In this devotional, I want to share the lifelong impact that I believe comes when we take someone to Jesus. I want us to discover what it looks like to allow ourselves to be carried to Jesus when we can’t find the strength to walk on our own and to experience how it feels to be completely restored by Jesus so we can take up His charge to carry others.
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Day 1
Scripture: John 4:28-29
The One We’ve Been Waiting For
While I was recording my live album in Franklin, Tennessee, I received tragic news. The boyfriend of one of my closest friends, Steph, had passed away suddenly in the middle of the night. In that moment, all I could think was, “What do you tell someone who is faced with the most unimaginable grief?”
A few months later I was back in Nashville for a songwriting trip. I sat down with my friends, Monty Rivera and Jessie Early. We had written everything we “needed” to write for the week, but I remember asking them, “Could we just write a song for my friend, Steph?”
The entire songwriting session was filled with tears, questions, grief, and an undeniable understanding that the only person who could ever make anything OK was Jesus. That’s how we wrote “Take It To Jesus.” One of the text messages I had sent Steph the night I got the news quite literally became the song’s first verse, which starts with the truest of statements: “I have no idea what to say right now.” It makes me think of the story in John 4 where we meet the woman at the well.
I love this story because I truly believe it shows the character of Jesus, especially in the midst of heartache — the way He sits with us, the way He understands us, the way He knows us. The woman at the well experienced living water the day she met Him. At the very end of the story, John 4:28-29 says, “…the woman left her water jar and ran off to her village and told everyone, ‘Come and meet a man at the well who told me everything I’ve ever done! He could be the One we’ve been waiting for.’”
Like the woman at the well, I want us to discover how it feels to be completely restored by the One who carried our cross so we can take up His charge to start carrying others. I can’t even begin to imagine what our ministries, relationships, and our world might look like if we carried one other the way we’ve been carried. I want to be like the woman at the well who dropped everything to run and tell everyone: “I have found the One we’ve been waiting for!” I want to be the woman who takes people to Jesus.
Day 2
Scripture: Luke 5
Carry Me
It was the spring of 2019 when everything in my life came to a crashing halt. I vividly remember sitting in my car outside my apartment in Greenville, South Carolina — so lost. I was having a panic attack, and I just couldn’t stop crying. I could hardly catch my breath, but my phone was lighting up with an incoming call. It was one of my best friends.
I almost didn’t answer, but I’m so grateful I did. Still crying, I said, “Hello.” His immediate response was, “Where are you? We are coming to get you.” Twenty minutes later, he and his wife picked me up and took me back to their house. I’ll never forget sitting in between this couple on their couch as they simply encouraged me and reminded me who God says I am. That night, they prepared their guest room for me and told me I could stay as long as I needed.
There are times when we go through seasons we don’t really think we can bear — whether it’s relationally, financially, spiritually, or whatever it may be. For a long time it was hard for me to accept anyone’s help. If I’m honest, there are still times I convince myself I need to do it alone. But that’s when I’m reminded of so many moments in Scripture that show us how God places people in our lives to carry us in certain seasons.
In Luke 5 we learn of a man who’s paralyzed, knowing if he could just get to Jesus, he would be healed. His friends not only carried him to Jesus, but Luke 5:19 says, “…They crawled onto the roof, dug their way through the roof tiles, and lowered the man, stretcher and all, into the middle of the crowd, right in front of Jesus.”
Can I encourage you? If you are in a season that feels like your faith is depleted, and you can’t see how your breakthrough will come, know that God is positioning people around you to carry you. You were not meant to carry this alone. My prayer for you today is that God would send the right people at the right time to lift your head when you don’t have the strength. And if I encourage you to pause and pray. Ask God who he might want you to encourage and carry today.
Day 3
Scripture: Matthew 25:35-36
The Butterfly Effect
Whenever I take inventory of my life and reflect on what God has done, I imagine this red string connecting one thing to another and watch this beautiful synchronicity unfold. I call this the “God thread.”
My “God thread” started with my mom. She moved to Memphis, Tennessee, when she was five. Her father passed away six weeks later. Her family wasn’t very religious, but their house happened to be right across the street from a small neighborhood church. After my mom’s father passed, the church immediately started bringing her family meals and helping with yard work.
This story overwhelms me. Before they even invited my mom’s family to attend a service, this church served them. That pastor brought Jesus to my mom’s childhood front door by way of some food and a lawnmower. And I am a product of that meal and that freshly cut grass.
My mother went on to live a life devoted to the Lord where she would sing in church every week; and one day, in walked my dad. If it wasn’t for the kindness of that church, I wouldn’t know Jesus the way I do; I wouldn’t have been raised the way I was; and, ultimately, I wouldn’t be writing this for you to read. Today, I think of every life tied to the ministry God has graced me to lead, and I can’t help but think of a small church community that wrapped themselves around a widow and her five children.
Matthew 25:35-36 says: “For when you saw me hungry, you fed me. When you found me thirsty, you gave me drink. When I had no place to stay, you invited me in, and when I was poorly clothed, you covered me. When I was sick, you tenderly cared for me, and when I was in prison you visited me.”
I think we’d treat people differently if we knew what was waiting on the other side of us holding a door open, taking a hot meal to a family in need, or calling a friend that’s on our heart. Taking someone to Jesus can create a butterfly effect that’s more beautiful than words.
So, I want to challenge you with this: Who can you take to Jesus this week? You never know how one small “yes” to showing God’s kindness can affect an entire generation.