Have you ever made a plan that was then changed? Our story from the life of King David is not a pretty one. In fact, it can be downright discouraging, but there is hope. Come along with us on this episode of Reflect and Renew and learn how David learns a lesson about what happens when we do not stay plugged into God and let Him take control of our plans.Contributor: Our guest contributor, Janell, shares with us the challenge of helping her little one practice the violin. Her daughter isn’t the only one practicing. Janell also gets daily practice in learning to adjust and adapt her own expectations. Can you relate?

Have you ever made a plan that was then changed? Our story from the life of King David is not a pretty one. In fact, it can be downright discouraging, but there is hope. Come along with us on this episode of Reflect and Renew and learn how David learns a lesson about what happens when we do not stay plugged into God and let Him take control of our plans.Contributor: Our guest contributor, Janell, shares with us the challenge of helping her little one practice the violin. Her daughter isn’t the only one practicing. Janell also gets daily practice in learning to adjust and adapt her own expectations. Can you relate?

Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.

Starting with Jesus

Heather Bennett

Reflect and Renew January 2023

The Last Days of Saul

King at Last

King David

A Rebellious Son

Katie Chitwood

Building a House for God


Our story from the life of David is not a pretty 1. In fact, it's a story that could be downright discouraging. But there is hope. Stay with me to find out the lessons that we can learn today. If my daughter is having opportunities to grow, you know that I do too.

And so it's a big part of learning to adjust and adapt to changes in what I had planned. Welcome to Refresh and Renew. Hi, I'm Heather, and I'm so glad that you'll be joining me today. We will be learning and growing together in our walk with Jesus. You will surely be encouraged and challenged as we study week by week and hear from the experiences of others.

Today we're focused on the story of David and Bathsheba. You can find this story in 2 Samuel chapter 11. Have you had a chance to read the renew starting with Jesus devotional this week? Merle shares with us a story that happened to her when she did something as a child that led to the police being called and the neighbors being fearful. You'll want to check out that story and the devotional at startingwithjesus.com forward slash renew.

It can be easy to think that our relationship with God is going great. For David, life was going well. His army was successful, God was leading, and he was blessing their country. Yet, it was in that false sense of security that David had his great fall. He became confident, and in a matter of days, everything changed.

The same can be said of us. If we aren't connected, or as the devotional puts it, plugged in, we will become spiritually weak without even realizing it. It's then that Satan takes advantage of us by offering something too tempting to resist. Now, that's something to think about, right? How is it with us?

Are we plugged into God so that when life throws us curveballs we're able to meet it with grace and dignity? God gives us moments every single day to practice being plugged into Him. Those hiccups in our day, those stresses from our children, all are reminders to stay plugged into God. Today we're going to hear from Janelle. She will share with us the challenge of helping her little 1 practice the violin.

She'll also share a story about a last minute decision her husband made that actually affected the whole family. Janelle gives us a glimpse into a day in her life where she learns to adjust and adapt to her own expectations as she practices staying plugged into God. Can you relate? I'm the kind of person that really enjoys having a planned life. I like to know what I'm doing and then set out to go accomplish it.

Enter the blessings of the answer to prayer of being married and having 2 children that at this point are 6 and 4 and a half and God in his love gave me these gifts because he knew I want character development to become more like him and he loves me and he knows that I need to learn to be connected to him even when my plans do not get to accomplish the way I had set out to do them. And if I'm willing to embrace his plans for me more than what I had set out thinking I would do myself, this has been a major opportunity of mine on a daily basis because there's not a day that goes by that I don't have a disruption of what my plans are. This can be as simple as my daughter is in violin lessons and has been for this year and as a six-year-old there is so much technique, there's so much learning that goes into that process and it's something that I am involved with every day because she can't just learn it on her own. It's my opportunity to see that she follows through on what she's given in her lessons so that she can be successful.

And my daughter is a very strong, very expressive, very much the kind of person that experiences 100% of every emotion. There's never any doubt to what she thinks. And what I may set out in my plans as being a 15 minute practice time takes much longer than that because a couple of minutes into it, if I correct her posture, if I correct her note playing to make sure that we're on just the right sound, it is a meltdown moment that she gets to have opportunities to grow as well. And if my daughter is having opportunities to grow, you know that I do too. And so it's a big part of learning to adjust and adapt to changes in what I had planned and learning to say, okay, Lord, what is it that is my highest priority in life?

And my highest priority is character development and being prepared for Jesus' soon return. Another reality is the simple things like I'm planning to go into town, get my hair trimmed, doesn't happen that often, and unusually my husband was going to be able to be home and be with the kids, and then he says about 15 minutes before I was planning to leave by myself, which is a completely different get ready, go kind of thing than if you plan to bring the whole family with you. He says, the kids and I are gonna come into town with you and I'm gonna do da da da da. And I was like, oh dear, that is a complete discombobble of what I had planned. And do I even have enough time in the 15 minutes between now and when I needed to leave to make my appointment.

And as it was, I had to take a deep breath and say, Lord, you can help me. You can help me to have an excellent attitude. You can help me to embrace this opportunity for growth and be a living Christian, someone that's connected with you, that my experience doesn't have to be disrupted by this change in plans. So that's where I'm growing, on this ability to have my plans changed and being willing to embrace the growth opportunities that God has given me every single day. Aren't you glad that you have a faithful God who is with you every step of the way?

I love how Janelle saw the change in plans as a call to reach out to God and to ask him for help. Maybe you have had times when things are not going the way you had planned and the Holy Spirit prompted you to pray and ask God for help. If you have a story that shows how God helped you, please write to us, Renew at Starting with Jesus dot com. We would like to collect these stories so that we can share them. We'd like to use them to encourage and to uplift 1 another in our Christian walk.

Now it's time for our weekly challenge. Here are 2 of the challenges from the devotional, Renew! Staying with Jesus. How do you know if you're plugged into God or running on battery power? In what ways can you plug into God?

As you think about the answers to these questions, try to find a quiet time to write your answers down on a piece of paper or maybe even in a journal. Writing your answers down will help you slow down and think more carefully about your answers. Thank you for joining me today as we talked about staying connected to God through all the ups and downs of life. If you want to keep digging deeper into our study today, check out the extra Bible study helps and notes at startingwithjesus.com forward slash renew. And remember, the weekly devotional can be sent straight to your inbox if you just email us renew at starting with Jesus dot com and let us know to add you to the mailing list.

Before we go, let's close in prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, help us to stay connected and plugged into you. During those moments of stress in our lives, send the Holy Spirit to impress our hearts. Lord, we know that we will face challenges, but help these challenges to push us closer to you. We are so thankful that you are by our side every step of the way.

We pray this in your name. Amen. This podcast is sponsored by Starting With Jesus. To find out more about other programs, or to find out the links that were shared in this podcast, just check out the description box below.

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Series

Reflect and Renew January 2023

King David

Description

Parent Series

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Recorded

Other Teachings in Series

The Last Days of Saul

15m

King at Last

11m

King David

8m

A Rebellious Son

9m

Building a House for God

12m

Sound Doctrine