Life would be a lot easier for most of us if there were not so many ups and downs, sharp turns, and unexpected obstacles. You know how sweet that feeling is when you reach a great open stretch of interstate and you can set the cruise control and relax as the car speeds down the highway. It’s even sweeter when you have just passed through a construction area or several miles of backed up traffic for which there appeared to be no reason.

In our area it seems this summer has provided more than a few challenges for those behind the wheel. There has been so much road construction that sometimes my husband and I have wondered if we would at some point be unable to get to any of our usual destinations. Ramp closings, lane changes, construction zones, and detours have been the norm.

Life can be like that more often than we wish as well. You may feel as if you have just overcome one challenge when another pops up. There are some seasons that seem to be especially rough and it can be tempting to wonder if the Lord is paying attention to what’s going on down here.

Sometimes prayers seem to go unanswered.

Will we ever get to the other side of where we are now?

One place we can find great encouragement is to check out some of the other flawed human beings trying to journey through life that we see in the Bible.

One of my favorite Old Testament characters is Joseph. His early story as his daddy’s favorite gives us plenty of reasons not to envy anyone who seems to be a parent’s favorite child. Despite the great looking brightly colored coat his daddy gave him, it couldn’t protect him from his brothers when they grew weary of his special status and dreams of great success at their expense

His story gives a whole new meaning to the despair of being in a pit. And if that weren’t bad enough, getting sold into slavery and hauled off to Egypt would make you wonder if the pit would have been better.

But things start to look up when his new owner thinks he is tops and gives him more freedom than he could ever have expected. Being apart from his family isn’t his preference, but the master of the house where he works is making it a bit more bearable.

Just about the time Joseph thinks his life is settling down into his new routine, his master’s wife tries to seduce him. And when he rebuffs her and flees, she grabs his tunic and accuses him of assault. He had been the model servant and now on top of all he has endured, he gets pulled out of his job and thrown into prison. Things are grim for sure.

Somehow in the depths of the prison, the captain of the guard sees his leadership and puts him in charge. He’s in a dank, dark, moldy prison, but oversight of the other prisoners gives him a little better situation. He can’t help but wonder where God was and what all those grand dreams were about.

Joseph couldn’t imagine he had been so bad that he deserved this. What were his brothers thinking? Their dad was wealthy and they were all going to end up well off if the livestock herds grew and the crops were prosperous.

Prison life looks a bit more hopeful when two of Pharaoh’s servants get thrown into prison and each has a troubling dream. Joseph tells them God will reveal the meaning of the dream to him and both the cup bearer and the baker are eager to hear what he has to say.

Once he gives them the news, he asks them a favor. He wants them to tell Pharaoh about him when the interpretation he’s given comes true. Sounds like a glimpse of light to Joseph.

Sure enough the interpretation comes true three days later and one servant regains his position and the other gets hanged. What a relief for the cup bearer! He goes along watching every aspect of his position so he doesn’t land back in prison again, but he forgets about Joseph until Pharaoh is troubled by a dream. Then he remembers Joseph and tells Pharaoh. By now Joseph knew his request was forgotten so what a surprise when Pharaoh now sends for him.

He gets a new tunic, a good bath, and a fresh shave and off he goes to Pharaoh. That God-given gift of interpretation gets a chance to be used and suddenly Joseph is given great favor again.

You know how the story turns out. Joseph is used by God to save his entire family from destruction. More importantly, Joseph’s heart is changed and humbled so that God can entrust him with His purposes.

When our lives feel like we are in a construction zone on an interstate highway and we have nowhere to go, it might be good to remember Joseph and what his life revealed.

Felt or unfelt, seen or unseen, in sin or success, God is with us.

When we are children a question we are often asked is, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”  A logical mind would say that a child has no way of knowing a good answer for him or herself. Lived experience and lack of assessment of abilities and skill sets are absent in childhood, but perhaps childhood is the exact right time to ask that question because the answer comes from the child’s imagination.

Imagination is the stuff of dreams and provides the rich soil for hope and possibility.

Such imagination and dreams have brought about some of the most amazing inventions in the world, the most moving music we have ever heard, and the most fascinating books we journey through.

Perhaps some are downcast and without hope because they gave up dreaming and possibility. And absent these, they lost hope and belief in what could happen. It can be easy to settle for the ordinary then, to become what others are like, and do what others do.

Imagination and dreams once ignored or buried are hard to resurrect again absent God’s divine intervention.

Enemies of imagination and dreams are easy to list, but harder to defeat. Practicality lurks around many a corner and doubt sneaks in behind it. Inaccurate assessment of ourselves fueled by things others say to us is also on the list.

