Exchanging the Try-Hard Life for Creativity and Rest

by Elisa Pulliam | | 11 comments

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Do you give yourself permission to be purposeless? Unproductive? Playful? Creative? Or do you feel the pressure to make sure everything you do, spend, create, and grow has some greater meaning?

This has been one of the great struggles of my adult life. I grew up in a culture that was bent towards productivity, academic accolades, and financial success. Those values deeply shaped how I saw this world and myself.

When I came to know Jesus as my Savior in college, I let go of the try-hard life but adopted a warped mindset that “dying-to-self” also meant, “dying to everything fufu.” If it doesn’t have quantifiable impact for the kingdom, it must be a waste of time, right?

I became a workaholic for Christ on a mission

The Secret to Connecting with God

by Elisa Pulliam | | 2 comments

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Have you ever considered how the connection you crave with God may be deeply impacted by the connections you have with others?

Maybe you’ve thought what you have with God doesn’t have to do with anyone else. It’s just you and God – but than again, maybe not.

We are created in the image of our relational God. He invites us to experience a fully connected relationship with Him when we’re adopted into His family by faith in Jesus Christ as Lord. We are given the gift of His presence through the indwelling Holy Spirit.

God designed us for continual connection with not only Himself but also His body.

John wrote, “This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he

When We’re Not Qualified

by Elisa Pulliam | | 2 comments

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Do you struggle with not feeling qualified? You’re not alone. I think more of us feel unqualified than qualified on a daily basis. It only takes being pushed slightly out of our comfort zone at work or in ministry, at home or in a relationship to feel entirely defeated about our abilities. Maybe that’s why we like to say that “God doesn’t call the qualified, He qualifies the called.”

It’s a lovely chant when we desperately need overcome our feelings of inadequacies. But is it truly a biblical statement?

Context is key, my friends. This Christian platitude is likely inspired by 2 Corinthians 3:5 NLT, “It is not that we think we are qualified to do anything on our

Real-Time Relationship

by Elisa Pulliam | | 2 comments

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I expected my usually happy teenage daughter to bounce into my office singing VBS songs from her morning spent serving at church. Instead, her sullen face conveyed another story. She was battling feelings of betrayal, insecurity, and jealousy after receiving a message from a friend about something that was happening in a completely different place.

Let’s just say this mama llama wanted to spew more than a few unpleasantries about social media and towards the adult involved behind the scenes. Yet I could feel God urging me to not be so easily offended. I’d been down this road enough times before to recognize what was happening.

Satan was busy writing the story in my head according to his own

Real-Time Relationship Restoration

by Elisa Pulliam | | 8 comments

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I expected my usually happy teenage daughter to bounce into my office singing VBS songs from her morning spent serving at church. Instead, her sullen face conveyed another story. She was battling feelings of betrayal, insecurity, and jealousy after receiving a message from a friend about something that was happening in a completely different place.

Let’s just say this mama llama wanted to spew more than a few unpleasantries about social media and towards the adult involved behind the scenes. Yet I could feel God urging me to not be so easily offended. I’d been down this road enough times before to recognize what was happening.

Satan was busy writing the story in my head according to his own

The Blessing of Surrendered Expectations

by Elisa Pulliam | | 6 comments

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Do you think it is possible to truly surrender all your expectations, dreams, and desires to God?

For too many years I proclaimed that God was my Lord while resisting surrendering everything to Him. It’s no surprise I felt the need to be in control, especially in the aftermath of my childhood marred by abuse. It was my survival strategy to determine every next move and make sure it came to fruition. From the outside it looked like drive and perseverance, but when you pull back the layers, it was really an unhealthy habit rooted in lies. I believed I had to be my own protector. I was convinced it was up to me to make anything good

Finding Your True Purpose

by Elisa Pulliam | | 1 comment

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I love it when I read a portion of Scripture and it feels like it’s the first time I’ve ever come across a particular concept. Have you had that experience?

God’s Word is so rich and complex, and His grace is so far and wide that He allows us to soak up what we need for the moment through our Bible reading, knowing that there will be a time when He’ll take us deeper.

The Spirit reveals to us a timeless principle for a timely application.

