a daily action.
Speaker 1:Now, in the book of Galatians, paul defines the fruit of the Spirit. Maybe you've heard that, maybe you've heard a song about it. Ultimately, it's the arsenal of traits that a parent needs to get through everyday life, especially with a toddler Love, peace, patience, joy, gentleness, self-control. But one of my very favorite translations, the Passion Translation, notes that in the original text, the way that it's written is that love is not just a part of this bulleted list, but that love is actually, that love is not part of just the virtues, but the virtues that follow are expressions of the greatest form of love. So it says the fruit produced by the Holy Spirit within you is divine love in all its varied expressions joy that overflows, peace that subdues, patience that endures, kindness in action, a life full of virtue, faith that prevails, gentleness of heart and strength of spirit. This is the love that God loves us with, and it is the love that he intended for us to experience. It's also the love that he intended for us to give. That love is not dependent on feelings or circumstance, but love that is rooted in choice and in action.
Speaker 1:Motherhood exposed to me that my love has to be a choice, but my relationship with God is what empowers me to make that choice daily, because I want us to imagine I know that that sounds like a really great and encouraging verse, but imagine church. If we were really Galatians 22, 23 people. If we had peace that subdued our anxiety, if we had joy that overflowed to our coworkers regardless of the stress, if we had patience that endured the attitudes of our toddler, if we had kindness in all interactions with our neighbors, if we had gentleness, even in disagreement, and if we had faith that really went deep and prevailed over the hardships, if we internalized it, if we memorized it, if we lived it and aimed for it in our daily lives, I just imagine how different would our families be, how different would our friendships be, how different would our church be. So I encourage each of us to consider this kind of love. What is one area in our lives this coming week that you could choose this kind of love that we see in this snapshot. So snapshot number two is being present is the purpose. It's high quality Costco water.
Speaker 1:So if you're a parent, you have likely heard the little voice that sounds like this Mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, look, look, mom, mom, mom, look, look, mom, look, look, mom, are you looking? And if you are like me or maybe it's just me you probably nodded while still stirring a pot of pasta. Or you said, yes, yes, I'm looking, while you're still checking something off of your to-do list. See my middle son, jameson. He picked up on this really young and so if you were not looking at him, giving him direct eye contact when he was requesting your attention, he would stop what he was doing and scream until you returned your full attention. And my niece, ruth, who's 18 months old, she took this a step farther. I had never seen this one before. But if you are not giving Ruthie your whole attention and I mean your whole attention she will just calmly stick her hand down her throat and throw up. So, as you can imagine, her mom pays great attention to her at all times.
Speaker 1:Kids have special spidey senses for detecting distraction and you know. When we stop, though, when we really stop, something beautiful happens One, the kids stop screaming or throwing up, but two, when we stop, those slow moments are the moments that matter the most. So a couple years ago, I started this thankfulness journal. Nothing complicated, just one thing every day that I was thankful for in my day about me, like a general thing about my day, a thing that I was thankful for about my husband and then about my three kids, each individually, and so I take maybe five to ten minutes every night and I think back on my day, and I can honestly say that, as simple as that sounds, it has truly changed me, because now I go through my day and I'm searching for what that thing might be. I'm more aware, because not every day is grand and not every day those things are easy to find. Sometimes the days are plain and sometimes the days are tough, but the practice has helped me notice these little miracles that would have missed otherwise.
Speaker 1:The journal helped me realize that the moments that I was present and fully engaged always made it into my list. The things that I was grateful for rarely were that I swept the floor or that I reorganized my calendar or my pantry, but they are always the funny phrases that I heard, or the picture that I helped to color, or the moment that I stopped to talk with a friend, or the moment that I helped to color, or the moment that I stopped to talk with a friend, or the moment that I stopped to just take in the beautiful weather that God gave for the day. It's a good way to keep myself accountable, also because if I get to the end of my day and I'm having a really hard time recalling, I know that I wasn't fully present. This, I promise you, is such a simple practice, but I could stand here right now and I tell you, if you do this for 30 days, I can assure you that you will see God more actively in your life, because we live in a world that wants to steal our attention and pack our schedules so tightly that our soul has no room to breathe. But Jesus we see Jesus in this next snapshot, always making space to be present with people.
