Tag: #Jesus

Wedding Banquet For All

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The Parable of the Wedding Feast

Matthew 22: 1-10 ESV

22 And again Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying, 2 “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son, 3 and sent his servants[a] to call those who were invited to the wedding feast, but they would not come. 4 Again he sent other servants, saying, ‘Tell those who are invited, “See, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding feast.”’ 5 But they paid no attention and went off, one to his farm, another to his business, 6 while the rest seized his servants, treated them shamefully, and killed them. 7 The king was angry, and he sent his troops and destroyed those murderers and burned their city. 8 Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding feast is ready, but those invited were not worthy. 9 Go therefore to the main roads and invite to the wedding feast as many as you find.’ 10 And those servants went out into the roads and gathered all whom they found, both bad and good. So the wedding hall was filled with guests.

I have been thinking about God The Father a lot this Advent season. Christmas draws you in to think about Jesus as a sweet baby, the manger, angels and shepherds. The lights and trees, the music and food. The coziness. All of it celebrating the joyous birth of our Savior. The one thing I guess I have never really thought of is God the Father’s feelings. We know He so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. He sent angels to speak with Mary and Zechariah and to announce the great news to the shepherds. Miracles were abounding. But, I have never thought about the preparation He was doing for His Son.

As a mother, I hate it when my children are rejected. If I could take that pain from them, I would. I would swallow it whole. My heart aches for them until they feel better. When I think of God sending His holy, perfect Son into this world, knowing the difficult life He would have to live and the even more horrifying death He would have to endure and still He chose to send Him, my mind is blown. The Father preparing everything for His Son’s birth, knowing He would also have to prepare everything for His Son’s life and death.

Jesus tells the parable of The Wedding Banquet to express His Father’s heart. Jesus is the bridegroom and His Father is the King, lovingly setting up a feast to celebrate His Son’s wedding. Every single person who believes in Jesus as their Savior is the bride. The King has created a lavish feast, the fattened calves, the servants sent out to personally invite everyone. Everything was ready. The King had done His part. He wanted everyone to celebrate His Son. When people did not respond He sent His servants again. Then the excuses started coming in, they ignored Him and went off to their daily lives. So the King pivots and says invite anyone you can find. The desperation of a perfect Father wanting to spare His Son from empty seats and tables, from rejection. The perfect Parent wanting to rejoice with and over His Son. This is the reality that God faced when sending Jesus to be born here. He knew His perfect Son, the Son He was so excited for us to know would be rejected. God had done all of the work, Jesus would do all of the suffering, miracles and teaching and there would still be so many who would not be bothered to even show up. God also knew that Jesus would be the most misunderstood and loneliest person to have ever been born.

Isaiah 53:3

He was despised and rejected[a] by men,
a man of sorrows[b] and acquainted with[c] grief;[d]
and as one from whom men hide their faces[e]
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

John 15:25b “They hated me without cause”

His life began in a manger. Born to a woman who didn’t fully understand who He was. Born into a family who would reject Him before they believed in Him (Mark 3:21). Though His birth was prophesied for hundreds of years, as John Piper points out in his Advent book, when the wise men came to seek him all of Jerusalem was in an uproar but the scribes and pharisees did not even bother to go and look for Him. This Jesus, Son of God and God Himself, born to live in a body that would now experience pain, and suffering beyond any human experience before or after. Jesus who had not one person fully understand Him or what He was to do until after His death, Jesus who left perfect Heaven and came to this corrupted earth. Jesus who was worshiped and glorified constantly, night and day, living in a world that questioned who He even was. He was hungry and tired and slept on the ground. He was mocked and doubted by the very people who should have recognized Him. His family turned against Him, His friends all left Him, denied Him and betrayed Him and He still took on all of the sins of the world. The sins of the doubters, the haters, the mockers, the indifferent and the ones who not only wouldn’t show up to His wedding feast but would lie to get out of it. The King of heaven, the Lord of lords rejected every single day of His life. And God the Father watching it happen. Feeling the rejection that as a Father ached His heart but still He invited us all. Come to the banquet, I’ve prepared everything. It’s perfect, come celebrate my only Son. Take part in this joyous occasion with me. All powerful, all knowing, infinite, eternal God, desperate for us to know His Son, to celebrate with Him. He has sent out His servants, the prophets, pastors and teachers to issue the most holy of invitations. Come honor my Son, come and partake in my joy. This banquet has cost both of us everything, this banquet is for you.

Oh that we would fill the seats and sit expectantly at the table, ready for the party to begin. We are the servants and the bride who need to go out to the highways and street corners, the work places and prisons, the social media spaces and our own families and say “Come! The King has invited you! You are welcomed with Jesus’ whole heart and life. Come!”

