I have a friend who has had a migraine for five years. Moments of relief are few and far between. The pain became so debilitating that he even­tually had to resign from the church he was pastoring. He’s been to countless specialists. He’s tried a wide variety of treatment plans. Noth­ing seems to help much or for long.

I asked him how he’s managed the pain and the emotions that go with it. He said, “I’ve learned to kiss the wave.” I must have given him a quizzical look, so my friend explained. He was quoting Charles Spur­geon: “I have learned to kiss the wave that throws me against the Rock of Ages.”

It’s a powerful sentence all by itself, but the backstory makes it even more meaningful. Before I unpack the whole story, let me say some­thing point blank. Kissing the wave doesn’t mean we don’t experience storms or get seasick during them. The good news? There is a God who can rebuke the wind and the waves with these words: “Peace, be still.” But before you rebuke the storm, you need to accept it. You can’t move past the pain if you ignore it or hide it or deny it.

A few years ago, Lora and I found ourselves thrown against the Rock of Ages. Lora was diagnosed with breast cancer. If you’ve had cancer or have a loved one who has, you know that a thousand questions fire across your synapses. What stage is it? How do we treat it? What is the prognosis? Fortunately, we caught it early, and Lora is better than ever.

Can I brag on my wife? I don’t think I’ve ever been prouder of her. Lora kissed the wave. How? She participated in her own healing process by making some courageous changes. She became intentional about ev­erything she put in her body and in her mind. Along with changing our diet, we did our best to eliminate toxins in our environment. Yes, that includes people. Lora started practicing meditation more regularly. We even started frequenting comedy clubs. Why? Laughter “doeth good like a medicine.”

When you get cancer, denying the diagnosis does no good. If you don’t own it, it will own you. Kissing the wave is confessing what’s wrong—in this case, cancer. But it’s also professing what’s right—God’s healing power. Remember my miraculous healing from asthma? It began with a brave prayer. For Lora, the healing process began with a brave question she stumbled across while reading a poem about illness:

What have you come to teach me?

When we find ourselves in difficult situations, we get so focused on getting out of them that we fail to get anything out of them. Then we wonder why we find ourselves in the same situation all over again. There is nothing wrong with asking God to change your circumstances, but His primary objective is changing you. The circumstances you’re asking God to change may be the very circumstances He is using to change you.

In the words of John Piper, “Don’t waste your cancer.” You can fill in the blank with whatever challenge you face. Don’t waste it! Maybe it has come to teach you a lesson that could not be learned any other way! Kissing the wave starts with a brave question: What have you come to teach me?

You don’t need to sabotage yourself—that’s for sure. Suffering will find you soon enough. When it does, you must recognize that it has the power to enrich your life in a way that nothing else can. If you find yourself in a season of suffering, that is a difficult sentence to read. I acknowledge that, and I don’t stand in judgment over others, because I don’t stand in their shoes. I don’t pretend to know the trauma you’ve endured. I do know this: everyone is fighting a battle we know nothing about.

Lora and I have experienced our fair share of grief and pain and dis­appointment. I’m not sure where we rank on the bell curve, especially compared with those who have experienced injustice or aren’t sure where their next meals are coming from. Like our memories, suffering is subjective. We have some long-lasting regrets, like every parent I know. We have deep wells of sadness, like every person I know. We have walked through the valley of the shadow of death more than once, and we have the emotional scars to prove it. We’ve also seen God turn some of our toughest tests into our most treasured testimonies. We wouldn’t want to live those seasons all over again, but we wouldn’t trade them for anything in the world. Every testimony starts with test. Pass the test, and you get a testimony. {eoa}

Excerpted from Win the Day: 7 Daily Habits to Help You Stress Less & Accomplish More, copyright © 2020 by Mark Batterson. Used by permission of Multnomah, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC.

Mark Batterson is the lead pastor of National Community Church (NCC) in Washington, DC. And the New York Times bestselling author of 20 books, including the children’s book God Speaks in Whispers (co-written with his daughter Summer) and his latest, Win the Day: 7 Daily Habits to Help You Stress Less & Accomplish More.

To call pain a gift seems like an oxymoron, I know.

But without pain, we would repeatedly reinjure ourselves in the same ways. Without pain we would simply maintain the status quo. Without pain we would ignore problems that can kill us.

