Cypress And Myrtle

Tag: faith

  • He Speaks

    In my life, I’ve heard God roar and I’ve heard Him whisper. Two very different moments. Two very different needs. Yet both, unmistakably Him.

    As a child, He spoke in ways I could understand through graffiti on a wall, chapel songs, and Sunday School stories.
    As I grew older, He spoke through Scripture, alive and powerful.

    The God we serve is not silent. He never has been. It’s His nature to speak and He’s been speaking since the beginning.

    In Genesis 1:3, “And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.”
    From the very first moment of creation, His voice brought life.

    Then, in John 1:1, we read, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
    Jesus wasn’t just a messenger. He is the message. Every word He spoke revealed the heart of God.

    His voice didn’t go silent after the resurrection. He still speaks through Scripture, through the Holy Spirit, through moments quiet and loud.
    His words bring life, clarity and peace.

    A.W. Tozer wrote, “The second person of the Holy Trinity is called the Word. The Bible is the inevitable outcome of God’s continuous speech. It is the infallible declaration of His mind for us, put into familiar human words.”

    God has always spoken and He still does.
    From creation to this very moment, His voice calls out with power and love.
    Jesus, the Living Word, continues to speak light into our darkness.
    May we listen with hearts ready to hear.

  • 8 Strips Of Paper

    It was 2006, and I was in a season of turmoil, standing at the crossroads of chasing my ambitions and seeking God’s purpose for my life. I wrestled with where my own desires ended and where His calling began.

    During that time, I was reading The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren and A Woman After God’s Own Heart by Elizabeth George. One night, I tore a page from my notebook and wrote down eight things I needed God to help me with, each on a strip of paper.

    In no particular order, my list read:

    To be godly feminine

    To be alone but not lonely

    To be a better steward of money

    To be a better steward of time

    To learn to live in a Christian community

    To find a life partner

    To have more faith in Him

    To have more courage

    I folded the eight strips of paper and placed them in a shoebox. A few months later, I opened the box to revisit my list. Nothing had changed.

    A year later, on my birthday, I opened the box again. Not much had happened, except one thing: I realized I was no longer as lonely when I was alone.

    At the end of 2007, I made a bold decision to leave the corporate world and become a full-time seminary student. It meant living on campus for at least a year, without a stable income. It was a scary step. (The initial one year became three years).

    A year into seminary life, I opened the shoebox again. This time, I found that almost every prayer had been answered:

    I was learning to be godly feminine.

    I have learned to live in a community of believers.

    With no regular income, I learned to steward both time and money with discipline.

    My faith was growing. So was my courage.

    All except one; to find a life partner.

    But God wasn’t done. I met him in seminary. He was a fellow student, also following God’s call. We became friends, then more. Two years after I graduated, we got married. The final prayer in the shoebox was answered.

    Blessings Come After Obedience

    My journey reminded me of Abraham.

    In Genesis 12, God gave Abraham a command:
    “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.”
    (Genesis 12:1, NIV)

    God didn’t give Abraham a detailed plan. There was no map, no itinerary.

    But God let him know the blessings he would receive if he chose to obey God.
    “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you… and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”
    (Genesis 12:2–3)

    So, Abraham obeyed and he went.

    The blessings didn’t come before Abraham moved—they came after his obedience. That’s the pattern we see throughout Scripture. When we obey and take the step of faith, even when we can’t see the whole picture, God responds. He transforms us in the process.

    And so, I leave you with this simple reminder:
    that blessings come after obedience.
    Not instantly. Not always the way we imagined. But always, in God’s time and way.