©Bobbi Adams 2025

Christian Forgiveness

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1 Corinthians 13:4-5  Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 

 On my way into work this morning I was talking to God about someone I thought I had forgiven but I haven’t forgotten how they treated me. It is a person who hurt me deeply as a child. Someone who went out of their way to humiliate me when I was just a kid. It was an adult who professed to be a Christian. When this person’s name gets brought up I just smile and nod but my heart cringes. I remember what they did and how they went out of their way to do it. They were a person that other people thought highly of. They made sure I knew that I was less than. My circumstances were less than. My divorced parents? My beautiful, BEAUTIFUL, divorcee Mother, low-income lifestyle, clothes? My ADHD? Who knows. I just know that they were unkind to me and kind to others, and it confused me. I wanted them to like me, to experience their favor. What I got was cruelty. I have forgiven them a long time ago but, BUT, every time I hear something about this person, a little fire flares. Those embers that remain in your heart that never quite fully extinguish. Those thoughts that still sting are unforgiveness. They are my brain keeping a record of the wrongs they had done.

Christian Forgiveness is hard. It’s not like the world’s view of forgiveness. As a Christian we are required to forgive and the hardest part, keep no record of wrongs. As God’s child, we cannot hang onto festering fumes of anger and hurt. It’s hard enough to forgive but how do we forgive and forget?

In 1 Corinthians 13, The Bible says love. Love is patient and kind and keeps no records of wrong (vs 5) The ESV translates “keeping no record of wrongs” as not being resentful.

The NASB says love “does not keep an account of a wrong suffered“.  

To Take an account, to reckon, to keep track of in Greek Strong’s: 3049 logízomai (the root of the English terms “logic, logical“) – properly, compute, “take into account”; reckon (come to a “bottom-line”), i.e. reason to a logical conclusion (decision).

It’s the root of the English word logic. An accounting. To keep track of someone’s sins, to remember their wrong doings and to become resentful of them. The EXACT thing we hope The Lord Never does for us. The exact thing Jesus died to give us, forgiveness with no account, register or log of our flaws, failings and sin. God is not checking His record book of your wrongs. If God The Father was presented with a list of our sins, He would only see the brush strokes of His Sons precious blood painted over our worst transgressions. It defies logic. That is how powerful forgiveness in Christ is! It makes no sense, you can forgive and not keep a record of it. Hear this, You can because that is exactly what God (in Christ Jesus) does. He forgives us and remembers it no more.

Hebrews 8:12 For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.”

Psalms 103:12 as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.

Forgiveness is a two-step process. First, we drag it kicking and screaming before the Lord. He helps us whittle down the mountain (or maybe just a little hill) of hurt and anger until we can honestly say we forgive someone. Then the harder part, in my opinion, is to stop keeping a record of their wrongs. This isn’t done in a vacuum. We need God’s help to stop those intrusive thoughts and move forward. Of all the things Paul says love is in 1 Corinthians, it is all of those and it is also a practice. It is forgiving over and over in our hearts and minds. It is redirecting those angry, hurt feelings away from the person and putting our focus directly on The Holy Spirit to lead us away again and again until we are looking at it in the rearview mirror. Forgiveness is not pretty and it’s not easy. It’s that beautiful little flower that just suddenly pops up in the crack of a concrete sidewalk, surprising you with its beauty. It is an illogical miracle, one that can hardly be understood this side of heaven. One day it is not there and then suddenly it is. It is so precious to the Lord because if you can forgive the worst of what someone has done to you, you can briefly, infinitesimally, for one zeptosecond understand what it cost Jesus to forgive you. Illogical, illimitable love.

The communication of Christ

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I was thinking about nothing this morning while making my bed and Jesus just dropped a thought into my mind. He experienced a change in communication with His Father while He was here on earth. Jesus, The Father and of course The Holy Spirit existed together perfectly for all of eternity past until Jesus was born here on earth. The way they communicated in Heaven is only something we can try and fail to imagine. To coexist together without limitation, to never wonder what the other one thought because you are all omniscient, all one, all holy. To completely know and be known. God doesn’t wonder, He knows. That was the life, the existence, Jesus had before He came to save all of mankind. Then He was born. Certainly, a baby cannot communicate the way an adult does, and never like God can. Did the fact that Jesus was 100% human while still being 100% God cause His communication with His Father to be different? How could it not?

10 years ago, my family started to go through what would be a difficult decade. All of us humans can wake up any day and face unexpected tragedies, I never in my life thought we would all have gone through so very much. Ever. I didn’t think we deserved a free pass from trials but when the hits kept coming, God seemed to go silent. When people say they went through something awful and God drew near to them, I’m glad for them but I didn’t experience it that way, at all. The Lord who was so close to me, speaking to my heart, teaching and guiding me every single day seemed to have broken up with me. That is the only thing I can relate it to. One day we were solid and the next He seemed to change His mind. I didn’t see it coming. It was devastating. My prayers went from joyful praying, secrets kept between us, His divine guidance and humor, to nothing. I felt like I was praying to a brick wall. No whispers, not an utterance. I cried out to the Lord countless times, what have I done? Where are you? Why don’t you want to speak to me, but I was met with silence. The dryness, the darkness of those times are something I cannot express in words. I just can’t. Had the Lord forsaken me? I felt like king Saul. Chosen one day and tormented the next.

