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Wise Woman Wednesday Don’t Complicate It

/ Gina Haney / 3 Comments

I’m humbled, honored and right down giddy that scasefamily.com from Into the Foolishness of God agreed to guest post on A Relentless Surrender for the first Wise Woman Wednesday. While I haven’t been following her long; it’s clear she oozes gospel. It’s a great honor that she agreed to share her gift with us. I hope she ministers to your heart as she has mine.

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Don’t Complicate It

“There’s nothing hard about the Word of God. It’s so simple, you have to have somebody help you misunderstand it.” Andrew Wommack

I love this quote so much. We really do make it hard sometimes don’t we? The Bible tells us that the Word is near to us (Romans 10:8) and that it gives understanding to the simple (Psalm 119:130). God’s truth was never meant to be obscure, confusing or difficult. Of course we grow into it in different ways over time and don’t always understand everything. But His words to us are meant to be pressed into, tested, tried and proven. To those who don’t believe and who haven’t surrendered their life to Christ, they are foolishness. For believers, the Word is our weapon, our compass and our comfort.

But a true experience of the Word comes from a true study of the Word. So many Christians say they believe the Bible to be true, but never spend any real time in it. We are open and love to hear what others have to say about it. Walk into the Christian bookstore or visit one of the popular blogs of our day and prepare to be overwhelmed. Why is it easier to read someone else’s thoughts about God than go to God’s Word? We like to be entertained. We like bullet point lists. We like new and fresh ideas. All of those have their place, but they cannot take the place of the one true Word. If it isn’t pointing you back to Biblical truth and what God says, you’re just going in circles.

There was a time in history when people were told they couldn’t understand the Bible and they needed it interpreted for them. Martin Luther came along and we all know how that turned out, thankfully. But today we struggle with some of the same problems. We have the Word available to us in every form and language. We just live in a world that tells us it’s not enough. Surely there must be some new revelation or new ideas we can read about. Everything that was once non-negociable has become muddy and unclear. New versions of the truth are thought up and promoted to keep things ‘relevant’.

But God’s word doesn’t need revamping. The last thing we should be doing is dumbing-down God’s word to suit anyone. It never became irrelevant in the first place. Our enemy loves to make us question what God said and twist it around to suit his purposes. He loves to deceive us into creating our own version of truth. And he has succeeded in some ways, pulling us away from the Bible and convincing us it isn’t all that powerful. We have completely over-complicated the art of simply being alone with God.

The popular, edgy authors and bloggers tell us it’s cool to doubt and question. Uncertainty is the new humility. Whatever works best for you is best. Embrace your doubts. God doesn’t mind our questions and doubts, but He certainly doesn’t want us to bask in them and remain there! That’s why we have His Word! The greatest way to promote victorious living is to promote the Truth. The truth sets us free. When we look less and less to God’s word and more to man’s wisdom, that Biblical truth is obscured into a kind of universal mush. And that’s exactly why we don’t see the power that we should in our lives.

We already have the truth and we already know it:

“But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth. I do not write to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it and because no lie comes from the truth.” I John 2:20

So I would just say this – for every fancy book, blog or sermon – may we also give ourselves time to soak in the Word. Not what our favorite person says about it, but the actual, living Word of God. It isn’t boring, and it really isn’t complicated. It isn’t obsolete either. No one can say it better than God Himself.

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3:33

/ Gina Haney / Leave a comment

On the way home from a ministry conference in Tulsa, I listened to fidgety kids and Josh telling me about one of his sessions. He said that the minister who was teaching told of how he and his expecting wife spent a week working youth camp. In the middle of the night, 3:33 to be exact, his wife woke him up and told him she was losing the baby. On the way to the hospital the car was silent and they believed that they were about to experience the ugliest of here.

Back at camp they gathered to pray. They didn’t say, “we will pray for them in the morning.” or “everyone remember them in prayer.” They got out of bed; blurry-eyed and held hands as they burst into the presence of God on behalf of ther friends. The speakers question to his pupils was, “who here is at 3:33?”

And my question to you is: who do you know at 3:33? You? Your mom? Your grandpa? A friend? A stranger you found on social media?

I’ve had to do a lot of growing over the last few years. During my efforts to “Moses out” He met me at every handicap I informed Him I have, and some I didn’t realize I had. He began etching me into a better person for His calling.

One of those handicaps was/is prayer. I have to set alarms or I’m likely to make it through the day without talking personally, one on one with God.

