Seminary enrollment is down.

Burn-out is at an all time high.

We are at a 4-year documented crisis no one has been able to “fix.”

This video is not gloom and doom. It is addressing the actual problem, not the topical ones we spend alot of time online chatting about. That is the first way we help.

And if what I’m saying resonates with you, I encourage you to check THIS OUT.

Let’s talk about this, shall we?

Love, Lisa

ps: Some book updates coming soon, I promise! :)

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It’s not about the devastating Perez Hilton story, but I do talk about that for a minute.

It’s not about spiritual warfare, because my friend is a much better teacher on that subject.

I am here to bring a few minutes of clarity on a subject Christians need to be paying much closer attention to: how to address our pesky problem of not taking the darkness we dabble in seriously.

For the good,

Lisa

• Good friendship vs. Bad friendship (hint: you aren’t a bad friend if… / you don’t need a friend if….)

• Why every no isn’t a good boundary — it might just be a bad decision

• What taking care of your body and skin should feel like

I lov…

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AI is not the enemy. But it’s also not your Holy Spirit.

The core issue of AI isn’t really even what we might think.

I’ve been wrestling with how to talk about this, but I felt it deserved some clarity. For writers in many ways, AI has become the wild, Wild West out there.

I’ll save most of my personal take for the video :), but I believe AI to be the dumbest, highest functioning tool you’ll ever use. ^TM

It is so dumb it can’t read a room. But it’s so high functioning, it will organize that whole room for you in under 60 seconds. So you better know what you truly need it for in order to best use vs. abuse it.

In light of this, it might surprise you to know that I do use it. I know a lot of you do, too. There’s a difference between using a tool and losing yourself to one.

In this video, I’m walking through both sides: where AI can genuinely serve you, and where it starts to quietly reshape how you think, discern, and replace hearing from God if you’re not careful. I also tell you what I believe it’s all really about.

Five minutes. I hope you’ll watch.

When your kids are grown like mine, you don’t remember all the nights when they are little and do things like come to your bed afraid of the dark or whatever might be lurking in it.

But I do remember one night.

While the rest of the house slept, my baby girl’s presence in our room woke me up.

“Momma, I need you” she said through tears. “I saw something in a book that scared me and now I can’t forget it.”

My heart instantly lamented the ways innocent eyes see things they shouldn’t…the reality that this happens even in Jesus-loving homes where we do our best.

I followed her into her room and slipped my legs under her pink sheets next to her. Her tiny body was trembling.

I lay with her, for what seemed like hours, while she sobbed, counting on a woman who had nothing but praying to God for some kind of words to help.

Almost instantly, my mind began to flood with Scripture, and I began to speak it over her. Scripture after Scripture I spoke out loud, depositing truth deep into her soul.

I watched it happen: her body began to physically calm. Her sobs began to lessen, then finally stop altogether. Her breathing became shallow, relaxing her into sleep.

Remembering this, today, reminded me of how critical it is to speak the Word over my life, my families’ lives, and the world.

It holds so much more power than my typical methods of verbal processing, positivity and even, encouragement for those I love.

1. The Word is God (John 1) and God is perfection. So His words carry the element of perfection our limited ones can’t equal.

2. The Word is alive and active (Hebrews 4:12) where our words can encourage for a moment but don’t linger. This is why we often need to get constant advice and encouragement from people but the Bible holds constant transformational power.

3. A believer’s heart is meant to recognize truth and respond to it in a different way than even the most eloquent/wise human words. (I Cor. 2:14; John 16:13) When we hear the Word spoken, our heart agrees with it, even subconsciously.

4. At the name of Jesus, everything comes under submission. (Philippians 2:10) We make fear submit to God’s power when we speak the Word. This recalibrates us from the mental terrorism that is happening to us.

5. Speaking the Word is an act of worship and brings a soothing balm like none other. (Psalm 107:20; Proverbs 16:24; Col. 3:16) We are mind, body and spirit, and our bodies respond to the tangible act of the Word being spoken to our soul.

The most powerful way to combat tangible, body trembling fear is to speak the Word of God.

May we remember this privilege we have as people who love Jesus and use the powerful weapon He gave us to wage war on the fear that so easily comes in the night.

Friends, the clock is ticking. Thank you for sticking with me around here…

I have roughly 21 days left to write my next book.

In light of that, I’ve officially entered the only-when-I can-no-longer-stand-it phase of hair washing, with legs as white and ashy as you can possibly imagine. I see you, all of you who are bronzed and beautiful from the sun.

My s…

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I am not one for shock value nor clickbait (and I’m always a skeptic of anything that sounds like either). So I read this graphic, over and over, again to truly consider it.

