True Identity: Where are we finding ours?

Do not despise these small beginnings, for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin. Zechariah 4:10a

The fan clicked softly as it swirled away the stifling heat and humidity that had settled into little backwoods church. There was a strange familiarity in this place I’d never set foot before. Strings pulling me back to a time I’d never really known but yet my heart felt an instant connection.

We moved around so much when I was kid I never really felt like I had any roots. How can roots get a chance to go deep when they’re never allowed time to get past the surface?

How strange it was to feel roots coming up from this little rock walled church pulling me into a heritage I was still trying to figure out.

I sat trying not to move for fear of the pew creaking and giving away my giddiness over something I couldn’t truly explain.

The old familiar gospel music wafted me into a comfort I’d been missing for a while. Hearing my father’s soft, familiar voice at the pulpit of his childhood was the highlight of a trip to a home I’d never known.

As I sat listening intently to the message about God, not man or the world, defining our identity it hit me like a ton of bricks. Soft, gentle bricks though!

Never despise small beginnings!

My dad had spent so many of his formative years in this tiny building that brimmed with larger than life people. What the building lacked in sized it more than made up for in faith.

These people threw a pebble of faith into my dad and God multiplied the ripples more than anyone could have ever expected.

How could they have known? Could they see the generations to come that would be affected by their decision to arm my family with the knowledge of the saving grace of Jesus?

No. The simple answer is no. But, nothing is small to our BIG God.

Those small beginnings don’t identify who I am as my identity is IN Christ but I never want to despise or look past those beginnings.

Your true identity is secure in your Heavenly Father, 

not your earthly father.

We must keep our eyes on Jesus and not let the enemy fill us with lies about our identity. We’re more than conquerors and already victorious through Christ. Operate from that victory, not towards it. Live out who and whose you are each day.

I’m so grateful for the people who invested their time and faith into my dad. They paved a way for generations to come!

I’m reminded today of how our earthly roots are nice to know but they will never define who you are as only God can do that! His Word tells us all we need to know about our true identity. Our roots can run deep and really settle in Him.

Let’s dig deep into His word this week and really come to know who God says we are and thank Him for that truth!

I'm sharing this post with several other blogger's at these Faith Linkups. I encourage you to check them out. If this post resonates with you and feel it would help others please feel free to share. Easy to share buttons below. ~Laura~

Do you need to bring your self-discipline out?

I’ve been checked out and more than a bit out of it lately.

I took a scheduled break from writing in May and the first part of June as it’s our busiest time of the year on the ranch.

It’s amazing how quickly a discipline or habit we’ve had for quite a while can slip away when not exercised. I kept telling myself I was too busy to write and it would just have to wait.

The thing is though, the longer I waited to start back up the harder it became to start at all!

The excuses became easier and the discipline became harder. I kept telling myself I was too busy and it really didn’t matter that much anyway. To be honest, I was am struggling with the fear of failing.

What if it’s harder than I remembered? What if I was always fooling myself before and this wasn’t what God called me to do? Do I even have words left in me anymore?

Yikes, even typing those words I realize how much the enemy was feeding me lies. I simply got out of a habit and lost the discipline and the devil took full advantage of my doubts I voiced.

Have you ever been there? Fear of failure keeping you from exercising the self-discipline God has given us.

Speak against the lies of fear and timidity in the name of Jesus. Be brave in Him. Claim the spirit of power, love and self-discipline He freely gives.

That may look different for each of us and in each situation. Maybe it’s someone speaking truth into your life at the moment God has orchestrated. It could be the quiet whisper of the Holy Spirit reminding you of who and whose you really are! Maybe it’s simply making the next right choice.

I want to get back in the habit of writing what God lays on my heart to share. It takes discipline. You know what, it’s not easy. But…God created us for hard things.

I’m literally just putting one word down and then the next. I’m asking God to help me be brave. I’m giving him the little bit of bold I have right now and trusting Him to handle the rest.

He’s more than capable of taking the little bit of

self-discipline hidden deep inside us and bring it to its fullest.