Speaker 1:So in Luke 8, there's this moment where Jesus is walking through a huge jostling crowd. If you know, at this point in Jesus' ministry he was typically surrounded by thousands of people. Can you imagine being at like a festival all days of your life. As soon as you wake up, there's people everywhere In this situation. There's voices shouting, disciples are trying to hurry him along, they're going somewhere, and a woman who is desperate and sick and unseen. She reaches out and she touches his cloak. Luke 8 says, pressing in through the crowd, she came up behind Jesus and she touched the fringe of his garment. Instantly, her bleeding stopped and she was healed. Jesus suddenly stopped and said to his disciples someone touched me, who was it? And well, as you can imagine, they all denied it. And then Peter pointed out, as if Jesus didn't know Master, everyone is touching you. We are trying to get through this crowd and everyone is trying to get close to you. The crowds are so thick that we can't even walk without being jostled.
Speaker 1:Now, when I read that, though, doesn't that paint the picture of our minds on a daily basis, our internal life, where we're trying to manage and balance the concerns, the responsibilities, the thing that we're supposed to do next, or our schedules, our daily lives that are just so filled and so busy that we can barely move. Our daily lives that are just so filled and so busy that we can barely move, barely feel the power of God. But Jesus replied yes, he's like. Yes, I see the people too, peter, but I felt power surge through me. Someone touched me to be healed and they received their healing. And I love this because you see that Jesus was so spiritually in tune and that moment of power that he recognized in the midst of the chaos. And as I read this, I wonder for myself would I really notice, in the absolute stress of my daily job, in the middle of the chaos of my family, do I notice the moments that God's power is at work? And I pray that we as a church would have discernment like this, that we would be people who could recognize God's power at work, because it can be something that is so easily missed, but it takes a trained soul to recognize it.
Speaker 1:When the woman realized that she couldn't hide any longer, she came trembling and fell at Jesus' feet Before the entire crowd. She declared I was desperate to touch you, jesus, for I knew if I could touch you, even just the fringe of your garment, I could be healed. And I love that, because she describes herself as desperate, and I pray that we are desperate for a touch of Jesus in our week, the same way that those little kids. Mom, mommy, mom, mom, mom, are you listening to me? Are you here with me? Are you paying attention to me? If we could take an ounce of the intensity that they use to get our attention over a crayon drawing and we could channel that towards our relationship with Jesus, could we be desperate to experience God in our every day? Because Jesus responded to her in love. Beloved daughter, your faith in me released your healing. You may go with my peace.
Speaker 1:And honestly, guys, there is so much power in this story, not only just because she was healed, because that is a miracle, but because Jesus could have kept going. Jesus absolutely could have kept going. As we see, there were thousands of people around him and he was on his way. He was on his way to do a really big miracle that is also recorded, but instead he stops. He stops right there because, yes, the other thing was also important, that he was on his way to do. Our jobs are important, our to-do lists are important. I'm not saying that it minimizes any of those things, but Jesus demonstrates that by being present in this moment. This was the thing, it was the miracle. It wasn't just a detour. This was that woman's miracle and it was the purpose of him being right there. We could have read the story and known that his purpose was to be somewhere else, but he knew that his purpose was right there.
Speaker 1:And until I had kids, I feel like I did a lot of time thinking and spending time about what's next, god, what is the next thing? What is my bigger purpose? What is the next job promotion? What is the next step that I need to take? What is that next part of my growth? But, as a mom, I have discovered that being present in the moment is where all the miracles are.
Speaker 1:Like Jesus, we have to have this sensitivity and a trained eye and a trained ear to see what is happening where our feet are and what God is doing. Because, you see, being present is not just this bonus in our life With our lives going on, we also get to be present with God, but our presence with God is actually the whole point. We spend a lot of our lives on this search for purpose. And what is my purpose? And I can let you in on a secret Our purpose in this life is our relationship with God. Yes, there are other purposes that God will do and use you in, and God will do incredible things using your skills and your workplace and the miracles that he's going to work through you in prayer. But to know and be known, to love and be loved, to be with God in it all is the purpose.
