There are times when we feel hedged in on all sides. Our circumstances continue to worsen. Luck isn’t on our side. All our hard work is about as useful as throwing our computer against the wall. In those seasons when I find myself hitting roadblocks on all sides, there’s a sort of claustrophobic feeling that can overwhelm me. I have lost control. I am cornered. Just breathe through it. This too shall pass.

Burnout from fear. Burnout from distress. Burnout from spiritual famine. It can become my entire reality if I start believing that the roadblocks surrounding me are immovable or, worse, caused by my own weakness.

The reality to which Paul points us is truth, but it is also a battle cry: “[W]e are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.” I am more than a conqueror in Christ. I am not my circumstances. I am not this moment of anxiety, fear, and despair. The roadblocks are nothing before the hand of my God.

But God created us with free will – an incredible gift that allows us to choose love. That same gift also allows us to choose fear and distrust. The key to our choice is whether or not we are willing to open ourselves up entirely to receive the love of a God who created us, justifies us, and conquers for us. As terrifying as is the moment of claustrophobic fear that overwhelms me, can I let down the walls I create in my own heart so that God can conquer in me?

We are invited to stand in the face of despair and embrace love. In challenging times such as those we live in, there is something incredibly healing in the knowledge that the thing God most needs from me isn’t doing for Him, but rather being for Him. My efforts are important because they are every day opportunities to accept the Holy Spirit, and in that acceptance be more like Christ and indeed an icon of Christ in the world. But before any of my efforts can root me in God, I have to first throw wide the doors of my heart.

The roadblocks are not always my making – none of us choose to be sick, or to endure poverty, or to experience persecution or all other manners of evil – but how I react in the face of those roadblocks relies entirely on how open I am to receiving God. I am a conqueror THROUGH Christ, not because of my work for Christ. My circumstances cannot separate me from Christ; they are not a punishment or a judgement on my soul. They are an opportunity to invite God in, to allow Him to form me further. 

I am not called to be like a stone in the middle of a stream, being made smaller and smaller by the rushing current. I am called to let God in and let Him increase within me, magnifying His glory. Inviting Him to conquer in my circumstances. I will not be shaped by my hurt and fear, I will be shaped and expanded by God’s love.




​Stephanie Potter

There are concepts in our faith that are so rich with meaning, nuance, and symbolism that I struggle to fully appreciate them. Would you be surprised to learn that sacrifice is one of them?

As a modern woman, sacrifice is indelibly connected to personal ambition. If I’m willing to make certain sacrifices, then there’s a good chance that I will get exactly what I want. But I have to be willing to fully commit – I can’t do it half-heartedly; I have to be all in!

For the most part, this interpretation has lent itself nicely to my reading of the Bible, particularly when it comes to ideas like temptation, sin, and purity of heart. If I want to continue to grow spiritually, I have to be willing to sacrifice my temporal desires for eternal ones.

But as I’ve come to discover, this definition has certain limitations — especially as it relates to the idea of becoming a sacrifice myself. Because, I don’t know about you, but there is something deeply unpalatable about the idea of being hoisted up on my own cross.

Sitting with this unsettled feeling in my lower gut, I came to appreciate, at least in some small part, some of the error in my thinking. See, I’ve only ever seen sacrifice as being the act of giving up some lesser good for a greater one. So, in the past, whenever I read the story of Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac, there was some part of me that understood Isaac as being the second best to a very best, if you will, which was God’s blessings and a multitude of descendants.

This perfectly explains my utter confusion whenever I heard John 3:16. With my narrow understanding of sacrifice, what I was really hearing was, “To God, Jesus is worth less than you.” For years, my silent response to hearing that verse had been: “Then why does He give Him everything?”

At some point, I came to appreciate that when God talks about sacrifice, He’s talking about sacrificing the very best, not the second best. This means that, unlike my previous understanding, after the sacrifice is over, I, as the one offering the sacrifice, am expected to be at a loss.

Of course, God does compensate us for our sacrifices, but it’s not a transaction. As much as I still continue to struggle with this idea, I can appreciate that God made those promises to Abraham before Abraham proved he was willing to sacrifice his son (Genesis 12:2-3; Genesis 17:2). And, while I still have many questions and much further to go in terms of fully appreciating this behemoth of an idea that is sacrifice, these reflections have changed the way I think about becoming a sacrifice to God. Whereas before, it made me feel less than, now I see it as quite the opposite: that the call to be a sacrifice to God is really an invitation to become one of God’s very best.




Laura Dysart

Pray a song of surrender with Refiner by Maverick City Music.