Does the world mock dads?, I asked myself. And if so…does hell truly fear them?

It’s a hefty claim to make — good for reposts — but does it hold theological water?

After some thought, I had to say that I believe it does.

Here’s why:

1. Why does the world mock dads? Because, in short, the world does not know any other way. Mocking a father, such an important figure in society, seems outlandish (why would anyone do that?) and outrageous, but II Timothy 3 makes it clear that crass, rude, inappropriate and outrageous (all my paraphrase) behavior will characterize the type of world that will be in “the last days” — and it echoes the OT prophecy in Isaiah 5 (“woe to those who call evil good and good evil”) whereby society will have inverted values and moral decay.

   There is no more moral decay than to mock the intended strength and leadership of the family. Inverted values will have secular culture trying to undermine and break down what is meant to lift up.

   In reality, if we were all thinking godly, clearly and wisely (the opposite of what II Timothy 3 suggests) we would know that we all win when men are healthy and operating at their very best. But the world’s way of “helping men be better” appears to be calling them idiots, tagging them all as lust-driven dirty dogs, misogynistic, or deeming them completely unnecessary. This is classic counter production. Each gender has its bad representatives. But to broad stroke entire genders due to individual’s sin or even some collective bad behavior is simply wrong.

   It is also a perfect plan of satan to make us believe it is right. This is not for our good, as there is no scheme of the devil that seeks to help us but only to destroy us. His goal is to undermine the very strength we need in these dark and troubled times. Think about it. If he can take men out, he can make this world far more vulnerable. Those who don’t know Christ do not have the eyes to see this diabolical plan.

2. Does hell truly fear men and fathers? In light of what I just said, I think it’s clear.

   Should men and fathers rise to their intended roles and leadership in this world, it would be a force of good and protection like nothing we have ever seen.

   This is not machoism — it is spiritual headship of the purest kind. I’m not talking abuse, but in fact, it’s opposite. I’m not talking keeping women down, but in fact, that concept is in direct violation to God’s plan for men leading with strength vs. dominating with ego.

   I’m talking true and biblical leadership. Health in every way. Men being the men they were called to be, in a spiritual covering where they uphold the Word, support and uplift those God has entrusted to their care, and fight for them in every emotional, relational and spiritual sense.

   I do not believe we have seen the half of how God can and wants to use godly men in this world. It is true that many men are not yet who they need to be. And yet, I believe they have it in them to rise to this.

   This is why hell fears men and fathers — satan well knows the potential of this type of godly leadership and is doing everything in all the powers of hell to keep men bound by lust, insecurity, anger, fear, isolation, criticism, mockery, pride, and societal irrelevance. There is a war going on in and within both genders, and with men, it is to weaken what God always intended to use to be the strength and protection and covering in this world.

Now. Want some good news? I believe with all my heart that there is good news on this front.

• The rise in men coming to church and getting serious about their spiritual lives has for the first time in years outpaced women. (As of 2025, men outpace women in weekly church attendance — 43% for men versus 36% for women. That is the largest gender gap Barna has ever recorded. Barna, March 2026)

On a personal note, my husband and I have raised two men. I am a huge fan of my husband of 30 years, my father-in-law, and my own father, who went to heaven in 2017. All but one of these men are fathers, and 3 of them are grandfathers. None of them are perfect, but they have all served faithfully and lovingly and all have the legacy of their strong male leadership to show for it.

• I have watched many men like mine maneuver being a man and a dad in a society that increasingly does not celebrate them. I have seen them gain their strength from God and fight to not become cynical or feel irrelevant. These men are filling our churches, homes and cities.

With all transparency…as a strong, independent woman who has raised another strong, independent woman, I have had to do some work not to diminish the men that my men are — not because they have fragile egos, but because strength sometimes bumps up against strength in any relationship. And though they are my sons and my husband and fathers, they are ultimately my brothers in Christ and the other half of the imago dei God, so I want to honor them. But mostly, I want to honor God.

Likewise, I know that the men in our family have had to do some work within themselves to let us fly as women in our strength, without feeling overshadowed by it. This is simply the way we learn to responsibility live with one another as different genders who operate differently, honoring each other in strength, as we live to ultimately honor God. None of this should make us feel threatened or nervous to talk openly about.

And I grieve over the way I watch secular culture try to erase men from our world in its attempt to elevate women, a small and unnecessary method of creating relevance for an entire population of us who have the ability to know our worth outside of putting men down to do it. In fact, I find it a bit offensive. I’ve never needed someone to be made small in order for me to feel good.

