Trusting God In Summer Adventures

June 9, 2025 by Leave a Comment

Trust God this summer—especially when plans change. Episode 349 shares stories, scriptures, and tips to grow your faith on life’s unexpected paths.Are you trusting God this summer? Embracing God’s plan during your family’s summer adventures can transform your faith journey. In Episode 349 of A Few Minutes with God, we explore why trusting God’s will is life-changing, especially when summer plans take unexpected turns.

Sponsored by Judson College.

Trusting God in Your Summer Journey: Episode 349 of A Few Minutes with God

Are you trusting God this summer? Embracing God’s plan during your family’s summer adventures can transform your faith journey. In Episode 349 of A Few Minutes with God, we explore why trusting God’s will is life-changing, especially when summer plans take unexpected turns.

Trusting God This Summer

Summer is a time for exploration—think family road trips, hiking trails, or new experiences. But what happens when plans go wrong? This episode dives into how summer adventures can deepen your trust in God’s perfect plan. Reflecting on scriptures like Proverbs 3:5-6, we share a heartfelt story of a family camping trip that didn’t go as planned but revealed God’s guidance in a powerful way.

Listen to the Episode: [Family Size]

Key Bible Verses for Trusting God

These scriptures anchor our reflections on trusting God during life’s adventures, offering hope and guidance for your summer journey:

  • Proverbs 3:5-6: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make straight your paths.”
  • Psalm 37:5: “Commit your way to the Lord; trust in Him, and He will act.”
  • Isaiah 55:9: “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.”
  • Jeremiah 29:11: “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.”

These verses remind us that God’s plans are always better, even when summer outings don’t go as expected.

God’s Guidance

Imagine a family gearing up for a camping trip, excited to hike along a scenic river. The pop-up camper is packed, the cooler is full, and the trail map is ready. But rain clouds roll in, soaking the trails and dampening their spirits.

Ready to give up, the family returned to the campground. Then, a neighbor invited them for a moonlit walk. Leaving flashlights behind, they wandered through moonlit trees, where raindrops sparkled like diamonds. This unplanned moment was magical—a vivid reminder of Isaiah 55:9, where God’s ways surpass our own.

This story shows how summer adventures, with all their surprises, teach us to trust God’s path over our own plans.

3 Practical Tips for Trusting God This Summer

Grow in faith during your family’s summer activities with these actionable steps:

  1. Pray Before You Go: Begin each adventure with a prayer, asking God to guide your plans and bring peace when things change.
  2. Embrace the Unexpected: When detours or disruptions occur, seek God’s hand. A canceled plan might lead to a meaningful conversation or a hidden gem.
  3. Reflect as a Family: At day’s end, gather to share where you saw God’s presence, strengthening your family’s faith.

Why Trusting God Matters

Trusting God isn’t just for life’s big moments—it’s for every summer road trip, hike, or rainy day. By focusing on God’s will, you’ll discover peace and purpose in every adventure. Ready to deepen your faith? Listen to Episode 349 now and start trusting God in your summer journey.

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Give in to God

October 20, 2023 by Leave a Comment

A Saint and A Prayer

St. Charles de Foucauld may be a new saint to you. He was to me. Here is some information about his life and work.  He lived and served as a priest, hermit, and missionary in France and Algeria.

Here is the Prayer of Abandon

Father, I abandon myself into your hands, do with me what you will.
Whatever you may do, I thank you: I am ready for all, I accept all.
Let only your will be done in me and in all your creatures.
I wish no more than this, O Lord. Into your hands, I commend my soul;
I offer it to you with all the love of my heart;
For I love you, Lord, and so need to give myself:
To surrender myself into your hands without reserve and with boundless confidence. For you are my Father.

When You Cannot Find the Words to Pray

Life can wear us down, and our prayer life can suffer.  If you can’t find the words to pray, use the words of others!

This prayer, in particular, will help you know and understand God’s will for your life. The line that stands out for me is, “I love you, Lord, and need to give myself, to surrender myself not your hands, without reserve and with boundless confidence, for you are my Father.”

