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Book #1 of series
In the beginning.

When we read the Bible, there are many verses that we accept willingly, even
exuberantly: the gift of eternal life in John 3:16; the idea that God works all things
together for the good of those who love Him found in Romans 8:28; Mark 9’s
“Everything is possible for one who believes.” These verses are easy to embrace. We
memorize them and store them in our hearts for the tough moments when we need to
remember the goodness of God.
What happens then when we come across statements in God’s Word that are not so
easily embraced? When reading the book of Amos, we are forced into confronting what
our idea of ‘good’ looks like. Perhaps it’s not all rainbows and sunshine. Could there be
purpose in the darkness and storms of our lives?
Amos 3:6 reads, “Does disaster come to a city unless the Lord has planned it?” Initially
we might think, “Of course, God is sovereign over all things.” Then we realize what
we’ve just conceded to and pause. Our automatic agreement wanes into an internal
conversation:
Wait! Disaster?
Okay, let’s think about this. The Lord planned disaster, so it must be for our
enemies. Yes, God can ordain disaster to punish those who stand against His
people.
Right? But this disaster was coming to Israel, His children.
If God would send disaster to His children and I’m a child of God, could disaster
come to me too? Could God truly have planned it?
And how do I bravely navigate such a thing?
Amos’s Choice
Amos, a minor prophet, lived in the times when the Promised Land was divided. The
northern portion was called Israel and currently ruled by Jeroboam II and the southern
portion was Judah. Judah is where God found Amos living a quiet life of shepherding
and tending fig trees. God gave him visions and words that Amos was to deliver to the
people of Israel. This would not have been a very enticing invitation. Let’s just say
there’s a reason that the kingdom was separated. And to quote Amos “Can two people
walk together without agreeing on the direction?” (Amos 3:3). Israel and Judah were
definitely NOT walking in the same direction and agreed on very little.
So, Amos was doing his thing, surrounded by his sheep and figs when God showed up.
Then Amos had to choose. Was he going to keep doing his thing or change paths?
Would he embrace the interruption and follow where God was leading him? I’m sure this
was not in his 5-year plan. It probably wasn’t on Amos’s radar of possibilities for his life.
Isn’t that how God tends to work though? We are plugging along doing our thing when
He steps in and invites us to change course. We get to choose. We can keep to our
original path or accept the new way.
Amos chose to follow God. This did not bring confetti cannons. This did not rocket him
into popularity. This did not fill his storehouses with riches. This meant he left his home
and traveled to a place where no one wanted him around to tell people things they didn’t
want to hear. You see the people of Israel were doing their thing too. They had a plan.
They were waiting on the Day of the Lord! God was going to intervene on their behalf.
He was going to swoop in and save the day. And He was going to step in and make
some changes, but not like they thought.
God’s Plan
It’s true that the people surrounding Israel and Judah were doing some bad things and
God did intend to deal with them. Amos opened with this prophecy. (Perhaps God knew
he needed something to grab the Israelites’ attention before He shared more of what
was really on His heart.) However, Amos carried a message that God was more
focused on saving Israel from themselves than from their enemies. You see, the things
they had chosen to do had led them far from Him. They had found some comfort, some
wealth, and some religion. They went through the motions of worship, but their hearts
were disengaged. How could God know this? Well, He, of course, could look into their
hearts, but their actions also proved the conditions of their hearts, as they always do.
Israelites were treating people badly. They weren’t helping those that needed help. In
fact, they weren’t even noticing.
But God did. And because He loved them, he had to do something.
So, God sent Amos to tell them about it. Amos told them that God was going to
intervene, but that they weren’t going to like it. They needed discipline and God was
getting ready to dish it out. Dark times were ahead. Pain and suffering would be
inflicted. Destruction of their whole way of life was headed their way. All of this because
they had chosen to go their own way instead of God’s. Here we find ourselves back
where we started in Amos 3:6: “Does disaster come to a city unless the Lord has
planned it?”
God was planning disaster to come to an Israelite city. This city held His children. Those
He loved beyond measure. We can look at this as cruel punishment, but we’d be
missing something: the character of God. God is love. His desire is for His people to
live. Amos 5:6 tells us how to do that: “Seek the Lord and live.” The truth is God loved
His people too much to let them continue down this road that led them further and
further away from Him. He had tried other ways to get their attention and invited them to
return to Him. They failed to listen and change course. That was their choice.
