devotional

When God Grows Your Faith

Tammy M CardwellLeave a comment

I’ve been thinking a lot about this quote from Hudson Taylor lately.

“There are three stages to every great work of God;
first it is impossible, then it is difficult, then it is done.”

God has been asking me to do things, lately, that seem impossible, so I guess it’s no surprise that this quote came to mind.

“What do you mean by ‘impossible,’ Tammy?”

I mean that, when you look at my circumstances and experience, God is literally asking me to do things I cannot possibly do. 

Have you ever considered something and, even as you thought, “No,” you undeniably heard God speak to your spirit a solid, “Yes”? I did earlier this month. On the outside I looked calm and collected. On the inside a battle raged. My flesh, which was being told to step out of the way, was in a heated argument with my spirit.

But my spirit was leaping up and down. God had spoken to me, clearly, about this specific situation. And when God speaks that clearly, not only am I limited to one option – obedience – but I also have a guarantee that He’s not going to let me fail.

My flesh didn’t believe a word of it.

Flesh: “But you know how you get when learning new things frustrates you; you shut down.”

Spirit: “Not this time! God’s standing right here assuring me I won’t!”

Flesh: “What about the financial commitment you’re making? You haven’t budgeted for anything like this!”

Spirit: “God has, obviously, or He wouldn’t be telling me to do it.”

During the battle I was reminded of both Hudson Taylor’s quote and something a character in a book once said. I can’t remember what he said, exactly, but it was along the lines of, “Of course I don’t know how God is going to work it out. That’s what makes it so exciting!”

Even then, the battle wasn’t over.

The next morning, I was still struggling, doubting that I was truly hearing from God, so I fell back on my tried-and-true decision making strategy. It’s a principle my pastor taught many years ago: God always leads with peace.

So, when faced with a hard decision, I decide. In this case (because I had a feeling it was the wrong choice), I first decided I wasn’t going to do it; I was going to pass up the opportunity I was being given. And I was filled with…complacency.

I will interject here that I’ve advised people about this process many times and I always explain that only God can give you peace; the closest the devil can get is complacency. I’ve never experienced it like this before, however. Generally, the wrong choice has resulted in a churning stomach.

But yeah, I felt total and complete complacency, like a sleeper who chooses to roll over and go back to sleep because he isn’t in the mood to face the day. It disturbed me so that I quickly decided to obey God.

Not only did peace instantly flood my soul when I said, “Yes,” to God: I got excited!

And then something occurred to me. Actually, I’m going to say God revealed it to me, because this is a thought I’ve never had.

We are to live by faith. We know this. Scripture after scripture tells us we’re to walk by faith, to grow and strengthen our faith, that we’re to have works associated with our faith, that we can’t please God without faith…

I’ll stop. But you get the idea.

My faith is as strong as it is because living with my husband required it. When you’re moving essentially from one crisis to another, either you’ll build your faith up or you’ll let yourself be torn down – and I was not going to let myself be torn down!

Even in the year after he passed, my faith grew as it was stretched by my financial and housing situations, but in the past year or so…not so much. And I didn’t realize it until recently, but that steady season had quietly allowed my faith muscles to relax. 

But, again, that’s not what we’re called to do. I have come to believe that, if we’re not consciously choosing to stretch and work our faith, which is what is required for it to grow, God will lead us into situations where stretching and building up our faith is a necessity.

Now that I think about it, this is the second time He’s done that in recent months. Something else happened a few months ago that demanded I put my faith out there and trust Him, and I was excited to find I was able, that I was looking forward to seeing how He would take care of things. I still am.

So…yeah… Faith – trusting God – is not just important; it’s essential. We can’t just say we trust Him; our lives have to show it. And when they do, He’ll often lead us straight into the impossible.

But once our focus is fully on Him, we’ll realize it was never impossible after all. It may be difficult, yes, but at some point…it will be done.

