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Obedience = One Step at a Time

My stomach hurts. My eyes are blurry. I know that in just a few short hours every muscle will ache.

 

Today is a big day for me.

 

In celebration of my 20th spiritual birthday I will walk 20 miles in an attempt to raise $20,000 to benefit four fantastic, Gospel-saturated ministries. (Read all the details here: GoFundMe.com/ErinDavis).

 

That all sounded so good when it was just a slick marketing campaign. But today, there is sacrifice required. I am up in the middle of the night, preparing to pry myself away from my sleeping family. The road ahead of me looks impossibly long. Failure is the only one up at this hour and he is staring me in the face.

 

But I will choose obedience. I will look past Failure to the One who sacrificed so much for me that this day looks like a cake walk.

 

You see I believe that this crazy idea is not mine, but God’s. I don’t naturally want to be wrung out. I’m not typically a good fundraiser. It’s not my bent to look to the interests of others. Sacrifice is not really my bag, baby.

 

But I want to do something, anything to declare the goodness of God. The weight of so much bad news and bickering and tension in the Body has become too heavy. I must throw it off somehow. I’m using the two tools I know will work: gratitude and sacrifice.

 

There will be no puffing up as I go. I’ve not convinced myself that I am a big deal. Instead I think of women like Asia Bibi, a mama of five sentenced to death for following Jesus. She gets something that I usually don’t. Jesus is worth everything we have. Today I am walking as much to pound that truth into my forgetful head as to pound the pavement to raise funds.

 

Jesus died for me. Walking 20 miles in return is almost nothing in comparison. But I cannot sit back and do nothing one more minute. I hope I raise a ton of money for good causes today. I hope I cross the finish line in one piece. I hope I manage to create a massive neon sign online that points to the goodness and faithfulness of God. But these are not things I can do on my own. God must do all of the heavy lifting. I’m just going to put one foot in front of the other, and let me tell you, that will preach. That is how the Lord has called us to obey. One step at a time. One day at a time. One opportunity at a time. Today, I want to send the message that every small act of obedience on my part has been matched by gobsmacking grace on God’s.

 

Follow my journey all day long on Twitter and Instagram: @Eringraffiti.

 

I’ll see you on the trail.

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A Little Less Conversation A Little More Action

Hey, you there…

 

Yes, you.

 

With the screaming baby, or the messy house, or the overflowing inbox.

 

Mind if I grab a few of your brain cells for a minute. I promise, it won’t take long. But I really need your help for a good cause.

 

In honor of my twentieth spiritual birthday and in celebration of all that God has done in my life in the past two decades, I will be walking 20 miles tomorrow in an attempt to raise $20,000. Then I will give every penny away to four ministries that have made a huge impact on my life.

 

You can read all about it here: http://www.gofundme.com/erindavis

 

In this era of hashtag activism, I want to do something to give teeth to my faith and I want to champion others who are making a difference for God’s kingdom. That great Elvis song, “A Little Less Conversation a Little More Action” has become my mantra! Knowing your hearts, I know that you desire the same thing.

 

20 Miles, $20,000 to Celebrate 20 Years

 

So, would you consider joining me in one of three ways?

 

1. Give! Every penny counts. Would you consider pledging $1-5 per mile?

 

2. Share! You know people I don’t. Could you alert them to this through social media or word of mouth?

 

3. Walk with me! I’ve got a great group of friends joining me on the trail tomorrow. I wish you could be one of them. I will save your feet and ask you to join me virtually. I’ll be tweeting and Instagramming LIVE as I walk and I will be doing a TON of giveaways to drive donations. (It’s like my very own little Jerry Lewis telethon!). Will you follow along? You can find me on Twitter @eringraffiti or on Insta at ERINGRAFFITI. See you on the trail!

 

I’d love to hear what God has done in your life. Let’s proclaim His faithfulness together!

 

 

A fan,

 

e

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I Want To Be Noticed!

"My heart cries for acceptance, for love."

"My heart cry is to be cherished. I want to be loved, really loved."

"My heart’s longing is for people to love me. Some days I barely feel noticed, let alone loved."

These are among the many brave comments left under a post Paula wrote weeks ago about the heart cry of one little boy. (Read that post here.) I can relate to every single one of you who feels like you will never be loved enough, cherished enough, or noticed often enough. I’ve spent much of my life craving human attention and feeling mostly disappointed.

I don’t know your stories. I don’t know if you really do have anyone who notices you, cherishes you, or loves you. It may be that those needs truly are going unmet by the people in your life. It may also be (and seems more likely) that you are loved deeply, but somehow it just isn’t enough for you.

I’ve seen it before. The stories of several Hollywood superstars come to mind. They have millions of adoring fans. They have people paying to put their smile on magazine covers. They have lots of people telling them how fabulous they are. They are noticed. They are accepted. They are loved, and yet . . . more often than not, they self-destruct. Somehow all the praise in the world just can’t fill them up.

leaky bucketI think I know why. For a visual, let’s think of our need to be noticed, loved, and accepted like an empty bucket. We think, If I was just loved unconditionally by one person, my bucket would be full, or If more people just noticed me, my bucket would be full, or If someone just truly cherished me, that would fill my bucket up. But we find ourselves disappointed and our buckets empty over and over again.

Here’s why:

"For my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water" (Jer. 2:13, emphasis added).

To understand that "fountain of living waters" business, we have to skip ahead in the Bible to Jesus’ earthly ministry. In John 4:1–26 we find the story of a woman who really wanted to be noticed. The Bible tells us she jumped from romantic relationship to romantic relationship hoping to satisfy her deepest longings. Been there? Done that? But sadly, she found that looking to guys to scratch her itch to be loved was like pouring water into a leaky bucket.

Jesus looked at her leaky bucket and offered her "living water." His point was that only God could truly satisfy the longings of her heart. Looking to Him to meet our deepest needs is the only way to quench our insatiable thirst for more. More love . . . more attention . . . more compliments . . . more significance.

Think back to that passage from Jeremiah. God is comparing two realities here.

The people of Jeremiah’s day had stopped looking to God for their satisfaction. I don’t know who or what they were hoping would make them feel okay, but it doesn’t matter. The result was like pouring water into a leaky bucket. It just didn’t work.

You see the answer isn’t to be noticed more often, loved by more people, or cherished more deeply. The answer is to know that God has already noticed you. In fact, He studies you. (Matthew 10:30 says He knows the very number of hairs on your head.) He loves you so much He sent His Son to die for you (John 3:16). He cherishes you like a father cherishes His own daughter (Rom. 8:15).

The trick is to let that be enough—to let the truth about who you are to the God of the universe fill your bucket instead of constantly looking to the people in your world to make you feel noticed.

It’s not an easy switch to make. Praise from people seems so tangible sometimes compared to the affirmation we find in God’s Word, but ultimately it is just like pouring water into a leaky bucket. It never lifts our spirits for long.

How about you? Have you been pouring water into a leaky bucket? Looking to the people around you to make you feel loved and important? I hate to go all Dr. Phil on you, but how is that working for you?

If your bucket’s sprung a leak, let me offer you a patch kit. God alone is able to fill you up and answer your heart’s cry. He’s the only one offering "living water" that can take away our thirst for good.

I’d like to ask you to make a choice.

Option #1: Leaky bucket.

Choosing this route means continuing to look to other people to make you feel loved, accepted, and cherished. You should know up front that this route never works for long.

Option #2: Living water.

You make the choice to let God satisfy your craving to be loved. You study what He says about you in His Word, and you choose to believe it even if your feelings tell you otherwise.

Which one will you choose? Leave us a comment below to tell us about it.