Leslie A Lamb/Sifted Wheat

Category: love

  • Shantray’s story – How to heal from divorce and gain back your identity

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    In this episode you will hear what can negatively inform our relationship choices: family dynamics, past trauma, fear of failure, emotional immaturity and a disconnected sense of identity.

    Shantray does a beautiful job of highlighting how each of these things led to choices that resulted in pain and suffering. She also shares about the “rescue” of God to call her back to life, how He met her in the dead of the night and required her to do the brave and hard thing, and how that act of obedience, repentance and faithfulness has strengthened her faith and empowered her to be a source of hope for others who are in healing from divorce. And if you haven’t gone through divorce, this is also a source for support in our role as friends and family and how to meet those we love in their struggle and grief as we hear how Shantray’s story can encourage our choices, too!

    Scriptures used and shared for hope and encouragement:

    Psalm 23:1-6

    Psalm 27:1, 13-14

    Psalm 116:1-9

    Isaiah 61:7

    Proverbs 13:12

    Colossians 2:6-8

    Mark 12:30-31

    Ephesians 6:16-21

    Ephesians 3:12

    You can reach Shantray for more information at the address below:

    kingdomlegacyc3.com

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  • The conversation we NEED to have about same sex attraction

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    When I sat down to write this episode, I was hesitant. I knew it would be difficult to navigate without a clear direction and landed on education and exhortation. I think we need to hear about how the world has invaded our personhood, how the environment might lend to sexual interruptions, and mostly how attraction can be the line where we can stay in the space of temptation instead of moving into sin and lifestyle. Just the fact that we have to call it “sin” probably offends some, and I can’t help that. And, in sitting with this content, what makes it overwhelmingly difficult to release is not that we don’t know what the Bible says, but because we love people! We love those who struggle with it. We love those who have embraced it. We love those who whole-heartedly believe it is their identity. And so does God. Truly. Deeply.

    So instead of avoiding or blindly embracing what we don’t fully understand, let’s talk about it and discover more about that fine but significant line between temptation and sin.

    Scriptures referenced:

    1 Corinthians 6:18

    Deuteronomy 30:19

    Matthew 5:29-30

    Matthew 22:37-40

    James 1:14-15

    For more content, feel free to follow along on Instagram @siftedwheatpodcast

    or email us at siftedwheatpodcast@gmail.com

  • Behind Closed Doors: How pornography fuels abuse

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    This conversation might not be popular, but it is a powerful one to expose the hidden dangers of pornography and its effect to unravel and oppress marriages, especially in the church. Tom talks about the real hook of pornography and how that being exposed can lead to better choices within the marriage and not precipitate the engagement of pornographic scenarios which are abusive in nature.

    This conversation also discusses where the church has chosen to hide instead of confronting the messages of pornography that are eroding marriages and damaging the souls of women who have been taught to submit at all costs. My hope is that through this conversation, if will expose the lies and illuminate the truth, not to villainize men and women that find themselves struggling, but to release the captives of abusers and the minds of those that are being indoctrinated about sexuality in a way that will harm others.

    You can find Tom through Banner Institute and find out more about his work through the Psalm 82 Initiative and where he is making an impact on women and men all over the world.

    Feel free to contact us through siftedwheatpodcast@gmail.com with any questions or for more information.

    Follow us on social media @siftedwheatpodcast and @bannerinstitute

  • The messy truth about divorce

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    What is our issue with divorce anyway? Are our arguments situated in the CONTEXTUAL truth of God’s Word? I find all too often that our position with divorce is very much taken from scriptures that are not interpreted in context, which just adds to the complication and why so many feel trapped in unloving and unkind marriages.

    This episode, we will look at the full context of the infamous verse “God hates divorce” so that it might be used as a source of compassion and healing (as intended) and not the battering ram or billy club it’s come to mean in some spiritual circles.

