Living Life Undaunted: 365 Readings and Reflections from Christine Caine (A 365-Day Devotional) - Softcover

Caine, Christine

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0310341418 ISBN 13: 9780310341413

Publisher: Thomas Nelson, 2014

Synopsis

365 Days of Undaunted, Unstoppable Living

You don’t have to be a superhero to change the world. You just have to listen for God calling your name.

Drawing from her bestselling book Undaunted as well as several of her other inspirational writings, author and advocate Christine Caine presents 365 thought-provoking devotionals that will inspire you to overcome your life circumstances, create change, and bring the hope of Christ to a dark and troubled world.

Each daily reading offers the wisdom, encouragement, and companionship you need to begin your own mission of adventure. Even if, like Christine, you began your story unnamed, unwanted, and unqualified, you can be fueled by an unstoppable faith and filled with Christ’s relentless love and courage.

The world is waiting. Do you hear God calling your name?

About this title

About the Author

Christine Caine is a speaker, activist, and bestselling author who awakens people globally to discover their God-given purpose and live transformed lives for Jesus. 

Christine and her husband, Nick, have two daughters, Catherine and Sophia. Together, they founded A21, a global anti-human trafficking organization that prevents exploitation, recovers victims, and empowers survivors to rebuild their lives. She also founded Propel Women, an initiative that activates women to follow Jesus wholeheartedly and live confidently in their God-given purpose. You can tune into Christine's Equip & Empower podcast and Life and Leadership podcast for practical insights and encouragement, drawing hope from Jesus wherever you are. To learn more about Christine and her resources, visit www.christinecaine.com. 

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Living Life Undaunted

365 readings and reflections from Christine Caine

By Christine Caine

ZONDERVAN

Copyright © 2014 Christine Caine
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-310-34141-3

Contents

Introduction, 9, 
BROKEN, 
January: We All Have Wounds, 12, 
February: Healing Is a Process, 47, 
March: Learning to Trust, 78, 
LOVED, 
April: Chosen and Accepted by God, 116, 
May: Following in Love, 150, 
June: More Like Christ, 183, 
EMPOWERED, 
July: Peace, Wholeness, and Flexibility, 216, 
August: The Spirit-Filled Life, 250, 
September: Undaunted!, 285, 
COMMISSIONED, 
October: You Are Called, 322, 
November: Seeking the Lost, 358, 
December: Healing the World, 393, 

CHAPTER 1

January

WE ALL HAVE WOUNDS

* January 1 *

It All Starts with a Choice

Choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life, and he will give you many years in the land.

DEUTERONOMY 30:19–20

None of us can change what we did or did not do in the year gone by, but we can put the past behind us and press forward. We can lay hold of the purpose of God in the year ahead.

In the coming year, we get to make all new choices. We get to make up our minds if we will live in:

• Regret land

• Wishful thinking land

• Fantasy land

• Shame land

• Guilt land

• Defeat land

• Negativity land

• Bitterness land

• Unforgiveness land

• Jealousy land

• Anger land

• Self-pity land

Or, we can deal with those thoughts, attitudes, habits, and behaviors that have been holding us back so that we can step into the promises of God and the purpose for which we were created. We can live full of faith, hope, love, joy, peace, and purpose by making a simple decision to choose life.

Believe me, it all starts with a choice.

The good news is that with Jesus we can have a fresh start today. We do not need to focus on what we have lost, what we have not done, what we are not. We can embrace all we are and can be in him. Nothing is irredeemable. It's never too late. We cannot change the past, but the choices we make today can change the future.

Make a decision to make this year count; God has something very special for each of us to do.

MOMENT OF REFLECTION

What land will you live in this coming year?

* January 2 *

Completely Whole

"I will restore you to health and heal your wounds," declares the Lord, "because you are called an outcast."

JEREMIAH 30:17

Most of us have experienced hurt in one form or another. An overbearing boss crushes our spirit. An unfaithful spouse betrays our trust. Cruel friends trample our heart with spiteful words. Insensitive parents strip our confidence. Unthinking teachers call us stupid and tell us that we will never amount to anything, squashing our self-worth. Rebellious children stomp all over us. An abuser tries to take our soul. Whatever the source of attack, the hurt stings and the damage goes deep.

And, of course, we usually remember the exact moment of the damage—how the earth seemed to stop spinning, how the world came to a halt. We can't forget the sights, the smells, the song that was playing, what we wore, who else was there. These things freeze in memory, and a part of us freezes with them, forever stuck in that place, unable to move on. We may have been delivered from our situation, but we still aren't free.

That was true for me. For more than twelve years, I had been wounded by abuse. All that pain made me seal away a part of my heart and soul in what I thought was a safe, protected place. I desperately craved close relationships, but feared them too—because I never wanted to be hurt again. Though I was no longer in bondage to my abusers, I had shuttered my heart. I didn't trust anyone, not even God. I kept him at a distance by giving him my time, but not all of myself. I didn't trust him to take care of me. Nor could I forgive the men who hurt me, not even myself for being abused. Worse, I realized that I hadn't forgiven God. Where was he, after all, when I was a helpless child and those men laid hands on me? How could I compel others to love God with their whole hearts when I kept a part of my own from him?