Our Choice
Sometimes we fail to listen as well. We fail to change course at the interruption and
invitation of God to do so. And sometimes people we love choose to keep doing their
thing even when God has prompted us, like Amos, to point them to truth and life.
I don’t know exactly how Amos dealt with that. He did what God called him to do. He
spoke the very words God gave him to speak. He traveled into unfamiliar and possibly
hostile places to bravely share truth. And maybe it was easier to speak to strangers.
These were people that God loved dearly, but Amos didn’t really know. What if the
people we’re called to share visions and words with are those we share a home with
every day?
God called me to adopt, to take some of those strangers and bring them into my home
and love them like He did. I embraced that interruption and followed His lead. Some
people think that adoption is simply generous and beautiful, but I think those people
haven’t actually adopted. There is grace and beauty, but trauma is commonplace in the
land of adoption. Rejection and hostility find their way into the home in which you hoped
love could be enough. The children in my care had no say in what happened to them in
the first years of their lives. They didn’t choose for traumatic experiences to override
God’s plan for their brain development. Yet, the possibility remains to move toward
healing even though it requires loads of hard work. God’s invitation still stands; anyone
can return to Him. He calls to each of us, “Seek me, and live.” (Amos 5:4)
My Idea of Love
When I was little, I played with dolls and dreamed of being a mom. My journey to
motherhood was long and arduous, perhaps preparing me for what lay ahead. I
imagined a world in which love felt like a pit of Squishmallows. I would jump in, and it
would envelop me with cushy softness. However, as I stepped into parenting, I quickly
realized that was not the case. It was more like a ninja course, and it required sure
footing and constant vigilance. I had to be firmly standing on the cornerstone of Christ
because life would be full of unexpected storms. It also required armor to bravely step
into another person’s hurt and speak truth and life. There are moments of Squishmallow
bliss, but parenting often feels more like hugging a sea urchin. Love can cause
callouses and wounds, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth it. And it doesn’t mean you
give up. Love means trying again and again and making hard choices in the face of
seemingly insurmountable challenges.
I also don’t know how God felt when he chose to make hard choices that effected His
children. He loved Israel. I know that. He also chose to make hard calls when others
suffered at their hands. I can relate to that. When children in my home chose to inflict
pain on others, it broke my heart. When they entertained homicidal ideations, the
danger was real. Something had to change; hard calls had to be made. Those included
emergency room visits, psychiatric inpatient stays, partial programs, residential
treatment facilities, and group homes. Extremely hard calls, especially when you love
your kid. Yet, there were other children in the home; I loved them too. Their lives
mattered, just like the poor being oppressed in Israel at the time of Amos. God loved
them too.
God’s Idea of Love
Just like God would go to extreme lengths to win back the heart of His children, He
would do the same for mine. That included planning some disasters. Always at the root
of such awful circumstances is His goodness. He will use whatever means necessary to
reach our hearts, to turn us away from death and back to life with Him.
Now, admittedly, I’m not God and I haven’t always make perfect decisions. I do my best
to bravely navigate the disasters that God plans. I do have peace about following God
through unimaginable horrors. I also find comfort in the fact that God shows love
through discipline and making hard calls for His own children. All of my children are
alive today, even though there were some days I wasn’t sure that would be the case.
They don’t all live with me, but some do. There are years of trauma that occurred in our
home. Some of which I may never know, because even after years of feeling safe there
are still things coming to light. I do know that we all have the choice to return to God and
move toward healing. And it’s up to us to make that choice.
In Amos 5, God describes to His children how to return to Him and find life. He speaks
of great sorrow at how they have treated their fellow human beings and especially their
pretense and hypocrisy of religion (vs. 21-23). God doesn’t want them going through the
motions, He desires their hearts. “Instead, I want to see a mighty flood of justice, and
endless river of righteous living. (vs. 24)” says God to all of us. For though we have to
make hard calls sometimes when it comes to those we love, we are all only able to
change our own hearts. That is truly brave. To recognize where we’ve veered off, to
seek the Lord and return to Him, this is where we discover how to truly live. That is our
choice: to embrace the interruption and correct our course.