In fact, pain saved my life on July 23, 2000. I woke up that Sunday morning with intense pain in my abdomen, but I ignored it. I tried to preach a sermon that Sunday, but it became the only sermon I didn’t finish. Five minutes into it I was doubled over in pain.

I ended up in the emergency room at Washington Hospital Center, where an MRI revealed ruptured intestines. I was immediately wheeled into surgery, where I could have, and perhaps should have, died. And I certainly would have died if it weren’t for the intense pain I could not ignore.

I was on a respirator for two days, fighting for my life. I lost 25 pounds in seven days. Trust me, there are better ways to lose weight! And the net result is a foot-long scar that bisects my abdomen from top to bottom.

Sometimes the greatest joy follows the worst pain, as mothers of newborns can attest. Few people inflict more pain on themselves than athletes, but the pain is forgotten in the thrill of victory.

Would I want to experience another brush with death like that? Not on my life! But I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world. I don’t take a single day for granted. And the presence of God during those difficult days was as real as anything I’ve ever felt. It’s a presence that is felt and a voice that is heard most clearly during pain.

Remember Joseph in the Old Testament? He had zero emotional intelligence as a teenager, which isn’t entirely uncommon. But 13 years of suffering earned him a graduate degree in empathy. And it was one act of empathy—noticing a dejected look on the face of a fellow prisoner—that eventually led to saving two nations.

—Pain can be a professor of theology.

—Pain can be a marriage counselor.

—Pain can be a life coach.

Nothing gets our full attention like pain. It breaks down false idols and purifies false motives. It reveals where we need to heal and where we need to grow. It refocuses priorities like nothing else. And pain is part and parcel of God’s sanctification process in our lives. {eoa}

Mark Batterson serves as lead pastor of National Community Church in Washington, D.C. NCC also owns and operates Ebenezers Coffeehouse, The Miracle Theatre and the DC Dream Center. Mark holds a doctor of ministry degree from Regent University and is the New York Times’ bestselling author of 17 books, including The Circle Maker, Chase the Lion and Whisper. Mark and his wife, Lora, have three children and live on Capitol Hill.

For the original article, visit .

What does it mean to speak to God—and to hear Him communicate back? This is a question that continues to be discussed and debated in religious and secular circles alike, especially in an era in which atheists and skeptics are increasingly vocal about their view that “listening to God” is problematic or, at the least, nonsensical.

Read Also: What’s the Meaning and History Behind the Lord’s Prayer?

Mark Batterson, pastor of National Community Church in Washington, D.C., and author of Whisper: How to Hear the Voice of God, recently explained this dynamic during an appearance on ‘s “Pure Talk,” revealing how he believes God communicates with humans.

“There is a God who speaks, and the truth is He’s speaking all the time … but I think God most often speaks in a whisper,” Batterson said. “1 Kings 19 calls it ‘that still, small voice’ and I have a theory. My theory is this: Yes, God has an outside voice—He can make it thunder. But He usually speaks in a whisper.”

The preacher said that God wants people to be close to Him and to “hear His heart as well as His voice”—and that God is big enough to speak to each and every person. The ways in which the Lord speaks might vary, with Batterson arguing that “each one of us can hear Him uniquely.”

“He has revealed himself through the pages of Scripture,” Batterson said. “He also speaks through desires, and doors, and dreams, and people and promptings—and through pain.”

Read Also: 5 Encouraging Morning Prayers to Begin Your Day

Critics question how this process of speaking with God works, and believers, too, often have many questions about how it plays out. Batterson said that learning to hear God’s voice is like “learning a language.” It’s a process that takes effort, devotion—and time.

“It’s going to take time to really discern that voice that speaks through desire, the voice that opens and closes doors, the voice that speaks through dreams,” he said. “If we don’t listen to everything that the spirit of God has to say, eventually we won’t hear anything.”

Batterson’s point was that it’s essential to listen to everything the Lord says, including the “convicting voice” that seeks to correct people’s hearts and minds. He added that it is in people’s pain, too, that God sometimes speaks.

“Sometimes, it’s in our pain that we discover a God who comforts, a God who gets us through those difficult times,” Batterson said. “When you open your Bible, God opens his mouth. What’s unique about the Bible is we don’t just read it, it reads us.”

