When They “Should” All Over You

April 11, 2018April 11, 2018Leave a comment

typorama (26)

My husband and I have this saying that we stole from a former commercial fisherman named Jack*.

Jack used to say people will “should” all over you, if you let them.

As in, You “should” do this.

You “should” do that.

So when we feel the inward pull to do more than we want to, we say that “People are shoulding on us.”

And we’ve had to learn the hard way that people “should” on each other. We all do it. We place expectations on each other that we don’t realize are slowly suffocating the life out of the ones we love.

And so we’ve had to learn how to get very good at saying “No”, “No, thank you”, and “I’m sorry that’s not going to work for me”.

Because ultimately, it’s no one else’s job to guard our own hearts except our own.

God has tasked us with that responsibility.

Keep vigilant watch over your heart;
that’s where life starts.

Proverbs 4:23

(The Message)

God wasn’t kidding.

Everything that flows from your life starts with your heart

And nothing kills our hearts quite like “should”.

We can get so caught up in looking ahead that we forget to live in the now, the present of our lives.

We worry and fret that we aren’t doing enough and so we redouble our efforts to get more done.

To not only do more but to produce more.

And that is death to our hearts.

It is not up to us.

We are in God’s process of learning to listen to our hearts just as we listen for His.

And if His spirit is within us – it is Him who works in us BOTH to work but also to want to do good things.

But we have to pay attention.

It’s far to easy to drift into auto-pilot and just do what we believe is the “right-thing” rather than allow God’s spirit to direct our steps to do the “God-thing”.

And there is a huge chasm between the two.

We can be so busy doing the “right thing” that we miss out on God’s “best thing”.

For it is [not your strength, but it is] ^[a]God who is effectively at work in you, both to will and to work [that is, strengthening, energizing, and creating in you the longing and the ability to fulfill your purpose] for His good pleasure.

Philippians 2:13

(The Amplified Bible)

So what if instead of tackling our to-do lists and striving to meet other people’s expectations of us, we stopped to ask ourselves what we WANT to do today and from there asking the Father what he thinks about that?

What would your day look like?

Would you have more peace?

Would you have more fun?

Because you were created to live in freedom. And the choice to give to others can only truly come from that place of freedom.

It was for this freedom that Christ set us free [completely liberating us]; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery [which you once removed].

Galatians 5:1

The Amplified

And so for the past 2 years, we have been learning as a church how to walk in a season of stewardship.

That means that God is giving us the freedom to choose to take care of ourselves and the things and people he has placed in our care.

As a mother, that means taking care of yourself so you have energy, time, and the mental clarity to love on your kids.

As someone in a ministry position, that means having interests outside of church so that you are recharged and able to face the demands and needs of others. This also means, being completely comfortable saying “no” to others. It was never your job to save them – only to point them to the One who can.

As a human being, that means saying “no” to the requests of others so that you have space and time to recharge and just be.

There are seasons and times when we slip into absolute apathy and God does challenge us to give more, but not this time. This is a season of stepping back and allowing God to do what He does best. This is a season of being present. Present with Him. This is a season that is all about lifting our eyes upward to connect with the Father and is less about reaching out to others, which is why there is such an opposition to it.

This is a strategic move of the enemy because:

“Should” will burn out all of our energy to seek God first.

“Should” will leave you wondering and striving and exhausted.

“Should” makes it very difficult to experience the presence of God.

So today, I challenge you to step away from all of the demands of others, whether they be spoken or unspoken. And to step into what the Father has for you. I promise you it’s worth it and full of more of His presence and grace than you or I could contain.

You can purchase Joyce’s latest book, Scattered, Finding God in Your Story at Amazon.com

Website media produced by Legacy

*Jack Frost was a commercial fisherman before God caught ahold of his heart. You can check out more of his resources at Shiloh Place Ministries

You Haven’t Failed.

May 24, 2017June 3, 20172 Comments

Sometimes life can make you feel like a loser.

It doesn’t always pan out the way we thought it would or should.

And it’s easy to look at the goals and dreams God has placed in your heart and wonder if you’ve screwed everything up through the wrong choices, trusting the wrong people, or by just not being, you know, enough.

But instead of asking if you’ve failed, ask yourself if you’ve grown in your relationships this past year.

Ask yourself if your trust in God has grown.

Ask yourself if you’ve made progress in becoming more of the son or daughter that God wants you to relax into.

Sometimes the toughest seasons are about letting down your guard and remembering that you and I are not God.

Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. Those who trust God’s action in them find that God’s Spirit is in them—living and breathing God!

The Message

Romans 8:5

As people, we measure success by tasks completed but God measures success by love increased.

Which can be really difficult to wrap our hearts around.

I went through an amazingly intense season several years ago.

God took me through about 9 months of teaching me about the gift of discernment.

And when God teaches me stuff, it’s not usually in a nice, college lecture type setting.

It’s always in a very life-in-the-trenches-so-you-can feel-this-and-have-some-tactile-experience sort of way.

Okay, yeah, it was pretty much like boot camp.

But He taught me that I was powerful.

And I watched as afterwards, my prayers moved mountains.

My words helped set people free.

I could change the atmosphere in a room, just by walking into it.

It was incredible.

I kinda felt like Bruce Almighty.

And then the seasons changed.

And God was no longer teaching me about His power in me.

He started whispering about my humanity.

The things I wanted.

The things I needed.

The things that irritated me.

The situations in my life that had brought me to my knees.

