This Jesus Thing. It’s Like…

Standing on the edge of a cliff, preparing to take a step that the world tells you not to take, knowing that beyond your own sight is a hand, waiting to catch you.

Knowing a miraculous, saving, healing, life-giving secret that you do not want to be a secret, but most do not believe you when you tell them.

Standing on the ocean waves, stormy winds whipping, waves crashing, but you never sink.

Playing a game of LIFE that you have already won, but you keep playing to help everyone else win.

Having supernatural vision that allows you to see possibilities in situations that appear hopeless.

Choosing love in a world that constantly tries to convince you that it has something better.

An endless supply of new beginnings.

The Dark Path

“Jesus asked the boy’s father, ‘How long has he been like this?’
‘From childhood,’ he answered. ‘It has often thrown him into fire or water to kill him. But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.’
”If you can?’ said Jesus. ‘Everything is possible for one who believes.’
Immediately the boy’s father exclaimed, ‘I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!’” Mark 9:21-24 NIV

I believed that I had faith until faith was all that I had left. I believed that God would do miracles until a miracle was the only thing that could help me. I learned that you can believe that you believe until your belief is tested. Then you realize that you never knew what it meant to believe in the first place.

His son was under the power of dark forces. He told Jesus, “If you can do anything…” He believed enough to take his son to Jesus, but he was still doubtful. Did he doubt Jesus’ ability or His willingness? Does it matter? Jesus saw through his words. Jesus ability or willingness did not need defending. The uncertainty dwelt within the man’s heart. “Everything is possible FOR ONE WHO BELIEVES.” The man’s response seems contradictory. “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”

This was me. I believed, but never really believed. I never believed that I would be tested beyond my own strength. I never believed that Jesus would step in for me if my strength was no longer sufficient. I believed that, as long as I proclaimed my belief and helped others with theirs, God would never press the issue. And then the storm hit, and darkness followed. I found myself crying out, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”

This is where faith grows. It grows at the end of your rope, beyond the reach of your strength, outside your capacity of understanding, on the path after the sun has set and you cannot see what is ahead. Then you realize that faith is not faith until it has been tested. When you find yourself there, stay on the path and keep believing. Jesus will meet you there. He will light your way.

“When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.’” John 8:12

Dark Sky

The Luckiest Boy

“Charlie Bucket was the luckiest boy in the entire world. He just didn’t know it yet.” Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (movie, 2005)

It defies logic. It lingers beyond reason. When everyone else had hundreds of opportunities, he had hardly any. They bought their way to the winner’s circle. He stumbled upon the entrance fee. They expected to win. He was in awe of the opportunity to try. In a world where only the strong were expected to survive, the weakest stood as victor.

Am I overthinking a children’s story? Possibly.

How did Charlie win? Augustus’ mom gave him all of the candy that he wanted because it made him “happy.” Veruca’s daddy gave her everything she desired. Violet thought that life was about winning. Mike thought that the world was supposed to entertain him. When they found their tickets, they were proud, demanding, expectant.

Charlie had the least of everything. His parents skipped meals so that he could eat. He was cold. His life was hard. But he learned that good things were gifts, not rights. Opportunities were blessings, not entitlements. He learned that life was not about getting, it was about BEING. Being kind, compassionate, sincere, appreciative. His fear, pain, and discomfort taught him the lessons he needed to win the race. What appeared to be disadvantages made him the luckiest boy in the entire world. He just didn’t know it yet.

Life is full of paradoxes. Our struggle to be comfortable makes us miserable. The more we have, the less satisfied we become. The greatest joy often follows the deepest pain. And the weakest become the greatest.

I have seen this at work in my own life. Teen pregnancy brought my amazing son. Loss of my father brought me closer to my Heavenly Father. My deepest depression ended with a greater marriage and new direction. The list could continue.

If you find yourself struggling with fear, pain, or discomfort, hold on. You will reach the end, and when you do, you may find that you are the luckiest person in the world. You just don’t know it yet.

