Stephen De La Vega

  Tell my feet not to falter Tell my lips what to say Tell me walk on these waters Tell my hands what to pray Overwhelm, when I’m overwhelmed Overcome, when I’m overcome These are lyrics from a song called Companion by Tom Mottershead . Sometimes life overwhelms us. It overwhelmed Job whose experience with naysayers was featured in Resolution 9, Rise Above the Naysayers . We ended Resolution 9 with encouragement to entrust ourselves to God. Job realized: He doesn’t have the perspective to understand the why. Nothing can compare to the authoritative power of God. His limitations should be accompanied by humble trust in God’s wisdom and character. And he said this in response: My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.” Job 42:5-6 Job bowed in humility. He lost everything and he would never fully understand why. We don’t understand the why behind the winding in the ...

Just over a year ago I published my first blog post:  Even on Garbage Day, God Loves Us . 22 posts later, it’s still one of my favorites. I didn’t know what to expect when I launched my blog. Questions circled in my head. The most important: Does God want me to do this? Let me first say thank you for reading. You have truly been kind and faithful readers. I appreciate you all, and I hope my blog has been as meaningful for you as it has been for me. I plan to keep writing. My commitment is to write until God tells me to stop. …until God tells me to stop . That’s a loaded phrase, maybe packed with assumptions. God has different plans for each of us, but can we really know what He wants us to do…specifically? What has God planned for us? How can we know the path He designed for each of us? Here’s what I discovered: God is actively telling us His plan. Knowing it is easier when we listen and watch. Ears that hear and eyes that see – the LORD has made ...

Call us tulips. I claim the dark one. Yeah, I know it's pink, but it's the one that's different, and I feel a little different than the rest of the team. Today I write about my privilege to be 1 of 5 writers for my church’s blog site. I imagine us as 5 tulips.      Have you seen the variegated tulips? Their petals are striped with a different color. A red tulip, for example, might be feathered with random, yellow streaks. These feathered enchantments are intentionally bred, at least the varieties we find in nurseries. But, in the wild, this artful display is really a façade. It is the etching of a viral infection that weakens the plant and diminishes its production. Variegated tulips found in the wild are called “broken” and they can never rid themselves of infection. We are 5 writers  – 5 variegated tulips:  broken, infected, and weak, but transformed to be strong and vibrant, bearing solid color through the blood of Christ and the regenerating wor...