I don’t know how long it took for God to show me that while He was no longer communicating with me in a more direct sense, He was still there. Still listening, still working. I didn’t want that. I wanted it the way it was. When He speaks to your heart so strongly, and so often, you know it’s Him. Him changing things up at the worst times of my life was unkind in my opinion. How gracious and good is our God to not care what our opinions are. He is holy and will always do what is best for us, even if we do not understand. Praise you Lord. His stepping back (but never leaving) showed me how very tiny my faith was. If He wasn’t there holding my hand every second of every day, I was like a lost child in a supermarket. Prone to panic and tears. I questioned Him so much all through this time. What was the point of being quiet? How did that help me at all? If He was only and always good, how could breaking my heart with what felt like His absence be good in any way? I cried, I pleaded and I railed against Him. I expect to be hurt from the world, but not Him. Never, Him. After fighting and struggling, anger and a trash can burning, dumpster fire of discovering what a massive amount of false pride I have, I finally understood He was trying to grow my faith. It’s not hard for a child to feel safe when they have their parent in their sightline but what about when they step around the corner. Just because the child can’t see them makes them no less there. It’s not about the child’s perception of where the parent is at, it’s a fact that they are still there, sight unseen. I needed to learn that He has made a promise to never leave or forsake me, it was up to Him to keep it. It is up to me to believe it.

Hebrews 11:6 And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.

If He is real then He is right. If He is right then everything He does in our lives, everything He allows, is right too. Not only right, but good in the sense that it is always for our good. Man, that’s a hard one.

And just when you think He cannot possibly understand what it’s like for you as a human, we remember Jesus. Our precious Savior. King of kings, Lord of lords, born on this earth, fully human and unable to speak. One day existing in the fullness of time and power and the next limited by the fragile humanity that He himself created. As a newborn was He able to pray? The Word became flesh. The most vulnerable of all, a newborn baby. Though in His infancy He may not have known or understood, His Father was there. When He went to desolate places to pray, wasn’t that entirely different then Heaven? There is no desolation in Heaven. And when He was in Heaven with His Father, did He pray then? Wasn’t it more like talking or communing? Did He need words in heaven or was it more like a constant, spiritual state of being? I would certainly never venture to guess, I’m just trying to point out that from Heaven to earth, communication with God the Father certainly changed for Jesus. I just wonder how much. Jesus did not have false pride and He surely did not need to grow His faith so why did He have to go through that?

The only answer that makes any sense is, US! When He was hanging on the cross and asking His Father “Why have you forsaken me” (Matthew 27:46) He wasn’t just quoting David. He felt forsaken. Our sins, laid upon Him, occluding His Father’s presence. Deafening His voice. But, Praise be to our omnipresent God and Father, He was still there. He is everywhere at all times, always. He did not leave His son and He will not leave us. And the tragic beauty of it all remains, Jesus understands what it feels like to experience a lessening. A lessening of God’s presence in our most dire of circumstances. Jesus who by the word of His power upholds all things (Hebrews 1:3) cried out to God, “Why have you forsaken me?”

Forsaken in Greek Strong’s (G1459) means to abandon, leave behind, left in dire circumstances. That is a life changing alteration of communication. What an incredible love He has for us. He wasn’t just born to die and save us from our sins. He was born to be like us, to completely know us, not just as His created beings but as a created being in and literally of Himself. To inhabit the pain of the created. The limitations, frustrations and anguish. We can honestly say that Jesus bore all of that and infinitely more in His life here on earth. He too wondered if He was left behind, abandoned, forsaken. He wasn’t and neither are we. The Lord may have stepped out of your sightline, but never your life. What is He trying to pull out of you today? He is the Creator, that’s what He does. A painter doesn’t leave a painting half done, a builder doesn’t build a house with no roof, a gardener doesn’t till the soil but plant no seeds. The Lord is doing something beautiful in you. He will never be satisfied with halfway. The further down the road that you walk with Him, the less He seems to give words and affirmations and the more He wants us to rely on our faith. The communication may change but so will we. The longer the stretches, the more we know how fragile our faith can be. The stretches, the dry times are meant to expose our lack of faith and strengthen where we are weak. Christine Caine has a brilliant quote “Will you trust Him when you can’t trace Him?” That is hard and beautiful and painful. In a world so dependent on Wi-Fi it’s hard not to feel like our prayers are getting dropped like our cell phone service. Can you hear me now? The beauty and the lesson are, He can. He can hear you, even when you can’t hear Him. He can see you even when you can’t see Him and that is the garden that faith grows in! The communication may change but the God of all creation doesn’t, but He is hoping we will! His goal in our lives is not always communication to prove that He is there, but for us to trust that He is there when there seems to be zero communication. The communication of Christ on the cross went from “My God, my God why have you forsaken me?” to “Father, into your hands I commit my Spirit” (Luke 23:46). The communication of Christ to us, in us, will always take us from fear to trust. Forsaken to forgiven, silent to sacred. Don’t stop praying, don’t stop knowing you are so fully heard and known. Keep committing yourself into your Father’s hands, that is the communication of Christ.

