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“Hello, God” Preview 2 of 5 – Psalm 16

Good Morning, Blogging Family! Thanks so much for checking out these previews of Hello, God. This audio clip is inspired by a chapter that shares more about my own journey of re-learning how to pray, including an entry from my prayer journal. Stay tuned for Psalm 138 tomorrow!

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“A few weeks after my hospital discharge in January 2017, someone suggested using the Psalms as a template to improve my prayer life. The idea sounded vaguely familiar, but I don’t remember having tested it out before. Perhaps my previously high success rate against life’s previously humdrum obstacles had made heart-to-hearts with the God of the universe seem superfluous. 

Until God saw fit to remove both my cherished successes and my easily surmountable obstacles in the blink of an eye. Now my injured brain pinned me so far below the baseline of a “normal” prayer life that improvising off a psalm sounded like the stuff of theologians or Christian heavyweights from centuries past. 

So I didn’t. 

Instead, I looked for a psalm that represented my current spiritual or emotional state and read it to God, saying, “Lord, this is from me to You.” I did this day after day, for weeks on end. God kindly embraced my meagre offerings. He knew that my heart’s desire was to move from my rote “Thank you for this food,” or “Please help my legs to stop hurting” prayers to something more relational, even if my injured brain couldn’t figure out how to get there just yet. 

Psalm 16 is one of the earliest psalms I remember finding my own words for. I’ve included my own journal entry here as encouragement for you as you begin talking to God from your heart…

Lord, You are my only hope. When I’m afraid, I put my trust in You.

My self-righteousness is a capsized mole hill to Your Mount Everest. Your chosen ones are my most precious companions.

My sorrows balloon like a mushroom cloud when I’m stalking fairness, friendship, or intimacy at your expense. My jaws lock shut before I can sample the rancid sweetness of my stolen meat.

Yet my cup bubbles over with Your peerless, life-changing water. Oh, give me a taste for eternity! Teach me to delight myself in the hope of Your priceless inheritance.

Thank You for the still, small voice that whispers truth and love in the wee hours of the morning. Please help me surrender to this bit, this bridle that is turned by the God Who Sees. O loving Father, lock my wandering eyes on Your patient, faithful smile! Nothing can touch me with You at my side…”

***

Shepherd Press is offering a discount on pre-orders of Hello, God, Seeking the Lord When Words Fall Short until 5/31. https://www.shepherdpress.com/products/hello-god/. Use code “HELLO” to get 25% off! 

Posted on by graceutomo12

“Hello, God” Preview 1 of 5 – Psalm 1

Hello, Blogging Family! Today is Day 1 of the 5-part social media series previewing Hello, God that I mentioned in my last post. The social media videos are quite short, so I wanted to share longer excerpts of the chapters that inspired the clips here as a special “thank you” for your prayers and support over the years. Stay tuned for Psalm 16 tomorrow!

***

“So you’ve said, ‘Hello, God.’ What now? You probably noticed at a young age that a conversation requires two-way communication in order to be healthy. This kind of healthy conversation often takes place between people who know something about each other and are interested in learning more.

God knows the tiniest details about us, His creatures, but we can’t begin to comprehend a miniscule part of Him, our Creator.  1 Timothy 6:16 says God “alone has immortality, [He] dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see.”

Mercifully, God took the initiative to remedy this conversational inequality by speaking to us first. A lot. He’s given us sixty-six books’ worth of direct revelation, not counting dreams, visions, and miracles not preserved in the Bible.

How can we possibly respond to that? 

As our Creator, God knows our limitations and “remembers we are dust“(Psalm 103:14). He’s not expecting a sixty-six-book-long answer to His extravagant overtures…

That’s why the Psalms are so powerful. They are 150 Hebrew poems that depict people calling out to God in all kinds of situations. There are psalms of praise and psalms of grief, psalms that run to God in anxiety and others that beg deliverance from depression. We know these emotional expressions glorify God and submit to Him perfectly because they are included in His Holy Word!

The Psalms became a lifeline for me when I was relearning how to pray after my hospital discharge. The brain injury meant I could barely form a complete sentence in my head if I wasn’t speaking aloud—and forget about closing my eyes. I decided to choose a psalm and read it aloud, telling God it was my prayer as well as the psalmist’s. A few weeks later, I took to writing the psalm out in my own words. Soon someone gave me a prayer journal. 