When imagination, a dream, or a vision is embryonic, it doesn’t take much to keep it from growing. Like any living thing − put it in darkness and restrict its nourishment − death can happen without much effort. Our fall in the Garden leaves its remnants in the fabric of every living thing.

But there is one major enemy on the list to thwart imagination and dreams:

“You can’t stop dreaming, just because you’re afraid the dream won’t come true…dream’s biggest enemy is being afraid.”

Lisa Wingate in The Summer Kitchen

Fear is creative (yet predictable) in its pursuit of us − all humankind. It is one of the best tools because it seldom misses its mark (at least at the outset). You see it in action in story after story from Genesis onward in the Bible. Adam and Eve sinned and knew it so they hid from God. Goliath showed up on the battlefield and the Israelites trembled and Saul was cowered. Peter believed he could walk on water if the Lord called him and he started out fine until he looked down and fear caught up with him.

Fear has a fistful of lies: we’re too old, we’re too young, or we’re not smart enough. Add to that lies such as “it’s been tried and failed before,” “how can you make a living trying that sort of thing,” “people will laugh at you.”

If you hear those things, you’re in pretty good company. Noah must have heard them when he started building an ark on dry land. David heard them when he believed he could take down Goliath with a sling. Magellan heard them when he believed the earth was round instead of flat. Orrville and Wilbur Wright heard them when they built a machine in their bicycle shop they believed could fly. A lanky, self-educated, homely man named Abraham Lincoln heard them when he ran for President of the United States.

We have limits and boundaries, but when we get lost in them we think we are stuck there.

Helen Keller once said, “The most pathetic person in the world is someone who has sight, but has no vision.”

Perhaps that is why movies born of imagination capture us time and time again. Books and music do as well. It’s little wonder we cheer for the smallest of creatures − the hobbits − in The Lord of the Rings, even though they don’t have the bow skill of Legolas Greenleaf or the ax skills of dwarves like Gimli.

You see, faith is fueled by believing the unseen, imagination, possibility, and dreaming of what can be. I think Jesus knew that when He called a little child to Him in Matthew 18:3 (TPT):

“Learn this well: Unless you dramatically change your way of thinking and become teachable, and learn about heaven’s kingdom realm with the wide-eyed wonder of a child, you will never be able to enter in.”

Do you have a dream? Do you imagine something you haven’t risked even saying out loud to anyone?

If so, then move toward it. Learn skills you need to attain it and keep moving unless the Lord halts you − the Lord…not fear. The Kingdom is waiting for the dream and imagination God placed in you to take shape. Look to Him. Silence the fear and doubt that come from the enemy.

“The soul without imagination is what an observatory would be without a telescope.”

Henry Ward Beecher

Some things get passed down from generation to generation and it can be hard for some to determine if they are taught or caught in the process. In every culture and season there is a search for fulfillment whether that is the word used for it or not. Fulfillment tends to be defined as “the achievement of something desired, promised or predicted.” What that means for each person in a culture and generation may vary but it is a common thread from the beginning of humankind.

Most times we learn from those older than we are the things we can choose to do to gain what we see as fulfillment because we are told not to expect that it just happens serendipitously except perhaps in very very rare cases.

That taught us something was required of us to gain the fulfillment we sought.

That meant that if we didn’t want to work in the fast-food industry for the whole of our adult lives, we would need to gain some skill sets and work to move into something different, better, or more. Our daughter’s first job beyond babysitting was working at a root beer stand nearby for $1.10 per hour plus tips (not large as you might guess). She knew that was not the end goal for her and when she worked all different hours in retail stores at a large mall, she knew that wasn’t her choice as well. She might not have been sure of what she ultimately wanted to do, but by the time she was well into high school she knew what she didn’t want to do. The same was true of our son who worked a variety of jobs through high school and college including working for his dad in a local home center job where one of his assignments was cleaning the restrooms.

No question that each had other dreams and their early jobs required them to do things they did not enjoy gaining work experience as well as money to pay for their first car, gas to fill it, and other non-essentials we provided.

That was not dissimilar to my husband and I as well as the parents we came from. And as we moved through adulthood, it became clear that not everything we hoped for was in that first sought-after job or position. They ALL required two things: work and sacrifice.

Neither of those two things were things that we delighted in, and we began to learn them before we entered the working world. If we wanted to be in a high school band and play first chair, it meant hours of practice. If we wanted to compete in sports, it meant hours of training in the early morning when we preferred to stay in bed or doing the later afternoon hours when it was hot, or we had homework to do.