The wood in the water, the water on the wood

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Exodus 15:22 Then Moses made Israel set out from the Red Sea, and they went into the wilderness of Shur. They went three days in the wilderness and found no water. 23 When they came to Marah, they could not drink the water of Marah because it was bitter; therefore it was named Marah.[b] 24 And the people grumbled against Moses, saying, “What shall we drink?” 25 And he cried to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a log,[c] and he threw it into the water, and the water became sweet.

The last ten years have been rough for my family. From diagnoses to death, accidents and incidents. The hits kept coming. I feel like everyone in the body of Christ goes through these seasons. What started out as bad, quickly snowballed into worse and then worse again and again and again. We all just kept trying to hold each other up. After years of hard times, it was more like trying to put up a tent with no poles. More like stringing plastic wrap between two trees for shelter. It felt like If we weren’t at a hospital, we were at a funeral. The times in life when you can’t even recover from the last thing before the next thing hits.

Emotional devastation can quickly lead to spiritual dryness. I try the best I can to just keep going. Keep it status quo. Most days I can put on a happy face, go to work, come home and be the wife and the mom. Keep praying and trying and giving. Keep serving.

I should have noticed sooner. I did wonder, what is wrong with me? That question played over and over in my head most days. Wasn’t I praying enough? Then I will pray more. Wasn’t I giving enough? Then I will give more. Try harder, do better, give more, be more, help more. But what do you do when you all of the help, doesn’t help? When all of the trying seems to add up to failure? The prayers and questions go unanswered? You dry up. Your soul dries up. You get parched. Paper mouth, cracked desert sand tongue, dried up. Do you know what happens after your soul gets that dried up? In my case, bitterness. Bitterness.

Bitterness seems to work like dehydration, you don’t feel it creeping up until it’s ready to take you down. That’s where I found myself. After years of asking the Lord to help, to intervene, to make straight the paths, I found myself questioning Him. Too scared to outright accuse Him but sinful enough to hold those hurts against Him. I’m sick of wondering what is the lesson here? I’m sick of lessons and growth and change. I’m horrible at it. So on top of having to go through all of this terror and tragedy, I end up feeling like a loser for not handling it better. Not praising in the storm and all of that.

I could feel myself becoming bitter though I hadn’t named it yet. Just a turning in my spirit. A hardening in my heart that felt quite justifiable considering what all we have been through. The things you cannot unsee are nothing compared to the things you cannot unfeel. So the bitter root reached down and that’s how satan gets you. The things that grow up, reach for the light, the things that grow down, grow in the dark. Unseen, untouched until those roots twist and turn and choke the life out of everything around it. It’s hard talking about it, sharing this piece of my journey. I once heard a lady on Instagram say she had a really hard time that was so devastating to her because the Lord was silent in her life for 3 months. 3 months?! I’m so glad she wasn’t saying it directly to me. Oh, the scalpel sharp words a bitter heart can deliver with surgical precision.

The Lord’s deliverance often feels more like devastation. And that brings us to the bitter water. God had delivered the Israelite’s out of Egypt but they had not yet reached the Promised Land. They were in the Wilderness of Shur, 3 days with no water and they came upon the waters of Marah but it was too bitter to drink from it. Hadn’t they already been through enough? It wasn’t that the thirst was so bad, it was everything that came before it. The water was right there but could serve no purpose. So God told Moses to throw a log into the water. The Hebrew word for log here (H6086) is more often translated as tree. So God tells Moses to throw a tree in the water, and he did and the waters became sweet. Sweet waters. Can you imagine drinking that?

After asking God what is wrong with me for the umpteenth time, He dropped the word bitter into my heart. The first thing I thought of was the wood in the waters at Marah. My first question was “Where do I get wood to drop in my bitter water?” His response was of course, Jesus. It took me a week to realize what He was saying.

John 19:33 But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. 34 But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water.

When God sweetened the waters at Marah He had Moses throw wood in the water which would be strange except for the fact that when God wanted to pardon the bitterness of our sin, He had Jesus put His very own water on the wood. Jesus, our Living Water, poured out His life, to give me mine. When they pierced His side, literal water from His body was spilled on that wooden cross.

Wood in the water, Water on the wood.

God not only let Him do it but it was His will for Jesus to die for me. I finally realized that the bitterness in my spirit had grown from the terrifying question one tries never to think about and dares never to ask. Is God really good? Is God really who He says He is? Is He really good all of the time? God pointed out that I was the one trying to determine what was good. What makes something good? How it feels? Tastes? Looks? How it makes me feel? By that definition alone I could be describing sin. That is why It is not I that determine goodness, it’s God alone. If I’m not willing to believe that He is good, how can I ever trust that He has me during the hard times? That is the darkness that nurtures bitterness.

I love the story of how Billy Graham walked into the woods one night to grapple with questions about his faith. He determined to trust God at His word, in His word that night and thank God for all of us he did. I’ve been in the wilderness grumbling for decades. Where are you, Lord? Why won’t you fix this Lord, why won’t you talk to me Lord. I want Him to make everything make sense to me.