About a year later, I tried praying “off the cuff.” It was weird. I felt like a heretic, shedding all my church-y lingo for weekday vocabulary, talking to God as if He were sitting right next to me on our oversized sleeper sofa. But Jesus has called us His friends. He wants us to talk to Him that way (John 15:13-15)…

 USE IT OR LOSE IT:

  1. Read through Psalm 1. What does it tell you about God? Yourself?
  2. Note anything that stood out to you for the first time, or struck you in a different way. Tell God what you noticed and how it’s affecting you (good or bad). 
  3. Pray through Psalm 1 or write it out in your own words. For example:

‘Dear God, I want to trust You when You tell me that I’ll only be truly happy when I’m spending time in Your Word and thinking about You throughout the day. I don’t want to be influenced by people who don’t obey You or who tempt me to run after worldly priorities. Please fill me with Your Holy Spirit and give me a love for Your Word and the things that please You…‘”

***

Shepherd Press is offering a discount on pre-orders of Hello, God, Seeking the Lord When Words Fall Short until 5/31. https://www.shepherdpress.com/products/hello-god/. Use code “HELLO” to get 25% off! 

Posted on by graceutomo12 · 2 Comments

“Hello, God” Release Date and Intro

Hello, Blogging Family! Thank you so much for helping us choose the cover of Hello, God, a couple of weeks ago! Thanks to you, we decided to go with the sunrise painting. We appreciate your support so much, and are so excited that the book is finally coming out on May 25th!

I’ve also been collaborating with our team at Shepherd Press to develop some short videos for Instagram (@walkingwitgrace) and Facebook that share our heart for the book and preview some of its content. The video above is an updated introduction since it’s been a while since we first announced Hello, God last summer. We’ll also be posting a 5-day devotional series that runs Monday-Friday of next week. That being said, I’m aware that not all of you are on social media, so I’ll be sharing the series here as well. We’d love for you to join us!

Here’s an additional preview of the book’s back cover:

“Is there a “right” way to talk to God? How does God speak to us? Does every prayer get answered? What do I do while waiting? Whether you’re new to the Christian faith or have been praying for decades, these questions don’t always have easy answers. In this 31-day devotional, Grace Utomo explores key Bible passages and characters that helped her learn to pray again after severe trauma. Discover God’s heart to commune personally with each of His children in a month-long journey that starts at Creation and carries you to the cross – and beyond.”

Thank you so much for your support with our first book, Walking with Grace. Whether the idea of Hello, God is something that speaks to you personally, or sounds like it might be a good resource for someone you know, I hope it will bless you in some way. I never thought I would have to relearn how to pray as someone who’s been a believer for most of my life, but this journey ultimately strengthened my walk with the Lord, and gave me a deeper point of reference for engaging with people who were either new to the faith, or were struggling for some other reason. None of that would have been possible if I had not had to “start from square one” again. And for that, I am deeply grateful.

Thanks as always for your love and support over the years!

___

Shepherd Press is offering a discount on pre-orders of Hello, God, Seeking the Lord When Words Fall Short until 5/31. https://www.shepherdpress.com/products/hello-god/. Use code “HELLO” to get 25% off! 

Posted on by graceutomo12 · 1 Comment

Preparing for Easter: the Lord’s Prayer for Us

Good evening, Blogging Family! As we prepare our hearts for Easter, I wanted to share a brief excerpt from our forthcoming book, Hello, God: Seeking the Lord When Words Fall Short. I pray it will encourage you!

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Mere hours before He would face the abject humiliation of a kangaroo court and the unbridled rage of a rightfully outraged, holy God, Jesus offered specific, personal intercession for you and me. What does He ask for in these final, crucial moments? 

“I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth… I do not ask for these [the disciples] only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” (John 17:15-21; emphasis mine)

As He does in the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus highlights how much we need God’s protection from Satan’s wily schemes. Although Jesus is mere hours away from breaking the power of sin and death, He knows that, until our own deaths or His Second Coming, the remnants of our sin nature will still be vulnerable to temptation and spiritual attack (Romans 7:18-25). 