Read Also: 5 Healing Prayers for Forgiveness

The preacher emphasized the importance of opening the Bible regularly as an effort to better understand how to communicate with God. Duck Dynasty star Missy Robertson agreed, explaining the importance of routinely reading scripture.

“The more time we spend in the Word, we understand our God even more and how He works,” she said.

—

This article was originally published on Pure Flix Insider. Visit Pure Flix for access to thousands of faith and family friendly movies and TV shows. You can get a free, one-month trial here.

I want to be famous in my home.

Showing my kids what it means to love God with all my heart, soul, mind and strength is my deepest desire. It’s also the greatest challenge of my life.

Parenting three children is far more important and far more difficult than pastoring several thousand people. Just the other day, I said to my wife, “I feel like we’ll finally figure out this parenting thing right when our kids leave home.”

The truth is, we’ll never figure it out because children are like moving targets. Right when we feel like we have them pegged, they become toddlers or teenagers or 20-somethings and we’re back to square one. All we can do as parents is learn a few lessons along the way and enjoy the journey. Before I share some of the lessons I’ve learned, let me give you some bad news, some good news, and some great news.

The Bad News First

You’ll make lots of mistakes. You’ll lose your patience. You’ll lose your temper. You might even lose your mind. But here’s the good news: Your worst mistakes double as your greatest opportunities. How else will your kids learn to say sorry if you don’t model it for them, to them?

Your mistakes give you the opportunity to teach your kids one of the most important lessons they’ll ever learn: how to give and receive forgiveness. Finally, here’s the great news: Prayer covers a multitude of sins. You don’t have to do everything right, but there’s one thing you cannot afford to get wrong. That one thing is prayer. It’s your most powerful tool as a parent. In fact, it turns parents into prophets who shape the destinies of their children.

Just as each of you has a family genealogy, you also have a prayer genealogy. My grandfather, Elmer Johnson, died when I was 6 years old, but his prayers did not. Prayers never die. They live on in the lives of those who are prayed for. Some of the most powerful moments in my life have been those moments when the Holy Spirit has whispered to my spirit: Mark, the prayers of your grandfather are being answered in your life right now. My grandpa used to kneel by his bed at night and pray for his family. He’d take off his hearing aid, so he couldn’t hear himself, but everyone else in the house could. Few things are more powerful than hearing someone intercede for you. It’ll leave a lasting imprint on your life.

How to Pray for Your Children

I realize that not everyone inherited a prayer legacy from their parents or grandparents like I did, but you can leave one for future generations. Are you ready to begin a new prayer genealogy? Here are five ways to pray for your children.

1. Keep a prayer journal for your children. Praying for your children can start before they are even born. One of our staff pastors had a wonderful idea before the birth of his first child. He asked close friends and family members to write out a prayer for his son, Torin.

Those prayers were put into a journal that will be given to Torin when his dad feels like he’s ready to receive them. I can’t even imagine what Torin will feel when he reads those prayers that were prayed over him before he was even born, but I’m guessing his heart will be flooded with a sense of destiny. That journal is his prayer genealogy.

You may feel like it’s too late to start a journal because your child is too old, but it’s never too late! Though our children are school-aged, my wife, Lora, and I recently started writing out our prayers in a journal. We identified very specific desires, needs and dreams that are as unique as our three children. We also wrote down promises and passages from Scripture. And we now use that prayer list to pray consistently and strategically for our children.

2. Develop a prayer mantra for your children. You pray very different prayers for your children during different seasons of life. That’s natural and normal. But I also believe in the power of a single God-inspired prayer repeated throughout a child’s lifetime. Think of it as a prayer mantra. For the Batterson family, our prayer mantra is adapted from Luke 2:52. I have circled my children with this prayer blessing thousands of times: “May you grow in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and with man.” I’ve circled my kids with that prayer mantra so many times that it has become part of the conscious and subconscious of my children.

3. Pray through the Bible for your children. One of my most treasured possessions is a Bible that belonged to my Grandpa Johnson. I love seeing his notes in the margins. I love seeing what verses he underlined. Sometimes I’ll even do personal devotions out of his Bible.

I want to leave a similar legacy for my children. In fact, I want to give each of them a Bible that was prayed through specifically for them. I recently got my hands on a Bible inspired by theologian Jonathan Edwards. Edwards loved writing notes, so he hand-stitched blank pages into his Bible. In this particular Bible, every other page is blank, allowing me to craft prayers and record thoughts for my children. I’ll give each child his or her own personal copy before leaving for college.