I also not only refuse to do this, even in subtle ways, but I want to lead out in a better way. If someone doesn’t honor my gifts, so be it. That’s between them and God. But my biblical convictions about using my gifts to honor God, my strength and independence, my support and mentorship and leadership of women, does not live in conflict with me supporting men and fathers.

I would, in fact, be a fool to join the world in trying to diminish them.

So on this Father’s Day weekend, I am glad to say that I am a pro-man, pro-dad woman.

Does this make hell nervous? Without a doubt.

Let’s do it more.

Friends,

Full disclosure: It’s tough out there in the writing waters for me.

I’m knee deep in book writing still, so my posts here are a bit more infrequent than I’d like.

PS: I’d actually love to include you in the book process, after I get the first draft turned in, if that is something you are interested in! (I may be sending you a survey on this to see if you are, so stay tuned for that. Your participation is totally optional, of course.)

I learned some years ago that when it comes to prayer, God is not concerned with a particular word count. I’m so grateful for this because this is a season that I don’t have a lot of extra words.

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As a book coach, I’ve worked with some incredible talent.

Don’t tell anyone, but I’ve even let a few clients out of their contract before it was up.

Sometimes, I’ve been relieved. Because when they hire me, they aren’t getting AI. I will always encourage them (every project has potential!), but I won’t tell spit out a formula, tell them they are brilliant, and send them with a big head off to a wannabe agent who breaks their heart with the truth about something that needs work.

For some of them, this news proves difficult, and they never recover.

But a few times, it’s broken my heart. Because I knew they had it in them. I could tell they had the gift. I sensed the writer’s instinct, even if their ADHD was a true problem or their schedule was a nightmare or the initial book idea they came to me with was, indeed, a mess. (Kind of exactly what I’m here for. ;)

I could tell fairly quickly that all the good writing in the world wasn’t going to get their book across the finish line. Not because they weren’t a good writer but because they weren’t willing to put in the work.

• First came the excuses. Usually it was the schedule. Trust me, by now I’ve heard every single reason for not getting the work done under the sun and then some.

• Then came the apologies. They were always embarrassed to meet with me, taking the first 5 minutes of the call to apologize profusely for not getting more done, as if reporting to their strict school principal. I always reassured them that this was their book, their life, and there was grace, here. But it was always more of the same, every month.

• The nail in the coffin was always the cancellations. Despite our very clear policy of emergency-only cancellations, the slippery slope of can we reschedule? would inevitably begin. I knew it was only a matter of time before they would try to quit, altogether. I have rarely been wrong.

There were always signs beforehand. Self-doubt that kept coming up. Good intention to write this book that had lasted, sometimes for decades. The failed attempt, before. A packed schedule with no willingness to edit it for this massive undertaking called book writing, showing me they underestimated the undertaking altogether.

I always did my best to paint the very realistic picture of what would be required of them to give birth to this creative baby. And it seemed to always go unheard.

The biggest tell would inevitably be the last minute cramming of the “homework.” As a coach, I am the pace-setter for my client’s projects, keeping all personal publishing timeline goals in mind. But the client is the pace-keeper. Since we meet monthly, homework is a critical piece of that. It is also something I cannot do for my clients.

Therefore, the success of our pace rises and falls on their commitment to the pace they keep.

Because we work in Google Docs, I am able to see work when it’s done, via email notifications. I’ve grown used to the notices in a late hour of the night before coaching coming in, sometimes even the day of. Cramming the homework — especially as a pattern — has often been a sign that a client is on the way to quitting.

Make no mistake…I love my clients. I truly do. I have only ever been really relieved to graduate a couple of them. (I’ll never tell why or who. ;) And that came after we all completed the assignment of a book launch and were dually well satisfied.

I coach because I love helping people and paying forward what I have learned. So watching someone go without completion of a project is terribly unfulfilling to me.

But the truth is, I don’t want to coach someone who isn’t committed to their work. It wastes both of our time.

And what I teach my coaching clients is the same thing I’ve had to learn myself: your greatest work is most often on the other side of your hardest commitment. That’s not a motivational statement. It’s a pattern I’ve witnessed.

Writing a book is hard work. And it should be. It’s a brilliant, brutal and beautiful process. After writing 10 books and 5 Bible studies of my own, I bear witness to how much it has personally transformed me. Through (not around) the rigor of it.

The difference between someone who writes a book and someone who doesn’t isn’t talent. It’s a willingness to keep going.

It is simply a myth that the most talented people write books. Platform might be the reason you get a traditional book contract. An email list might be the reason you secure an agent for your book idea.