“I’ll pray for you.” Was a line I was accustomed to saying. As you can imagine; God wasn’t ok with that. I threw Him all my excuses. “You know I can’t just kneel here in the middle of the mall and pray right?” “I can’t bow and drive.” “I’m shy.” “It’s uncomfortable.” “What if I make them uncomfortable?”

I learned that during prayer—actually lets make that life; the posture of your heart is a lot more important than the posture of your body.

I learned God don’t care much about our comfort either… Does He Paul?

Seems like the more my prayer life improves the more people God entrusts for me to pray for.

Today skimming Instagram; my heart ached as I read a short comment left on another bloggers post. A request for prayer. Our sister who we’ve never met was asking for prayer for her 10-year-old daughter who received a brain tumor diagnosis.

Just a few hours before that I was talking to a mentor whose sister has advanced pancreatic cancer.

Maybe life’s looking good for you right now, but you’d have to be blind not to see a 3:33 anywhere.

It’s not a resolution it’s a requisition. This isn’t something we purpose to do then get to let our ambitions fade. There’s ugency here. You may fail but you must get. back. up.

I’m noticing two different kinds of friends in the Bible.

Jesus told the man with palsy, whose friends literally tore the roof off the place to get him to Christ, because their faith was through the roof; that because of his friends’ faith, “take up your mat and walk.”

Oh Job’s friends? Sure, they felt sorry for him. They tore their cloths and sat silently for seven days with him. They were even more than happy to help him get to the bottom of the situation by suggesting all the ways he must have blew it, but in the end; Job was the one praying for them. Seems kinda backward doesn’t it.

My timers set for 3:33. My prayer list can feel overwhelmingly long, and that shows me just how big God really is.

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A True and Holy Love Story

/ Gina Haney / 6 Comments

Here we are in the midst of the Christmas season; which I have managed to make more about the mass of gift buying than about The Christ, but there is still time to fix and still grace to cover that-another post another day.

While we are talking gifts, I’d like to tell you about a gift I received over a decade ago but just realized a couple weeks ago. Jailyn and I were cleaning the kitchen. She was sweeping while I was wiping down countertops. Broom in hand she morphed into a singing sensation as we all do (let’s be honest here). To my surprise it wasn’t “Let it Go”. Today is was the Little Mermaids “Kiss the Girl”.

I joined in and we were belting it out way too loudly to be pretty. We got to the line where it says,

Yes you want her

Look at her, you know you do

It’s possible she wants you too

There’s just one way to ask her

It don’t take a word, not a single word

Go on and kiss the girl.

 (Flashback) 

I was 12, and my sister, cousins and I were playing basketball at a church down the street; where a bunch of kids would hang out and play. Out of the blue, without warning a boy from school came up and kissed me. There I stood in front of all my peers being kissed without warning  by someone I didn’t like. I felt so humiliated. I played it off until I got home.

I called my friends and told them about how embarrassed and grossed out I had been; only to be told I was being a prood. As if that wasn’t bad enough the next day I learned how fast 7th grade news travels.

That was just one of several times I felt invaded by a boy.

Standing there singing those words I had sang and heard MANY times before but this time was jarring. When headlines are saying the count of women coming forward is now 16 and they have nothing to gain and everything to lose?

That’s when I realized the gift I’d been given. I though of how many times we have laughed about how long it took Josh to get the nerve to just hold my hand. I remembered how respectful he had been; waiting for our first kiss, and I remembered the phone call after he had felt he’d crossed the line.

Josh gave me the gift of a true love story to share with my daughter. A bit of truth to counter the Disney lie with. We stopped sweeping and looked into each others eyes as I shared the testimony of true love. Holy and real romance.

A brave young man who lived a life against the grain and in opposition to everything the locker rooms, magazines, movies and hormones told him. A man who respected a girl who was accustomed to disrespect not because she was someone’s daughter or sister or future wife, but because he knew she was made in the image of God. She was Gods and not his.

So sure we can keep on believing those are harmless lyrics, and kids will be kids, but somewhere something’s going wrong when boys are thinking they have the right to girls and girls are thinking its a boy that will make them alright. Its all mixed up, jumbled up and backward.

I am a hopeless hopeful who believes we care and can change things.

I believe we aren’t ok with the schools or anyone else teaching our kindergarteners about homosexuality. I believe uncomfortable as it may be we would rather tell our children the truth then let them go on believing the lies. Because, we aren’t blind to the cost and we know its more than reputation on the line here—souls are at risk. They belong to God and we are our brothers keeper.

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