Celebrating Jesus!
Tammy C

Reading Scripture in Context: A Guide for Growing Faith

Tammy M CardwellLeave a comment

Ronnie Trice, my pastor’s father, often said about reading the Word, “When you see ‘therefore,’ you need to see what it’s there for.”

I’ve never forgotten this instruction, but I must confess I sometimes forget to act on it. Little transition words like “so,” “then,” and “for” might seem insignificant, but they carry a lot of weight. And, sad to say, they’re all too easy to ignore.

Take the word “if.” It indicates conditions. That’s important when we’re talking about the promises of God. We get excited about God’s promises, and we should! But we too often overlook the conditions that come attached.

Let me give you a few examples.

John 15:7 (KJV)
Promise: “…ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.”
Condition: “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you…”

2 Chronicles 7:14 (KJV)
Promise: “…will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”
Condition: “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways then…”

1 John 1:9 (KJV)
Promise: “… he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
Condition: “If we confess our sins…”

These aren’t hidden messages. They’re right in front of us in black and white (or red and white, if it’s Jesus talking), but we miss them when we skim the words or focus only on the parts we want to see.

Recently, I was reading from the Renner Interpretive Version: James & Jude (RIV). In this version, Rick Renner takes the original Greek and brings out the meaning in a way that is both faithful to the text and alive with first century understanding. It made me appreciate transition words all over again.

Take a look at James 1:23. In the KJV it reads:

“For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass.”

The word “for” is small, easy to skip over, but it’s crucial to the message. It ties everything back to what James has just finished saying and leads into what he has to say next. In the RIV, that same passage begins like this:

“You need to understand that if — as I’m certain is the case concerning what I’m about to say — anyone finds himself among those who merely show up to hear the Word but are not committed to putting it into practice…”

In other words, James was alerting his readers to the urgency of both what he had to say and how it all fit together.

What had he just said?

The end of verse 22 (still in the RIV) makes it crystal clear.

“These kinds of people make the grave miscalculation of thinking they’ve done all that is required by just showing up. Don’t trick yourselves into thinking that merely showing up and listening is all that’s required.”

Then come verses 23-24 where he talks about a man who looks in a mirror, sees things in his reflection that need to be fixed, then turns and walks away, forgetting all about what he’s seen. James is saying, “Don’t be that person!”

That’s a big “for.”

Of course, this truth holds up no matter which translation you choose. Transition words are like important signposts. They remind us of where the author has been and where he’s going. But here’s the thing: We’ve grown accustomed to reading the Bible in bits and pieces, chapter by chapter or even verse by verse, usually without thinking about how it was originally written.

Did you even know the Bible didn’t always have chapter and verse numbers?

It’s true. The Bible was originally written as continuous text. The chapter divisions we know today were first introduced in the 1200s, and verse numbering came even later. While they undeniably help us find things quickly, these divisions can also lead us to read verses in isolation, and this causes us to miss much of the flow and intent of the text.

Take Romans 8:1 for example.

“There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.”

That “therefore” is a clue. It tells us to back up and see what led to this beautiful conclusion. When we start at Romans 7:21 and then read through Romans 8:4, we get the full context. In sharing his personal struggles with sin as well as the triumph we have through Christ Paul gives us a message that is only hinted at in Romans 8:1.

And then there’s Hebrews 12:1.

“Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses…”

Wherefore? Which witnesses? To answer these questions, you need to back up to the Hall of Fame of Faith found in Hebrews 11. Read about these heroes of the faith, see how they stood through everything in their lives, and you will be encouraged that you too can “run the race set before you.” And to truly grasp the full impact of Hebrews 12:1, I urge you to keep reading through 12:3. It’s all connected.

Experiencing the Bible is about more than reading a verse or two here and there. Don’t get me wrong: Cards and calendars that offer a scripture a day are good, but they are no substitute for truly diving into the Bible. If you want to let His words live in you as Jesus said in John 15:7, slow down, read in context, take it in fully, act on it, and watch it change you from the inside out.