Next, He emphasizes the centrality of God’s Word in our ongoing spiritual transformation. For His disciples, that would mean preserving Jesus’s teachings in the four Gospels and adding several epistles under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, in addition to continuing to study and apply the Jewish Old Testament. For us, this portion of Jesus’s prayer means reading and applying all sixty-six books of the Bible without favoritism, trusting that every part of God’s Word is useful for “teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17). 

It should hardly come as a surprise that the Savior of the world closes His prayer for us with a plea for our unity. Whether or not we’re right with others is an excellent test of whether or not we’re right with God. While only God can truly know the state of our hearts, Scripture is full of passages admonishing us that our faith will be proved by the fruit we bear (James 2:14-17). 

Does it amaze you that Jesus was thinking so specifically about your spiritual protection, ongoing transformation, and Christian witness mere hours before He was stripped naked and felt a lead-tipped whip rip the flesh from His back? It takes my breath away. I hope this reality will embolden you the next time you come before the Lord in prayer. Remember, drawing near to God is a rich journey that will continue until the moment you cross into eternity.  

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Hello, God: Seeking the Lord When Words Fall Short is coming out from Shepherd Press on May 25th. Stay tuned for more updates coming soon!

Posted on by graceutomo12

The Battle to Believe

“For God gave us a spirit, not of fear, but of power and love and self-control.”

The verse’s assurance knocked the breath out of my shivering, twelve-year-old body that Sunday morning. Suddenly everything –  the chilly sanctuary with its stiff wooden pews and the filigreed pocket Bible that was the light of my preteen eyes – vanished in the blazing glory of the Apostle Paul’s declaration. 

Can this really be true? I faltered in the face of my hitherto unshakable fears: How would I score at my next violin competition? Would “normal” kids ever accept me since I was homeschooled and loved literature and classical music? What’s more, my fears were founded on reality. I could perform poorly, and I’d experienced my share of social rejection. But God, through the Apostle Paul, was promising me power, and love, and self-control in spite of my experiences. And God never lied. How would I respond? 

That morning was the first time I remember encountering 2 Timothy 1:7, but since then God has reminded me of that promise at crucial moments when I’ve felt like I was about to be overpowered by fear. Perhaps my preteen troubles seem trivial to us adults, but we can all remember how the hardships we experienced as young people seemed like the pinnacle of suffering. It’s only with additional life experience (and cognitive and emotional development), that we gain perspective to evaluate those circumstances in a more holistic light.  

The same is true of our suffering as adults. Perhaps an illness, or lay-off, or relational fracture that seemed almost beyond our capacity to endure five years ago looks different now that we have seen God sustain us over time and discerned what he was teaching. Each time he brings us through a trial, it should increase our confidence in his faithfulness for the next trial. 

I say “should” because in my own life, I’ve discovered this process is not always linear. Severe physical suffering has been a personal theme for many years, and I’ve been blessed that God had helped me to cling to what I know to be true of him and his Word during those times. But as God graciously removed the suffering I endured from uncontrolled seizures, I’ve been confronted with some relational disconnects that the seizures camouflaged. And I’ve discovered that, because of my brain injury, painful emotions can shake me much more deeply than physical suffering ever did. Although my verbal skills are high, my rational and emotional processing can become disconnected when I perceive something’s wrong or there’s actual conflict. The result is that even though I know certain things are true about God, his Word, or even a particular person, it can be extremely hard to overcome the hurt once it’s imprinted. 

I share this struggle because, while not everyone has a brain injury, I believe we all find ourselves in similar situations at some point. There will come a time for all of us when what we know about God and his Word – and possibly the person in front of us – doesn’t line up with how we’re feeling. And we’ll discover our feelings seem impossible to overcome. Like my twelve-year-old self on that Sunday morning, we’ll be confronted with the question, “Now what?” My preteen fears didn’t vanish overnight. I memorized 2 Timothy 1:7 and repeated it over and over again before I saw measurable change. I’m still in the trenches of a daily battle to believe that God’s Spirit of “power, love, and self-control” is fully available to me every moment of every day, no matter what the day may hold. The key is to keep asking God for his power, trusting that he never gets tired of my requests (James 1:5), and that he delights to give good things to all who ask him (Luke 11:13). That is who he always has been, and that is who he always will be. Will you join me? 

