by Joey | Jun 12, 2018 | Devotional Series
Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, constant in prayer.
Romans 12:12
Be joyful in hope. That phrase has been on a loop in my head since 2015. Daily, I hear it. Sometimes it feels like a comforting reminder, others like a cruel taunt. Joyful in hope. What does that even mean? They’re nice words to say, sure. But how on earth do I even do that, really? Be joyful in hope? I guess first I have to understand what it means.
Joyful. Joyfulness: A condition of supreme well-being and good spirits. Hope. A feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen.
Well, that’s the epitome of prayer, isn’t it? Faith and trust that God will provide what it is that we so desire deep down? I heard someone say once that we’re supposed to pray like an expectant mother waiting for her baby. It’s already been planted, and now we wait. It will come in due time. Be patient.
Jonathan and I went to Charleston this past February. Our first real vacation since the summer of 2016. We planned it at the end of December, and each day I’d sit at my desk and dream happily about walking down King Street, the sun beating down on my shoulders. I could see it. I could feel it. And it brought me joy. I knew the day was coming. Soon, we’d pack up our belongings, put them in the trunk of the car, and drive the 3 hours South. And in the meantime, I could be joyful in that expectation. It was coming.
Hope. Expectation. It’s hard to have hope and be doubtful at the same time. Or rather, it’s hard to be doubtful and have hope at the same time. Raise your hand if you’ve been living in a state of doubt lately? I know I have been. I’ve been doubting all over the place, and then I wonder why I feel like a disappointment. To myself. To the people who believe in me. And worst of all, to God. A disappointment. Doubt is a cancer. It seems deep into your soul and destroys your life from the inside out.
The cure? Joyfulness and hope. Joyfulness is different than happiness. Joyful is a condition, a state of your heart, a perspective and outlook. Happiness is temporary. Fleeting. An emotion. You can have Joyfulness without happiness.
I have a funny story about how I came across that piece of scripture. It’s an important piece of scripture to me. In fact, I’d go so far to say it’s my scripture. It hangs over the bed in our master bedroom; the words bleeding into my heart every single day.
You all know the story of when football made a dramatic exit from our lives at the end of 2014. I’ve told you before that inexplicably, I turned to God, knowing I couldn’t face what was coming on my own. I say inexplicably because I did not have a solid relationship with Christ at that time. I was a sometimes Sunday Christian at best. Well, in an attempt to seek comfort, I turned to the internet, searching for scripture to ease the fear in my heart. This piece of scripture was the first result, and it immediately spoke right to my heart, lifting the weight of the fear and clearing the fog of the anxiety. And then I saw it, Romans 12:12. Of course, I laughed to myself.
You see, my family has a special connection to the number 12. My grandfather died on the 12th of December, long before I was born. And I realize it’s a weird thing we do, but we hold that number sacred, finding extra blessings in all things twelve. Twelves pop up in all meaningful things, like a gentle little wink from above.
So it’s only fitting that the scripture that runs through my veins daily, commanding me to be joyful in hope would reveal a 12. Because of course it does. And that, my friends, is hope.
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 | 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