Book 3 launch scheduled for August 30, 2025 on Amazon. We are also offering free eBook St. Croix: through the wall from August 29, 2025 through September 2, 2025.
https://www.amazon.com/St-Croix-Through-William-Wright/dp/1735752266
Book #3
The final storm
I’ve always loved music; notes carry me as I go throughout each day. So when God asked me to step into music, the answer was an easy yes, right? No. Not as simple as anyone can imagine. Some people may say it’s our calling to do this or that, but my music instructor Will B. Smith II put it more simply: “Our calling is to make Jesus known and bring glory to His name.” God has blessed us with gifts to make His kingdom greater. Living in a way where our calling is to make Jesus known is a less complicated way of thinking. Making mistakes? We’ve all messed up, many times. Feeling unworthy? I feel that way too. God’s word says, “The LORD your God is among you, a warrior who saves. He will rejoice over you with gladness. He will be quiet in his love. He will delight in you with singing.” - Zephaniah 3:17
It’s easy to be silenced by the noise all around us. We may hear from ourselves or others that we’ll never be good enough. Or we may want to stay in the tempting comfort zone. The hard part is that we are often criticized by those who matter to us the most. The ones who are supposed to support us through thick and thin sometimes let us down.
I’ve been blessed to have many great influences in my life, which has taught me a lot. I’ve had my times of being pushed out of the nest so I could learn how to fly, and eventually soar. Think of the eagles, designed by God to rise above the storms, to be safe from dangers and obstacles. I like to think of fledging out of the nest, learning to fly.
We can see the small bits and pieces as God reveals. We can hear His voice when we are still. When the storm comes, our Heavenly Father will help us rise above it all. We will experience the storm but come out better because of our ability to hear and see God. “Now to him who is able to do above and beyond all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us—to him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever, Amen.” - Ephesians 3:20-21
Mustering the courage to lead worship at church is not through me or about me in any way. I once heard it said like this, “I’m not confident in myself, I am confident in God.” So the path we take to gain courage is by believing in the God of possible. I can’t do anything on my own strength, but trust in the One who can. Psalm 57:7 says, “My heart is confident God, my heart is confident. I will sing; I will sing praises.”
The journey to becoming a member of the worship team has been long. This dream has bubbled inside of me for many years. Learning to accept correction, learning to fall, learning to get back up again, and learning to be strong are all parts of the process.
The lesson that has captivated me the most is, “Worship leaders are ushers, they lead you to your place (praising in spirit, in truth), and step out of the picture.”- Will B Smith II.
Acknowledging my participation on the worship team is not shining a spotlight on me and that I’m just a guide is what beckons me forward. The Bible tells us that people of worship were put in the front (Psalm 68:25, 2 Chronicles 20:21). When I think about the power of worship and praise, 2 Chronicles 20 comes to mind. King Jehoshaphat faced a huge obstacle. Three different armies had banded together to try and take his kingdom down. The first thing Jehoshaphat did was pray. Then God told him to march into battle as victors because He was going to win this battle. God is present in our times of trouble, and in our weaknesses. He’s fighting and winning our battles. They’re His.
If the hard part about God’s plan is that it seems impossible, most likely it's bigger than you. There are many examples in the Bible of unlikely leaders. Take Gideon for example, he was literally in hiding. He did not want to show his face at all. But an angel appeared to him and called him a mighty warrior of God! He ended up leading an army of 300 men and through God won the victory. There are many, many other examples of other people just like this in the Bible. I have heard it said that “God doesn’t call the qualified, he qualifies the called.”
We shouldn’t miss out on the amazing opportunities that God has for us. There is freedom in obedience. Would Moses have gotten to use his staff in the parting of the Red Sea? Would Noah have gotten to build an ark that took over 100 years to build and witness animal kinds walk onto the boat two-by-two? Would Mary have gotten to give birth to and raise the Son of God? If they hadn’t stepped out in obedience, they probably would’ve missed out on the miraculous that took place in their lives. “Now if you will carefully listen to me and keep my covenant, you will be my own possession out of all the peoples, although the whole earth is mine.” - Exodus 19:5
If you are interested in stepping out into God’s plan, pray this prayer with me:
Heavenly Father, I want to be on fire for You. I don’t want to lean on my understanding; I am choosing to trust You. May I make You the center of my life and stand on Your word. You are my firm foundation. I long to be Your hands and feet. Guide my steps and lead, I will follow. When I pass through deep waters, the fire, the storms, I know You will be with me. Sometimes we will walk on water, sometimes we will make it to the top of the mountain, and when I sink, You are right there to lift me up. Lord, make my ways straight, keep my eyes on You. When I seek You, let me find You. Use me to bring glory to Your name. Help me to plant seeds in the lives of other people and make Your kingdom greater. Humble me when my pride gets in the way. I want to make You famous. May everything I do not be about myself, but about You.
In Jesus’ Name I pray, Amen.