“So the last will be first, and the first will be last.” Matthew 20:16

Clover

Hypothermia Means You Need Clothes

Michiganders are familiar with the early symptoms of hypothermia. We experience them each February when we step out the door to check the mail. However, the more advanced stages might be less well-known: lethargy, drowsiness, irritability, confusion, hallucinations, stripping, burrowing, and coma.

Stripping? As in removing clothes? Yes. While deep in the process of FREEZING TO DEATH, people are known to remove every stitch of clothing. Many have been found blue, stiff, and nude, their clothes several feet away. At some point during the process, they felt extremely warm. For some scientists, this is a mystery. Others believe that the organs that have been trying to keep the body alive stop functioning and release blood into rest of the body, creating an over-heated feeling. Regardless of the feeling, the fact is that the person is freezing to death and removing a vital source of heat retention. They treat their feelings as facts, even though they contradict the truth.

We allow many false feelings to override the truth.

I had faith in God as a child, but I lost it shortly after I hit double digits. My list of questions about my life, value, and purpose began to grow, as well as my doubts. I doubted that God was there, that He loved me, and that I mattered. I began believing that I was alone, I had to do everything on my own, and I couldn’t trust anyone to help me. I began looking for my value and purpose in the wrong places. By the age of 19, I had a 2-year-old son. I was also engaged to be married, and during pre-marital counselling, the pastor who was officiating our wedding asked if I wanted to give my life to Jesus. At this point, I knew that I was really good at messing up my life, and I did not want to do that to my son. So I said yes. Pastor Al prayed with me. When I opened my eyes afterwards, my vision had changed. The room was brighter. I could also see my life more clearly. When I looked back in time, I could see how God had been with me all of those years. I had never been alone.

Regardless of how you feel, you are not alone. God is there with you. He always has been. When you were hurt, He was hurting with you. When you were happy, He rejoiced with you. He has been waiting for you to acknowledge Him, turn to Him, and allow Him to take all of the broken pieces of your life and shape them into a beautiful mosaic. He does that. He makes beauty from our ashes.

Now you know, and you have two choices. You can continue to strip off your clothes in the cold darkness, denying the truth, living as if you have to do it all on your own, or you can acknowledge Him and step into the warm light of His love. Are you going to continue to live life based on a false feeling or are you going to respond to truth?

“Where can I go from your Spirit?
    Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
    if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
    if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
    your right hand will hold me fast.” Psalm 139:7-10

“Let us acknowledge the Lord; let us press on to acknowledge Him. As surely as the sun rises, He will appear; He will come to us like the winter rains, like the spring rains that water the earth.” Hosea 6:3

Snowman

Just Passing By

In 2014, God told me that I was to pursue full-time ministry. I didn’t believe Him. This was the third time He had given me this idea and I thought that I was fabricating it. I sat on it for a while, then starting talking to people close to me. Everywhere I turned, I received confirmation. I applied to college and was accepted. I requested confirmation from my church to pursue ordination and it was granted. This was new. Where doors had previously remained firmly closed, they began to open as if someone was holding them when I arrived.

At the same time, I was attacked. I immediately found myself in the center of spiritual, mental, physical, and emotional battles unlike any I had ever experienced. I was given a “thorn” in my heart that shook me to the core. It confused me. It made me question God, myself, my calling, and where it was leading me. I began losing weight. I couldn’t sleep. I sunk into a deep depression. I refer to 2014 as the year of the storm. It lasted more than two years.

Fast-forward to the summer of 2016. Though some of the spiritual battle was over, the thorn remained. By this time, the death of my father, the unexpected changes among my work family, and my decision to step away from ministry with girls that I loved like my own packed more pain around my thorn. I was at the edge of my strength. This was my year of darkness.

In the darkness, God periodically reminded me that He was there. While sitting on a bench outside my work, talking to God, I noticed a young woman jog past. Several people jogged past my work. I paid little attention. I closed my eyes. A minute later, a female voice, said, “Hi!” I looked up and the jogger was standing on the sidewalk near me. She had turned around and came back. After exchanging pleasantries, we recognized each other. She had attended school with my oldest son years before. She was in her mid twenties at this point. She said, “As I was jogging by, I felt like God wanted me to tell you to persist. Persevere. Keep moving forward. Does that mean anything to you?” Does that mean anything to me? It was a spark of hope, a word to stay the course on my dark path.

