Category: one word

Motivate: To Inspire a Response

. . . just say the word . . .
(Matthew 8:8 NIV)


What motivates me, most likely, is different than what motivates you. When I am weary, I need to take a nap in the middle of the day. When I feel depleted of ideas, I need to go and play in my art room. When I feel bored with my quiet time, I need to seek God’s presence with creativity and variety. 

Another thing that energizes me is definitions! If I’m experiencing  a dry time with God, I ask for a word. Just one word to keep me moving towards God. Sometimes the word brings much joy, like desire, my One Word for the year. Or they can be convicting, like today, while I was reading Jesus Calling: 

“To live in My Presence consistently, you must expose and expel your rebellious tendencies.”

Ouch! And further into the reading, God exposed and thankfully helped me to expel some resentment. God brings these words to mind for my well-being and wholeness, and for that I am ever grateful.


In 30 Ways Wake up Your Quiet Time, Pam Farrel shares some clever ways to use a slogan or catchy phrase to jolt your quiet time:

We’re a T-shirt society. Give us a slogan, cause or  catchy saying and we’ll wear it on our back. I listen to sermons frequently. Yet only a few stick out in my mind. One was a series Jill Briscoe did for leaders. Every day in every message Jill would use the Nike commercial slogan and say, Just Do It! 

Now in ministry when I am so exhausted…I feel I can’t go on, I hear a gentle reminder, Just do it…On those days I don’t feel like having my quiet time I hear Just do it!

Pam made her own T-shirt to illustrate a talk she gave on perseverance:

On the front it has a cross. On the back: He went the distance for me, I can live this moment for him! I know that perseverance is a complex subject. There are hundreds of verses on the topic, but when I am dead tired what keeps me motivated is that saying, that word picture of all Jesus did on the cross for me. 

She invites us to create our own slogan to inspire our devotion to God:

Try it! See if you can create an internal motivating saying for one of these spiritual disciplines: prayer, fasting, worship, Bible study or holiness. Think of how it might fit on a …T-shirt.

©Pam Farrel from 30 Ways to Wake Up Your Quiet Time (IVP). For more devotional books by Pam http://www.Love-wise.com



I would love to hear any great slogans you come up with! Share with us in the comments!

Posted on by kelrohlf 2

Ravel: To Become Entangled or Confused {Random Journal Day}


Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw offer everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us . . . (Hebrews 12:1 NIV)


This morning as I went to pull out a random journal, I intentionally found the one from the beginning of the year. I was on a quest to unravel my motive for my “One Word” that I chose eight months ago. My word is . . .



I wanted to choose “want,” but it seemed too grabby and selfish. So, I went with desire, which rolls off the tongue with ease and grandeur. Where has this one word taken me this year? Back to the heart of God over and over again. Why? Because my desires and His desires are not always in sync. I become confused and easily entangled by the desires clawing at me through every medium possible. My phone, the internet, magazines, TV shows and movies, songs on the radio. Books piled around my house beckoning me to read them. So many distractions and choices. 

Some of the choices and distractions are benign, and even good like spending time with friends. However to stay focused on the “race marked out for me,” I often have to say no to good things.

My work is to write words. God has made that clear to me several times. And I want to live a writing life. I love journals and discovery collage and sketching because all of these activities feed my created soul and fuel my writing endeavors.

My desire for writing words is to encourage others to discover their created self. To offer words to feed your soul and dare you to embark on your path and persevere in your race. 

May God unravel those places in your soul that need to breathe, to be expressed and to be scribed or scribbled down on some piece of paper. Your journaling technique is yours alone. I am just sharing mine so you can see that it is possible to explore, enjoy and embrace your created self!

For a treat to myself, I created a journal collaged with magazine pictures and white space for writing and sketching. This journal began during Advent 2012 and goes through the month of January 2013.

This entry was a 5 Minute Quick Write response to the doodling on the top of the page, which I titled, “raveled.” 

raveled instead of unraveled, tightly woven around a central image–a story inside a book, stacked on top of another book, unearthed treasure, waiting potential
knowledge tied up in packages unopened
I prefer raveled–untouched, kept together–if I read will I get tangled or untangled or mired into deeper questions of quest and conquest?
untouched emotions– a place to write freely of how I feel, of how untapped potential lies latent unafraid yet fearful of emerging or plunging or expunging or accusing or bruising my egotistical soul life–life untouched, unwanted, desired and unwanted at the same time
will I be too rough and uncomfortable
will I cause embarrassment or shame
unashamed  unfettered  unbelievable
the piles of unread, unheard, unseen aspects of my life hidden below sub par standard
guilt, risk, freedom–tight, constricted, raveled, woven
no thread to pull to wreck the image– a wrecked image, a ruined reputation-who the hell cares? I care. you care. he cares. she cares. we all care–but I want to live a carefree life!


A journal is a safe place to vent, a real place to reach into uncensored parts of ourselves. It is vulnerable to share these musings here, but I hope this glimpse into my raveled self, unravels in you a desire to find your own safe place to write and express what is inside you. Journaling, for me is a form of prayer, a dialogue between my created self and our Creator God.

What draws you to journaling?


Linking with Random Journal Day and OneWord365
Posted on by kelrohlf 9

Desire: Strong Intention or Aim

 
On the seventh day of Christmas my True Love gave to me,
seven synonyms for Desire.
 
 
Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. (James 1:17 NIV)


Choosing one word for the year to inform my path. Others came up with the idea and so I wanted to try it this year. Here’s a link that gives tips on how to choose your word. It will be interesting to see how one word informs a year full of living and choosing and believing and breathing God’s word.

Desire (v): to long or hope for.
Seven Synonyms: Crave, Hunger, Long,
Thirst, Want, Wish, Yearn



Desire. That’s my one word. It comes from the Latin, “de-” (from) plus “sider, sidus” (heavenly body). From those roots, I reach out to the Maker of the heavenly lights, rooting my desire in Him. Asking that my desires this year be imbued with His perfection and goodness, knowing full well that my human desires may be tainted by selfishness and pain.
 
Desire. Disguised want. I wanted to choose “want” for my focal word, but it didn’t look or sound as nice as desire. Want defined comes out a little more on the half empty side; it has various nuances like to be needy or destitute or to be in need of. Lack would be a good synonym.
 
Desire. Want. Lack. What do these words have in common? An outside source that fulfills. Invitation to live with less than, to embrace my own neediness, to confess my destitute state, these truths compel me to stay near the Shepherd, who is good and promises me that I shall not be in want.
 

Linking up with: One Word 365 Community

and

Only A Breath

 
 
 
Posted on by kelrohlf 6