Speaker 1:Because, let me ask it like this to all my parents in the room Did you have your kids, knowing what they would provide for you one day, like, come on, there's got to be at least one person in the room that was like, yes, I need a retirement plan. And it's going to be that little guy right there. Somebody's got to pay for my retirement home. Yes, no, no. Because if you did a cost-benefit analysis on the cost of daycare, you would have immediately changed your plan. Because if you did a cost-benefit analysis on the cost of daycare, you would have immediately changed your plan. But you had kids because you wanted to be with them, right, you wanted to delight in them, you wanted to spend life with them, you wanted to have the little moments with them.
Speaker 1:God does not love us because of what we can do for him. He does not love us because of the great grand purpose that he does have for your life, but he loves you simply because of who you are and whose you are and who he is in that relationship. And if you don't believe me, I can tell you that I see this every time. I invite my kids into the kitchen because, let's be honest, when we make cookies they're not really helping. For sure they're making a bigger mess. The cookies might be questionable and have some spit in there, the flour might end up everywhere except for the bowl, but I don't invite them into the kitchen to invite them into that process because I need perfect cookies.
Speaker 1:God's not inviting you into relationship because he absolutely needs you to. God's not inviting you into relationship because he absolutely needs you to do that thing that you were going to do at your job, because he absolutely needs you to do that thing. He invites you into relationship with him because he delights in you. Yes, he wants to be a part of it. He wants to be a part of the cookie making and the baseball games. But we don't bring our kids to peewee sports because we just know they're gonna be an Olympian.
Speaker 1:It may come and it may develop in that relationship that we have and the things that we see that they love, and God does that with us. But the main point is that he loves us and he delights in us, right where we are, right where our feet are planted, and that is how God feels about us. He doesn't need our performance, he's delighting in you. And I don't know about you guys, but that was really hard for me to really sit with and to really process. But I want to challenge us. Where in our week, this coming week, can we be present with God, where we can ask God to be with us? So we've started to see these pieces of who God is. We see that God chooses love, and so can we. And we see that he prioritizes presence and being present in the moment, and so can we. And then this snapshot number three that we can see through the Gospels is that God is a loving provider.
Speaker 1:Now, if you've ever seen a mom pack a diaper bag, now if you've ever seen a mom pack a diaper bag, you know that they are prepared for anything War, an airplane ride, a diaper blowout, anything. Band-aids check we got snacks. Check, we got an extra outfit three of them, absolutely. We've got wipes. We've got five applesauce pouches. We've got a random penny. We've got two Hot Wheels cars, and we're going to need them all by the end of this trip. Trust me, moms are providers and we can see that.
Speaker 1:So is God, because on my morning, the other day, on my way to school, my boys. They were doing this very rare and very cute thing and they were holding hands and walking together as if they don't normally punch each other right in the face, and it was such a sweet moment and we were all in awe and they were so distracted by their own cuteness that they absolutely forgot to make room for each other on the sidewalk. And so when that sidewalk narrowed and that building came into view my three-year-old Hayden he just right into it and he slammed into the wall and then he fell backwards, flat on his back, like a cartoon character. And let slammed into the wall and then he fell backwards, flat on his back, like a cartoon character. And let me tell you, all the people around us gasped, horrified, wondering if he had a concussion. I was too. And then three moms, within five seconds, pulled out three ice packs from their children's lunches band-aids and a snack and a sticker, and they asked if he was going to be okay and I said well, I think so now, and this is a glimpse of the heart of God.
Speaker 1:God is always providing for us, even when we don't see it. He has an arsenal of things ready and I can say with confidence, as I look back, that every blessing in my life has come from God. We see it all throughout the Bible. God provides in these tangible ways. There are stories where God feeds people. Through Jesus, he feeds people, feeding thousands of people with just a couple loaves of fish or yeah, that would be a really interesting meal loaves of fish, loaves and fish, providing these meals out of almost nothing. We see story after story of how God provides healing. Jesus moves through the crowds, healing the sick and the blind and the paralyzed. He heals broken bodies, he heals broken hearts and he heals broken minds. And maybe today, some of you do just need the reminder the real, true reminder that God does still heal and he still is actively at work and he's a provider for your needs, for your hurts and your wounds and your hopes.