Some of us hated those things like practicing and gave up those dreams of making the first chair, the lead in the musical, or the winning touchdown in the championship game. We were not a fan of the hours of work and sacrifice that it meant to go after those prized spots. For some of us, those habits continued beyond school, and we felt often that things weren’t fair, and we deserved more than we had and couldn’t understand why it just didn’t happen or wasn’t given to us for one reason or another.

But those qualities of needing to work and sacrifice can be seen thousands of years ago. If you read the Old Testament stories you discover a lot of them. One that leaps out to me is the story of Jacob who wanted a beautiful young woman named Rachel to be his wife. To get her, her father said he would need to work for him for seven years and so he did since she was so lovely the years seemed not so long. But at the end of the time, his future father-in-law tricked him and gave him Rachel’s sister and when he confronted him about it, his father-in-law said he could have Rachel too but would need to work another seven years. Talk about work and sacrifice for the man who was known as a deceiver and had always gotten his way by cunning until this point in time.

But there is even a better example in scripture. Humankind messed up out of disobedience in the Garden of Eden at the very beginning and had no idea it would cost them so much as well as all who came after them. Separation from God was not at all what they expected it to be. But God wasn’t surprised at all and He had a plan to reunite humankind with Himself if they desired it. Jesus offered to do the work and make the sacrifice to make it happen and when He did so, some still wouldn’t believe it or accept what was then a gift.

And here we are in 2025, 1,995 years since Jesus did the perfect work and gave the greatest sacrifice and many still miss it because they want just a little more of the good life or they miss what cost it was to God to provide it. Some still look for fulfillment on the wide road that looks like it won’t require much along the way. The road is nicely paved, and the scenery is appealing compared to the narrow path through the mountains to follow Jesus. It makes it evident that we missed that work and sacrifice would be required of us always to gain fulfillment except in this one gift from God that cost Him everything to give.

Here and there you will see modern day examples of it, but it seems rarer than it may have been at one time. Sometimes you will find someone working two or three jobs to make a way for a child to have a chance at those sports or music groups even though those jobs are not great, and it means time away from family. Sometimes you will see a stranger leap into action to help someone in trouble, but far too often we see stories on the news of someone in trouble with bystanders only taking video on a phone because it might cost them too much to call for help or jump in.

Are we no longer modeling these essential requirements or have the goals ceased to seem worth it or be something someone else should just give us?

How well do you know the Third Person of the Trinity?

Margaret Feinberg’s latest book gives the reader examples of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament and expands understanding about his role beyond what many only know about from the events at Pentecost in the book of Acts in the New Testament. The subject is one that Margaret has been looking into since her parents were a part of the Jesus Movement in the 1970’s. Her goal was to discover the power and presence of the Spirit (the third part of the Trinity) in Israel’s history.

The book’s ten chapters leads the reader to look at this by defining nine areas where the Spirit functions beginning in Genesis up through Acts. Each chapter includes stories known to those who read and study scripture about how the Spirit manifested himself in that area then adds some of Margaret’s personal experiences which began in childhood when she read the Bible before going to bed to stave off nightmares that troubled her. 

This early exposure for Margaret resulted in wanting to discover why she sensed a gap between the lives she read about in the Bible and her own world.

“If the power of the Spirit opened blind eyes, animated frozen limbs, and roused corpses to life, then why wasn’t the Spirit doing these things today, where I could see them?” Margaret Feinberg

Margaret’s discoveries ultimately led her to write this book despite a keen awareness her vulnerability in sharing might result in misunderstanding given the varied views on the Holy Spirit. But after time and more than a little prayer, she opens her journey to the reader. She starts the reader on the path with these words:

“Each of the following nine chapters will help crystallize for you a characteristic of the Spirit of God and spotlight how ruach engages us in everyday life. The personal stories I’ll be sharing with you are a culmination of decades of living in search of the Spirit. To be honest, I’ve been hesitant to share some of them. Like you, I fear vulnerability and the sting of rejection. My relationship with God, like yours, is tender. There’s a real possibility that you will respond to some of these stories with disbelief or dismiss them as coincidence.”

For those of you unfamiliar with the word ruach, it’s a Hebrew word which means “Spirit” and can also mean “breath” and “wind.” Those meanings may be helpful to keep in mind as she writes and uses the Hebrew word in many of her stories.

Her first chapter describes her search and then comes the following nine characteristics she discovers:

• The Spirit Who Hovers
• The Spirit While We Sleep
• The Artisan Spirit
• The Spirit Who Wears Us Well
• The Spirit Who Speaks Through Us
• The Spirit Who Works in the Waiting
• The Spirit Who Wastes Nothing
• The Spirit Who Says “Go”
• The Spirit Who Heals Divides

You may find these topics interesting and well worth consideration of what she discovered. Since the final gift Jesus left his disciples before leaving the earth was the Spirit who would be with them, guide them, and advocate for them when He no longer walked the earth with them it’s significant to understand.

