S E36: Episode 36 | ADHD-Friendly Advent Day 13

We are on day 13 of our ADHD friendly advent study.

If you are just joining us, no you are not behind.

This is designed to be low effort and high impact while helping us focus our minds on Jesus this season and work with the brain that God gave us, not against it.

So make sure you go grab your free workbook.

It is over in the link in my profile.

This is going to be a quick video.

I'm just going to give you what you need to do, read you the journaling prompts, and then set you free to go and do everything on your own.

Typically I like for them to be a little bit longer, but due to some family stuff that's been going on, I am a couple days behind.

So we are real and we are raw here on this channel on this profile.

I guess I'm used to YouTube so let's go ahead and dive in.

So the reading I have for you today is to go ahead and read the extra resources that I have added in the workbook.

Again, the workbook is free.

You can download that at the link in my profile.

If you would like to support me and buy me a coffee, you can do that at the link in my profile as well.

But the the resource that I have for you to read today is a little guide on determining whether a promise that's made in Scripture is one that we can apply to ourselves today.

Because something we kind of tend to do is read something in scripture and go, great, this was meant for me.

This is a promise from God.

And then when it doesn't happen we blame God for it instead of going, ah, maybe I claimed something that was never mine in the first place.

So that is a resource that I have linked that someone else created that will kind of help you go through some questions to determine if a question or if a promise that you are reading in Scripture is something that God has intended for you or if you could be misapplying something and then holding some resentment for God when really we are the ones that messed up.

I have definitely, definitely done Once you've done that, there are four journaling prompts for today.

So what I would love to encourage you to do is to grab your literal physical journal.

Actually this is the one that I got for this year.

I decided I wanted a bound one instead of the disc bound one that I've been using for a while.

So grab your physical journal and is what I would absolutely recommend.

Pause the video after each journaling prompt and then go journal on them.

If that doesn't feel accessible for you Today, if you don't have the spoons for that today, that is totally fine.

Other options include typing on your phone, whether that's in a text message to yourself.

Texting myself is one of the best ADHD hacks I've ever found.

Whether that's in a journaling app.

I really like Obsidian for note taking.

The note taking app on your phone is an option, or even talking through it and recording a voice memo, either in the Voice Memos app or to a friend to discuss.

If that still feels like too much, you can always just sit and kind of think through the prompt.

So whatever you have the energy for today, that is totally fine.

I just want you to do something so we have three journaling prompts related to this week's song, which is oh come all ye Faithful.

And then we have one prompt related to the reading that we have been doing this week.

So song journaling prompt number one, what do you believe being faithful looks like right now as a believer?

And how does it look in your own life?

So pause here.

Go journal however you want to do that and then come back and we'll read the next one.

Okay?

Did you do it?

If so, let's go ahead and move on.

Song journaling prompt number two.

Do you feel joyful and triumphant in this season of life?

If yes, what is behind your joy?

And if not, what is in the way of that joy for you right now?

Go journal and then come back.

And then our final song journaling prompt.

When you close your eyes and picture Christmas, what comes to mind?

Sights, sounds, smells, tastes, Etc?

You know the drill.

Go journal and come back.

And then our final journaling prompt of the day is our reading journaling prompt number six, all the way down at the bottom of the workbook.

This is what the workbook looks like.

It's all nicely designed, in my colors.

It's.

It's fun.

And again, it's free, so go download it.

But journaling prompt number six, for the scripture part, it's important to be careful when reading scripture, so we don't accidentally claim statements in scripture as direct promises when that's not what they are.

Both Mary's and Zechariah's Songs of Praise, which is listed in the workbook as well.

The scripture reading is listed in there.

Both of them could be taken as promises for us today.

What practices help you stay mindful about what a passage.

Ranger, stop.

What a passage really means so you don't accidentally build resentment toward God over something he never truly guaranteed.

This is a really difficult one.

So Pause, go journal and come back.

Sorry, my dog is like next level this morning.

Okay, so now that you've had some time to journal on those prompts, let's talk a little bit about them.

I specifically want to talk about the issue of claiming promises that God did not intend for us.

Because this is a really big issue in Christian culture and it leads to resentment towards God that he does not deserve.

So, for example, verses like, God is within her, in her, she will not fail.

It's really difficult because that's a really great sounding pump up verse, right?

We see it a lot on pillows.

I even received a free sticker from a Christian company that I had purchased some merch from, that I got a little free sticker pack.

And on the sticker there's like the image of a woman, and in her face it says, God is within her, she will not fail.

But when we look at the actual context of that verse, God is talking about a city.

He is not saying.

You can apply my words, however they appear exactly to your life context, the historical context, the cultural context, what the original words mean, all of it is very, very important.

Now we can pull principles and characteristics of God out of any scripture and we can use those to inform our view of God and what we can expect from him.

But it is not reasonable for us to just take any words from scripture and immediately apply them to our lives.

It says, for I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosp you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.

And this is very often used just like that God is within her, she will not fail verse as kind of like Jesus flavored pump up vibes.

It's.

It's set at graduations, it's on cards, it's on posters.

And people tend to take it as God telling us, I plan to prosper you.

But when we look at the context of that verse, when we look at the historical context, the cultural context, what the original words mean, all of that, the prophet Jeremiah is saying these things from God.

God is speaking these things through Jeremiah to a people who had been taken from their country and enslaved.

And God is telling them in this verse, hey, I have great plans ahead for you, but I need you to trust me.

And if we read the entirety of that passage, the passage and the ultimate message of that verse is about prospering in a place where you are being completely stripped of everything, of refusing to Quit refusing to give up and ultimately searching for the good of your enemies, even when it means looking out for people who have done horrible things to you.

So when we look at that verse, God is telling us, hey, there is hope ahead for you.

Another important point is that other prophets at that time had been telling the Israelites they had been captured by Babylon.

Mind you, these people had just gotten to the promised land.

They had been enslaved in Egypt for hundreds of years.

Then they are in their promised land finally, and it was such a big part of their identity.

And then they're ripped away from their homeland again by more people to be enslaved.

And other prophets were telling them, don't worry, God told me, you're only going to be here for two years.

Just stick it out for two years.

Meanwhile, Jeremiah was the one saying, actually, it's going to be more like 70.

So Jeremiah is bringing this message of hope to people whose time of struggle was not going to be up for.

For a while, if not an entire generation.

But he was telling them, God needs you to remain faithful, even in exile, even in this wilderness, even in this dark time.

That's not going to end for a while.

There is hope, there is a future, but it's going to be difficult.

And in the meantime, I need you to remain faithful to God to the point of promoting the welfare of the city you are in.

That is not a verse promoting nationalism.

It is a verse basically telling us to remain faithful even when everything around us is completely crumbling and we are being asked to give up everything that is meaningful to us.

So that is actually one where I. I do disagree with the first point of the extra resource.

Again, that's linked in the workbook.

It's not necessarily, necessarily just a promise given to a specific people at a specific time.

It's more about the spirit of the promise and what it means for us now.

Not by going, oh, God's gonna get this, get me out of this jam.

God's gonna prosper me.

God's gonna bring amazing things my way.

But by going, okay, how can I be faithful during this time of darkness?

Okay, that is all I have for you today.

I will see you tomorrow.

These videos do get uploaded as podcast episodes if you are more of an audio kind of a gal.

Again, make sure you go download the workbook.

It's free at the link in my profile.

And you can buy me a coffee if you want to say thank you.

I would very much appreciate that.

All right, I'll see you tomorrow.

Bye.