Speaker 1:But sometimes, sometimes, god's provision looks different than we expect. Sometimes God's provision is no and honestly, I really used to dislike that answer. I used to really dislike the idea that sometimes it's just a no, just a no, it's just a not answered prayer, and I used to think that was some type of positive way for just kind of coping with the prayers that aren't answered, but not really feeling satisfied with it. And that was until I became a parent, because once I became a parent I got it, because I lovingly provide the answer. No, about 1,000 times a week. No, you can't lick the fly swatter. No, you can't ride your bike without a helmet. No, you can't stay home from school every day. No, you absolutely cannot jump from the toilet to the bathtub. No, you cannot put those scissors in your mouth. And no, you cannot sleep with that cheese grater. That did not go over well.
Speaker 1:But the no's aren't rejection, they're protection. They come from a heart that sees this bigger picture. And honestly, after having children, I wonder now how many times I have asked God for something that would kill me, kill me or ruin my life, as my toddler does every single day, and God just lovingly redirects me. But in all reality, how many times have we been so frustrated with a closed door, with a job that didn't pan out, with a relationship that didn't work out, and we were so frustrated and just so sure that God was not involved because it didn't work out the way that we hoped. But what if the answer was a loving no? We see it in Matthew 16, 23.
Speaker 1:Peter, peter's always up to something. Peter's trying to talk Jesus out of going to the cross. We know the whole story, but in this moment, guys, peter, he didn't know the whole story yet. From Peter's human view, the cross looked like a disaster. He was like what do you mean? You're going to die? No, you see, we got this whole ministry thing going on. We're working it out. You're supposed to be the king. You can't die, right, but Jesus, he sees this bigger story. Jesus, he sees this bigger story. He sees the salvation, he sees the redemption, he sees hope for the world.
Speaker 1:Where Peter just saw death, jesus turned to Peter and said get out of my way, satan. You are a hindrance to me because your thoughts are only filled with man's viewpoints and not the ways of God. Now, I'm not recommending that you start your kid's response with get behind me, satan. You can't have that snack before dinner if you need to. But in this case, jesus is intensely and lovingly telling Peter no, not because he's cold, not because he's not there, not because he's unwilling, not because he's not available, because he's committed to what is truly best.
Speaker 1:If we only see God's goodness in the yeses, we'll miss the kindness in his no's, because sometimes God's no is the most loving yes that he can give. He's not withholding good things from us. He's leading us towards something better and even when it doesn't feel like it, even when it's an exercise of our faith, of our trust, we can trust his provision because he promises that he is a good father. It's like our kids when we get in the car, they absolutely trust that we know where we're going. Or they remind us to turn on the GPS, as my kids do, and they know that I'm gonna have snacks at any given point. And they know if they spill something on their clothes, I likely have some extra pears in the car. And all I know is that, as an imperfect person, as a mom that barely has it all together, barely has one shoe going out the door, if I can do that for my kids, god can do even better.
Speaker 1:So I wonder today, what is an area of your life, of our lives, that we need to trust and surrender that God is providing, even when we don't see it. So, as we have flipped through God's photo album a bit today. We can see that God chooses love, and so can we, that he prioritizes our presence to be where our feet are, and so can we, and that he is a loving provider and we can trust his provision, even when we don't see the outcomes yet. But these are truly just a few snapshots in the bigger album of what God has for us. It highlights, honestly, the importance for all of us to spend daily time with God, taking time to see what the rest of these pictures mean for us, because God desires to be in daily relationship. He loves that.
Speaker 1:We're all at church on Sunday. This is a great day, and I'm sure that we are all honoring our moms by coming together with them. We're going to go to brunch. It's going to be awesome. But what God desires from us is a daily relationship.
Speaker 1:Imagine if you, as young parents, maybe only saw your toddler on one day a week. That would be really sad and they would probably not know you very well. Right, god wants us, he desires us to know his voice, to trust in him, to be in a relationship where we curl up on the couch and we hang out and we talk about our days. That is the relationship that God desires for us, and so as we flip through his photo album, as we take that daily time to spend with God for ourselves, we can look at it and look at the character that God shows us through these holy snapshots. If we imagine the Bible in that way, we can learn what there is that he wants to show us. We can treasure the pictures of who God has been in history, who he is and who he continues to be and promises to be for us, because there's a lot of goodness in there.