Posted on by graceutomo12 · 1 Comment

God’s Perennial Power: Reflections from 10,000 Feet

When we moved to Northern California in 2017, I discovered a phenomenon known as “Ski Week.” Most of the schools in our area take a week-long break in February. This struck me as humorous for two reasons: 1) There is no snow in our area on which to ski, and 2) students still receive a full Spring Break around Easter. But when I attempted to investigate the rationale behind Ski Week, the best answer I received was, “It gives them a chance to go find snow in case they want to ski!” This didn’t entirely satisfy my inquiring mind. Nevertheless, as the wife of a professional educator, I remain grateful for the break.

This year we took advantage of Ski Week to visit my family in Georgia. (The picture for this post was taken on the Isle of Hope in Savannah.) It was during our southward migration that we also fulfilled the stated purpose of Ski Week and found snow – albeit during a three hour layover in Chicago. I’m no stranger to snow, having also lived in Wisconsin and Upstate New York, but Ivan has remained firmly rooted to California ever since moving to the U.S. Given this discrepancy, I seized the moment when I glanced up from lunch in the Midway food court and glimpsed some of the largest, fluffiest, whitest, snowflakes I have ever seen pirouetting across the plexiglass windows. 

“Oh my goodness, sayang!” I often use Ivan’s Indonesian nickname when I want his attention. He was engrossed in highlights from some English Premier League soccer games he’d missed during our first flight.

“You’ve got to check out this snow! It’s really good!” He looked up, and I began warmly contrasting the fairytale flakes that we were currently observing with the tiny, needle-like, flecks of ice that I’d often experienced in real snow storms. Ivan’s polite nods brought my lecture to a rapid close, however. I realized he would be better served savoring this moment for himself, without my comparisons.

On our return journey to California, I encountered the antithesis of the winter wonderland we’d observed in Chicago. Halfway through our second flight, I was startled to observe an apocalyptic wasteland. The ground was a lifeless, ash color, devoid of plants or people, and scored by ditches running in uneven geometries. A web-like mass deeply etched into the earth suggested what might have once been a delta. Overcome by the hopelessness of the terrain, I turned to Ivan.

“Hey – any idea where we are right now?” 

He flipped from the movie he was watching to his flight tracker.

“Uh – it says Nebraska. Why?”

I tapped on my window. “It just looks so – desolate.”

Nebraska. I remembered my sister mentioning that she’d heard from a family friend that Wisconsin had gotten remarkably little snow this year, although the temperatures were still frigid. I’d always imagined states like Nebraska getting even more snow than Wisconsin. What would it be like to a endure a harsh winter without the compensation of terrain carpeted in white? Now, flying over Nebraska, the prospect was more dismal than I’d imagined.

But as my thoughts spiraled further south, I realized that even the harshest winter blossoms into spring.  New growth and sunshine breathe life into the most frozen tundra  – and desperate human heart. Perhaps that’s why God uses the weather to illustrate the irresistible power of his Word in Isaiah 55:10-12:

“The rain and the snow come down from the

heavens

and stay on the ground to water the earth.

They cause the rain to grow, 

producing seed for the farmer

and bread for the hungry.

It is the same with my word.

I send it out, and it always produces fruit.

It will accomplish all I want it to,

and it will prosper everywhere I send it.”

Depending on your location, Spring could already be reaching irrepressible fingers into your mornings, or it could still be several weeks away. Perhaps you’ve been going through a trial for a long time and can no longer imagine life without it. Perhaps you’re starting to see God work, but wondering whether you can hold out until he brings his work to completion. Or you may be enjoying a season of peace and prosperity. While we have a calendar that gives us general markers for winter and spring, we don’t have that same insight into the spiritual seasons of our lives, or why God works at different times and ways in our lives compared to the lives of those around us. 