Give your all to the One who gave you all!

 

Pray the Prayer of Abandon every day this week.

If you’d like to invite me to speak at your parish or organization, let’s start the conversation!

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Simple & Ordinary

August 5, 2022 by Leave a Comment

A few weeks ago I interviewed Rachel Balducci about her new book, No Such Thing as Ordinary and we talked about how oftentimes, we are waiting to do something big and important for God and miss what is in front of us.

Reminder from God

I have lots of insomnia lately and so the middle of the night is time for prayer and deep conversation with God. He reminded me of a few things, in particular, that he uses the ordinary things of life to help and sustain us.

As an example, there is Elijah, beaten down and afraid after his encounter with Jezebel. He wanders off, whining and complaining. God sends an angel to him and encourages him to sleep and when he wakes up gives him food and drink. Then he sleeps again to prepare himself for the next journey. He goes to the mountain of Horeb and there meets God.

Again, God was not in the dramatic weather but in the quiet.

“He said, “Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake;  and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence. ” 1 Kings 19:11-12

In the Ordinary

It is a reminder, isn’t it? Stop looking out there and look inside. Yourself. Your home. Look to what is reasonable, a nap, a snack, time with God.

Living Not Lukewarm is not about setting out each day to accomplish a great list of tasks that bring hundreds to Jesus. It is about doing what is in front of us, relying on Jesus to lead us and fully entering into the task at hand.

Whatever your tasks are this week, do them with the same zealousness as Elijah did what the LORD asked him to do!

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Christian Hope

September 23, 2019 by Leave a Comment

Christian Hope | What is the difference between hope and Christian hope? Do we hope in what we want, or do we hope in God's will for our life? We explore this theme today. | #podcast #christianpodcastChristian Hope – Episode 109

What is the difference between hope and Christian hope? Do we hope in what we want, or do we hope in God’s will for our life? We explore this theme today.

Hope in Christ – it is already accomplished – God’s will has been done, it is finished. So we can go on with our lives and not worry about anything. Don’t you wish it were that easy?

Our hope is that our “will be done” that God answers our prayers the way we want our outcome to be. Just think about this – it is humbling. We “hope” things go our way.

The Garden of Gethsemane – Matthew 26:36-46

How do we hope in a seemingly hopeless world? How do we hope when we are depressed – lonely – or feel abandoned?

Some pastors teach that if we pray it – believe it – it will come. And if the prayers are not answered, we then lose hope and think the Lord has abandoned us!

Christian Hope – is different. While we hope for the Lord’s will in my life – yet not as I will, but as You will.”  We still hope for the best possible outcome.

As I record this it is 9-11 and it is a horrific time in American history when we had a terrorist attack on American soil. As I listened to reports of what was expected in the death toll from the Twin Towers, the estimates for 14-15K because of the number of people believed to be in the building.

One death is too many, but the numbers were way, way less than was predicted. We read so many miracle stories. We see the hand of God, we see that even those who went to rescue the fallen were never the same.

Yet we continue to believe. We continue to hope.

We read in Psalm 121. 

Romans 8:24-25

We don’t know the answers, but … we read in Isaiah 38:18 New International Version (NIV)

For the grave cannot praise you, death cannot sing your praise; those who go down to the pit cannot hope for your faithfulness.

Yet then we read in Lamentations 3:17-20 New International Version (NIV)

Romans 8:23-30

Christian hope is when we read about what God has promised within the pages of the Bible—within the knowledge that God is never changing, within the trust that God never lies—His word is inspired, true and without error.

1 Peter 1:13-16

Let’s Pray!

Lord thank you for Christian hope and the knowledge that when we trust in you our trust is secure, we are confident you hear our prayers and you will answer them according to Your will for our lives. We know we will mess up and only you are holy and worthy of every good thing, yet we love you Lord and we do hope in you. where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth and I am glad and praise Your Name for this promise. Dear Lord, please hear the prayers we ask now and those in our hearts… and I pray this in the hope that is in Christ. Amen.

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