For the record, no form of prayer is more powerful than praying through Scripture. You can pray with holy confidence because you’re praying the Word of God and the will of God. As you pray through the Bible, you will see the promises of God fulfilled in the lives of your children.

4. Form a prayer circle. Most of the parents I know need a support group from time to time. Parenting can be awfully hard and lonely. There are seasons where you feel like your prayers aren’t enough. That’s when you need a prayer circle. Something powerful happens when a group of parents start interceding for one another’s children. It can be the difference between winning and losing the battle. You need prayer partners who will hold you up in prayer, just like Aaron and Hur held up Moses’ arms during battle.

I recently prayed with a middle-aged couple that was estranged from their son for nearly a decade. They were heartbroken and had nearly given up hope, but we formed a prayer circle and asked God to do the impossible. A few months later, God brought restoration to that relationship. It will obviously take some time to heal and become whole, but that family circle was completed by a prayer circle.

5. Turn your worries into prayers. Is there anything you worry about more than your kids? If there is, then your children obviously aren’t teenagers yet. Just wait! But the Bible tells you to turn your worries into prayers. So the more you worry, the more potential you have to pray.

Don’t worry about who your children are befriending. Pray about it. Don’t worry about who they are dating. Pray about it. Don’t worry about them making poor decisions. Pray about it. Don’t worry about their personality. Pray about it.

Circle the promise in Philippians 4:6-7. “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and supplication with gratitude, make your requests known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will protect your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” Then stand on it. {eoa}

Mark Batterson serves as lead pastor of National Community Church in Washington, D.C. Batterson holds two master’s degrees from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Chicago, Ill., and is the author of the best-selling books: In a Pit With a Lion on a Snowy Day and Chase the Lion: Stepping Confidently Into the Unknown. Mark is married with three children and resides on Capitol Hill in D.C.

For the original article, visit .

We live in a culture that idolizes success and demonizes failure.

But in God’s kingdom, the outcome isn’t the issue. Success isn’t winning or losing; it’s obeying. It’s honoring God whether you’re in the red or the black. It’s praising God whether you win the election or lose it. It’s giving God the glory whether you’re in the win column or the loss column.

I’ve never met anybody who doesn’t want to be successful, but very few people have actually defined success for themselves. So by default they buy into the culture’s definition of success instead of God’s definition. In God’s book success is spelled stewardship. It’s making the most of the time, talent and treasure God has given you. It’s doing the best you can with what you have, where you are.

Here’s my personal definition of success: when those who know you best respect you most. Success starts with those who are closest to you. At the end of the day, I want to be famous in my home. And by the way, it’s hard to be famous in your home if you’re never home. If you succeed at the wrong thing, you’ve failed.

If you fail at the right thing, you’ve succeeded.

A few years ago I was on vacation at Lake Anna, a hundred miles southwest of Washington, D.C. I walked into a little coffee shop and noticed a piece of wall art that said “Chase the Lion.” As it turns out, the owner was inspired to quit her job and pursue her dream of opening Not Just Mochas after reading my book In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day. I popped in every time I was in the area, but the shop closed down less than two years after it opened. Not only did I miss the caramel macchiato with a shot of cinnamon, but I also felt partially responsible.

However, in my eyes Linda didn’t fail. Her dream was going into business, and she did just that. Going out of business wasn’t part of the plan, but she is no less a lion chaser because the shop closed.

Just as courage is not the absence of fear, success is not the absence of failure. Failure is a necessary step in every dream journey. I’ve written books that have been disappointments, and I’ve started businesses that have gone belly up. But in each instance I’ve tried to learn the lessons those failures are trying to teach me. Then I’ve mustered the courage to try, try, and try again.

If you don’t try out, you’ll miss out. Then you’ll have to live the rest of your life wondering, What if? Don’t let the fear of failing keep you from trying.

Given our locale in Washington, D.C., I pastor a lot of professional politicians. Outside the beltway there is a great deal of skepticism toward politicians, and much of it is merited. But public service in the form of politics is a noble profession, even if every politician isn’t.

The way I see it, running for political office is chasing a 500-pound lion. I’ve met some politicians who have run and won, but I might admire those who have run and lost even more. They might not have won the popular vote, but they threw their hat into the ring.