Whatever your current experience may be, we can embrace the illustration that God gives in Isaiah 55 as reassurance that he is always working. He will accomplish exactly what he intends, exactly when he intends to. For our part, we can demonstrate our faith by continuing to enter his presence in prayer, and presenting our hearts to the shaping power of his Word. I also find hope when I consider the extended implications of what God’s “word” can mean. Most often we think of the 66 books of the Bible, but God also created the universe by his spoken word. What’s more, Jesus is sometimes referred to as the “Word” (John 1:1,14; Col. 1:19, 2:19). No matter what kind of spiritual season you’re in, I hope we can take courage together that God is working, not just through the power of his Scriptures, but also through divine intervention and the ongoing intercession of our Savior and perfect Advocate, Jesus Christ.

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Immanuel, Revisited

“O Come, O Come, Immanuel,” is one of my favorite Christmas carols. A musical child, I was first arrested by its haunting melody.  Later, its plaintive lyrics resonated with my teenage contemplations. As an adult, I’m even more captivated by these elements and also heartened by the final stanza’s call for Christ to return and right the world once and for all.

But as I consider what “Immanuel” – God with us  – has meant to me over the years, I’ve also come to realize Mary and Joseph’s experience of God’s presence was likely different from what we imagine.  

The gospel of Luke tells us that Joseph and Mary traveled to Bethlehem to comply with a Roman census, where Mary gave birth to Jesus in a stable because the inns were full. While this chain of events fulfilled the prophecy that Jesus would be born in Bethlehem, there’s no prophecy stating Jesus had to be born in a stable. 

Mary got an angelic message announcing she would bear the Savior of the world, and Joseph got a dream reassuring him that Mary’s child was the Son of God, not the result of her infidelity. But neither of them got additional information on the specifics surrounding Jesus’ birth. Instead, as Mary’s time approached, they found themselves faced with a 90-mile trek teeming with wild animals and robbers, not to mention the possibility that Mary could give birth along the way. 

Furthermore, have you considered the social pressure they must have endured throughout Mary’s pregnancy? Unwed motherhood carried the death penalty in biblical times. Although Mary and Joseph could infer from their angelic messages that Mary’s life would be spared, her survival wouldn’t have protected them from severe stigma.

Giving birth in a stable after an arduous, 90-mile trek and nine months of false accusations (or worse), must have felt like rock bottom for Joseph and Mary, even if they’d been told their baby would be the savior of the world. It’s also interesting that as far as we know they never saw the “heavenly hosts” that appeared to the shepherds, or the star that guided the wise men. Nevertheless, I’m sure that visitors who joyfully acknowledged their baby’s identity were a welcome relief.

But it’s also relevant to note that the historical story of Joseph, Mary, and Jesus doesn’t end at the manger. The gospel of Matthew tells us that the wise men alerted King Herod to the fact that there was potentially a new “king of the Jews” on the scene, and he ruthlessly murdered all baby boys under 2 years old in Bethlehem.

But what did the massacre mean for Joseph and Mary? Although Matthew tells us an angel alerted Joseph ahead of time, and the family escaped to Egypt, have you imagined what their exile must have been like? They’d just endured the stigma of an unwed pregnancy and given birth in horrific conditions, only to receive unlooked-for encouragement through supernatural intervention. Just when things were starting to look brighter, Mary and Joseph found themselves fleeing to a foreign country – and not just any foreign country, but one with almost a thousand years of animosity toward their own. A place where no one spoke their language, let alone worshiped their God. Mentioning their son was going to be the Savior of the world was off the table.

My point in highlighting these aspects of the Christmas story is not to make things sound unduly negative, but to suggest that our concept of what “God with us” means could be broadened. Mary and Joseph had at least four direct supernatural encounters (the visit from the angel Gabriel and Joseph’s three dreams), and the incredible privilege of watching Jesus grow from infancy to adulthood. But these supernatural events occurred relatively close together, and we know little about the rest of their lives.

In my own life, although God has worked supernaturally twice, I still deal with physical limitations and relational stressors that have made recent months challenging. When we’re discouraged, it’s easy to focus on the high points – whether the ones we read about in Scripture, or see around us – and compare our assumptions of God’s presence in others’ lives with our experience of God’s presence in our own. The truth is God is always with us, whether we feel him there or not. 

Luke 2:19 tells us, “But Mary kept all these things in her heart, and she thought about them often.”

