As my good friends and faithful readers know, it has been months since I have written regularly here on KristiStephens.com.

What has happened in the meantime?

• Final days of pregnancy.
• Preparing to become a family of 5.
• Sweet days with my mom as she stayed with us for the weeks before and after BW’s arrival.
• A lovely Thanksgiving with my parents.
• The celebration of the birth of our Redeemer and wonderful days with family.
• Hundreds and hundreds of diapers changed.
• Many hours of late night feedings in the rocking chair and in prayer.
• Learning to find a new “normal” as I seek to be the mom and wife God has called me to be.

These have been full days. Good, rich, full days.

But some days are hard. Some days are full of a tantrum-throwing toddler, a clingy and fragile preschooler, a fussy baby, a ringing telephone, a backed-up kitchen sink, a ruined dinner, overflowing laundry baskets, and someone who always seems to need me at the most inconvenient moment. Some days I just haven’t been in the Word, and it shows. Some days I am selfish and distracted, and it shows.

Lately, it seems that what the Holy Spirit keeps whispering to my heart over and over is this…

I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. John 15:5 (ESV)

For the weeks of February, I invite you to learn along with me as we seek God’s heart and search His Word for how to fix our eyes on Him, root ourselves in Him, soak up His life and love and power in the midst of real life that is sometimes messy.

Because if we do not abide, we can do nothing. The older I grow and the more life I live, the more true those words ring in my ears.

Lord, we need Thee every hour. Teach us to dwell in your presence.

Why is submission so difficult for us to swallow? To submit to authorities, to submit to leaders, to submit to the government, to submit to our husbands?

Join me over at Scripture Dig today as we explore the unexpected freedom found in the discipline of submission.

“What controls your heart? As human beings, we long for our appetites to be filled. We long to fill our stomachs, we long to be loved, we long for physical intimacy, we long for satisfaction and a feeling of peace; the list is long.

Since that fateful day in the Garden of Eden, Satan has worked in the life of every man and woman to tempt us, to call us to fulfill legitimate needs and desires God Himself placed in our hearts in illegitimate ways. For some this might simply be an unhealthy habit, and for others these things show themselves as full blown addictions.

Addictions of all kinds are powerful. They temporarily mask the deep hunger of our souls but leave us empty and wanting more. Perhaps neither you nor I have been labeled an “addict,” but I believe we’ve all been there on some level. Our hearts were hungry, and we attempted to fill that need with food, with shopping, with relationships, with chocolate or caffeine… when all along that hunger was meant to point us to the arms of the Father.

Fasting is a powerful form of personal worship that can loosen the bonds we have to these false sources of satisfaction.”

Join me over at Scripture Dig today as we “dig” into the often misunderstood (or avoided!) topic of fasting.

I loved this devotional from Oswald Chamber’s classic My Utmost for His Highest and wanted to share it with all of you.

A person who has not been born again by the Spirit of God will tell you that the teachings of Jesus are simple. But when he is baptized by the Holy Spirit, he finds that “clouds and darkness surround Him…” (Psalm 97:2). When we come into close contact with the teachings of Jesus Christ we have our first realization of this. The only possible way to have full understanding of the teachings of Jesus is through the light of the Spirit of God shining inside us. If we have never had the experience of taking our casual, religious shoes off our casual, religious feet – getting rid of all the excessive informality with which we approach God – it is questionable whether we have ever stood in His presence. The people who are flippant and disrespectful in their approach to God are those who have never been introduced to Jesus Christ. Only after the amazing delight and liberty of realizing what Jesus Christ does, comes the impenetrable “darkness” of realizing who He is.

O, Lord Jesus – please throw our casual, religious shoes far from us… may we stand barefoot in the holy ground of your presence. May we be laid low.