The Holy Spirit, at work in us by faith in Jesus Christ, awakens us to the very truth we need in that particular situation. But there is one catch. We have to be in the

The New You is Still Possible

by Elisa Pulliam | | 12 comments

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Have you ever noticed how often we make such great plans, but then life gets in the way?

We start off determined to lose weight, get fit, overcome our character flaws, take new career risks, invest deeper in relationships, and get organized. But before we make enough strides for our vision to become our normal, we’re hit with reality.

We get sick.

Something breaks.

We run out of steam.

Hello, normal. Goodbye, vision.

So what should we do when our great big plans fizzle into little failures?

Well, it might sound cliché, but it’s at that very moment we need to not give up! Instead, we need to wipe our brow from the feeling of defeat and get our mind back into gear.

The change

Showing Up Ready

by Elisa Pulliam | | 5 comments

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Did you know that when you make a commitment to work at a boarding school, you’re inherently saying yes to wearing many hats? You might be hired to teach science, but before the ink is dried on the contract, you’ll discover you’re also doing things like coaching the hurdlers on girl’s varsity track. Yes, it was quite a feat my husband took it on without a complaint, even though he never ran track a day in his life.

I’m pretty sure Stephen didn’t let on to his athletes that they knew more than he did. Instead, he focused on putting in time behind the scenes, studying the sport of hurdling using the stack books and videos he checked

This is Real Love

by Elisa Pulliam | | 6 comments

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Would you say you truly understand the real love of God?

When I gave my life to the Lord in that London dorm room 25 years ago, I wasn’t actually interested in being loved by God nor even loving Him in return. I was simply desperate for the promise of eternity. It was my escape route from a life of hurt filled with relationships marked by dysfunction, abuse, and betrayal.

The promise of heaven gave me hope that one day all would be well, so I chose to believe in Jesus as my Lord and Savior. It never dawned on me that love could be part of the equation – at least not the kind of love I could

Learning to Roll with It

by Elisa Pulliam | | 2 comments

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When was the last time you had the perfect plan in place – the kind of plan that requires preparation and devotion of time – but regardless of your investment, the plan simply wouldn’t behave? Maybe there was an obstacle at every turn, a conflict with those you were counting on attending, an issue with the space, or a challenge in meeting the deadline.

Well, I understand! As one who likes to plan, I’ve experienced my fair share of divine re-routings. Like the time I was scheduled to speak at an event in the middle of February. All the pieces were in place. The invitations were sent out. I steeped myself in the study of Biblical mentoring once

Is it time to press the holy pause button?

by Elisa Pulliam | | 5 comments

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Do you ever feel tempted to skim familiar passages when you read your Bible? That’s what I was about to do as I came upon the passage in Exodus about the Sabbath.

“Yeah, yeah, Lord I know.”

But do I know? Do I really know why God intended the Sabbath for our good? Do I really believe that a day of rest is necessary for me, a happy-to-be-busy kind of girl? Am I willing to be stretched into stillness, as an act of surrender to my Sovereign God?

As I swiftly turned the page, I felt a prompting from the Holy Spirit to turn back . . . to slow down . . . and to read line-by-line with a

Facing the Unknown with God’s Promises

by Elisa Pulliam | | 13 comments

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It’s amazing how hard we have to work at not letting our emotions trump the truth. It’s especially hard when you receive a phone call from the doctor’s office and the sweet voice on the other end of the line says, “Ma’am, we need you to come back in and have another scan done.”

I was ready to run straight to the office that moment. Unfortunately, their next appointment was a week and a half away, which left me with ten whole days of wondering what the results would be.

Did I have cancer?

Was this my turn?

I probably do, since it’s in my family.

I know this is going to be me.

Oh, God . . .

Our thoughts left unchecked

When It Feels Like God is NoWhere

by Elisa Pulliam | | 10 comments

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If you would have told me twenty years ago that I would one day find myself in a weekly dance class again, I wouldn’t have believed you. Back then, I was still grieving and fussing over the way my knee injuries disrupted my dreams and stole my passions.

My mom enrolled me in my first dance class when I was three and by the time I was 10, I was fitted for my first pointe shoes. Although tap and jazz were more my thing, those pointe shoes represented so much potential until a series of knee dislocations and a failed surgery ended my dream of becoming a Rockette. I buried my sorrow as I went on living my