But if I am constantly determining that what is good, is bad, because it feels bad or hard, how can He ever make anything make sense to me? Bitterness and arrogance go hand in hand. False pride says that I can determine whether or not God is good based on whether or not I like what He has given me. As if I can be the only Christian to reject the trials and tribulations package.

Jesus is the Living Water. He makes all things new. He makes the bitter water sweet. The Israelites came to the water but the water could NOT serve the purpose it was created for because of it’s bitterness. It was still water, but it needed to be purified. It is the same for us. Jesus, The Living Water, who is in us, purifying us so we can then fulfill our purpose. We cannot serve our purpose if we are bitter any more than the waters at Marah. Jesus is either the Good Shepherd who knows where He is taking His sheep or He isn’t. That is the wilderness we need to step into and not come out of until we have decided that God is in fact good. All of the time. All of the hurting, broken, lonely, questioning time.

Romans 8:28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

Jesus pours into us, purifies us and we can then pour it back out into this hurting and broken world. Everything that honors Him, tiny tributaries flowing straight back to His heart. We get to take the Living Water and pour it on the dry, cracked places. Aren’t we all the little rivers of Jesus?

©Bobbi Adams 2024

Mommy

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“Her absence is like the sky, spread over everything.” – C.S. Lewis

4 years and 353 days ago we took my mom to U of M to get the Whipple for pancreatic cancer. The longest surgery they do there. 12 1/2 hours later we were sure they just bought us more time with our precious Mom. We knew the road would not be easy but she would be here. More visits, laughs, holidays. More celebrating together, more celebrating her. More time to tell her how much we loved her, adored her. 12 horrible days later she died. There would be no mores. The doctor called just before 1:00 in the morning to say she was acidotic and would not make it. My heart was beating so hard I had to ask him to repeat what he was saying twice. We all rushed down there to be by her side. Blessed to be by her side, telling her we love her, we’re here, praying for her. 9 hours later she took her last labored breath. This woman who was so much more than words can convey was gone. Her spirit taken to heaven, her ravaged body finally at peace. A vortex opened that day, though invisible to human hearts, it is fully known by our souls. Pulling love and joy into its unseen depths, giving nothing in return for the chaos it wreaked, wreaks still. We left the hospital shell shocked. How? Why? What just happened? I was sure Jesus must be coming that very day because how could I live without my Mother? My Mommy. And she was, a mommy. All softness and kindness and love and patience like no other. How do you live without all of that goodness? And you do. You do live without it but it never feels the same. Like someone putting a parking garage over the most beautiful garden. It’s utilitarian at best, this lesson of grief. Useful and useless all at the same time. She always left a trail of love everywhere she went and now we are following too close to the trail of exhaust fumes that life leaves. It’s exhausting.

I think about her and try not to think about her every day. I try to remember what it was like to feel so loved and accepted. I never had to explain myself to my Mom but she would let me if I wanted to. When I don’t feel understood, I have a bad habit of trying to explain, to justify my feelings. I never had to do that with her, never felt the need to defend myself. She loved me just for me. She who brought me into this world and walked with me as far as she could. She knew my heart and more importantly, trusted my intentions. What an incredible gift. She never stopped Mom-ing me in all the ways that makes an adult crazy. Did you say thank you? Did you say hello to so and so? It makes me laugh thinking about it now. It makes me cry thinking about it now. You will never want mothering more than when you don’t have it.

Who am I to complain about this loss? I hate that there are people out there that did not have a wonderful mother. Their loss began at birth. Their grief at first breath for a life they would never have. A longing in their soul, the very genesis beginning in utero. Who loves me? Who will love me, for me? Who will assume the best of me, be my soft place to land? We are born to be loved and to love. And there is no one who knows that better than your Father. Yes, Father. Heavenly Father.

It’s hard to reconcile that the nurturing, soft, tender, mothering love that our souls need actually originates from God the Father, but it does. He whose wrath terrifies and confuses us is also the very one who is the source of love, patience, kindness and mercy. Not the benefactor, the SOURCE. He doesn’t give to us what he inherited or worked for or created. He gives to us what is actually from Him, what IS Him. He is love and He is infinite. He is also hard to understand at times. Anyone who has struggled through the Old Testament knows that. But, here is the thing, the one thing that brings every single thing into focus. Jesus. Jesus whose love is so strong, so fierce, so all consuming that He willingly died for us. That is a Mother’s love. That love I can understand because I have in some small sense experienced it through my Mom.

Jesus is the exact imprint of His Father’s nature (Hebrews 4:12). Jesus loves us exactly how His Father, God, loves us. When God looks at those of us covered by the blood of His Son, He sees His Son. When we look at Jesus who was the living example of love, we see His Father. Neither view can truthfully and fully exist without Him. He is the telescope to open the feeble eyes of our hearts and show us great and unimaginable things. Unimaginable love.