Reading about the lives of the disciples gives more than a little evidence of how this gift changed each of their lives and built the church today. This is the same Spirit that hovered over the earth when it was formless and empty, darkness everywhere. The Spirit of God hovered over the depth and life came forth. Would we not want to know that Spirit better than we may? 

Near the end of the book Margaret reminds us…

“One of the trademarks of the Spirit is building bridges, not barriers, and this restorative work of the Spirit is anchored in the character of God.”

I confess I have been a fan of Margaret Feinberg since I first heard her speak at a World Conference of the American Association of Christian Counselors. She was on the agenda to speak early one morning and after several days of many great speakers whose names you would recognize and workshops galore, I planned to sleep in that morning because I had never heard of this woman. But I woke up earlier than planned and felt convicted about skipping the session simply because I didn’t know the speaker and hurriedly dressed and went to hear her. She was in the midst of battling cancer and what she shared led me to buy several of her books. (I think I have all of them now.) 

Her impact continued on me when she offered a Writers’ Boot Camp in Colorado in 2015 that I chose to attend and led to my own growth as a writer and author including developing this website and blog.

The God You Need to Know is a book I encourage you to consider.

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How can waiting be a gift? 

Most of us are frustrated by it and think it just gets in the way of everything we want to do or want to receive. Few of us would say we are good at it and perhaps that is why we are perpetually faced with the opportunity to practice it. A study of history and scripture teaches us it has been common to humankind since the beginning of time. 

We wait for things we earnestly desire. We wait for things that concern us and for which we want answers. We wait for acknowledgement. We wait for provision and for healing. We wait for love and wait through loss. We wait for some of the most meaningful things in our lives and endure waiting for the mundane everyday things of our days like traffic lights, trains, flights, our cup of espresso, and more.

We wait for events like birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, Christmas, vacations, births, the end of a school year, retirement, and a long list of holidays no matter where we live in the world. We like to celebrate in the midst of ordinary days of waiting. Celebrations give us something to hope for as they usually involve things and people that mean a great deal to us.

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If we’re honest we especially have trouble waiting on God. That’s a common trait through the ages. Abraham and Sarah were promised a child by God but as time went on and age brought wrinkles and stooped shoulders to them, Sarah got tired of waiting and gave her handmaiden to her husband to have an heir and we all know how that worked out. We have been living with her choice to the present day because God did fulfill his promise of an heir by Sarah and each heir ultimately developed enmity with one another.

“It’s easy to get impatient, to lose hope. We don’t like to wait. We want God to work pronto, in the way we expect. But the Spirit of the Living God works through stages, carefully, and purposefully bringing about new life over time. When we begin to recognize that provision and grace and healing often come in stages, our hope will expand.” Margaret Feinberg

The Bible tells more than a few stories of people who couldn’t wait.

King Saul was told by the prophet Samuel to wait for him to arrive to give the offering he had said was to be done. Saul got tired of waiting and offered it anyway and despite his tall handsome good looks he lost his crown to a young shepherd boy named David.

What can be hard to hang onto is that waiting always has a purpose even though we may not see it. Waiting for a delayed flight can mean getting extra steps in by walking the concourses or avoiding a plane with poor maintenance records. Waiting for traffic can give you a chance to take some deep breaths and realize the delay might keep you from an accident you might experience if you were going at the rate you wanted to. But there can be even more significant reasons for waiting.

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Mary, Martha, and Lazarus had a special relationship with Jesus when He walked the earth. The friendship jumps out on the pages of scripture. When Lazarus becomes very ill, his sisters send for Jesus believing He can heal their brother. Their surprise and disappointment are understandable when He delays coming for 3 days. By then Lazarus is dead. How could that have any good purpose? But it did.

When Jesus arrives He learns Lazarus has already been buried and it would seem it’s too late as the mourners gather around Mary and Martha. But there was a larger purpose they would discover. Jesus goes to the tomb followed by the mourners and calls for Lazarus and miraculously he walks out to the entrance of the tomb wrapped in grave clothes. God performed a miracle that spoke more loudly than if Jesus had been there pronto and healed Lazarus before he died.

We will have waiting be a part of our lives as long as we live on this earth. Often we have no control over when it happens and we don’t always know why. What is true is that we have a choice about how we respond. Will we complain, blow up in anger, try to race ahead and add to the issue we think we already have or will we trust God has a purpose for us in the waiting even if it is simply to learn to trust Him a bit more with our times and seasons?

“Remember this: Just because you don’t see something happening doesn’t mean the Spirit isn’t working in the waiting.” Margaret Feinberg

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