BIG Life Devotional | Daily Devotional for Women Pamela Crim | Daily Devotional for Women

Throughout the day you are breathing, and you likely never notice your breath. Breathing doesn’t require intentional effort, your body does the work without your consciousness even catching on. Until you can’t breathe … then you know. Your awareness is hyper focused on breathing when it is threatened.







I went over 40 years of my life, breathing without the awareness of the source of my breath. I simply never thought about it. Where does the air you breathe come from? It was a song I sang one Sunday morning in Church several years ago that changed my breathing. This part of the song slayed me and changed me: It’s your breath in our lungs, so we pour out our praise, pour out our praise. It’s your breath in our lungs so we pour out our praise to you only.







Genesis 2:7 says “Then the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground. He breathed the breath of life into the man’s nostrils, and the man became a living person.”







You and I are living at this very moment because of the breath of God. It is his breath that fills our lungs. It is his breath that gives us life. You have the breath of the Almighty within you, filling you, reviving you, bringing you life. And all you have to do is receive it.







Once I became aware of the source of my breath, I realized my habit of shallow breathing. By habit I take in just enough to do the job. Long term shallow breathing affects your health. Your body functions in a state of continual stress, lowering your immunity and lowers your energy.







But even worse, shallow breathing creates shallow living.







Are we just skimming the surface of all that’s truly available to us? Are we never going deeper into the life God is offering us only taking in enough to just get through? Yes, I think so.







When I look at the beauty of creation, I can’t imagine God created all of this for us to just get by. That isn’t his heart. His creation reveals his abundance and fullness and as his most prized and precious creation, he offers this abundance and fullness to us.







Newborn babies breathe deep. Their bellies expand and their chest rises and falls as they take in all life has to offer. We did the same when breath was new. Then we became used to it. We just expect God’s breath to be available and we allow it no special regard.







Each morning before this devotional, I lead the women I mentor in a deep breathing exercise. It’s become part of our morning routine together. It used to be the part of the morning I dreaded, now it’s the part of the morning where I relax my shoulders, turn off everything else, and just allow God to fill me.







Practicing deep breathing creates a whole truckload of benefits:







Natural painkiller.Improves blood flow.Increases energy level.Improves posture.Reduces inflammation.Detoxifies the body.Improves digestion.Relaxes your mind and body.Now think about that … all of these positive results by doing one thing … breathing deeper. And what are we doing when we breathe deeper? We are intentionally receiving MORE of God. It is his breath that fills your lungs so naturally by breathing deeper, you are receiving more of him. And more of him heals us.







As I’ve been practicing deep breathing, I’ve learned a few things.







First, I have a limited capacity. Try taking the biggest, deepest breath you’ve taken all day. Your lungs quickly filled and you don’t notice a tremendous benefit, right? I don’t necessarily feel more energized, relaxed or improved in any way.







It’s like trying to add God into an already packed daily routine.

You have been chosen, but being chosen doesn’t quite feel like you imagined it would. You thought being God’s chosen girl would mean all open doors and overflowing abundance, but that’s not your current reality. When it doesn’t happen for us the way we thought it would, we begin to question if we are really chosen. Are we really the right one for the job? Are we really good enough? Are we really destined for more?







This picture we have in our head of how we think it’s supposed to be has stolen more potential than the attacks of our enemy ever has. You don’t just wake up one day and it’s all easier. You don’t just magically step into your purpose and then it all makes sense. It’s not just one thing that changes everything then you never struggle again.







I always assumed the introduction of David in scripture was the day he walked onto the battlegrounds where the giant Goliath was taunting the Israelites. I’ve read the story and thought David showed up that day as a nobody and overnight he became a somebody. So, I’ve always imagined that same story for myself. I’ll go from a nobody to a somebody, and it will all happen in that one key moment when I show up with courage and do something great. But, I’m wrong. That’s not how it happened for David, that’s not how it will happen for me, and my sister, that’s not how it will happen for you. David became a great King, but it didn’t begin with the slaying of the giant and it didn’t end there either.







If we actually back up one chapter and a few years, we find the introduction of David. He was believed to be somewhere between 8 and 13 years old when the Lord sends Samuel to a man named Jesse in Bethlehem to anoint one of his sons as the next King of Israel. Jesse presented 7 of his sons to Samuel for selection. One by one, the tallest, the strongest, the oldest, the seemingly best would go before Samuel, and each one, the Lord would say, “not this one.”







1 Samuel 16: 10-11, “After Jesse presented seven of his sons to him, Samuel told Jesse, ‘The Lord hasn’t chosen any of these.’ Samuel asked him, ‘Are these all the sons you have?’ ‘There is still the youngest,’ he answered, ‘but right now he’s tending the sheep.’ Samuel told Jesse, ‘Send for him. We won’t sit down to eat until he gets here.’







