Alright friends! We started our first Bible Study (LIVE).  I host it on Tuesdays at 7:00 CST on Balanced Chaos’ Facebook page.  We are reading the book, It’s Not Supposed to be This Way by Lysa TerKeurst.

If you haven’t already joined our group, please feel free to check it out!

I’ve decided to put my unedited notes onto the blog each week.  Again, keep in mind that what I am throwing up on here is completely unedited. Why? Well, there are a couple of reasons.  1: I want you to see how my brain is processing the book.  It isn’t always crisp and clean. 2: Life so busy. Between wedding planning, work, the house and life – it takes all I have to get on and write a blog post.  So this is my way of ensuring that you get to see notes, but understand they will certainly not be perfect!! 🙂

Last week we covered the introduction. Below are the notes:

What would happen in our lives if we really lived in the absolute assurance of God’s love in the midst of our disappointments?

• This is really hard. Luke and I sat down last night and really pondered this question.  Even answering it felt a little weird. Weird in the sense of, how sad is it that saying what that would LOOK like seems SO unattainable that it felt fake.  Does that make sense?
• I think it’s because we are such broken humans; we live in such a broken world that we are fighting against the idea of letting go of control every day. Every day I have an expectation of how I think my day should look. I go into the day, painting it however I need to in order to make it seem fitting that I have the “control”.

For example, on the way to Savannah this past weekend we were listening to a podcast by Steven Furtick.  The sermon was all about how the miracles/blessings that God gives us (big or small) are ours to manage. WOW. Talk about giving a control freak some material to work with!! BUT – there is a fine line between taking what we discern as a blessing and how to use it for his kingdom and taking an idea or desire we (Not God given) have for ourselves and making it our focus; even against the current.

I will challenge you to think about how different your life would look if you were SO rooted in the Lord that when reality didn’t line up with your expectations; when you were let down or upset, you still found yourself falling back on God and His promises; making the emotional blow very light. In other words, changing the way you react.  Changing the next steps you take directly after being disappointed and, more importantly, altering our expectations in advance so disappoints are less likely to occur.

One other idea to ponder:

How do we live a life that is joyful when we are so afraid of the NEXT unexpected hardship?

Hope some of that resonated with you! If you haven’t already, purchase the book It’s Not Supposed to be This Way by Lysa TerKeurst to catch up with the group.

See you Tuesday,

photo: Kelsey Wilson Photography