    We will also look at the FULL definition of adultery and learn why we can’t trust only what we see to bring correction but how to inquire more deeply about what is unseen but just as sinful. My hope is that this conversation can shift our judgment, and instead of using divorce as a means to choose sides or cast blame, our actions and thoughts about the people involved will be lead of the Spirit and entered into with humility and grace.

    For your own study, feel free to read the following scriptures:

    Malachi 2:16

    Ezra 10:19

    Matthew 19:8

    Feel free to follow us on Facebook, social media, or at the website linked below:

    https://www.instagram.com/siftedwheatpodcast

    lesliealamb.com

    Or email us at siftedwheatpodcast@gmail.com

  • The rain falls

    You’ve heard it, right?

    “The rain falls on the just and the unjust.”

    We quote it quite often to imply that bad things happen to good people, but do we possibly have it backward? Rain could mean blessings, after all it takes rain to grow a crop and to provide a break from the drought. In fact, with the exception of the flood, rain is not depicted as a bad thing. So what of this verse? Well, let’s start by reading it in context.

    “In this way you show that you are children of your Father in heaven. He makes his sun rise on people whether they are good or evil. He lets rain fall on them whether they are just or unjust.” (Matthew 5:45)

    Why is Jesus having this conversation? What is He teaching? He’s teaching about love. More importantly, He is talking about loving your enemies. See, we are an “either/or”,” this or that” society and culture. But Jesus was in an “either/and” as well as a “this and this” culture. Many times in order to emphasize something it was said a multitude of times, three times would be the ultimate number of repetitions. In this moment with the disciples Jesus is in the process of telling them and retelling them that God provides blessing (the sun rising) and blessing (the rain fall) on the just and the unjust. That’s important!

    This same conversation is recorded in Luke, and He words it a little differently (and since He’s a doctor, maybe a little more intellectually.)

    “But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.”

    Ahhh. The and with the and. “He is kind (the sun shines, the rain falls) to the ungrateful and the wicked.” Wait. Matthew puts the “unjust” in there, but Luke says overwhelmingly, “the wicked.” We know it is the same conversation, the same teaching.. So why the different verbiage? Maybe it has more to do with the writer than the Speaker.

    Who is Matthew? A formerly, notoriously unjust man, a tax collector. He is there as Jesus is sharing this story about loving your enemies (of which he knows he was one) and as He speaks, Matthew is experiencing blessing! Not only was God kind to him, He had chosen him as a follower and cohort and put him in charge of the money! Okay. That’s like the the alcoholic being keeper of the wine for the Lord’s supper. That is a responsibility not just of trust but of proof of redemption! Matthew is hearing this through the ears of a formally publicly condemned sinner, and in his interpretation Jesus might as well be pointing at him, “See? I bless and hang out with those you’ve condemned.” Luke on the other hand didn’t have that lens, he heard Jesus say that God is kind to those we might consider wicked, enemies of our souls. Both men share the same message of Jesus to love those who do evil just as God does, but in their interpretations based on their personal experience, we hear how that message affects each one! But, the message is the same, “God who loves and is kind to those who hate him, asks the same of you.”

    I can’t help but think of Christians and our wrestle with the LBGTQ community. So many call them on sin saying they are sinners, stopping short of calling them wicked (or some out and out doing so), but if that’s the case, God is kind to them. He chooses to bless them and give them good things, regardless. So “Love your enemy” looks more like be kind to your enemy and bless your enemy… And enemies look like those we don’t agree with who commit actions that we think are evil or against God’s plan. Ahhh. And, they are entitled to the sun and the rain just as the Godly are, without prejudice or bias or judgement. That looks different, that feels different, that steps on the toes of the righteously political. But, that’s what loving our neighbor looks like – Doing for others not because they deserve it or because they are worthy, but because we recognize we aren’t, and, as much as it may pain us to speak it, God desires to see them blessed.

    Crazy, this God Who loves us – ALL of us! And the rain falls equally across the landscape of humanity.