That was who God made my mom to be. Not the source of the greatest love ever known but an arrow pointing in the correct direction. A conductor of God’s love for me. Where my dad was great at pointing out all of my flaws and shortcomings, my mom saw it all as great potential. When I have a hard time understanding God because He calls Himself Father, Jesus points me in the direction of truth. God is not my dad, He is my Father. They are not the same. My mom knew and understood the intentions of my heart but Jesus created my heart and it is fully known by Him. This sinful, wretched, broken heart. My Mom tried to heal my pain with kindness and words but Jesus bled and died for it. I’m not comparing my mom with Jesus. I’m saying my mother loved me so well because of Jesus. His love for her, her love for Him, her love for me. It’s all tied together in this beautiful, eternal, undoable thread.

Maybe you had or do have that kind of Mom. Maybe you wish you did. Maybe you were meant to be that kind of mother, aunt, mentor, friend. The one who when people look at you, they get a glimpse of Jesus. The one who loves them because you know you are loved. Maybe you are the conductor of Jesus’ love to everyone or just one. Or maybe today is the day you realize that you could be. You could love someone so well that they know Jesus better, know God the Father better. Maybe you could love someone with the love of Jesus so strongly that it could change a person’s life. Maybe that person could even be you.

Communication of heaven

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Deuteronomy 8:3

3 And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word[a] that comes from the mouth of the Lord.

Sometimes, answered prayer comes in a way that is so overwhelming and abundant that it brings immediate joy and worship. God did the thing and we sit back in awe and wonder. It’s the answer we never even knew we could hope for. Sometimes, more often it seems, it is not like that. We pray knowing that only the Lord can help, move, fix our situations and His response is slow or seems so much less than what we hoped for.

When the Israelites were led out of Egypt, under circumstances like no other, they were headed to The Promised Land. A land flowing with milk and honey. Provision and protection. A land God had promised their ancestor Abraham centuries ago (Genesis 12:1). 430 years later, the promise of the Lord was coming to pass. He delivered them from slavery and set out on what would be the longest 11day trip in history.

On the 10th day of Abib (Aviv) they were slaves on the 11th day they were packing up and moving out. Sweet freedom. They had witnessed God’s mighty had, 10 plagues of mass destruction and plundered their captors to better secure their futures. God led them gently with a pillar of fire by night and a pillar of cloud by day. There was no doubt who was in charge, who was leading.

They passed through the parted red sea, watched their enslavers be destroyed and stepped out on the other side baptized in the Lord’s goodness and mercy. They were a convoy of the covenant. 34 days later, Exodus 16 says the whole congregation of the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness.

Exodus 16:3 and the people of Israel said to them, “Would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”

Exodus 12:38 said they left Egypt with very much livestock, both flocks and herds. So we know they had meat. They needed to preserve their livestock but they were not in dire straights here. What they didn’t have was bread. The unleavened bread they had when they left Egypt was long gone. They missed bread. They missed bread so much that they were willing to sin against The Lord and accuse Him of tricking them and bringing them out into the desert to kill them. They had protein but no carbs. They had what they needed to survive but they wanted comfort. A warm crusty loaf of bread to sop up the juices of the meat. Sitting around the fire, the smells of roasting meat and fresh baked bread, the smell of home. Even if that home was a prison. It was what they knew. They were willing to trade freedom for carbs. I have never understood anyone more.

Then the Lord told Moses, you let them know, I’m about to rain bread from heaven (EX 16:4). He would wake them up the next morning with answered prayer. While they slept, He brought manna. No one had ever seen it before. The Lord was doing a new thing. Manna in Hebrew means What is it? It was a fine, flake like thing, fine as frost on the ground. They had to gather the What is it, grind it in hand mills or beat it in mortars, boil it in pots and make cakes of it (Numbers 11:8). I’m pretty sure that’s not what they had in mind. Gathering flakes off of the ground? They wanted sympathy for their struggles, comfort for their confinement, they wanted bread and God sent them an ingredient. He sent them “What is it”? How long does it take to go from What is it to Is that it? They cried out to the Lord for deliverance and He did then they wanted to return to captivity. He sent them supernatural bread and quail to eat and they complained it wasn’t enough. Such a human response. They wanted freedom at no cost, comfort with no effort and deliverance with no pain. They were fragile and hungry. God was trying to write a multi-generational story that would mirror His Son redeeming us and our journey to heaven but of course they didn’t know that. They could only see their hurt and pain and trauma. The pain of right now. The scars of suffering were fresh, still aching in their hearts. Grief and trauma can make us viciously selfish. Myopic in our own pain. They met God in a way no one had ever known Him but chose to look at the Pillar of Fire and ask for a sandwich. 40 years later Moses was preparing them to go into the promise land without him and he said in Deuteronomy 8:3 And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word[a] that comes from the mouth of the Lord. Does that sound familiar?

When Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted for 40 days and 40 nights Matthew 4:2-4 says:

2 And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3 And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” 4 But he answered, “It is written, “‘Man shall not live by bread alone,
but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”

Redemption.