A few weeks later, I was taking a walk in my neighborhood, arguing with God (again). I noticed a decorative sign in a yard just two blocks from my house. “Hold on child, I’ve got you. Love, God.” I stopped and looked at it for a several seconds, then kept walking. Then I returned, trespassed in a stranger’s front yard, and took a picture.

Proverbs 20:24 reads, “A person’s steps are directed by the Lord. How then can anyone understand their own way?” The young woman was just passing by, and the Lord stopped her. To share a message. With me. I was just passing by and I saw a sign. That was not there before. That I needed to see. When we trust God, we can plan all we want, but Someone is guiding us. We can’t run away from Him, and He never walks away from us. Feelings are deceiving. He is always there.

A few days after I saw this sign, God turned everything around. Everything. It took years. Don’t stop moving. When you find yourself in a dark season, remember that you are just passing by.

Yard Sign

A Story Within a Story Within a Story

I was taking one of my long walks, searching for answers. Sometimes I prayed. Sometimes I wrestled. Most of the time I did both, out loud, as I walked to the park and back to work on my lunch break. I was never interrupted and I am suspicious that it was out of fear of the fast-walking, angry woman who took the same route and argued with an invisible person between noon and 1:00pm, Monday through Friday. It was the summer of 2016, arguably the hardest year I have ever experienced. Knowing that it was time, I had left a ministry that brought me joy and purpose for 15 years. The atmosphere at work had taken a bad turn. My dad died. I realized that these things had contributed to much of my identity and I lost them all. I was lost. I began asking God, “Who am I. I know what Your word says, but who am I really?” I knew that I was a child of God, crafted by His own hands, dearly loved, worth dying for. That is what the Bible told me. But at this point, I realized that knowing wasn’t understanding or believing, and just knowing was not enough.

I was listening to 2 Corinthians with my earbuds, still asking God, “Who am I? Who am I to you?” Above the words of the narrator, I heard, “You are a story that I am writing.” Those words echoed in my head for several more verses. I could not recall finding them in the Bible before. I grabbed my phone, went back to the beginning of 2 Corinthians 3 and played it again. They weren’t there. The closest thing I could find was 2 Corinthians 3:3, “You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on human hearts.” It was all in my head. But it wasn’t.

I had long believed that my life was a story that God was writing. What I did was the story. I believed it was true of everyone. This was different. This was new. I don’t want to take anything out of context to prove a point. I am only writing what I experienced and what I believe to be true. God revealed that my existence is the story. It wasn’t the answer I was looking for, but somehow, it was enough.

The Bible is the story of God’s pursuit of the people He loves. Each life represented within the pages is a story that He wrote. We are continuations of that same story. The situations that we encounter within our lifetimes are stories. Stories within stories within THE story. And that year that shook my identity, shattered my heart, and nearly took my mind was a piece of me, the story that God is still writing to complete the grandest love story that will ever be written. You are a story that is part of that story. So take heart; the ending has already been written and it is a happy one.

Books

The Write Direction

My name is Brandi Hafler. I have lived most of my life in West Michigan, with a short stint in Arkansas as a child. I am married to my high school sweetheart and have four amazing sons and two beautiful daughters-in-law.

At the age of 41, God told me (for the third time) to pursue full-time ministry. Since then, I have earned a college degree and believe that public speaking is in my future. Typing those words fills this woman who passed out during a middle school speech with fear. The fear is not crippling, though. After giving my life to Jesus at 19, He has called me farther and farther onto the water. Each step takes me closer to Him. Each step leaves the fear farther behind me, in the boat: that safe, comfortable, boat. (If you haven’t read Matthew 14 in the Bible, I encourage you to do so. This analogy will make more sense to you.)

It is funny how removing comfort is the best way to remove fear. Removing comfort replaces fear with faith, at least that has been the case for me. That is what this blog is about, many of the things that I have experienced, learned, and found upon the waves. It also is a step in itself; a step toward the writer/speaker/pastor that I believe God is shaping me into. Through the stories that I share, I hope that you will find the courage to step out onto the waves of your own faith, and leave your fears behind.