But the person who finally crosses the finish line of a book idea, whether it’s traditional publishing, partner publishing or publishing it on your own is the person who is willing to keep going despite the obstacles in front of them. All of these publishing options have those.

I’ve seen plenty of people with talent never write a book…due to excuses, poor time management, and an unwillingness to change. They try to fit it into an already packed schedule and then wonder why they are frustrated when they can’t get it done.

Don’t let that be you.

Instead…

Find the joy in the craft.

Make the time in your schedule, no matter what.

Calendar your writing times out and live and die by your calendar.

Don’t break appointments with yourself.

Take your calling seriously.

Don’t apologize for doing something people don’t see the fruit of yet.

For a lot of people with a dream, it’s not about a good idea or being the most talented writer…it’s about finally taking yourself seriously and moving the needle forward.

Quit making excuses for it, and get going.

PS: Sometimes I take new clients. Here’s where you can inquire about that. I’m also gathering a small group of traditionally published authors for something very special I’m starting in the fall. If that’s you, send an email to support@lisawhittle.com for more information!

I posted this picture on my Instagram yesterday with this caption, “built by whole body theology first.”

It’s true. Before I set foot in a gym, again, after a probably 20 year hiatus (no joke), God built me from the ground up — my heart, my mind, and soul, my spirit — with the biblical framework of whole body theology. It has profoundly and forever changed the way I see my whole self.

No more do I live for fat grams, jeans size or swimsuit season. I am free to love my entire personhood. I truly never thought I’d see the day.

It’s been over 2 years since God changed me while writing Body & Soul. I waited and let it completely soak into my bone and marrow, rebuild my mind like a brand new computer, before I ever considered looking into body topics like macros and getting into the gym, again. I simply had to make certain I gave everything its proper time so I would not go back to the yoke I have lived with before.

About 3 months ago, I knew it was time. I sensed the healing and strength. I felt assured by the Lord that I was in a place that my mind was set like flint on the truth of who I am, not what needs fixing. So I began to make plans.

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My kids are now 28, 25, and 23. Yesterday it was a Lego invasion all over my kitchen floor. Today I babysit my oldest son’s baby girl. Time is wild, and kid’s growing up truly does happen that fast.

When kids grow to be adults, you bear both the privilege and the angst of being that mom who can look back and see if what you believed about motherhood was true and what you did as a mom worked enough for you to give any advice about it.

(There are plenty of things I bombed as a mother, I can promise you that).

But one thing I have never regretted: having things of my own while my kids were growing up to learn, create, experience and grow in, that lived outside of my role as their mother.

It was a little clunky, at first. I wasn’t sure if I was ruining them. I well remember my daughter saying something to me that nearly broke my heart when she was in about the 3rd grade: I wish you were one of those non-worker moms so you could be my room mom.

I reconsidered my entire life for at least a day.

But then I remembered what the Lord had called me to. And I remembered an important rule of parenting: kids don’t have the wisdom yet to understand your why behind things, therefore, you can’t let them emotionally strong-arm you into decision-making. (This would prove to be an important truth for all of our parenting life, not just about this).

My why was always clear, and it wasn’t something I could yet explain to my 8-year old daughter.

• That she would be a better woman one day to witness a woman who put her relationship with Jesus, first. I was a wife and mother, but I was a child of God, most of all. Kids will feel most secure when they understand the world doesn’t actually revolve around them. Otherwise, they feel destabilized by their own fallibility. But you can’t explain that to a child who in that moment, just wants the world to center around them (a universal issue).

• That she would be a better woman one day after seeing a woman use her gifts and having it impress upon her young mind that God gifts and equips women to do a variety of work. This can and does co-exist with the most important work at home. All of my kids will tell you that I was their mom, first (and a quite traditional one, which isn’t a pre-requisite, of course — but I am the only one who ever cooked them a meal! ;). I cheered for all their ball games in the stands, missing only a very few for work. I made homemade corsages for dates for proms and was there for all the many field trips (not my thing…but THEY were!). But I also wrote books and traveled to speak. It was a juggle at times, but possible. One didn’t have to sacrifice for the other.

• That she would understand one day that moms who do not live every breath for their children will not raise children who feel the burden to pay back that favor when they get older. After raising 3 children to adulthood, I know this to be true: kids need to see their parents develop a life of their own outside of them, or they will feel it is up to them to help maintain their parent’s happiness (or they will resent them for it and shy away!) — a job that should never be theirs. Empty nesting comes quicker than we think, and developing hobbies and using our gifts along the way keeps us from putting all of our soul into our child(ren).