35 DAYS into the wilderness they cried out for bread. 35 GENERATIONS later they got it. Jesus redeemed the sin from their wilderness, in His wilderness, even before He began His ministry. He knew it wasn’t just about bread because He knew He WAS the Bread (John 6:35). He was the answer to their souls cry so long ago. They were hungry, we are hungry today. We long for bread but sometimes, we get manna. We want the -Here you go but more often get the -What is it. It is so important to know and remember that God is working, doing and redeeming every step of our way. We can’t see the future, we only know we want the comfort now. We also know the one thing they didn’t, praising Him for the manna in our wilderness. To keep our What is it from becoming Is that it? Oh, that is so hard! The Lord provided manna for them until the day they reached The Promise Land. He does it for us too. Look around. Look at what The Lord has done for you your whole life. Don’t despise the ingredient. God gave you that because He knew you could make something beautiful and life sustaining from it.

©Bobbi Adams 2023

Israel

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I love Israel. A land I have never and probably will never see. The only country in history whose borders were measured out by the will of God Himself. Israel, where the promises of God materialized. Literally, The Promise land. A foreshadow of all that is yet to come. The God of all creation taking His people through the impossible by doing the impossible, to deliver them to a land where He would bless them. Our journey to Heaven mirrored so long ago.

Israel, where God chose to birth a nation and where He chose to birth His only begotten Son, Jesus, our Jewish Messiah.

You cannot reset boundaries made by God. You cannot determine the fate of a nation blessed by God. And you better believe you cannot stand against a nation protected by God.

The feet of Christ walked that land. The tears of my Savior were shed in that land. The King of kings and Lord of lords living and dying, shedding His blood for me, by His choice, in the holy land of Israel. The very DNA of God exists in Israel alone. What a precious land indeed.

© Bobbi Adams 2023

Bones and arrows

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May your word be the arrow to pierce my stubborn bones and reach the marrow to give me new life, all new life

All things beautiful, all things new Put together all through you to give life, all new life

You crush the grape, to bring forth wine it takes more, it takes time to bring life, all new life

You promised me the promised land but never left my side while I walked the desert sand I want new life, precious life

You say child just be silent, just stay still But I can’t hear you, I’m busy telling you my will Lord help me lay down this life

Speak to me once again like you used to when we were friends, tell me something fresh and new secrets known by only you, whisk me to the mountain top where hope runs freely and doesn’t stop, take my heart of stone and let it be A heart of flesh not misery, When I am your beloved and you are mine Your word the life, the soul, the brine, make of me what you desire make me pure with holy fire, your arrows finding their mark so true A life worth living, is only one spent with you

©Bobbi Adams 2023

Following

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“If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him. John 12:26

I drive about 35-40 minutes a day to work. Every day, I get there at a different time. Even If I leave early, I might get there a couple of minutes late and I have left late and gotten there on time. It’s so frustrating because I am at the mercy of whomever I follow. Are they distracted, on their phone, paying attention? I always seem to end up behind someone who is not doing the speed limit but just taking their phone out for a leisurely drive. Distracted, not going when the light turns green, you know the drill. I absolutely cannot stand being at the mercy of someone else. I want to get to work or get home from work with no unnecessary delays. Why don’t they want that as well? I don’t want to be stuck behind somebody that doesn’t know or care what they are doing.

Our whole lives seem to have become about who we follow. Who we “get behind”. Facebook, Instagram, X, Tik Tok. Who do you follow? There are, according to datareportal.com, 4.95 billion social media users with over 215 million users in the last year alone. How many followers do you have, and where are you taking them? We follow people who have power, influence, looks, fortune or fame. We follow those who make us feel how we want to feel or look or be. Influencers, bosses, artists, actors, friends, the list is endless. You can even wrongly follow a Christian leader in the hopes they can work out the Bible, the journey for you. They can’t.

Jesus said “follow me”. He said it more than once. How closely do you follow Jesus? Close enough to see Him up ahead? Close enough to reach out your hand to Him? I vacillate ALL day long. One moment I’m within a breath, praying or praising and the next moment I look around and He is not even in my sight. I can’t even squint Him into focus. Fear is a window fogger for me. I can project years into the future in my mind and when I do, Jesus is typically not there in my imaginings. It’s just me still trying to figure out the how and the why. More days than I care to admit, following Jesus is a moment-by-moment decision for an over thinker like me. The Bible says to “take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5). The Greek translation of captive here (G163) means to take captive (in war), to bring under control. If you are over thinker, you know this can be a full-time job some days. It’s exhausting. I do not naturally have the mind of Christ. I’m forgiving one moment and the next I’m asking for forgiveness for my thoughts or actions. I want to follow, and I want to lead. I want to submit myself fully to Him and I want Him to submit to my wants, my timing and my hopes. I want Him to change my thoughts for me. Oh, the wretched humanity that resides in me! I’m with Paul, I do not understand my own actions, for I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate (Romans 7:15). I am human. Laying down my wants, hopes, desires, even needs, and picking up my cross to follow Jesus is holding those two things, one in each hand, at all times. The tension is intense. It is not Me vs. Jesus, it’s me with Jesus vs. me alone. One of my biggest pet peeves is when someone says Let go and let God. While that is a great reminder for those who already know how, it’s salt in the wound for those of us who struggle to just let it go. The more “self” you have to begin with, the harder it is to follow obediently. “Self” being selfishness or fear, trauma or shame. Whatever makes you defend yourself and depend on yourself. Jesus wants us to give those things to Him. Are you weary, heavy burdened? I’m not going to tell you to lay it all down at His feet, He told us to do that. To come to Him, broken, banged up, hurting and lost. To bring all that baggage that makes you weary. I haven’t perfected it yet either, at least not all at once. I do know if I stay close to Him in prayer, reading His word and thinking about what I’ve read, He draws near to me. His thoughts in my thoughts, the ability to forgive, compassion for others. The ability to love in spite of the pain, the grief and anger. To put a leash on it so that I can take it for a walk, but it can’t take me for one. To step outside of myself and see the world just a little more like He does. His precious creation. The souls around me that I would pass by without a thought are the very people He loves so dearly. He loved us to death, and He loves us to resurrection and eternity too. Jesus doesn’t give us a treasure map to find Him, He is the treasure and the map. In Him are life and salvation and He is so worthy of the struggle! Keep holding your space friends, in the tension, the drama and pain. Keep turning to Him to take every thought captive. You are at the mercy of who you follow and there is only one worthy, Jesus.