Speaker 1:So I want to be real, practical and give us three things that we can take into our week, and the first is gratitude journaling. Like I said, it's super simple and it will only take you maybe five minutes, but I will stand here today, on May 11th, and guarantee you that if you come see me on May 11th and guarantee you that if you come see me on June 11th and you've done this for 30 days, I will be in awe of the way that you saw God in your everyday life, in your job, in your interactions with people, in your family, in your relationships. Prayer of examine. So this is another way, not just for thankfulness, but to sit down at the end of each day and to ask God where he was, to scan back in your mind, to flip through the snapshots of your day and to ask God where he was in those things and where you saw God and in those moments that you felt farthest from God, and you pray those over, and you do those every night and again, it's only going to take you maybe five minutes. And you do those every night and again, it's only gonna take you maybe five minutes and you will guaranteed start to see where God was and maybe where he wasn't and where he needs to be invited in where we can be more present with him.
Speaker 1:And then another one that I'd like to call faith scrapbooking, if you will. So go with me on this. It's just keeping a notebook, a note in your phone or a notebook on paper of those moments with God. I was listening to a song as we were driving to Target one day about counting the blessings in our life and I wondered how many things do I just not remember. How many moments has God answered prayers, how many moments has he shown up in ways that in that moment were so incredibly impactful? But I just forget. And it's the same way that we can scroll back to 2023 in our phones and look at the beautiful pictures of, maybe, how little our kids were, or the fun vacation we were on, or the moments in time.
Speaker 1:If we don't take time to remember those blessings that God had given us in those moments, then we'll forget them. God tells us a bajillion times that's an accurate theological statement in the Bible to remember, remember me, remember what I have done for you, remember. So this is our way of just keeping a simple notebook to remember those moments, the big and the small, but the moments that we saw God and the blessings that we had. And a scrapbook that you can look back to on the hard days or the plain days, and to know and be reminded. Because the Bible is obviously God's greater story, but he is writing a story with you right now, in your everyday life, and he's calling us to remember that and to steward it well. So, faith, scrapbooking.
Speaker 1:And I want to close us with just this thought that our life is full of these holy snapshots that God is with us in the highs and he's with us in the lows, and my prayer for us today is that we see God more clearly, that we remember how deeply we are loved, even in the blurry, unfiltered, candid and very real moments of life, that he is with us, that he is loving us, choosing to love us in action, and so can we, that he is present with us and we can be present with him and with others. So let's pray, church, god. We thank you so much, lord, for this morning, and we thank you, god, that you are a good father, that you're a good parent, lord, god, that you are a good father, that you're a good parent, lord. And so we just ask, Holy Spirit, that you would come, because you promise that you are with us always, lord, and that you have sent your Holy Spirit to be present with us. So we just ask for more of you, god, and I pray, even as we went through that message, for those who have felt like they've had almost like earmuffs on and haven't been able to see those moments with you.
Speaker 1:God, I pray, even right now, that you would remove the blocks, the distractions, the muffled sounds and the muffled earmuffs, lord, yeah, that we would hear your still small whisper, just like Jesus did that day as he was walking through a crowd of thousands. He knew that there was a moment of power. And so, god, I pray that in those moments of chaos in our regular everyday lives, lord, that we would start to see you more. I pray for an extra dose of that spiritual attunement that we would be able to experience your love, experience your power. And, god, I just pray right now over our moms today.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just over the moms that are feeling overworked or burdened or worried that they're not doing the best that they can. I pray that your Holy Spirit, lord, would rest on them. Yes, god, give us eyes to see you, lord, and ears to hear you. Help us to love in action. God, and I pray for even as we go into our week, lord, that you would give us moments in the chaos or in the stillness, lord, that we would experience more of you. We thank you, lord, that you are a good father. We pray all these things in Jesus' name. Amen, amen. Let's give God some praise this morning, guys.