Although I was shocked by this revelation, God was not. Since he knows everything, he knew that if I were to be truly free, I needed to deal with my wounds. He was able to heal me—but I had to choose that healing. I had to accept that I needed help. I had to reach out to God and others as part of the healing exercise of a whole heart.

MOMENT OF REFLECTION

What are the hurts in your life? Have you dealt with them?

* January 3 *

For Our Good

You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.

GENESIS 50:20

The Bible tells us that Joseph was abused by his brothers, sold by them into slavery, and then repeatedly scarred and neglected by his enemies. But Joseph made an amazing discovery: anything meant in this world for evil, God can use for good. This is no less true for us today. God is able to take the messes of our past—our trials and our tests—and turn them into a testimony.

God's Word does not say that all things that happen to us are good, but it does say that God is able to work all things together for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose.

Very often, the thing the enemy uses to try to destroy our lives is the very thing God uses to help others. God can heal every hurt and turn our scars into signs of strength for his glory. Our past mistakes, hurts, and pain can help give someone else a future if we allow God to redeem them.

Joseph could have held on to anger, bitterness, unforgiveness, or resentment because of the way he was mistreated by his brothers. Instead, he chose to love and forgive them. This was the higher road, albeit the more difficult one. When he saw his brothers many years later, instead of taking revenge, he was able to save their lives and show that the very thing that was designed to destroy him and his destiny was actually the thing that God used to catapult him into it.

Joseph could have allowed his wounds and scars to stop him from fulfilling his purpose. Instead he allowed God to heal his hurts. Healing brings wholeness and wholeness unleashes destiny. It is healed people whom God can use to heal people.

MOMENT OF REFLECTION

Have you ever had anything happen to you that was unfair? Have you allowed God to heal you or are you limping through life with an open wound?

* January 4 *

Spiritual Heart Attacks

Beloved, I pray that in all respects you may prosper and be in good health, just as your soul prospers.

3 JOHN 2 NASB

Unhealthy habits can often account for the breakdown of our physical bodies. For example, the most common causes of a physical heart attack are stress, a high-fat diet, smoking, high blood pressure, and lack of exercise. By eliminating these potentially harmful behavior patterns that lead to blockages in our arteries, we can prevent a heart attack from ever happening. The best cure is prevention.

The same is true in our spiritual lives. We cannot ignore those things that can create a blockage in our spiritual heart muscle, for eventually we will leave our first love and suffer a spiritual heart attack. Once that happens, we find our hearts no longer beat passionately for God or his purposes. Instead, we substitute formalism for faith and empty ritual for the life of the Spirit. In essence, by just going through the religious motions, we plug ourselves into an artificial life-support system. We mistakenly think we are alive when, in reality, we are only existing.

We were never created to settle for mere religion. Jesus did not die so that we could have a religious belief system—but rather a life-giving relationship with our Father.

I believe that as Christians we all possess a sincere desire to love God with all our hearts, yet we often unknowingly allow subtle deterrents to build up inside us. Slowly, these small obstructions form larger blockages, which over a period of time clog our spiritual arteries and harden our hearts by depriving them of access to their life source. We must do whatever it takes to ensure that these have no place in our lives as followers of Jesus.

MOMENT OF REFLECTION

Can you identify two thoughts or behaviors in your life that jeopardize your spiritual core? Why should these be given no place in your life?

* January 5 *

Who Am I?

Give thanks to the God of heaven. His love endures forever.

PSALM 136:26

Some years ago, my mum disclosed that my brother and I were adopted. At first, I was shaken, but I wasn't shaken loose. Even as the underpinnings of my world were shifting radically, they were resettling in a more secure place. The truth of God's love was holding me together.

I knew God loved me, unquestionably, unconditionally, whether I was adopted or not. His love is relentless, unyielding, passionate, unfailing, perfect. A feeling of peace—supernatural peace —engulfed me. Everything was going to be okay. That may seem like an odd conclusion, in light of the fact that my life, or at least everything I'd thought I knew about my life, was unraveling before my eyes. Nevertheless, I felt undaunted because of an unchanging, never-failing truth: God was in control of my life.

I had memorized countless verses about God's love for me. I desperately needed his love now more than ever, and when I read how he loved me, I soaked it up. I meditated upon those words, pondered and prayed over them. I found life in them. The words contained promises that excited me. Now those promises were holding me.

The truth we store up in silence comes back to us in the storm and lifts us away as on a life raft from the fears and disappointments that would otherwise pull us under. When we abide in his Word, he abides in us.

MOMENT OF REFLECTION

Do you know that you know that you know that God loves you? How easily can your foundations crumble?

* January 6 *

Sticks and Stones

The unfolding of your words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple.

PSALM 119:130

We can allow the names we call ourselves to define us. We can let the labels that others give us define us. After all, from the time we're born, and then throughout life, we're put in a box. We're defined by our family of origin, address, education, experience, bank account, credit rating, employer, friends, race, and ethnicity. We're called one thing after another: poor, spoiled, uneducated, inexperienced, young, old, troublemaker, shy. We can allow those words and labels to limit us. A teacher, parent, colleague, or ex can call us loser, fat, ugly, and hopeless —and those labels can stick, hurt, and damage us because we start to believe them.

