by Joey | Jun 5, 2018 | Devotional Series
Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.
Proverbs 3:5-6
The other night, I was chatting with a friend who finally accepted a position after a long search for the next step in her career. Excitement buzzed through the phone waves as we gleefully celebrated.
I’m just so happy for you. I know this process has been…well, laborious. I said.
You know, she replied, I just chalk it up to a God thing. After all the other interviews for all the jobs that didn’t pan out, something always just didn’t feel right. I would be concerned about one thing or another. But this one, it just felt like the right fit all around. And it’s just good to know that when I’d be crying after once again not receiving the job I’d hoped for that God was over there like ‘Just you wait, I’ve got the perfect thing on its way to you.'”
Having big faith and trust in God is down right near impossible sometimes. But I’ve found it’s most difficult in the season of waiting and intense hope. We’re in a season of waiting at the moment. And when my friend asked how things were going, I answered candidly.
I know it’s coming, the upswing. It always does. I’ve seen God show up time and time again in his perfect timing that it’s just comforting to know none of this is really in my hands at all. He’s never let us down before, so why waste the energy worrying?
The truth is, nothing is really up to us. And while that can be a terrifying thought for someone without faith, it can also serve as the ultimate relief. I look back over our lives, to every other rock bottom, and I can see God show up in ways I couldn’t have planned for.
When we were first married, Jonathan was finishing his master’s degree at UGA. The last requirement for his graduation was an internship. After several rounds of interviews, we packed the car and traveled the 10 hours south to Tampa for one last round. We spent our days touring apartments, picking our next home. I visualized living just down the road from my sister and her three kids. I could see our lives there, clear as day.
When we returned, we put in our notice at our apartment in Athens, and then we waited for the call. T-10 days til moving day, the call came, and it wasn’t a good one. Left to scramble at the last minute, Jonathan ended up in contact with a school down in Charlotte. Now, I’ll be sure to tell you all one day about how, just six months earlier–totally unaware of the whole internship drama, we’d decided to put all our energy into somehow moving to Charlotte in the future. Neither of us had spent much time here (at all). But for some reason, we could both feel the tug on our hearts that said hey, Charlotte will be your home some day. But for now, when the internship opportunity popped up in Tampa, we both forgot all about it–deciding to go wherever the wind blew us.
Well, that school Jonathan found in Charlotte offered him an immediate opportunity. That job is the reason we moved to Charlotte. That job is the reason he ended up coaching at Campbell for two years. That job is the reason we had the best health insurance we’ve ever had when I was so terribly sick back in 2013. That job brought us home, twice.
We couldn’t see that job coming. We were so busy white knuckling the Tampa opportunity that we didn’t even have time to worry about anything else. And I truly believe that God sends us those decoys in our seasons of waiting on purpose–something to distract us, to put all our energy into, to keep us occupied while The Big Blessing is on its way to us.
I feel like seasons of waiting are all too common in our adult years. Waiting to find the right house. Waiting for the next career move. Waiting on the next payday. Waiting for those two pink lines. And as adults, we crave control. We’ve figured out the formula in life, too wise for our own good, we set plans into motion to force those things along. We exhaust ourselves trying to push our square peg into the unknown round hole, desperate to make something work.
But the greatest relief comes from knowing that God has a plan for us. And he’s known it all along. Every step, every misfire, every disappointment leads us right onto the path he’s intended for our lives. And while we so desperately crave control, often times we just end up prolonging the process. God is already working on that thing you’re worrying about. You just have to take your hands off the wheel.
The lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.
2 Peter 3:9
by Joey | May 15, 2018 | Devotional Series
And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith.
Matthew 21:22
I’ve always been a fairly optimistic person full of hope and faith. And I’ve always believed that things aren’t over until they’re good. But it wasn’t until the last few years that I started to see the above scripture play out in my life. It wasn’t for my lack of faith, but prayer really wasn’t a part of my daily life. It felt foreign and strange and uncomfortable.
There are people out there who are champion pray-ers. They know the exact words to say to make themselves sound worthy of an answer. And that wasn’t ever me. If you’ve been following my Youtube channel or Facebook page, you know I’m not so good with the speaking thing. (What can I say, I’m better behind a keyboard.) But something a friend said to me back in high school stuck with me all these years.
Talk to the big guy like he’s one of your friends, one of your homies. It doesn’t matter what you say or how you say it, it’s just about communicating. I asked that friend then if I could pray through my journal, and he said of course. So I started doing just that little by little. But I’ve made it a much higher priority the last couple of years. Something about quitting my job and launching a company forced my faith to take on a new level. I had to have confidence in something, and I needed to believe that God was on my side.
I’ve asked a lot of things of God the last few years. Big things. Little things. Insignificant things. And because I pray through journaling, I’m able to look back and see that God does indeed hear us. And he does answer in His own time.
My mom has a friend who keeps a prayer list on her fridge. She writes out their name and their need, and when the prayer is answered, she crosses them off the list. I found that so amusing as a child. But what an amazing visual representation of God’s power in our lives.
We’ve been going through some Big Things over here lately. The last 24+ months have been some of the hardest we’ve ever faced. But as I read back through my journal, I can see the prayers being answered one by one.
Life is hard. Really hard. And like a parent with his child, God wants to give us what we want and need. And I truly believe he delivers. I’ve seen it with my own two eyes.
So I challenge you today, if there’s something you need, write out the prayer. Ask for it. Hold on to that prayer. And keep faith. Someday, when you’re looking back, you’ll see that the prayer was answered somehow. It may not always get answered the way you initially hoped, but God hears us. And he wants good for us.
by Joey | May 8, 2018 | Devotional Series
Then the Lord said to Elijah, ‘Go east and hide in the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan. The Kerith brook will give you fresh water to drink and I’ve commanded ravens to bring you food there every day.’ So Elijah obeyed what the Lord said to do. He moved to the Kerith Ravine and lived there. The birds brought him food each morning and evening and he drank from the brook. But after a while, the brook dried up because there was no rain.