David wasn’t even invited into the room. He wasn’t chosen to be at the table. His father considered him the least of all his sons, the one unworthy of an invitation. The one who was left out to work in the fields.







(Okay, I have to say it – does this remind anyone else of the story of Cinderella? She wasn’t even invited to try on the glass slipper to see if it fit. She was left out. Forgotten. Considered unimportant. But it was her! She was to be the princess!)







Honey, when God chooses you, no one else has to see what God sees. You don’t have to receive an invitation to the room or be given a seat at the table, or be asked to try on the glass slipper … God will hand deliver you where he wants you to be. You won’t be left out.







Listen to me right now … YOU ARE NOT LEFT OUT. God sees you. He knows you. The one thing he cares about is your heart. If your heart is devoted to him, there’s not another circumstance or detail that matters. He will get you where he wants you to be, solely because of your heart. If your heart is devoted to him, YOU ARE WHO HE WANTS.







Is that you? Is that your heart? Are you devoted to God? Do you want what he wants? Have you decided to go where he says?







Jesse,

For the past week I’ve been studying the book of Jeremiah. If you’re ever looking for some inspirational, soul lifting, positive word from the Lord, don’t go to Jeremiah. This is 52 chapters of God’s people sinning, God’s warnings, his people ignoring, then God destroying. Over and over again, God fills Jeremiah with his divine words to give to the people to redirect and save them, but they continue living in all the wrong ways, doing what God has told them not to do, going where God has told them not to go. So there is panic followed by pits and punishment. Destruction and desperation. Judgment and condemnation. God is angry and his anger is not withheld.







I’m a light hearted kinda gal, this kind of stuff just hurts my heart. I’ve literally struggled studying this, trying to understand why. Why all this loss? Why all this wrath? I mean let’s be real, at one point these people were literally burning their children as burnt offerings to one of their new gods, Baal. So God sends his prophet Jeremiah to tell them to stop, but they won’t stop. So God brings absolute annihilation to their people. That makes sense. Still, I struggle understanding it all.







There were innocent people caught in the annihilation. Good people fell to this destruction. Honestly, you and I could have just as easily been born then instead of now, to these people who were doing horrible things. It wasn’t our good choices that plopped us into safer times and better conditions. We didn’t choose when and where to be born. So what about the unfortunate souls born then and there?







I’m trying to understand this.







God’s covenant was broken. A covenant is like a contract. It was an agreement between God and his people. If they kept his laws, he kept them. If they obeyed him fully, he blessed them. The problem came when his people failed to keep the laws. They went left when the were told to go right. They lost their way. They were tricked by false prophets teaching false gods. Following those false gods led them away from the covenant of the one true God, and that’s why there are 52 chapters of God’s warnings and wrath.







We struggle with always getting this thing right. It’s a human condition. We don’t always listen, we don’t always understand, and we don’t always uphold our end of this deal. And sometimes we willingly dive head first into what we know we shouldn’t do. So, does that mean God is angry at us? Does that mean he is sitting on his big white throne with angry eyebrows and a big stick ready to strike us? Does that mean he is conspiring 37 different ways to punish us?







If you only skim through the chapters of Jeremiah, that’s exactly how it will leave you feeling. But, tucked between the prophesies of destruction and God’s judgment of his people, is a paragraph titled “The New Covenant”.







Jeremiah 31: 31-34: “Look, the days are coming when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. This one will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors on the day I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt – my covenant that they broke even though I am their master. Instead, this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days. I will put my teaching with them and write it on their hearts. (Y’all, that’s the gift of the Holy Spirit within us.) I will be their God, and they will be my people. They will all know me, from the least to the greatest of them. For I will forgive their iniquity and never again remember their sin.”







You do know this scripture is talking about you, right?

This special unscripted episode is a study on thinking right so we talkright. Join us as we dig deeper into Proverbs 4: 24, James 3: 2-6 and 2Corinthians 10: 5.







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God desires for everything you do to first be presented to him. Before you make your plans, before you decide what to do, before you commit, talk to God about it.







It’s easy to assume God doesn’t care about the details of your coming and going, but my sister, if God cares about the birds you hear chirping outside your window, I assure you, God cares about the decisions you are making. If he’s concerned about dressing the lilies of the field with splendor, he’s concerned about everything concerning you. And, not only does God care, but God KNOWS. He knows what is next. He knows what is best. He knows where this leads. And he knows how this ends. So really, if God knows everything, and he cares about everything, why aren’t you talking to him about everything?







Oh, I know … because it doesn’t seem that important. It almost seems silly to consult God on everything. We tell ourselves God doesn’t have time to be bothered with our little problems and every day decisions … but we’re wrong.