Remember that old saying, "Sticks and stones can break my bones, but names can never hurt me"? That thought may help us keep a resilient will, but it's not true about the heart. We can be hurt plenty by labels like stupid, ignorant, alcoholic, addict, criminal, weak, pitiful. Names like these can break our spirits as much as physical sticks and stones can whack our bodies—especially if we believe them and begin to use them on ourselves. We can be brought to our knees, stopped in life before we even get started. Even when those names reveal something true about us, they are at best a partial truth —as well as a misleading one. If we allow those labels to loom larger in our hearts and minds than the promises of God, they can fool us into missing God's truth about who we are, into not pursuing the purpose God has had in mind for us from the beginning of time.

Our heads can insist that God created us and loves us, but our hearts and emotions may keep punching away at that knowledge with such thoughts as: "What's wrong with me? I never seem to do anything right!" Eventually, we feel an overwhelming sense of worthlessness and rejection, because that is what untruth does. It beats us down and knocks us out.

When there is a fight between my heart and my head, experience has taught me that the best thing to do is pick up my Bible and remind myself of what God says.

MOMENT OF REFLECTION

What are some of the labels that have been used to describe you? Scratch through all those labels and replace each one with something that God would use to describe you, such as loyal, kind, generous, caring, and devoted.

* January 7 *

The Highest Value

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

ROMANS 5:8

For many years I struggled with my worth and value primarily because I had been the victim of abuse from a very young age. I thought that there must have been something inherently wrong with me because people did unthinkable things to me. I must have been worthless because I was often treated like a worthless object instead of a valuable person.

Then I viewed a sermon illustration that profoundly affected me. The speaker held up a brand-new, crisp $100 bill and asked the congregation if anyone wanted it. Of course, we all shouted that we did. The speaker then scrunched up the bill and jumped on it. He held it up again and asked who wanted it. Again, we shouted that we wanted it.

He then told us that the $100 bill had been stolen, used to buy drugs, and used to pay for sex with a prostitute. Then he asked if anyone still wanted it. Undaunted, the entire congregation immediately raised their hands. We all understood that the value of money was not determined by what it had experienced or even how it looked. Its value was determined by the Treasury Department that had printed the bill. The speaker then drew the parallel between our view of the $100 bill and God's view of a lost person.

That day, I truly began to understand that our value in God's eyes is not determined by our past, our achievements, our failures, or our circumstances. Rather, our value is determined by the love that God has for us. That value is expressed in the fact that Jesus died for every single one of us, in spite of our shortcomings. Jesus did not wait for us to get cleaned up before rescuing us. Even on our worst day, we are worth the blood of Jesus—and nothing is more valuable than that.

MOMENT OF REFLECTION

Take the general down to the specific by asking yourself, "How do I see value in other people?"

* January 8 *

Where Were You?

The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.

PSALM 34:18

I will never forget the day that my husband Nick and I spent with a dozen female victims of sex trafficking. Several of the women had told their stories and another, Sonia, had asked us a probing question: "Why are you here?"

I started to tell her about the amazing God who had sent me. "He is the one who made us, each of us, for a unique purpose and a magnificent destiny. He makes right what the world makes wrong. His plans are for good, not for evil. His ways are straight and merciful. He came to give me a hope and a future—and to give you one too. His promises are true. His love is full of forgiveness and peace, joy and kindness, grace. He saves us from any prison, whether physical or emotional or spiritual, the ones we're forced into and the ones we fall into on our own. He chooses us. He can make all things new. He loves us without condition, unrelentingly, forever. He loves us broken, and he loves making us whole again. And he asks those of us who love him to love others the same way. To be agents of his hope, his forgiveness, his grace.

"That's why I'm here," I said.

Sonia's eyes filled with tears. I could see her grappling with the concept of unconditional love, the meaning of grace, of all things being made new. All the "whys" and "hows" of what I'd said furrowed her brow. All the "what ifs" and possibilities had died in her long ago. Yet here I was, resurrecting them. "What if there are good people and true promises and a merciful God who loves me and chooses me and can lift me from the impoverishment, the betrayal and fear, the hurt and horror? What if ..."

No! Sonia could not believe all this. It was too good to be true. The risk of allowing hope to reenter her life, only to see that hope dashed again, was too much. Her anguish returned to anger, and she pushed back from the table. "If what you are telling me is true," she yelled, "if what you say about your God is true—then where were you? Where have you been? Why didn't you come sooner?"

MOMENT OF REFLECTION

Have you ever asked why God had waited so long to rescue you from a crisis situation in your life? What did you learn from that situation?

* January 9 *

It's All about Vision

Where there is no vision, the people perish.

PROVERBS 29:18 KJV

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Living Life Undaunted by Christine Caine. Copyright © 2014 Christine Caine. Excerpted by permission of ZONDERVAN.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Edition details

• Publisher: Thomas Nelson
• Publication date: 2014
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0310341418
• ISBN 13: 9780310341413
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 432