(A little grace from you with my stumbling words on this first one back would be much appreciated as well.)

What area(s) of your life do you need put some self-discipline into action? Let me know in the comments and I’d be happy to pray with you!

I'm sharing this post with several other blogger's at these Faith Linkups. I encourage you to check them out. If this post resonates with you and feel it would help others please feel free to share. Easy to share buttons below. ~Laura~

Busy time of Year!

I’m so sorry I’ve been absent for the last couple of weeks. I haven’t fallen off the globe or been sucked into some kind of black hole. Well, I guess maybe, the black hole of lambing.

May is our busiest month of the year, like by a LOT. We’re finishing up calving, going to brandings and then throw in lambing out about 500 head of sheep in 3 -4 weeks too.

I promise I’ll be back with more regular blog posts in June but I just wanted to touch base quick.

Life is good. The weather has been outstanding for lambing. The ewes are in the best shape I’ve ever seen them in. Both of my sons are around to help and I couldn’t ask for better help.

Every year I think I’ve seen it all when it comes to sheep. Every year I’m reminded that’s simply not true. I keep my little notes app handy as I’m driving through pasture’s to record the lessons God teaches me through this amazing season. As a side note my talk to text feature on that app makes it quite a game to figure out what I really said from what it recorded!

Here’s a few picture’s from lambing so far. To see more of them regularly follow me on Instagram (@LauraAHicks) where I share more frequently.

God Bless!

Represent Who's We Are

It’s that time of year again. Spring is in the air. New baby calves are running and bucking with excitement. Lambing season is knocking at my door.

I’m blessed to train and use Border Collie’s to help with ranch work. They’re born with the desire and instinct to work livestock. We also select for dogs that are eager to work as a team with a person.

There’s nothing quite like working with a dog to accomplish a task. 

Communication is crucial. The more we work together the better we read each other.

Sheepdog trial season is just around the corner! It’s time for me to shake the cobwebs out of my dogs training. I want to be ready and have my dogs represent well.

In all honesty I really want them to be able to shine. I want our relationship and communication to be on point.

It's the same with how we represent God. I personally want my relationship and communication with God to be evident to those around me.

We can talk about how how we’re following Christ until we’re blue in the face but if our life doesn’t reflect it, we’re fooling ourselves.

My dogs, like us, aren't robots. They have free will and like us can make choices. Sometimes their choices aren't the best but when we work together the outcome is best.

The same goes in our relationship with the Lord. We have free will to make whatever choices. God does not call us to be robots, He wants us to come willingly.

When we are in a right standing relationship with God we are in continual communication with Him. 

The closer we are to the heart of the Father the more our choices will reflect our relationship with Him.

I want my life and my choices to reflect the love of Jesus.

The analogy of my dogs and me is not perfect because I am not perfect and neither are they. Fortunately for us, God IS perfect so we can trust Him all the time. Whereas I make mistakes in my relationship with the dogs and so do they.

I'm blessed that my dogs really desire to hear my voice most of the time. They lean in to listen and want to please me. Sometimes they believe they're right and I’m wrong. At that moment a correction is necessary.

The same can be said for us and we will need a correction to steer us back in the right direction.

God corrects us with love and mercy to get us back on the right track. How we respond to that merciful correction speaks to our trust in our loving Father.

Let’s lean in and keep our heart eager to hear to our Lord’s voice!

Ready to respond to the slightest whisper from Him. Submitting quickly when we’ve made a mistake and head the right direction.

In all we do and all we are, let’s represent Who’s we are!

I'm sharing this post with several other blogger's at these Faith Linkups. I encourage you to check them out. If this post resonates with you and feel it would help others please feel free to share. Easy to share buttons below. ~Laura~

Whisper Yes to quiet time with Jesus

Why do we struggle to spend quiet, undistracted time alone with God in His word and in prayer?

I tell myself every evening that tomorrow will be different. Nothing else will happen in my day until I’ve had my time following Jesus into the word of God. Then the next day comes and the day comes flying at me.