James 4: 13-17: “Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will travel to such and such a city and spend a year there and do business and make a profit.’ Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring – what your life will be! For you are like a vapor that appears for a little while, then vanishes. Instead, you should say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.’ Bat as it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. So it is sin to know the good and yet not do it.”







Harsh? No, straight forward.







Stop making plans without God. You do not know the future, God does. You do not fully know where this path leads, God does. You do not know the perfect timing, God does. God wants you in the middle of his perfect plans instead of your own impulsive ideas.







For many years now, I’ve prayed a prayer that has likely saved me from the mess of my impulsive ideas and touchy feely heart. The prayer is simple: God, if you’re in it, I want it … If you’re not, I don’t.







This is a surrender of what we think we want for what God, in all of his wisdom, wants. It’s an intentional turn toward a divinely better plan, even when we don’t see it. This is what allows God’s greatest work in our ordinary, every day lives. We are then aligned to be where we are supposed to be for divine encounters and perfect timing.







You know what else this does … this teaches us to not be pitiful and pissy when things don’t work out the way we wanted. If I turned it over to God, I can’t be vengeful when he vetoes it. I can’t be resentful when he redirects it.







Closed doors are just as much a blessing as open doors when God is the one directing the doors. Invite him into your hallway to direct the doors. ALL THE DOORS.







How do you know if God closes a door? Well, there are the obvious ways. No is pretty clear. Too late is also clear. Sold out. Not available. Not possible. Cancelled. Delayed. Lost in route. But also recognize what this final little verse in today’s scripture is really saying. “It is sin to know the good and yet not do it.”







What does that mean? This means, for girls who have accepted Jesus as their Savior, we have the Holy Spirit dwelling within us, guiding and prompting us continually. That Spirit confirms and denies things within us. When it is confirmed within by a holy prompting, and we don’t do it, it is sin. It is wrong for us to ignore God’s promptings.







But understand, God’s promptings not only direct us to go,

Sometimes I get in my head, worried about all I will need for the future, and totally miss the fact that I have what I need for today. Sometimes, here in my head, I will talk myself out of doing what I could and should do today, because I’m worried about how I will keep doing it in all the days to come.







Do you do that too? Do you get all in your head about what will be needed later and miss what you have right now?







Steven Furtick says in his book, Do the New You, “Go into the day from a place of abundance, not lack.” Do you wake up saying you didn’t get enough sleep? Do you face the day thinking you don’t have enough energy? Do you count the demands and declare you don’t have enough money, enough help, enough time? This is a lack mindset.







God lacks nothing. He’s never running on short supply. Ever. And if God is the Lord of your life, as Psalm 23:1 says, you will lack nothing. Everything you need will be provided. Every single thing you need for today is here for you through the grace of God at work in your life. It’s miraculously here for you today. Do you see it?







This is going into the day from abundance. I have everything I need for TODAY. I have enough NOW.







What this does not mean is absolute certainty about tomorrow. This does not mean 100% security in what may come next. This is not an independence. Your creator designed you for dependence. He crafted you to need him DAILY. Your stress often comes from your fight for independence and attempt to control what was never yours to control.







You needed God to provide for you today, and here you are waking up to those provisions. You have the time you need. You have the help you need. You have the energy you need. You have the food you need. THAT IS GOD!







I know you may have worked hard to earn that money, but never forget who enabled you to work. Who blessed you with those abilities? Who opened those doors for you?







I know you may have gone to the grocery store and bought that food your own self, but how did you get there? Did you walk there? Oh, who gave you those legs that can walk? God did that! Did you drive there? Who provided for you to get that car? God did that!







Without God, you have none of this. With God, you have everything you need for today.







Jesus teaches us to pray to God in a very humble, simple and relational way. Matthew 6:11, he says to pray like this, “Give us today our daily bread.” Notice this does not say our monthly bread. It’s not about our 1 year plan for bread. It’s not about the future 10 years worth of bread. It’s our DAILY BREAD.







Bread represents our needs, everything we need. And Jesus says talk to God daily about everything you need.







Why is that? If God already knows our needs and promises to supply for our needs, why should we pray about the things he’s already going to do every day anyway?







I wonder, did you pray about your food for today? Really, did you ask God for food to feed your family for breakfast this morning? Most of us, void of crisis, did not. Yet, there was food today, wasn’t there? That was God being faithful, even when we weren’t. Now, don’t fail to thank him!







Jesus teaches us to pray daily over the things God is so faithful with because it increases our awareness of God’s provisions in our lives. It makes us humbly grateful. When you asked for something, then you receive that something, you know whoever you asked came through for you. This is how we recognize GOD DID THAT FOR US!







My sister, God cares about your needs.