1 Kings 17:2-7
Has God ever made you a promise, you obeyed, and then suddenly everything he promised you seems to be disappearing? Yeah, been there. In fact, I’ve been there a few times. But my most intimate experience with the brook drying up happened back in December of 2014. But first, you need a little backstory.
You see, my husband and I had made a nice little life for ourselves in Charlotte, NC. We both had good jobs, we were living in a great house that we were considering buying, and Life Seemed Grand. But then, suddenly, everything changed with one phone call.
Football has always been A Big Deal in the Hodges house. Shortly after we said I Do, my husband was set to graduate from UGA with his Master’s in Sports Administration. But first, he needed an internship. When every plan we had in place fell through, his last-minute scramble resulted in an internship that would ultimately change the course our lives. We up and moved on a week’s notice from Athens, GA and we soon settled into our new home in Charlotte. Jonathan was working by day and volunteering as a positions coach for JCSU by night. A passion so deep he did it for free. For years.
But one fateful Tuesday afternoon in 2012, Jonathan got a call that would change our lives. The football coaching dream now a reality, we left our big life in Charlotte for a little NC town. Everything Seemed Perfect. The job supported us both. We were offered a darling little country house for next to nothing. And the school provided pretty much everything we ever needed.
Until that gloomy December morning in 2014 when the brook dried up. As it happens with football, my husband’s contract wasn’t renewed. Our whole lives depended on that job. Everything we had. Everything we needed. All of it. Just like that, gone.
I’ll tell you this, there isn’t a fear more real than losing everything. I’ve always been a believer, but it wasn’t ever in my nature to rely first on God. It just wasn’t. But when I opened the door that December morning to find my husband, eyes rimmed red, I knew I couldn’t get through that season of our lives on my own. So, I handed it over to God. A few weeks later, still thick in the unknown, I started to listen to the Rick Warren Daily Hope podcast. And the very first episode I listened to was all about the brook drying up.
You want to talk about the power of a timely message, there it was. As I walked around a campus that was no longer going to be my home, my safe haven, Rick Warren shared his insights.
God often dries up the brook in your life to keep you from depending on the brook instead of him, to move you to a better place, to prove he has not forgotten you.
Years later, looking back, I understand now. Our lives changed radically because of that loss. We moved. I went back to work full-time. We found our way back to church, God now at the center of our lives. If it weren’t for that loss, I can’t be certain I would have ever started my own company. If it weren’t for that loss, I can’t be sure we’d have the lives we have now.
It doesn’t take the sting of the pain out of the moment, but the brook drying up was ultimately the best thing that could have ever happened to us. It changed us. It changed our marriage. It changed our relationship with Christ.
It’s hard to hold onto hope when things feel hopeless. Trust me, I know. But I promise you that God is using the things that are causing you so much pain right now to move you, to change you, to build a path to a better life.
by Joey | Feb 23, 2017 | Devotional Series
Okay, so you probably know that we moved recently. And if you want the general story behind it, you can watch this vlog. But what you might not know is that pretty much everything that could go wrong did go wrong.
From crazy unexpected fees to finding squatters living in our house, the whole thing was just one big mess. Now, you may know that I’ve been slowly reintroducing faith into my life. I think when you’re doing anything risky, having faith is pretty much the only way to find sanity.
Without hope and faith, I am nothing.
That being said, I’ve never actually read the Bible. It intimidated me, and quite frankly I was embarrassed of my lack of Bible knowledge. Those things stopped me time and time again. But it’d been on my heart for some time to actually start reading it. I’d been faithfully listening to Rick Warren’s Daily Hope podcast for months. And while that was something, I knew without getting into the Word, it wasn’t enough.
Then, crazily enough,I listened to Emily Maynard’s I Said Yes. And she said something that stuck with me.
I started reading the Bible regularly that day. Not books about the Bible, not devotions quoting Bible passages, not blogs about the Bible — but the actual Word of God.
So there it sat, this desire to dive into the Word. But I was embarrassed to ask for help, to admit that I’d never done it before, and that I didn’t know anything about it. I had no idea where to start. So I just let the desire hang in the air. I knew eventually it would become clear.
As things started to fall to pieces around me with the move, I went into action mode. For every disaster, there was a point of contact. And each time, I noticed that the representative who stepped in to solve the issue was named Matthew. Not Matt. Matthew. This didn’t happen once or twice. It literally happened for every single disaster that needed solving.
Later, on a call with my mom, I shared my troubles and joked about all the Matthews. Then it hit me. Huh, I said to her. I wonder if that’s God’s way of telling me that I should start reading the Bible with the book of Matthew.
I left it alone. In the days that followed, I started to have downloading issues with the Daily Hope podcast. Frustrated, I just skipped that part of my day. It didn’t take long for me to notice a significant difference in how my day went though without putting God first. So the next morning, I opened my Bible to Matthew, and I started to read.
Now, those of you who are familiar with the Word of God, you know that Matthew is the start of the new testament, the birth of Jesus Christ.
Sadly, I did not know this. I was completely unaware of what I would find in the pages of Matthew. But unsurprisingly, I found the exact answers I was looking for.
As I dive into this journey, I’d like to share with you how I’m seeing God show up in my life. We all have our struggles, and God shows up differently for each of us. But sometimes we could all use the reminder that He is there, He hears us, and He only wants good for us.
Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks the door will be opened.
Matthew 7: 7-8