Now, I know people always say to just get up earlier before anyone else gets up in my house. There’s a bit of a problem with this though. My husband gets up between 4 and 4:30 every morning. I’m not going to to try to beat him out of bed in the morning.

So once I’m awake the day just starts to slip away. Distractions, even minor ones, creep in and try to steal my time.

The enemy of our heart tries to destroy us with distractions.

I don’t know about you but then I’m trying to “squeeze” time for God in while I do other things.  Maybe it’s just me but I often find myself reading from my Bible app while I’m walking dogs only to have my phone ring.

I sometimes feel like I can’t focus for more than about a minute at a time most days. So I find myself praying while I shower, out feeding sheep or doing dishes.

Now I want to make it perfectly clear, I want to spend time talking to God while I do all those things. There isn’t anything wrong with listening to God’s word from a Bible app when I’m walking dogs.

But...Jesus has been calling me away from the distractions. Asking me if I will whisper yes to following Him into the quiet.

As for me, this means when distractions want to run rampant in my life I will choose to put them on hold.

One of the most important steps I’ve made is no social media before my quiet time with the Lord. I want my genesis thoughts each day to be centered on truth I can trust, not the chaos of the world.

Another one is realizing silence has actually scared me. I’ve been known to fill my days with sound of some kind all day.

Saying yes to hearing from God more clearly 

means saying no to so much noise!

This may sound a little simple but I also find when I first wake up, before I ever roll out of bed, I say “Good morning, Jesus.” Simply speaking His name first thing each day invites Him into my day.

Let’s be on guard for the distractions satan tries to throw at us to steal our time quiet time with our Heavenly Father. Stand firm against them!

I’m praying our daily whisper of YES to take Jesus’ hand will echo throughout our day.

Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.

Romans 12:2 (NLT)

I'm sharing this post with several other blogger's at these Faith Linkups. I encourage you to check them out. If this post resonates with you and feel it would help others please feel free to share. Easy to share buttons below. ~Laura~

Do you treasure people or things?

How do you want to be remembered? Is it for the things you’ve accomplished? Maybe the awards and “stuff” you’ve collected?

What about the people we’re blessed by along the journey?

I’m a competitive person by nature. I like to set a goal and then go for it. I spent most of my youth competing in as many sports as possible.

One of my favorites was rodeo. I particularly liked to rope. Every free moment I had you’d find me roping a dummy in backyard or working with my horses.

Now I’m not what you’d call a hoarder. If you have something that means a lot to you it probably needs nailed down before I start cleaning. It could easily go out if no ones used in a certain amount of time.

Because of this I would have told you I always put people over stuff any day of the week.

But...when I won my first belt buckle as a kid rodeoing, I never looked back. It became my mission to win as many as possible. It was a bit of an addiction.

That same desire carried over into my adult years when I switched to training dogs instead of horses. Still working towards collecting as many prizes as I possibly could.

I was on a slippery slope of collecting stuff over people.

Along the way God quietly started working on my heart. He was showing me it wasn’t about how many prizes I could collect but how many people I could love.

Now I’m not saying goals are bad. I still set goals and work towards them. What I have learned is all the “stuff” I’ve collected over the years is basically collecting dust. It sure doesn’t give me any kind of love back!

People - they're what’s worth collecting!

The time spent chasing my dreams wouldn’t mean much without the people who are on the adventure with me. I cherish the countless times we’ve laughed, loved and prayed together.

Love is what makes life worth living.

We may have to dust off a relationship from time to time but it’s an investment worth making.

The memories with people far outweigh any kind of award I’ve ever won.

When we’re willing to follow where God leads all the stuff in this world won’t matter. Our focus shifts. Hearts take the lead role.

When Jesus called the disciples and asked them to come with Him they left everything and followed. All the earthly treasures stored up couldn’t compare to the desire to follow where He lead. He asked them and he’s still asking us to put people over things.

When we’re following the heart of Jesus we’ll find the 

hearts of those He loves. (Click to tweet)

I'm sharing this post with several other blogger's at these Faith Linkups. I encourage you to check them out. If this post resonates with you and feel it would help others please feel free to share. Easy to share buttons below. ~Laura~