Step out into this beautiful journey. Jesus is calling you, where endless possibilities await.
https://braveknightwriters.com/blog/1073-Turning-Points-Using-Lifes-Big-Changes-to-Break-Bad-Habits
Photo by Pexels
Every season of transition holds a story waiting to be rewritten. Whether it's a new job, a move across the country, marriage, divorce, a health scare, or the bittersweet experience of watching children leave home, these moments can unearth buried patterns and open a path to reformation. For followers of Christ, these windows in time are more than just challenges—they're sacred invitations to renew your spirit and reshape your routines. When God shifts your surroundings, He often intends to shift your inner world too.
Start with the Wilderness, Not the Map
You don't need a five-step plan the day your world turns sideways. Life transitions feel messy because they uproot comfort, and in that discomfort is a rare chance to see yourself with clarity. Think of Jesus in the wilderness—before ministry, before miracles, there were forty days of solitude. Likewise, when you're between where you were and where you're going, let that be a pause. Don't rush to control it. Let yourself dwell there and ask what the Spirit is surfacing.
Consider Your Career Path Options
Before stress starts seeping into every corner of your life, it’s worth considering whether your job is still serving your growth or simply draining you. For those drawn to healthcare, advancing through an online degree can be a powerful step toward purpose and stability. Exploring the importance of MSN degrees might open doors to roles in nurse education, informatics, administration, or advanced practice that align better with your gifts and long-term goals. If your current role no longer stretches your capabilities or you've felt the nudge toward a more fulfilling path, a career switch could offer welcome relief—not just professionally, but mentally and emotionally as well.
Name the Habit, Then Dissect the Lie
Old habits cling like shadows, especially when you're vulnerable. During a life change, you may find yourself reaching for the same escape hatches—procrastination, overeating, endless scrolling—not because you enjoy them, but because they numb the unknown. But the truth is, every bad habit is rooted in a lie. Maybe it's “I’m not worthy,” or “I have no control.” Naming the behavior isn’t enough. You need to interrogate the false belief underneath it, and replace that lie with the truth of God’s Word.
Create Liturgies for the New Normal
Once a transition begins, everything from your commute to your sleep schedule may shift. This is your chance to form new rituals before the old ruts harden again. You don’t need to build a monastery. Start with a liturgy of small things—a morning prayer while brushing your teeth, a five-minute gratitude journal after dinner, or scripture on your lock screen. These tiny anchors add up. They’re not about performance; they’re about presence. And presence is where healing starts.
Pray for Resilience, Not Just Relief
It’s tempting to ask God to make the transition easy, but spiritual growth rarely blooms in comfort. Instead of praying away the pain, pray for eyes to see what God is doing in it. Ask for resilience, not just relief. Building resilience starts by shifting how you respond to pressure rather than trying to avoid it altogether. You grow sturdier when you let setbacks teach rather than define you, and that often begins with slowing down enough to reflect before reacting. Cultivating habits like prayer, journaling, or simply asking for help can strengthen your emotional core and remind you that resilience isn’t about going it alone.
Let Repentance Be the Rhythm, Not the Exception
Many Christians treat repentance like a fire alarm—only pulled in emergencies. But what if you made it a daily rhythm instead? Life transitions stir up all kinds of things in your soul. Some you expected. Some you’d rather not see. Instead of hiding from that, let it become your altar. Repent early and often, not with shame, but with expectation. God isn’t surprised by your habits. He’s interested in your willingness to surrender them.
Build Forward with Hope, Not Fear
It's easy to let fear shape your future after a disruptive change. You worry you’ll fall back into old ways or that you’ll fail again. But God didn’t give you a spirit of fear. He gave you a sound mind and a living hope. Replace the inner critic with a chorus of truth. Every time you step into a new behavior—choosing a walk over wine, prayer over panic, service over self—you’re not just building a better life. You’re bearing witness to resurrection power in your own body.
You don’t have to wait until the dust settles to start over. Every major life shift is an altar waiting to be built. Not the kind made of stone, but the kind made of sacrifice, trust, and renewed obedience. Don’t waste the in-between. Let God use it to tear down what never belonged and to build something holy where the old habits once stood. You were never meant to come through unchanged. You were meant to come through reborn.
Discover stories of courage and grace with Brave Knight Writers, where spiritual warfare meets inspiring narratives. Visit now to explore their latest releases and receive a free e-book by joining their community!
Please visit zoe.houston@starterhometour.com for more inspiration.
Thank you Zoe for contributing to Brave Knight Writers.