Have We Been Getting Faith Upside-Down?

Whether you’re battling burnout, grappling with grief, recovering from trauma, or just feeling tired, stuck, frustrated, frazzled, or disconnected, Christine invites you on a journey toward healing and wholeness.

As part of our 2025 series, Draw Near Dwell Well, Christine delves into The Theology of Invitation. She reminds us that faith is not about knowing more ABOUT God, doing more FOR God, or meeting some long list of expectations we think comes FROM God. Instead, Christine emphasizes the importance of stewarding our hearts, souls, minds, strength, and stories, and invites us to accept the one big, beautiful invitation to DRAW NEAR to—and DWELL WELL with—God. She also introduces soul care and spiritual formation practices that foster flourishing and help us live deeply connected to God, ourselves, and others.

If you’re seeking a deeper, sweeter, more intimate, joy-sparking, and peace-giving faith, join us for this Draw Near Dwell Well series!

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We’ve highlighted some key points from this episode below. Feel free to share these on your blogs/feeds with proper attribution to the writer/speaker/podcast. Or stay tuned—we will be posting several of these verses and quotes, along with clips from this episode, on our IG page and you can save/share from there.

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Scripture

MARK 12

28 One of the teachers of religious law was standing there listening to the debate. He realized that Jesus had answered well, so he asked, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?” 29 Jesus replied, “The most important commandment is this: ‘Listen, O Israel! The Lord our God is the one and only Lord. 30 And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.’ 31 The second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ No other commandment is greater than these.”

Proverbs 4

23 Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.

ISAIAH 26

3 You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, all whose thoughts are fixed on you!

1 Corinthians 6

19 Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, 20 for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body.

Ephesians 3

16 I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit. 17 Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. 18 And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. 19 May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.

Psalm 63

1 O God, you are my God; I earnestly search for you. My soul thirsts for you; my whole body longs for you in this parched and weary land where there is no water. 2 I have seen you in your sanctuary and gazed upon your power and glory. 3 Your unfailing love is better than life itself; how I praise you! 4 I will praise you as long as I live, lifting up my hands to you in prayer. 5 You satisfy me more than the richest feast. I will praise you with songs of joy. 6 I lie awake thinking of you, meditating on you through the night. 7 Because you are my helper, I sing for joy in the shadow of your wings. 8 I cling to you; your strong right hand holds me securely.

Revelation 21

1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old heaven and the old earth had disappeared. And the sea was also gone. 2 And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven like a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3 I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, “Look, God’s home is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them. 4 He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.”

Quotes

• The life of faith is not about knowing more about God or doing more for God. It’s not about meeting a long list of expectations we think are from God. The life of faith is about accepting the one big, beautiful invitation to draw near to—and dwell well with—God.
• Knowing more about God isn’t the same as KNOWING GOD. When we mistake information for transformation, we end up with big heads and empty hearts.
• Doing for God is great except when it crowds out dwelling with God. When we mistake doing for God with being with God, we end up with busy hands but stagnant hearts.
• We weary ourselves with meeting what we believe to be the expectations of God, but really they aren’t. And when we reduce living out our faith to ticking down a checklist, we end up with an impressive resume but an impotent witness.
• Our identities, purpose, and assignments all have to do with our loves and lives: our hearts, our souls, our minds, and our strength. If that’s the case, we need to make sure we are faithfully stewarding our hearts, souls, minds, and strength so that we can love God, our neighbors, and ourselves.
• Self-stewardship isn’t taking a bubble bath, and soul care isn’t hippy-dippy. They’re about honoring our divine design. Self-stewardship is biblical, and it’s part of the assignment.
• I have become convinced that our maker has formed us for and invited us to a quieter, sweeter, simpler, more intimate, more peace-giving and joy-sparking faith than I originally understood.

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