The truth is, my daughter didn’t yet understand that working didn’t keep me from being her room mom. I would have been a terrible room mom, no matter what. Work didn’t keep me from signing up. My personality, lack of giftedness in hospitality, and severe introversion did. But how do you explain that to an 8 year old extroverted kid who just wants her mom to do what Sarah’s mom does? In a 3rd grader’s mind, room mom is way cooler than speaker and author.

In life, we get to take on many beautiful roles. Sometimes, that role includes getting to be a mother — something I always dreamed to be.

I get to be a mom, but first and ultimately, I am God’s child. That lives outside of my roles. He created me with gifts and loves me outside of cooking dinner, washing clothes, folding laundry, running carpool, and yes, writing books and speaking, too.

Raising my kids to see me play, create, dream, build things, and love and nurture them all at the same time was a beautiful way to say to them: you are a whole person no matter what roles in life God may give you.

It’s something I believed then and believe even more now that my kids are grown and now believe it, too.

Hence this title for a post written by a veteran mom of 28 years like myself.

Even 28 years into it, I’m still not sure what a good mom is, and whoever she is, I’m positive I’m still learning how to be her.

I recently found an old blog post I wrote back in 2016 that brought me to my knees. I decided, today, that instead of writing something new, I should share it.

The irony is, my oldest son was a senior in high school in 2016. I wasn’t a “new mom” then, either. When I first read it, I thought for sure I’d written it when my first kid was a baby, or at least, my kids were younger. I was surprised to know it was written much later.

But then I thought, again, and it made perfect sense: when your kids get older, as hard as you try and as few regrets as you may have from along the way, the universal truth of motherhood is that you never really feel like you know how to be a good mom…or even a mom at all. You always feel like you’re just winging it.

No book, person, or amount of babysitting could ever truly prepare you for this.

So I thought I’d share with you my writing from 10 years ago — in case you ever feel like me — someone brand new to it or someone who has been doing this mom thing for 28 years and still doesn’t feel like she knows how to be any good at it but sure does love getting to try.

Much love to you on Mother’s Day this Sunday.

You’re a good mom.

Lisa

*******************

5.4.2016

I birth these little humans, and I don’t have a clue who they will be.

I imagine beauty and t-ball and laughs and real live dolls like the ones I used to hold and dress up when I was little, except they aren’t plastic and can’t be handled any old way.

But none of them are as expected.

They are better and harder and more and here and what will I do with them now, I think to myself, as I hold them and fall in love.

They can’t tell me and I know it is so: that I will have to try to figure this mothering thing out with buckets of God’s help and something inside I am counting on being there that people call intuition.

I am scared. But I am in love, and that is stronger.

I struggle…through sleepless nights and cries I can’t figure out and mistakes I make before I realize it and that accusatory part of my brain that tells me stuff I do wrong by the second.

And I pray. A lot. Especially during rocking moments in the middle of the night when I smell their heads and can’t keep my eyes open because it’s a time I used to be sleeping.

I tell God I’m not sure I’m good at this but thank you for letting me have a shot at it, anyway. (He already knows: a mother is what I’ve always wanted to be.)

And they grow. They get smarter and cuter and more human every day and I marvel at the inches and the steps and the words and that despite how I have no clue what I am doing, they are becoming more of the people they were meant to be.

They start needing me less, and I notice. They brush their own teeth and climb in and out of cars and before I know it, one of them is driving and I have somehow become his passenger.

It’s life, I know, and it’s good for them to grow, but it’s hard, too, because even though people say words like don’t blink, no one tells you exactly how to hold a newborn with a red, pinched face one minute and the next, open your arms and let that newborn go.

I don’t know how to do that, even though it is exactly what I am doing on a daily basis.

And so, today, I admit something to my children that I am sure they already know.

• I don’t know how to be your mom, my babies, 1, 2 and 3. I don’t know how to tell you wise things I’m not sure I have even learned, put my self aside to help you be better, hold on and let go, all at the same time.
  

• I don’t know how to tell you about God in a way that does Him justice. I don’t know how to explain love in a way that tells of its complication or sounds as good as it can be.
  

• I don’t know how to lose my flaws fast enough for you to not notice what they are or share with you in words how desperately I want you to have a good life and become so much better than me.
  

• I don’t know how to let you love someone else or explain what it feels like when I cook you a meal and you eat and we are both full and for a split second I feel like I’ve done something well.
  

• I don’t know how to tell you how much becoming your mom changed my life and no matter how many moments my mood is bad or days my pace is hurried, I could never hold you enough, smell you enough, have enough days with you in my arms.
  

And so, even though I have never, not since day one, known how to be your mom, I know this: I will never, ever get over the joy of getting to try.

