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A Surrendered Heart

A Surrendered Heart

October 21, 2015 by brianmichaelsteck Leave a Comment


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When it comes down to it, nothing else matters… no other decisions we can make, no hark work we can do, no truth we can say… it’s all for loss if we do not possess a surrendered heart.

And I believe that is what God is longing for from us. He created us with the purpose of enjoying us and us enjoying Him, but our pride, lack of trust and selfishness robbed us both of that end.

When you take a step back and look at your life, don’t make assessments primarily based on lifestyle — although, your life will bear the fruit of what is planted at the core — focus in on the heart.

Are you surrendered? Are you trusting? Are you willing to give up, let go, walk away and follow, all for the sake of the King that is calling you?

Our Heavenly Daddy is calling us to deeper surrender. He modeled it first when He surrendered Himself on the cross through Christ. Should our heart let go of the reigns, we will find the unending pleasure of fullness of intimacy with our eternal Lover who desires to lavish good gifts on us and lead us abundantly through the obstacles of life.

As a good friend often says, “God doesn’t want much, He just wants it all.”

Filed Under: Surrender Tagged With: Surrender, Trust

Camdyn Sleeping After Emergency

Abiding in the stillness: Lessons in dependency

April 15, 2015 by brianmichaelsteck Leave a Comment


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My mother-in-law burst into my office holding my year-and-a-half old daughter. Red in the face, lethargic and looking irritated, this precious little girl scratched at her stomach. “Something’s wrong!” exclaimed her grandmother. “She doesn’t look right and she just threw up.”

Moving deliberately, but calmly, I asked my one-on-one, who I was meeting with at the time, to excuse me. We walked back over to our home next door from the leadership school we staff. My wife was arriving home at the same time and explained that our daughter had tasted a few bites of pancake hours earlier, which contained egg — an ingredient our daughter is highly allergic to — so we made the decision to get our daughter to the emergency clinic.

I drove like a banshee to the nearest clinic, my worry and excitement growing as our little one vomited in the car, onto my wife who was holding our daughter. We raced into the clinic where they assessed that our little girl’s heartbeat and breathing were still in a safe place but that they couldn’t take our insurance, sending us across town to another clinic that would.

Her lethargy growing and our prayers and urgency swelling, we booked it for the next clinic where, thankfully, we were admitted almost immediately. Throwing up more as we were brought back into the triage center, we could tell our situation was distracting nurses from their work and concern across the room was growing.

As we disrobed our child, we could see her skin was bright red and she was very uncomfortable. Her vitals were taken and we waited an uncomfortable amount of time for the proper antihistamines and steroids to be administered to our little one. They told us that if the situation worsened, we’d need to call an ambulance and rush from the clinic to the emergency room.

Our nerves strained, we hung in the balance with our little child in our arms, doing our best to calm her and ourselves.

In moments like these, when it is almost impossible to “be still and know”, how do we find our “abiding current” — that deep wellspring of sustaining peace that resting in God provides?

We held our daughter tightly as the nurses delivered two shots at once. Screaming back at the trauma and pain of the situation, our daughter climbed into my arms and we spoke words of consolation to her. The skin irritation and pain soon diminished and, after monitoring her for an hour or so, we were released from the clinic.

In retrospect, I know that God is teaching me to draw from the peace that only He gives. I’m not saying that God made my little girl sick or any of that — we can leave matters of will to another day — what I am saying is that He is effectively using situations like these to whisper to me, “I am your peace”. In the midst of trial and turmoil around me, I have a decision to either join in the rush of the moment, or “be still and know that He is God” and I am man, and that is enough.

Can you give over control (especially in regards to the situations that you can’t do anything about anyway) and trust that He is enough for you?

What does it look like for you to trust him in the midst of life?

Filed Under: Surrender Tagged With: Abide, Dependency, Trust

Early Morning Fog at Jenny Lake of Grand Tetons

Move Forward Into The Unknown

July 17, 2014 by brianmichaelsteck Leave a Comment


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When faced with a decision, especially one requiring trust and sacrifice — looking forward into the unknown and leaving behind the security and comfort of the familiar — there is one primary concept at work that has been bubbling to the surface lately. That is, “If you’ve heard from the Lord, move forward into the unknown.”

We are such creatures of habit. We love the familiar. We trust the tried, true and tested and fear “new” and “different”. But if we are to believe that, as Christians, we’re not simply biding our time here on earth, awaiting a “chariot to carry us home”, but instead that God has invited us into an adventure of epic and eternal proportions — here, now, forever — then gripping the armchair of comfort is not choosing His best for us.

Do you believe that God wants to pull you out of the mundane? Can you dream with me for a second that “normal” is not God’s design for your few decades of earthly existence?

Stop. Listen closely. Be still. You can almost smell the aroma of heaven, inviting you into a story far greater than your wildest imaginations; a story of redemption, wholeness, victorious trials and intimate relationship with a king, creator and friend.

Your next decision beckons you homeward. Will you choose fear and security, or will you stand at the mountain’s edge and step off into the wild journey of faith? I pray you might move forward into the unknown.

Filed Under: The Kingdom Centered Mind Tagged With: Faith, Kingdom of God, Surrender, Trust

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