That’s one reason I believe reading the Bible from cover to cover is one of the most powerful things you can do to grow in your relationship with God. When you follow the flow of Scripture, those little words — if, for, therefore, then, wherefore — become keys that unlock deeper understanding.

So next time you’re reading and come across one of them, pause.

Ask what it’s there for.

You might just discover it’s pointing to something life-changing.

Celebrating Jesus!
Tammy C

PS: If my references to the RIV intrigued you, you might want to check out my review of The Renner Interpretive Version: James & Jude.

Why Has Tammy Been Quiet?

Tammy M CardwellLeave a comment

Ok, so I’ve not been too obviously quiet, since I had several blog posts scheduled weeks out, but there are reasons you’ve only seen a few posts from me in the past month. One reason is that gnats invaded my apartment and this gal is allergic to gnat bites. The results had me down hard for about two weeks, but I’m coming out of it now praise God. But that’s really secondary to my big news.

We’re working on my new website!

I know things look the same here, and they will for…I’m not sure how long. One of the biggest hurdles has been successfully run, however, and my developer has completed the process of moving my blog to their server where it will become part of a new website in which I’ll be able to go more in depth in several areas.

This has been an educational trip, I tell ya!

We’re working on multiple things at once, and one of the most exciting for me is branding: color choice, style, etc. It’s kind of fun, and really interesting. It’s also making me think outside of my usual box. On the branding questionnaire, for instance, I encountered some surprises. One that caught me off guard was something along the lines of “If your brand were an animal what animal would it be?”

My answer? A peacock!
If you know me, you know I love peacocks,
but my response goes beyond simple animal preference.

Have you ever heard a peacock? If so, you would probably agree they can be pretty annoying. Frankly, the same could be said about me – has been. Honestly, there will be times you probably don’t want to hear what I have to say. In the past, I’ve been pretty conservative, staying in the middle of the road, trying not to offend anyone, but there’s no time for that anymore.

I have a revelation of Eternity that demands I do all I can to help others not only live well in this life, but also prepare for the next. There’s not a person on Earth who is guaranteed tomorrow. We may want to ignore that fact, but we can’t change it. Hebrews 9:27 (NET) speaks truth loudly when it says, “And just as people are appointed to die once, and then to face judgement…”

Yep, I’m not the only one who can say things that people don’t want to hear. The Word of God can be just as annoying as that peacock’s voice when you don’t want to listen to what God has to say. Even so, our preferences do not change the truth God speaks.

And then there’s the undeniable beauty! Even if you’re not a peacock lover, you have to admit that, when he fans his tail, the peacock demands attention. He’s lovely. He’s majestic. Each feather is simply amazing, so much so that they’re reproduced in myriad artistic ways! Have you ever studied one, literally handled it with intent? They’re awesome!

God’s Word is like that too! It’s beautiful! You can look at it in intricate detail and be absolutely amazed. You can come to the same passage you’ve read before and see something entirely new that you missed the first time. Like that extraordinary peacock, the Bible demands attention, drawing you in and leaving you in awe. Of course, the peacock is only a bird; it can’t even begin to the compare with the Word, but you get what I mean. I hope?

And that is why I chose this animal as the answer to that question.

I am super excited about this move and all it will help me do! The website will serve as a home to Experiencing the Bible and a devotional I’ve begun writing, as well as anything else God has me do. I’m also making plans for a newsletter that will allow me to communicate more personally and share snippets from the upcoming book. But there’s more! At my developer’s request, I’ve been making a wishlist.

One of the things I’m particularly excited about having is a dedicated reviews page where I can share my thoughts on, and experiences with, various resources. My primary focus being on helping Christians grow in the Lord, you can expect to see reviews of Bibles and other such things for sure. At this point, I don’t know if I’ll include other types of reviews on a permanent page or simply keep sharing them here as blog posts. Feel free to offer up an opinion on that.

Don’t worry, my blog will continue to be just as eclectic as it has been.
My brain demands it!