*Here’s to all the mothers who don’t know how to be moms and the babies in our arms who give us the chance to try. If you relate to this post, breathe, say a thankful prayer, and pass it on to other moms who don’t know, either, but find the joy in trying.

Happy Mother’s Day on Sunday, friends.

*BONUS Mother’s Day Dress LINK ALERT:

I usually only give links out to my Close Circle Community (folks who invest in the community by upgrading to paid), but I wanted to share this link with everyone for a special Mother’s Day Substack.

I wore it recently on a TV appearance, and it was a big hit!

So so pretty, right?

It’s from one of my favorite stores, ASOS, and I got it in a large (it was a little bit for me, so I probably needed a medium!)

Their shipping is pretty fast, so grab it in time for Mother’s Day!

FLORAL BLUE KAFTAN DRESS

St. Augustine once said: “In my deepest wound I saw your glory, and it dazzled me.”

How well I know. The Church was a place that wounded me. And yet it is the very place God used to heal me.

For 20 years, it has also been my greatest place of ministry.

Never say never. Sometimes you serve in places you never see coming (and at times might not even prefer).

I remember once a worship leader who had struggled with drug addiction told me he knew God called him to church ministry, but he preferred leading rehab groups over standing on a big church stage.

“I just can’t handle the church people,” he said. I understood. We can be at times difficult and even a bit off-putting.

But the challenger in me had to push back, “Don’t you think we are just as broken as a room full of addicts? We just present better.” At least for the moment, that seemed to help him find a small sense of empathy for a group he found hard to love.

I myself never wanted the church to be my greatest place of ministry. I didn’t set out write books for or take stages in the very place that for his whole adult life, my father poured into by pastoring and then one night, emotionally bled out in front of while reading a forced resignation letter in front of the whole church.

Those experiences tend to make a young woman hesitant to go back for more, especially when she has a choice to go and do something else with her life.

Or does she?

(Ask anyone who really knows, and this is the million dollar question when it comes to calling).

Jesus, however, is compelling. The Church is something He loves, so it is in many senses, a package deal. One day when I was much younger and wrestling with the complication of it all, He spoke to me in my heart about my heart for the Church:

If you want to get healed of your pain from this, go back to where you lost your keys.

I don’t know about you, but I often have to retrace my steps when I lose things. It’s the age-old fool-proof trick taught to me by my mother. What was I doing when I last had those AirPods? What night do I remember wearing my glasses? Those questions are helpful leads to jarring my memory into recovery of a lost item.

(If I’ve ever lost my keys, I’ve used the same method).

I sort of knew what Jesus might be trying to tell me.

Where and when did I get stuck with the church?

What caused it?

What are the memories that no matter what, to this day I hold dear?

These questions could help me make sense of my jumbled feelings.

Like lost keys, finding out where I had became lost in my life with the Church, is where I would need to begin to heal.

Every unexpected kindness

Every offense

Every gracious act

Every troubling violation

Every place Jesus met me through faces and people and places and sermons and Vacation Bible school and songs and church camp and pastors I loved

Not to keep record of wrongs or remember things differently than they actually were — but to find my lost keys by re-tracing my steps of my life to discover where I was.

This process was one of the things that ultimately helped me understand that despite what I had been through, why I believed in the big C church and how much it meant to me…and why the Lord would use the place of my greatest hurt to become the place of my greatest healing and ministry.

What about you?

It might not be the Church, but where are you lost?

1. Go back to where you lost your keys.

2. Ask God to dazzle you in your deepest wounding.

3. Start from there.

Since we are quickly approaching summer, I felt like you might be in the mood for a little Amazon round-up of the 5 things I’ve recently ordered that are making me ridiculously happy right now. As always, you get the links no one else does. :)

You ready?

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I have been sitting on this post for awhile, because I don’t like personal irritations (or simply needing a good night’s sleep!) to ever be the basis for my writing.

Time and prayer tends to flush those things out, I’ve found.

So after safely crossing off those concerns, I know it’s time to write about what that has become a big problem in the Church.

This phrase: “God told me.”

First, let me say: like most issues in the modern church, this is not new. I have, in fact, talked about this before. People have been misusing this phrase for a long time.

The reason it has become of increasing concern is because of the prevalence of social media influence which has discipled generations on things that sound spiritual but aren’t true, the lack of true biblical literacy/grounding, and the emergence of false prophets (I don’t say this lightly) that are recklessly wielding Scripture to convolute truth (and people falling for it due to that lack of literacy and discipleship in the Church).