God doesn’t always call us to win.

Sometimes He just calls us to try.

Either way, it’s obedience that glorifies God. {eoa}

Excerpted from Chase the Lion: If Your Dream Doesn’t Scare You, It’s Too Small. Copyright © 2016 by Mark Batterson. Published by Multnomah, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC.

Mark Batterson, the founder and lead pastor of National Community Church in Washington D.C., is the New York Times best-selling author of a dozen books, including In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day and Chase.

Why God calls us to complete consecration—right before He’s about to do something amazing

A band of brave souls became known as one-way missionaries a century ago. They bought tickets to the mission field without the return half. Instead of suitcases, they packed their few earthly belongings into coffins. As they sailed away, they waved goodbye to everyone they loved and all they knew, knowing they’d never return home.

A.W. Milne was one of those missionaries. He set sail for the New Hebrides in the South Pacific, aware that the headhunters there had martyred every missionary before him. Milne didn’t fear for his life because he had already died to himself. His coffin was packed.

For 35 years he lived among that tribe. When he died, they buried him in the middle of the village and inscribed this on his tombstone: “When he came there was no light. When he left there was no darkness.”

When did we start believing God wants to send us to safe places to do easy things? That playing it safe is safe? That radical is anything but normal? Jesus didn’t die to keep us safe. He died to make us dangerous. Faithfulness is not holding the fort. It’s storming the gates of hell. The will of God is not an insurance plan. It’s a daring plan. And the complete surrender of your life to the cause of Christ isn’t radical. It’s normal. It’s time to quit living as if the purpose of life is to arrive safely at death.

More than 100 years ago, a British revivalist issued a holy dare that would change a life, a city and a generation: “The world has yet to see what God will do with and for and through and in and by the man who is fully and wholly consecrated to Him.” The original hearer of that call to consecration was D.L. Moody. When those words hit his eardrums, they didn’t just fire across synapses and register in his auditory cortex. They shot straight to his soul. That call to consecration defined his life. It was Moody’s all in moment.

Moody left an indelible imprint on his generation. In 1893, his sermons were literally front-page news. Every message was transcribed on the front page of the New York Times. More than a century later, his passion for the gospel continues to indirectly influence millions. Moody left an incredible legacy, but it all started with a call to consecration.

Likewise, you are one decision away from a totally different life. It might be the toughest decision you ever make, but if you have the courage to completely surrender yourself to the lordship of Jesus Christ, there’s no telling what God will do. 

When God is about to do something amazing in our lives, He calls us to consecrate ourselves to Him. That pattern was set right before the Israelites conquered the Promised Land, when Joshua told the people, “Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do amazing things among you” (Josh. 3:5, NIV).

Here’s our problem: We try to do God’s job for Him. We want to do amazing things for God. That seems noble, but we’ve got it backward. God wants to do amazing things for us! That’s His job, not ours. Our job is consecration. And if we do our job, He’ll certainly do His.

Before I tell you what consecration is, let me tell you what it isn’t: It’s not going to church once a week. It’s not daily devotions. It’s not fasting during Lent. It’s not keeping the Ten Commandments. It’s not sharing your faith. It’s not giving God the tithe. It’s not repeating the sinner’s prayer. It’s not volunteering for a ministry. It’s not leading a small group. It’s not raising your hands in worship. It’s not going on a mission trip.

All of those are good things, but they aren’t consecration. It’s more than behavior modification. It’s more than conformity to a moral code. It’s more than doing good deeds. It’s something deeper, something truer.

The word consecration means “to be set apart.” By definition, it demands full devotion. It’s dethroning yourself and enthroning Jesus. It’s the complete divestiture of all self-interest. It’s giving God veto power. It’s surrendering all of you to all of Him. It’s a simple recognition that every second of time and every penny of money is a gift from God and for God. Consecration is an ever-deepening love for Jesus, a childlike trust in the heavenly Father and blind obedience to the Holy Spirit. Consecration is all that and a thousand things more. But for the sake of simplicity, let me give you my personal definition of it: Consecration is going all in and all out for the All in All.

Mark Batterson serves as lead pastor of National Community Church in Washington, D.C. He is the author of the best-selling books The Circle Maker and In a Pit With a Lion on a Snowy Day. His latest book, All In, releases next month.