So yes, I’ve been quiet lately. In large part, it’s because I couldn’t post anything that wasn’t prescheduled during the transition, at least I don’t think I could have? It’s also because I’ve been busy, not just with this move to a full-blown home on the web, but also with my full-time job; I kept working during the gnat debacle (and came home each night and cratered) because there’s so very much to do. 

You may remember that I work for a church, Hillside Church in Mont Belvieu, Texas, to be exact. We’re deep into one of our two busiest times of the year right now as we prepare for the auction that provides the bulk of the funds for Operation BAM, a vitally important ministry that helps untold numbers of people, all around the world, every year. You read a little about it in my post “Relief to the Texas Panhandle.”

This ministry is one of my absolute favorites. Yes, we have the disaster response truck. We also provide car seats to a local hospital so that mamas who can’t afford one are taken care of. We support missionaries and organizations around the world. We provide protein for shelters and other organizations that usually only receive donations of non-perishables. We make Christmas dreams come true for multiple families every year, and also celebrate Christmas by taking trailers loaded with bicycles into neighborhoods and passing those bicycles (and trikes, and this past year scooters) out to resident children and any others who show up. We have a team of quilters who make special blankets for those who are going through cancer treatments, we support a men’s rehabilitation facility, and we help out a local pregnancy resource center.

And more!
It seems every time I turn around
Operation BAM is doing more, and I love it!

So right now I’m neck deep in auction items and preparations for our upcoming Crawfish Boil & Auction. Yes, this means I’ll still probably be a little quiet, if not as much as I have been, but only for a couple more weeks…maybe three.

Hopefully, I’ll soon be fully back and you’ll be seeing at least three posts a week from here on out. In the meantime, thank you for being part of my community. I love having you here!

Celebrating Jesus!
Tammy C

Keeping Busy & Exciting News

Tammy M CardwellLeave a comment
What progress looks like.

I have multiple projects running simultaneously today, so my bed has officially become part of my desk.

I’m particularly excited about what’s on the bed, because it represents a definite start on my next book. I’ve been asked repeatedly if I would write something else, and I’ve had a few ideas I wanted to pursue, but none were quite right.

Until now.

Those of you who appreciate my reactions to scripture in Experiencing the Bible will be happy to know this is going to be similar. Note: Not the same, but similar. At this point it’s looking like it might be a devotional, though it’s too early to know that for sure.

I’m so excited about it that I’m seriously considering starting a newsletter so I can keep those who are interested up to date on the progress. If you would like to receive it, probably twice a month at most, email me at tammymcardwell@gmail.com so I can notify you when I open subscriptions.

And now I need to get back to work. I pray you have an amazing day!

Celebrating Jesus!

Tammy C

Awaken by Priscilla Shirer

Tammy M Cardwell1 Comment

I’ve done a few of Priscilla Shirer’s Bible studies through the years, so when I received this book as a gift I knew I’d been given gold. When I saw it was a 90-day devotional, I dug right in, and after only two days I knew I had to share.

Who is Priscilla Shirer? Well, the bit of information that caught my attention when we began that first Bible study was that she is Tony Evans’ daughter. She is much more, but having known of his ministry for years I felt confident I could trust her and was pretty sure I would enjoy her teaching. I was right.

As well as being a focused wife and mother, Shirer has been in full-time ministry for decades. She’s written books and Bible studies, speaks all over the place, and runs Going Beyond Ministries with her husband. She’s got the spiritual goods.

So… Awaken

The book starts with a two-page introduction. I realize most readers skip the introduction. Don’t. It’ll only take a few minutes to read, and will help prepare you for what’s coming. One of my favorite sentences in this section is, “The majority of what you’ll encounter here are personal whispers from God’s Spirit to my own over the last decade.” This is one of the things I value most about her in all of her works. She speaks to us what He has spoken to her. The adventure, the journey, is real.

After the introduction, you head straight into Day 1, which hits you right in the heart in a good way. She likens our need for God, for all He has to offer, to the Israelites’ need to gather manna first thing in the morning before the sun came along to burn it all off.