And I suddenly went from being the most powerful I had ever been in my life to feeling the weakest.

Driven into the proverbial wilderness of life.

To figure out with God, what was going on in the hidden places of my heart.

And this change of season has not been an easy one for me.

Time and time again, I’ve had to fight the thought that I’ve failed.

That somehow I’d fallen from grace and just royally screwed everything up that God was doing in me.

That He was throwing His hands up in air and you know, just done developing me.

Meanwhile, I plummeted from the mountaintop straight into the valley, to learn how to embrace the divine while my feet still remained on Earth.

To add insult to injury, there’s quite a few people around me who are stepping into their destinies and God-given dreams this season.

And you know, I’m happy for them – sorta. 😉

So where am I going with this today?

I dunno, maybe just a reminder to you and me that God really, truly does know what He is doing.

And that you haven’t failed.

Whether you’re on the mountaintop, in the valley, or somewhere in between.

He is helping us to become more aware of His love for us and to heal us so that His love flows more freely out of us.

And while our eyes have been focused on task-based success, His eyes have always been on you and me.

Love you friend,

You can get Joyce’s book, Scattered, Finding God in Your Story, here.

Scattered, Finding God in Your Story

Joyce Ackermann

As featured on. . .

January 18, 2017Leave a comment

Thank you to Brenda Anderson for featuring me on her blog. Please be sure to check it out at http://brendaandersonbooks.com/2017/01/16/spotlight-joyce-ackermann/

Or on Twitter @BrendaSAnders_n

Throwing Up With Words

October 31, 2016October 31, 20164 Comments

Scattered: Finding God In Your Story (Chapter 1)

Hey, I hope it was a great Monday for you today.

If not, hang in there – it’s almost over and tomorrow will be better. Remember, God’s mercies are new every morning.

God’s loyal love couldn’t have run out,
his merciful love couldn’t have dried up.
They’re created new every morning.
How great your faithfulness!

Lamentations 3:22-23 (The Message)

Right now, I’m bobbing my head like an idiot, listening to Andy Grammer, because you can’t not move, listening to Andy Grammar and I’m staring at the rain drizzling down the window at Starbucks and – – – oh my gosh, I forgot to tell you, Starbucks moved in like a mile from my house.

Ba-bam! There it is, proof that there is a God and he soooooo loves me! I am one happy girl slurping on my PSL (that’s a Pumpkin Spice Latte, for those of you not yet fluent in Starbucks speak).

At any rate, I thought I’d share an excerpt from Chapter 1 of my book, Scattered: Finding God In Your Story. I’ve had several people tell me recently that they have always wanted to write their story. Maybe you’re one of those people, harboring the dream of becoming a story-teller and sharing your life with the world. If so, then this is for you tonight. . .

Bleh

Throwing Up with Words

The thing about writing is – there really are no rules in the beginning, except one.

Just write.

The temptation is to overanalyze or criticize.

You’re not in it for anyone but you at this point.

The idea is to just get the raw emotion out.

It’s a lot like throwing up.

After my husband and I first got married, we went to a fondue restaurant.

It was awesome, except when it wasn’t.

Which was about an hour after we got home.

We both had gotten food poisoning.

For the next 24 hours we took turns tossing our cookies, – – er, fondue.

We would roll over and gently rub one another’s backs and say encouraging things like, “I’m sorry babe, it’ll be o – o –ohhhhhh no, Where’s the bucket?”

Romantic huh?

That’s kinda what I had in mind when I started writing.

Throwing up that is, not romance.

I had been poisoned by some things that had happened to me as a child and I just needed to get it out.

Hence, the figurative “Bleh” all over my laptop.

I would have Oscar-winning rants; all while sipping joe and jamming out to Goo Goo Dolls. It was messy, it was painful, and in the end – it was healing.

I would look up new words to express things like sad and mad. And later, I expanded my writing to include phrases that expressed deeper emotions . . . like – “really sad” and “really mad”.

And there was a beautiful clarity that began to form as I wrote. . . I was a hot mess.

When I started writing ten years ago, I was really emotionally damaged.

As in, I made train wrecks look good.

But I heard God speak to me. It was only one word at the time, “write”.

I think I responded dumbly with an “uh, okay.”

Really though, what are you supposed to say when God tells you something like that?

“No?”

And so began my journey of Bleh.

I cried and bled for the art of it all.

Facing painful memories and hoping for answers.

After a couple of years, it was there – my art of “Bleh” in black and white. And it looked something like a Van Gogh.

My life splashed on a typeset canvas.

Except no one liked me well enough to buy my art of “Bleh”, but on the other hand I didn’t hate it enough to cut off any body parts – you know, like an ear or something.

More years passed and I began to value what had been slowly happening to my life through something as simple as writing.

Old wounds that never seemed to heal were finally beginning to scar over.

I wasn’t as scared of letting my walls down and letting people in to see me in all of my vulnerability. My relationships with others began to heal, I began to value myself, and my perception of God took on new lenses.

So this is my story, and I hope that by the end of this journey, you’ll find that it’s okay to share yours.

Because your story is worth telling.

To help heal your own heart as much as lend courage to someone else, who may just be in the very place that you have once been.

……………………………………………….

(taken from Chapter 1 of Scattered: Finding God In Your Story by Joyce Ackermann)

Photo Credit: “Woman” by Unsplash permissions through C.C. by 2.0

Psssst. . . Don’t forget to come by the Anoka County Local Author Fair on November 5th, 2016 from 11 am – 2pm.