Our devotion this week comes from author and encourager, Susan B. Mead. I know you will enjoy what she has to say about RESTORATION. Let’s learn from Susan’s experience how restoration can help when we fall. Thank you for joining us for our series on restoration.
I fell, yet I didn’t skin my elbows or plow face first into the ground.
No, I fell onto my knees, bowed and humbled as God whispered to me, “Step off the grid…”
Why would God tell me that? Great question. Because He loves us so deeply, He corrects us when we stray from His ways.
Does that make you wonder how corrupt I’d become, exclaiming, “Goodness gracious, Susan, what were you doing?!”
Simple answer. Building a platform. The only issue was its purpose.
You see, I listened to all the teachers at all the writers’ conferences, Christian writers’ conferences, I might add, instructing us to build.
Build. Publishers and agents only want BIG.
Build. Bloggers need readers and page views.
Build. Social media is a MUST and MANY must follow…while they like, comment and share too.
Build I did. Yet I’d built a platform for me to stand on rather than an altar to lay my offerings to God upon; to let His word shine forth from the words He placed in my heart, head and hands.
Many say they saw God through my words, and that may be true, yet building a platform had become an obsession. My focus was flawed and faulty.
So God gently and graciously got my attention as He guided me back to His ways of working. He restored my soul when He whispered step off.
Oh Lord, yes!
So we moved off the grid - literally. Yet I got an office for internet connectivity, even though we were living off the grid, so I could share. Isn’t that what writers do?
Yet God whispered again, have you stepped off yet? Oh Lord, no. I still have my hands clasped tightly around “my” writing, blogging, radio show, etc., etc., etc.
“Step off. I know where you are, who you are, what you are doing, and I want you to become what I created you alone to be. Only then can you do it. Wholeheartedly,” God breathed deeply into my spirit.
Early this year, I heard “be released” as my word for the year from God.
I questioned:
From what, Father?
From who?
From where?
When Lord?
And finally why, Lord?
A hope and a future…I love how the Lord reaches out His strong arm to lift us up when we fall. For His plans for us are good. He lifted me up to live again when I’d fallen into the ways of the world.
Thank You, Lord. I am restored. Renewed. Revived. Released from the things I thought I needed to be alive and productive. I’m learning to let go so God can do what He needs to do in and through me – for His glory and my good.
Oh by the way, the scripture at the bottom of the journal page I’m writing on today is Psalm 32:8;
“I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;
I will counsel you and watch over you.”
Only God…
A master storyteller and award-winning, bestselling author, Dr. Susan B. Mead, ThD, leaves audiences motivated to live a life free of regrets even though she has done the hardest thing any parent can do - bury her youngest son, Kyle.
Susan has been described as a solid, comforting voice in a messy world. Whether speaking to business professionals, women’s conferences, industry leaders or writer’s workshops, Susan’s insightful wisdom inspires audiences, empowering them to make healthy mental u-turns to help them find calm in the chaos.
Connect with Susan on her website at SusanBMead.com where she writes each Friday about her faith, family, friends, flowers, food or fitness journey, on Facebook and Twitter where she posts inspiration or on Amazon where her award-winning books, Dance With Jesus: From Grief to Grace and Don’t Go Through Life Naked: How to Clothe Yourself in God’s Power, are available.