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  • Magnetic

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    As a teen, I wondered what would make me more attractive to those around me. I knew I wouldn’t be the most beautiful or the most talented or even the most talkative (shocking, I know!), but I wanted to be someone who stood out. I struggled to feel important and even necessary at some points. I wondered why I struggled so much even as I believed in Christ – that should be the answer right? And He was, but I didn’t know what that looked like for me or to those around me.

    The struggle was real.

    Recently, I was given a book to read that really put those questions in perspective. Here I am 38 (gasp!) years old, and I still find myself struggling to be seen or to be attractive. So much for “it won’t matter when you’re older.” It matters. And even more so, it matters to all of us girls – young or old, ancient or adolescent. We all want to know we are contributing beauty to the world we live in and when we are gone will leave a void where our shining light used to be.

    “Magnetic – Becoming the Girl He Wants” by Lynn Cowell ties all these thoughts together and provides a blueprint to help you get there. Sounds too good to be true?… Well, it depends on which “he” you want to get! Galatians 5:22-23 gives us a list of characteristics that will lead us directly to becoming a person of influence. They are called “Fruits of the Spirit” and each one of them are pleasing and attractive to those that are affected by them and infected with them. (Infections aren’t all that attractive but for the sake of poetic license just go with it.)

    Cowell takes each fruit and defines what they mean translated into day to day life. It may be a book written for teen girls, but each issue addressed can carry over into the life of any woman struggling to be more. She gives practical advise to rethink how you deal with the world and circumstances around you and pushes it through the lens of the Holy Spirit, Who alone has the power to transform your mind and your life! The point is to establish a sweeter character by changing the way you act and react – whether it’s love and understanding that love is compassionate, or peace and bringing His peace to those around you, or self-control and taking reign over that little two edged sword the tongue! Ultimately, incorporating these characteristics affects the world around you, sets you apart as someone of grace, and this will make you stand out like a candlelight in a darkened room.

    The beauty that Lynn tries to portray is this … You aren’t worthless or unlovely or unimportant, but as you live in the power of the Holy Spirit, He attracts the right people to you! This is important to teen girls as they desire to attract teen boys, but good boys that don’t need sex to spell out love or arm candy to parade around to his friends but sincerely desires to find a girl who loves him for him and who challenges him to be a better man and most of all recognizes and admires the character of Christ in her. Because if you have ever seen a magnet line up with other random metal objects, it is the magnet with equal or greater strength that is most powerfully attracted to the first!

    I presently have an 11 year old girl and a 13 year old girl, and I will give them this book to read because it’s important. I want them to seek to be His not just be popular or the best. It is my heart that they will establish these characteristics into their own lives and not see it as so much a struggle but a challenge. I want them to gain the right attention and to be treated the right ways, and perhaps more importantly, I want to see them treat others the right way. I want them to know that they are enough and Christ in them makes them MAGNETIC!

    Do your daughters, nieces, granddaughters or Goddaughters a favor and buy them this book! I assure you, as one who has a decade of experience ministering to broken hearts and hurting souls, you will be making an investment in their future.

    Order yours here 🙂

  • The Siren’s Song

    There’s a pain, a numbness, a vacancy left inside one who is molested. It doesn’t matter so much the degree to misuse or abuse… The hole presses in with the smallest infraction. There’s a shame that comes with the wounds made then that make the scar now that much more noticeable – a guilt that says this should be over, these feelings gone. And for the most part they are, until they creep back in like a movie in jagged frame.

    Some hurts you can’t erase, there are just some memories you can’t forget. Just like that child that over-acted and made a point to be in a crowd, entertainer of the year, the limelight to cover the dark secrets. The pictures didn’t surface there.. They couldn’t find their entry point. But, you weren’t better, only masked.

    Be someone else, fill another’s shoes, escape this life and live another… Be the part, feel the part, forget your fears if for a day. It was a game I’d play. A fantastic way to take on another personality, a stronger personality, without finding yourself locked away.

    No one knew.
    I made sure of it.

    If I didn’t acknowledge it maybe it would go away. It didn’t. Years later, decades older and still the memories find their way back in to disturb the peace.