Most likely, Jesus looked and acted like a regular baby, at least initially. Raising her first child in a hostile foreign country couldn’t have been easy.  But Mary had seen God’s power displayed unmistakably, and she was committed to renewing her mind. 

Whatever this season holds for each of us, I pray we will make a practice of calling to mind what God has already done, both as revealed in Scripture as well as in our own lives and the lives of those we love.

O come, desire of nations, bind
In one the hearts of all mankind
Bid Thou our sad divisions cease
And be Thyself our King of peace

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel

Posted on by graceutomo12 · 1 Comment

The Camel and the Needle

Good morning, Blogging Family! I recently received news that, due to a variety of unforeseen circumstances, including Hurricane Helene and the health of one of our production team members, the release of Hello God has been delayed from Holiday 2024 until 2025. I don’t have an exact date yet, but I will let you know as soon as I do. 

In the meantime, I wanted to share this short devotional that I wrote last year when I was drafting some sample chapters as a proposal for what would become Hello, God. The book has evolved a lot since then, in both content and depth.  However, I think the heart of learning to talk to God honestly has remained the same, and that includes trusting him to work what is impossible for sinful humans. I hope this short devo will encourage you to keep praying and hoping, whether you’re asking God for someone’s salvation (as is the explicit point of the parable) or something else.

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“This amazed them. But Jesus said again, ‘Dear children, it is very hard to enter the Kingdom of God. In fact, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God!’

The disciples were astounded. “Then who in the world can be saved?” they asked.

Jesus looked at them intently and said, ‘Humanly speaking, it is impossible. But not with God. Everything is possible with God.’” ~ Mark 10:24-27

Have you ever seen a camel? Maybe you met one at the zoo when when you were little.  Maybe, if you met your camel with the nice kind of adult at the right sort of zoo, you got to feed it or even sit on its back.  If so, I’ll  wager you made a variety of discoveries about your quirky new friend. Maybe you expected her shaggy hump to stand firmly in place when you leaned on it. Perhaps you quickly discovered it’s actually a jelly-like mass of water and fat!  Did you expect him to amble evenly around his paddock like the ponies in the pony ride? The camel sways side-to-side in a  jolty, skating motion, you may have learned as you hung on for dear life.

If these experiences don’t ring any bells for you, I recommend looking up a video or these weird, magnificent animals in motion. Take in the originality and beauty of this single specimen of God’s creation.

On the other hand, most of us know our way around needles. Whether it was a parent mending ripped jeans in elementary school, our sister’s obsession with cross-stitching in junior high, or even just the ever-evolving immunization recommendations, I’ll bet almost all of us have felt that quick sting answered by a teardrop of blood more times than we would like.

Can you think of any two things more opposite than a shaggy, side-stepping camel, and a platinum-titanium, extra-fine point embroidery needle? Correction: the eye of that extra-fine point embroidery needle. This eye is a miniscule hole in one end of the needle, barely visible to an average human eye, just big enough to pass one tiny end of silk thread back and forth through whichever delicate fiber we’re embroidering.  This is as close to fairy handiwork as you’ll get in real life. 

Now, close your eyes and imagine that camel you petted or rode as a kid, or just watched on YouTube, standing in the middle of a scorching desert. It’s over  120*  F and the camel will die if it doesn’t get a drink in the next five minutes.  There’s a spring of the purest water bubbling up only a few yards away, and the only thing separating the camel from the water is a tiny embroidery needle lying on the sand between them. The needle’s so tiny that you didn’t even see it at first! 

Jesus says the only way for that camel to pass to reach the life-giving water is by  kneeling down and squeezing itself through the eye of the embroidery needle. No short cuts, shrinking potions, or flat-out cheating by stepping over the needle. Does your camel make it to the other side? Why or why not?

USE IT OR LOSE IT:

  1. What is Jesus’ point to his disciples about salvation? About prayer in general?
  2. At first glance this parable seems depressing. How could Jesus also have meant it as an encouragement?
  3. Do you have an “impossible” prayer request in your life right now? What about it makes you think it’s “impossible”?
  4. How do you think God wants you to pray about it differently after reading today’s devo?