This triad has created a perfect storm of believability in nearly unchallengeable spiritual-sounding statements, whether or not they are true.

And let me be clear. Even seasoned, well-intentioned believers throw the phrase “God told me” and its iterations around far too casually.

Allow me to expand on the prevailing issues a bit:

• Social media has become a discipleship pipeline, and it is discipling people poorly. Things that sound close to the truth are taken as gospel. Phrases that inspire seem like the truth, even if they are a complete lie. The algorithm rewards confidence and inspiration over biblical accuracy.

• Biblical illiteracy is at a crisis level in the Church. This is a widely known fact that holds many layers of problems. And it’s not about who has a Bible at home— it’s about to what degree we read, know, and mostly: believe the Word of God. Biblically ungrounded people cannot test what they’re consuming. When you don’t know the Word, you can’t recognize when someone is mishandling it. This becomes, then, an open door to being misled.

• While false prophets are not a new problem, their reach is. Increasingly, false prophets are elevated to positions of power, holding authority over high numbers of people (even over high level people of power, themselves!) When people who are recklessly wielding Scripture to distort truth have thousands and even millions of followers and no accountability structure, the damage scales with the platform. The lack of discipleship and literacy in the Church means the ground is ripe for false ideas from false prophets to take root.

I do not seek to offend you, but I am also not afraid to tell you that I am skeptical of most “God told me,” language, and not just because of some bad apples. I’ll tell you more in a minute, but let me first make something very clear…

I absolutely do believe the Holy Spirit speaks to us. I believe He is alive and active and giving us insight in our hearts. I believe God leads His children. I hold all of that firmly. I am grateful for how He personally speaks to me and leads me and has ever since I’ve been a believer in Jesus Christ.

What I don’t believe in is the way this phrase, “God told me” (and iterations of it) is increasingly being misused and even weaponized in the body of Christ. That is wrong, heretical, and even blasphemous at times, and believers should steer far away from it. In such cases:

1. It is used as a conversation-ender. When you say “God told me” in this way, it stops all further conversation. Because who can argue with a private download from God, Himself? No one knows what God told you except for you. So it’s an authority no one can buck, which can be convenient if there is something someone doesn’t want to have to explain.

2. It is used as a shield against accountability. Similar to being used as a conversation-ender, this takes it even deeper. When we don’t want someone to question us, we might use this phrase. Very dangerous ground.

3. It is used to sound hyper-spiritual. This is the most predominant way it gets thrown around by Christians. We don’t have the courage or confidence to stand in a decision, to speak clearly about something, or even to be honest, so we say “God told me.”

All of these misuses of this phrase are extremely hurtful to the body of Christ.

When we take something so sacred as the Holy Spirit speaking to us and use it for our personal gain, it is a rotten stench in the nostrils of our Lord. And make no mistake, we will be held to account for it.

Because it is a way to quiet people who question something — a silencing tactic dressed in spiritual language. It is misleading. And it is manipulative.

And certainly, we can shine the spotlight on false prophets who claim to hear from God but clearly, their actions do not reflect Scripture.

But I think we also have to look at ourselves as a Church and see where we have inserted God-centered language into flesh-made decisions that have hurt other people and blamed them on God “telling us to do it.”

God will not be mocked, even when we try to sell people on that story.

Because the truth is: we have built a Christenese culture where “God told me” has too often become the default explanation for decisions we don’t want to examine too closely or defend too carefully.

It’s easier than saying “I changed my mind.”

It’s cleaner than saying “I don’t want to do this anymore.”

It’s prettier than saying “I want to make this decision without question.”

It’s more spiritual-sounding than saying “this stopped being convenient for me.”

Somewhere along the way, invoking God became a shortcut — not something sacred, but a get-out-of-jail-free card that good Christians don’t question. And we’ve let it happen because calling it out feels like the crueler offense.

So we use God because no one can argue with God. There is no comeback to “God is leading me another way” or “God told me.”

But thankfully, the Bible, as always, shows us the way.

• 1 John 4:1 says to test the spirits.

• The Bereans in Acts 17 are commended specifically for checking everything against Scripture.

• 1 Corinthians 14 is an entire chapter about bringing order and accountability to how words from God function in community.

Real leading from the Lord can withstand a question. It holds up under honest conversation. It doesn’t need a phrase that makes everyone around you afraid to ask.

We would all do well, including me, to hold our words more carefully. More humbly.

And with a lot more fear and trembling before God than we currently do.

For my close circle community, I’m going to get more specific on a few recent public examples —national and local figures and even my own recent experiences — that illustrate what I’m talking about and what this looks like when it causes real damage. That part is behind the paywall, not to be exclusive, but because naming names deserves more than someone casually driving-by this post.