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    And others say things, things that do not help but make us feel even more ashamed, statements that doubt our healing… Our wholeness… Because the memory remains. Memories they don’t hold, cannot understand, therefore cannot know their cure. But He does… He doesn’t fault me for my tears or shame me for my fears. He doesn’t disapprove of my mourning yet again the innocence once and for all time lost.

    He waits.

    He doesn’t force or reach out but knows, in these moments, I must first be the one to embrace. So slowly, hands unlock behind my knees, my rocking stills, and the black tears that stain my jeans begin to fade back to blue. I sniff, I stretch, I wipe the last of the emotional dew from my cheek, and I smile. He is here. He feels and sees now just like then, and I am ready to feel His arms and know His grace again.

  • Life is loss.

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    In Ann Voskamp’s book “One Thousand Gifts” this is her admission, her announcement, her proclamation. Life is loss… when, what, who will you lose? It’s not a matter of will I lose, but solely when will I lose.

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  • Little Orphan Annie

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    The other day at the movies, we saw a preview for the new Annie. I’m going to have to see more than that one trailer to judge whether or not I’m going to see it. You see, “Annie” holds a special place in my heart. The roles played by Carol Burnett, Albert Finney, Bernadette Peters and Tim Curry, in my mind, can’t be replaced with a newer, fresher face. It was my go to movie as a kid. I would watch it over and over, and imagine that I, too, was the fortunate child that was adopted by Daddy Warbucks.

    I smiled as the awkward and seemingly uncaring man became a slightly more awkward deeply caring father. The unlikely and outwardly appearing ragamuffin Annie got the gift of a lifetime simply by being bold and confident, and by convincing Grace, Warbuck’s personal assistant, that she was the orphan perfect to spend a week with the billionaire.

    Got to love a kid with pluck!

    It is the gift of a lifetime! A reserved theatre all to herself, an indoor swimming pool, and all the amenities any kid would give anything to enjoy! But, something in Annie had never given up on her family, her dream of a mom and dad that loved her and longed for her so regardless of the gift, she chose instead to use his resources to find what she had forever dreamed of… And his love was great and despite his own affections, Warbucks set out to give her what her little heart desired.

    Enter the enemy.

    When Rooster and his voluptuous lover saw what money could be had if they could convince the world they were the long lost parents of the orphan, the plot thickened and love was tested. So, desperate to believe that she could be a part of the family she had dreamed of, she fell for the lie and embraced the deceiver, saying goodbye to the man who desperately loved her, loved her enough to let her go.

    Almost immediately she sees the mistake. It was a lie. She was tricked, and her dream life looked like her greatest nightmare. As strong and independent as she was, there was no escaping without help. And, the same man who moved heaven and earth to give her what she wanted, moved them again to see her saved! And she at last realized, that she had a family, that her dreams could never have captured her reality, and finally she was loved and felt like she belonged.

    Our life in Christ isn’t much different. Too often we are adopted children of the Living God living like scrappy orphans. Whether it is because we have been independent so long we don’t know what it is to have support or a Father watching our back, or if it’s that deep down inside we can’t believe that we were chosen, the deceiver uses these insecurities against us to hold us back from our family and to keep us from our Father’s arms. But, just like in the movie, that’s where Grace steps in. But, unlike the movie, Grace doesn’t have to convince the Father, He sent Jesus to adopt us all. We fail to realize is that He moved heaven and earth to save us once, and daily He moves them to bring us closer to Him. Only, unlike Warbucks, He didn’t have to learn to love us, we didn’t soften Him or have to earn that love (though we live like it), instead He loved us first, had His eyes set on us (not a boy, or a more fitting guest as in Annie’s case) and knew from the beginning of time that all time would be spent gathering His kids and bringing them home. He has given us more than a locket, engraved with His name. He has engraved our names on the palm of His hands! Each one of us, no one neglected or singled out, everyone that desires has the right to be a child of God!