©Bobbi Adams 2023

The original Narcissist

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A few weeks ago, a man I work with tried to tell me that I did not know what I did in fact know. It really got under my skin. It’s not the first time I have described a problem to him, only for him to tell me that I’m wrong, it couldn’t be that way. He wasn’t there when the problem occurred, but he was sure that he was right, and I was wrong. I thought about it later because I felt so utterly annoyed and realized that it made me so angry because he was gaslighting me in a very small but still irksome sense of the word.

gaslighting
[ˈɡasˌlīdiNG]
 
NOUN
  1. the practice of psychologically manipulating someone into questioning their own sanity, memory, or powers of reasoning:
     

He made me question myself when he wasn’t even there. He chastised me for what I said and then told me I was wrong. By the way, I wasn’t wrong, the problem really was a problem. I started praying about it, just to let it go and Jesus said to my heart “I was gaslighted too”. Oh Jesus I prayed, by the pharisees when they questioned who you are? “By Satan” was the answer I heard in my head. I had never heard it described that way! Matthew 4:1-11 is titled The Temptation of Jesus and we all know that He was tempted and tried by Satan here, but Satan was also attempting to gaslight Him as well. The first two times Satan tries to tempt Jesus he says “IF you are the Son of God..” If? If? Satan knew that Jesus was the Son of God because he knew Him in heaven! In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1). Jesus was born here on earth, but His existence is infinite. Satan is a created being, his existence has a beginning, and you better believe it has an end. Jesus himself said He saw Satan fall like lightening from heaven (Luke 10:18). Satan being Satan, waited 40 days to come to tempt Jesus, he knew that Jesus had fasted, knew He was hungry, knew He was physically weakened. Then Satan says one of the most ridiculous things in the whole Bible. “If you are the Son of God”. Gaslighting at its finest. The more I thought about it the more I realized that Satan uses that as one of his most powerful tools. A flaming dart if you will. Think all the way back to the Garden of Eden. What was his tactic? He was gaslighting Eve to make her question her own reasoning and memory. He had her in 3 sentences. 3! Genesis 3:1-5 He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You[a] shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” 2 And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, 3 but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” 4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” This is the first example of gaslighting at its earliest inception. Mind blowing! It worked so well he has never needed to change up his arsenal. I was so excited with all the thoughts God had given me I called my daughter Makenzie to tell her and she said “Mom, it makes perfect sense because Satan was the first Narcissist”. Wait, WHAT? Oh now it’s all falling into place. Satan tries to manipulate us and make us doubt ourselves every single day and he has done this since the keeping of time began. Oh it is so much more than him trying to make you doubt. He is trying to cast you out of Eden, away from the presence of the Lord. Satan is on constant repeat whispering to our souls, Does God really love you? Oh sinful sinner, how can that be? Did you really hear from God? Does Jesus really forgive you? Are you really chosen, adopted and loved? Thank the Lord you are, we are! It is written in the word and lived out by love from the Word and just like Jesus did at the time of His tempting, so must we fight those attacks with the word of God. Eve had no idea how important she was. No idea that the world would shift and turn on its axis that day. She actually thought it was about fruit. We feel the effects of her actions every day, thousands and thousands of years later. Do you know how important you are to God’s story? I know I can be up one day, praising the Lord and the next day depending on my circumstances or behavior, I can doubt He even loves me. No matter if I believe or sit in my doubt, my purpose in the Lord never changes even if I do not know what that purpose is. How many Edens have I cast myself out of by listening to the lies of the devil? How much the Lord loves me does not diminish because I think it has. We have to fight, to hold our ground because we can. We are important to the story. Do you know every person who was instrumental in Billy Graham’s life and ministry? Me neither, but that’s my point. We have no idea how many matches it took to burn that holy wildfire. We do know that it only took 3 sentences to talk Eve out of her purpose. How many does it take you?

©Bobbi Adams 2023