It took even less time to read this devotion than it did the intro, but I’m still thinking about it. This is a parallel I’d never considered, and there’s a lot to unpack. In other words, it did exactly what it was supposed to do. It made me think and keep thinking.

After each devotion, you’ll find two more pages set aside just for you. Entitled “He Speaks to Me,” this section gives you the chance to answer a question, to see how what she has shared applies to your life. I encourage you to really think about your answer and take the time to write it down in the journal space she’s provided. You may not be comfortable recording your thoughts in this way, but I’d like you to remember two things.

  1. This is your book. No one else needs to see it, so it’s a safe place.
  2. There are probably many times in the past that God has shown you exciting, even astounding, things but you forgot them. (Or is that only me?) Recording triggers remembering.

The book is a 90-day devotional. That’s only a 3-month commitment if you do it every day. And if you choose not to do it daily? Well, I certainly won’t judge you. I will say, however, that I’m sure you’ll gain something every time you choose to dive in. I have, and I’ve only just finished Day 2.

So why didn’t I wait until I’ve done more before writing this review? Two reasons. I “know” Priscilla Shirer, and am confident in her consistency. Also, it’s December 29th, which gives you time to grab a copy for yourself and start on January 1. I can’t think of a better way to begin a new year than to focus on getting ever closer to God.

Celebrating Jesus!
Tammy C

Consistency – YouVersion Bible App

Tammy M CardwellLeave a comment

I’ve been using the YouVersion Bible app for years, and I love it. When I first discovered it, I primarily appreciated the fact that I could have access to multiple Bible translations on my phone. After a friend invited me to do a devotion with her, however, my life changed.

Once you’ve downloaded and set up (easy) the YouVersion app on your phone, you have multiple options. If you look at the graphic above, you’ll see the little house highlighted at the bottom of the screen. This Home screen gives me a snapshot of my YouVersion life.

Select Read, and you’ll pop straight into the Bible. Here you can choose from various translations, some of which you can download, some you can have the app read aloud. As you read, you can highlight, make notes, and more. Depending on how you set your preferences, your friends can also see your highlights and notes. Yes, you have friends here!

Plans is where the real fun begins. You can see that I’m working my way through 2 plans right now, both of which are around 7 days. God alone knows how many plans are available, but I can almost guarantee that you can find a plan (or several) on whatever topic you’re interested in. The plan length varies greatly, from three days being the shortest I’ve done to…well, I know you can read the Bible through in a year, so 365 days for sure. You don’t have to limit yourself to one a day, however. You can blow through any devotional just as fast or as slow as you like.

And you can do it with friends too!

So when you start a devotion, you decide if you want to do it alone or with friends (You invite whomever you choose), and whether or not you want your activity to be public. When you start the plan, you’ll read, watch, or listen to a devotion; then read its accompanying verses. Finally, if you’re reading with friends, you have an option of making comments and carrying on conversations. This can be a very enriching experience!

The app has a lot more that I don’t even get into – like Verse of the Day and being able to make your own verse graphics. It is, indeed, quite amazing and a marvelous tool for me in my determination to be consistently engaging with God’s Word.

Celebrating The Word!
Tammy C

The One Year Bible for Women

Tammy M CardwellLeave a comment


I’ve shared before about the great value I find in reading through the Bible, and I’m currently reading it through again. This time God had me pull out The One Year Bible for Women in the New Living Translation.

I’ve never even considered reading this format before. I felt it would make for too choppy a read, that it would interrupt the flow of the text to such an extent that I would get little out of it. I was mistaken.

This Bible offers itself up in daily readings that include passages from the Old Testament, the New Testament, Psalms, and Proverbs. I’ve discovered that this works quite well as no one section is so long that it gets boring, and having Psalms and Proverbs broken up into such small bites really gives them the attention they deserve.

I still believe it’s vitally important to read through the Bible chronologically at least once, preferably two or three times, but I had to come confess that I find this to be an exceptionally good reading plan as well.

Celebrating Jesus!

Tammy C