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Good Friday is about the cross…the darkness at noon…the moment Jesus said “It is finished.”

But it is also about something I missed for most of my life that I find a lot of us have missed…

Christ didn’t just die for your soul. He died for the body you’ve been at war with.

When Jesus went to the cross, it wasn’t some compartmentalized sacrifice. His death was whole: body and soul suffering, together. He sweat blood in the garden. His physical heart was literally pierced. Blood and water flowed. John recorded it because it mattered. The body mattered. It has always mattered, which is why we can conclude that Christ even came in human bodily form to begin with.

Which means the exchange was whole, too.

His body broken — mine and yours redeemed.

This does not just include our sinful habits or shame spirals. It is not just about our past. But it is also the war we’ve waged against the body God created us to live well in — the constant mental anguish, the years of working harder on it trying to fix it, manically. It’s all covered by the cross.

I wrote in Body & Soul that there are two realities we live in as believers:

• “It is finished.” The ultimate conclusion to the exchange — His death for our lives. His coming to break every chain that binds us, which includes the captivity of whatever body struggles hold us.

• “In the process.” The ongoing daily work of our very in-process human life, as we are in community with Lord, loved through every moment, and have hope through Christ who gives us strength.

Both are true today. On Good Friday, we sit with the finished work of Christ on the cross. The price was paid. For your soul, yes — and for the body you’ve been so hard on.

Because of that (and only because of that), we can live in our flawed life with abundance.

The next time you take communion and hold the bread, I want you to hear what Jesus said: “This is my body, which is for you.”

Not just your spirit or your eternal destination. (Yes, again — Christ’s death on the cross was primarily for your eternal salvation).

But also for the body you’ve been trying to fix your whole life, the years of working it like a workhorse, the shame, and for every morning you’ve looked in the mirror with contempt at something God called very good (see Genesis 1:31!)

His body was broken for yours.

That, my friend, is the glorious exchange.

That’s Good Friday.

*For much more, get my study Body & Soul, available HERE.

Under a beautiful Texas sky was the perfect place for me to rest and recharge last week.

I visited with friends, wrote a little on my next book, ate incredible food, and laughed a lot.

One of my favorite people in the world, Adie, was sitting with me one morning, Bibles on our lap, one with the quiet.

“Can I share something with you?” she finally broke the silence and said, looking up. She had an exam the next week and had gotten up early to study for her seminary class.

I nodded an eager yes, and she continued.

“My professor said this, and I wrote it down: ‘Our sinfulness is not a message of our worthlessness.’ I can’t stop thinking about it. Isn’t that good?”

I paused for a minute, thought about it, then wrote it down, myself.

Now I, too, can’t stop thinking about it.

Our sinfulness is not a message of our worthlessness.

We kept talking, and Adie told me something else. Our mutual friend, Vivian, said that in her culture growing up, she struggled with separating these two ideas:

I did something wrong vs. I am something wrong.

And now I can’t stop thinking about that, either.

I was thinking this morning that maybe you also struggle at times with separating your sin from your worth as a person…that sometimes when you do things wrong you can begin to feel that you are wrong, in and of yourself.

So I just wanted to speak into that, today, and remind you of what’s true.

• While we “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23), “all the days ordained for [you and] me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” (Psalm 139:16b)

• And yes, we all do things wrong…“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8)

Your sinfulness is not a message of your worthlessness.

You may do something wrong, but you are never, ever something wrong, according to God.

Just felt like someone might need to hear that, today.

I love a good vacation, a spur of the moment hang with a friend, and anytime one of my kids wants to have me tag along with them to do most anything.

Living with a very spontaneous enneagram 7 husband has turned me into much more of a free spirit in my off-the-clock life, which I actually *do enjoy.

But though the question I ask myself in these pop-up situations — why not? -- is a fantastic question to throw caution to the wind, it is a terrible question to make almost any and every good work decision.

Because while why not? is so very YOLO, it is not very business-wise. Where it provides whimsy, fun, and unbridled joy, it doesn’t allow for strategy, boundary, quality execution and longevity. Sound boring? Maybe. But all of those things also produce the kind of work quality and stability that eventually leads to greater freedom!

And there’s absolutely nothing boring about that.

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There was only one thing that truly embarrassed me when I was on the Candace Cameron Bure show.

On a season so vulnerable as ours, talking all about our bodies, you might think it was a question about my relationship with food, the past eating disorder I struggled with, or a vulnerable story I shared. But it was none of those things.

Instead, it was the moment when she asked me this “fun facts” question:

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