    So come on, orphan Annie’s, let’s start living like children of the Best Dad ever! 🙂

  • A Missing Missive

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    Graham Cooke said that “God doesn’t focus on what is wrong with us, rather, He is attending to what is missing.”

    My daughter wants to be a cheerleader. This is a pretty tall order – Not because she isn’t capable but because she is missing some key components in order to do so. As a parent I have a choice – point out what is wrong with her… Or attend to what is missing.

    If I choose to point out what is wrong with her, I will very likely crush her spirit. But, if I choose to attend to those missing key components, not only is she capable to live her dream, but she will become confident and strong not only to fulfill that purpose but the passions that inspire her later.

    And isn’t that what God is about? With our acceptance of Christ and the knowledge of Him removing the blot of sin and the punishment it affords, what good does it do for God to point out what is wrong with us? Instead He is better served (and I mean that in the very literal expression of that word) by pointing out what is missing and what He provides, what He has already provided!

    This is what I see. We are too sin conscious. This serves one purpose, the purpose of the law, to point out our failures and precipitate the exhausting effort of keeping up with holiness. This mindset leaves us feeling defeated and undeserving, which has the eventual effect of crippling our service as Ambassadors of Christ. We will never measure up.

    This is what I believe. If we paid less attention to what we were doing wrong or right and more attention to what is missing from our lives, keeping us from dwelling in His fullness, and seeking God for that supply, we will become more holy. The end that we seek through the means of performance is fully met in the knowledge of who we are in Christ!

    Let me step back a minute. The key there is “who we are in Christ.” Without Christ we are still stained with sin and our punishment is death. It doesn’t sound nice. We don’t like to hear that some are excepted, but it’s the Truth. Jesus said “I am the way, the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father but by Me.” Without our acceptance of Christ as our Savior, we are still marked by death. His blood and resurrection is what changes who we are to what we are meant to be. Those who are without Christ are judged by what is wrong AND by what they are missing. But, at any moment, in understanding and humility, they can change all of that!

    That being said, as we are reborn in Christ, we are equipped for everything our life in Him requires. God isn’t a task master, He is the giver of all good things. He will never ask something of us that He hasn’t already given us in advance. So, He gave us Jesus to take away what was wrong, and now He reminds us that what we are still missing He has already given us in vast supply!

    “Even if we feel guilty, God is greater than our feelings, and he knows everything. Dear friends, if we don’t feel guilty, we can come to God with bold confidence. And we will receive from him whatever we ask because we obey him and do the things that please him.” (1 John 3:20-22 NLT)

    I think a big reason people refuse to come to Christ or believe in God is because they fear what He will do, and that is because they do not know Who He is. I think of Jesus telling the parable of the talents. Why didn’t the guy with the one talent do anything with it? He says “I knew you were a hard Master…” The word “knew” is more like “convinced.” When we are convinced God is one way, heaping shame and guilt upon us and seeing us as infidels never able to measure up, if we perceive Him as hard and cruel and unyielding, if we see Him as vengeful and punishing, that’s how we will respond to Him… In fear, not reverence, in hatred instead of love.

    How do I know? Well, I’ve seen it, and it breaks my heart that someone cannot see my Father and Saviour as accessible and grateful and merciful and loving. Secondly, I’ve experienced it. If I came down on my daughter and told her she wouldn’t measure up and that she should just forget ever pursuing her dream, she would think me mean and cruel, and I would be. But, when I lovingly instruct her in what it takes to do what she desires and we take the time to help her make those changes, no doubt she might not like me at first because I’m asking her to change her sedentary ways, but in the end through her perseverance and my support and love and encouragement, she will realize that she is free to be more by replacing her doubt with confidence.

    God wants to do the same. He wants us to see our relationship like the latter example rather than the first, but too often we see changing our ways as punishment rather than transformation and being led as brain-washed rather than walking in freedom from guilt and shame.

    My daughter may never be a cheerleader, but she is learning new habits and a mindset that will set her up for greater things to come! And I know God is doing the same with me – little by little, day by day, pointing out that in fully abiding in Him I am found whole!