Living a Life Present + Ignited!
Living a Life Present + Ignited!
“I will be to her a wall of fire around her.”
Somehow along the way, I thought that being a wife, mom, and ministry leader were supposed to look pretty and perfect. So far in my 40 years of life, this is what I have seen conveyed. Through tears, vulnerability, and a whole lot of mud I finally started to see and believe what the Lord was speaking over me and my life. Through a lot of yielding and honestly getting out of my own way, I learned that daily intimacy, intentionality, and inspiration in the Word of God and with Jesus are the keys to pursuing a life ignited.
Why is living a life present and ignited important?
Living a life present and ignited is important because God created us for greatness!
Comparison is the thief of joy. Whether you know this truth or not, I hope that you can read that simple statement again and allow it to sink into your heart and mind. For years I would unknowingly and knowingly compare my marriage, my parenting, business, and/or ministry to those around me and how they were “doing it”. Living a life ignited started at the root of my identity. The comparison crept in because my identity in Christ was not firmly rooted. We are saved by grace, but then knowing who the Father calls you is something completely transformative.
One of the biggest lies I believed was that I was not called to motherhood. I can laugh now, but there were many nights when I would fall asleep crying because I did not think I was called to be a mother. You can imagine the impact this had on my kids and my marriage. A very deep lie had taken root and I knew that I needed to pull it out and replace it with God's truth.
Once I recognized that the Lord had called me to motherhood, not just to mother the children in our home, but also for others He would bring into my life along the way I started to live differently. Through the messy and hard, embracing the truth of who he says that I am as a mother changed the way that I see and speak about motherhood. It is in the daily intentional moments of intimacy with Jesus that give me the courage to live a life ignited.
I hope this has not been a part of your journey, but if it has I hope that as I continue to share with you, you will walk away encouraged and confident in who the Father has called you to be.
Living a life ignited is important for all of us to know fully who our Father is and what He says about us so that we can go into those spaces, places, and faces to reveal to them who our Father is.
What does living a life ignited look like?
Living is life present and ignited looks like being intimate, intentional, and inspired by Jesus every day.
The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks. - Luke 6:45
It starts and ends with Jesus! His truth is foundational to who we are and how we daily live our lives. Living a life present and ignited does not mean perfection and always pretty, but in the imperfections and our weaknesses, He is our strength. My family and I have pastored a house church in our home for the past two years and as a firefighter family, that means my husband has not always been able to be present every Sunday. I remember specific weekends when preparing the house, preparing my kid's hearts and let alone mine felt like a difficult undertaking, yet I quickly came to realize that it was in those times of physical and emotional weakness that my dependency on the Lord in and through me and my kids was greater. Those Sundays led us to lean deeper into and on our Heavenly Father for strength and direction. Through those moments I learned that living a life ignited was being drawn deeper into intimacy, intentionality, and inspiration in Jesus and His Word through the messy and the hard.
Over the past decade of learning to live a life present and ignited, I have come to embrace the messy, the hard, the fun, and everything in between because it has been a journey of recognizing that God created me for greatness and His word over me is greater than any other. Living a life present and ignited is being "switched on" to Him and how the Holy Spirit is speaking and leading you in the small and large moments throughout the day. Intimacy, intentionality, and inspiration with Jesus and His Word are vitally important to courageously walk a life present and ignited into the spaces, places, and faces around us.
