Welcome to episode 16.
Today we're going to take on a posture of peace by leaning into a redeemed definition
of normal.
Hi, I'm Lindsay Van Zale.
Posture is a podcast that serves as a short, audible fist bump to remind you that God is
in everything.
Together, we're going to be emboldened to take a daily posture of perfect peace.
Ephesians chapter 3 verses 17 through 20 say this,
So when I was nine, my youngest sister was born, and it became pretty apparent after
her birth that she wasn't normal.
And that began a trajectory for my family where we became the special needs family and
learned how to do life in a new normal, if you will.
Now what happened for me kind of throughout my teenage years and as we were navigating
that dynamic as a family is I found myself grieving normal.
I don't know if you could maybe understand this too.
Maybe you have a special needs sibling or parent in your family or perhaps you grew
up in a home where your parents were divorced or your family dynamic looked a little bit
different than everyone else's and perhaps you also found yourself just grieving normal,
desiring things to just be normal.
What I found was by grieving normal and kind of living in that grief, all my prayers and
my relationship with the Lord really centered around me asking constantly for normal, you
know, whatever it was that I perceived was normal at the time.
I just wanted to be like other families.
I wanted to have the same freedom as other families.
I didn't want to be having to deal with the obstacles of being in a special needs family
or whatever that was.
And so I began to like have this relationship with the Lord and my prayer life with the
Lord really all centered around just wanting things to be normal.
The Lord began to lead me around my college years into an upgraded perspective of what
it was to live and be a part of His kingdom.
You know, as people in the kingdom, we live with a divine privilege to redeem and redefine
what normal is because what's normal in the world is not necessarily normal in the kingdom.
In fact, often what is normal in the world is backwards in the kingdom.
So we see examples of this all throughout scriptures.
I think about James 1 where it says, you know, in the kingdom, it's normal that trials would
produce strength in us, but in the world, we know that it's normal that suffering and
trials would only deplete us.
Another kingdom concept is this idea around generosity and that in order to receive, we
give.
We give to receive.
That seems very backwards in order to be rich, stay rich, we need to hoard and keep as much
as we can.
Another kingdom dynamic is when it talks in Philippians about rejoicing always and being
anxious for nothing and living with this peace beyond understanding where in the world, it's
only normal that we would rejoice in the good times only.
So again, as people in the kingdom, we're never called to the normal life.
We're not called to the formulaic life.
Our definition of normal is not defined by things like a job title or a certain level
of education or, you know, an award or a certification or marriage or, you know, having a marriage
or children at a certain age or, you know, our normal is not defined by owning certain
possessions like owning a home at a certain time in your life or having a new car or,
you know, furniture that you didn't buy at Ikea.
Normal for us is never set by worldly standards because as nice it is to have all those things,
they are true blessings.
They are not our source for fulfillment.
When you became a follower of Jesus, you plugged in to a different source.
So now you can only be fulfilled by the fullness of God.
Anything short of that just leaves us feeling unfulfilled, quite honestly.
So I just want to encourage you, if you find yourself in a place today where you are indeed
grieving normal, wishing life could have been or should have been a certain way and it's
not, I just want to say there's abundant grace for you today.
God is so kind and he's most certainly not holding your grief against you.
The beauty is that he has made a way for you to move forward, not in the emptiness of a
life filled with grief, but in the fullness of his abundant life.
And again, the fullness of God is certainly no consolation prize.
It's not a replacement.
It is immeasurably more than anything that we could ask or think of.
And so I just want to encourage you today.
You serve a redeeming God and no matter what your life looks like right now or what you're
wanting it to look like, I just want to encourage you in this, God is redeeming every single
detail of your life so that it is marked by his fullness, not necessarily the world's
normal.
The promise of perfect peace is found in Isaiah 26 3 and in Hebrew it is Shalom, Shalom, meaning
complete wholeness, nothing missing, nothing broken.
This is who you are in Jesus.
Let's declare this together.
Today I am kept in perfect peace with my whole heart.
I trust the Lord.
I am strong.
I am victorious.
I am whole.
Remember, friend, you are a living testimony of Jesus's ultimate win, not because of anything
you did, but because of what he did for you.
With every step you take today, you're putting Jesus's victory on display and Satan's defeat
on replay.