All posts filed under: Musing Moments

Change Your Mind: Choose Your Own Adventure pt 1

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“…I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life…” ~DEUTERONOMY 30:19b Remember back in the day when you were in elementary school and you got to go to the school library and pick out a few books to take home and read? Back when I was a child, that was one of the highlights of the week, going to the school library, and nothing brought more joy than getting my hands on the latest Choose Your Own Adventure novel. Those books were fantastic in that within the limitations of maybe one-hundred and thirty or so pages of medium-sized print, seemed to be an infinite amount of unique stories that came to life simply by skipping from one section of the book to another. Choose your own adventure. To see what happens if Sally falls in the well, skip to page sixty-four. To have Sally leap over the well to safety, go to page fifty-seven, to see what happens next from here, keep reading. Some of these stories always had the same …

A Weekend of Rest & Revelation by Briana Lassiter & Candice Coates

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This past July I (Briana had the privilege of participating in a girls’ getaway with one of my dear friends, and the founder of this ministry, Candice Coates. While we had anticipated our trip being a work trip full of progress on the business plan for the ministry, maybe a model created for our creative retreats, some articles written and revelation given, much to our surprise, this trip had a different agenda from Jesus. Fittingly, this trip took place in the middle of a teaching done by Candice on resting to success and I think Jesus thoroughly enjoyed giving us an active portrayal/example of what that looks like. And while great progress on our to-do lists was certainly made, we quickly recognized that progress flowed from naps in the sun, quiet journaling while watching the sunset and the fireflies appear, walking through a bookshop or stumbling upon another artist’s historic shop and creative life work. Progress was made as we laughed through the night about foolish movie lines. It was made as our souls were …

Confronting a Crisis of Faith by Briana Lassiter

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” ‘Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.’” ~JEREMIAH 33:3 We all experience a crisis of faith at different times in our life. During that crisis, we can do two things. We can stifle the questions out of learned religious behavior or the fear of being rejected by God, or even of fear of what we may find. Or we can ask those questions, and allow things in our faith to get ugly for a time until our questions are answered. If we ignore our crisis of faith or our doubt and unbelief, not only does it leave the door open for more doubt and unbelief to fester, it also closes off the possibility of our questions being answered if we refuse to ask. As He says, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God (Romans 10:17). If we just allow ourselves to ask God our questions, it opens the door for Him to speak the answers we need to hear …

Choose Your Own Adventure: Learning to Choose Christ’s Narrative Series Intro

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The Lord has given you a mission…a vision…a call…an impossible dream. You set out with courage to conquer the goal, but you are met with great resistance. Mountains stand in your way even though He has said He would make your pathway straight. Weapons form, drought consumes valleys in the place where He promised there would be rain. But He promised victory. So, now what? Do you walk by faith or do you rely on your sight? You are now faced with choosing your own adventure. Will you read the pages that the liar and enemy of your soul has penned or will you turn to the pages of Christ’s Truth written for you? Whose story will you make your own? CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE is a series dedicated to helping the Children of God trust Christ’s narrative for their lives, circumstances, and situations no matter how tempting it is to speak out and cling to the enemy’s. The challenge is real but the adventure is worth it! We just have to focus on the …

Refusing ‘Fake’ but Feeling Through Faith: Faith Emotions pt 1

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“God can’t do anything with our ‘fake’, but He can do all things with our ‘faith’.” ~CANDICE COATES Not too long ago, I was surfing through my social media feed, and like many times before, I came across several posts saying, “Fake it til you make it,” or, “I’m just going to fake it til I make it.” I am sure, that you, like me, have seen or heard that saying before or have maybe even made it your mantra a few or more times during your life. This particular day, however, the Lord interrupted my social media perusal and said, “Candice, I can’t do anything with your ‘fake’, but I can do all things with your faith.” You see, we have been cultivated in a culture that has taught us that our true feelings and emotions are not only disturbing to others but sadly and falsely, unacceptable to display, especially before God. We have subconsciously embraced the ideology that says if we express any sign of fear, or anger, or pain, that we are …

No Room For Worry: Faith for Creatives

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*Published May 5, 2019 “Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.” ~ROMANS 5:5 Whatever it is within our hearts that is being hoped for, that is in accordance with Christ Jesus’ perfect will for our lives and purpose, we can have rest and full assurance that it will come to pass! So with this truth, where is there room for worry? There is no place for it at the table that the Lord is preparing for His children that rest in Him and believe. Today, push out any worry! Evict the “what-ifs”. If your Heavenly Father has promised you through His Word and Rhema that He would do a thing in your life, then rest in His living Hope that does not disappoint for all of His promises are yes and amen in Christ (II COR. 1:20)! ~Poiema, Poetry in Motion *Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash

Start with Confidence: Start Here pt 3

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Several years ago, I had the pleasure of reading an article that introduced the concept of ‘dual idealism.’ Now, because it was so long ago I can’t quite remember which publication it was that I read nor if the phrase they used was ‘idea-ism’ or ‘idealism’, but for the sake of this moment, I am going to fly with ‘idealism.’ What the author of the article was addressing was the anxiety that many authors of fiction face when they have come up with a completely organic and original idea for a story plot, only to find out that someone else, on the other side of the world has been working on a project that sounds similar if not exact! What the author of the article wanted to drive home was that even though there may be similarity in thought that personal design makes each interpretation solely unique. When we are given an idea or vision from God and we embark on our faith journey to see it made manifest we too can find ourselves facing …

The Blessing in Hunger: Faith for Creatives by Briana Lassiter

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*Originally Published June 23, 2019 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, For they shall be filled.” ~MATTHEW 5:6 NKJV Do you find yourself bursting with questions, hard questions about God, about life, about purpose, about what is right and true? A lot of times we might feel discouraged while we wait for God to answer our hard questions, and yet here is our Savior saying, you are blessed for your hunger. And your hunger will be satisfied. Your questions will be answered. If you find yourself hungering after answers you have not received yet about who you are, who God is, or what your purpose is, you are blessed, and you can trust that He is building in you even now, the answers, and even now you are blessed to receive and know the truth of everything you’re hungry for. There may be a process to receiving, but you will still receive. He is a faithful God and He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it …

A New Year of Promise: A Word for Rosh Hashanah by Briana Lassiter

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Rosh Hashanah is a special holiday for me. I didn’t really know what it was until last year. The morning we were set to close on our new home, the Lord and I were having a conversation about everything that had happened and I was telling Him how surreal everything felt and thanking Him for keeping His promises to me. He reminded me how earlier that year He had begun speaking to me about restoring things that I had lost and He had promised me a home, a place where I would finally be able to rest and heal. This was significant in many ways because I had just finished several years of moving every year to a different place and enduring very difficult illnesses on top of that. Healing and rest seemed like it would never come, and yet only a couple months after He had promised me a home of my own, I was closing on it and moving in. He shifted seemingly impossible situations upside down for me. As He reminded me …

Start with Fire: Start Here pt 2

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“We are on fire. Act now.” ~UKNOWN I saw an image of an activist with a sign that read, “We are on fire. Act now.” Instantly, the thought of the words of the Savior flickered into a flame in my heart. The scripture is Mark 9:35-38, which reads: “Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.  Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.” What the Lord began to reveal to my heart in light of the sign and then the reminder of the scripture was twofold. ONE: The Lord was saying and is saying to all of us who know Him, that the people in the world are ready, right now, to hear about Him. They are thirsty for the …