Withness: a review along with resources

Thanksgiving Day, 2025.

Dear Reader,

May you experience, today, God’s very real withness. For He has changed my life {again} by unveiling my eyes to the reality that He is with me.

You might think at my age, “Shouldn’t you know this by now?” I ask myself this same question all the time. But here’s the truth… no.

There’s been no way for me to know what I know by now because I’ve never lived in this place at this time with all the years of experiences behind me. It’s the same for you. Whether you’ve known Jesus for decades or you’re just meeting Him now, you should be a lifetime learner in your ongoing relationship with Him. May it be so for you and me.

I think, as a parent of adult sons, I can catch a glimpse of how God desires good for me. While I’m not physically with these men, who have their own families now, my love and our shared experiences will always be with them. Through my mother heart desires for our sons and their families, I catch a bit of God’s heart for me and His withness.

It’s more tangible now for me – how God wants me to keep learning. How He wants me to have a lightbulb moment, a revelation of His good intent. How He wants me to experience the abundant life of excellence. He’s not looking for perfection. He’s looking for my willingness to explore and ask more questions. He’s looking for my trust and loyalty.

Throughout this past year, God has brought before me a number of resources through which He has chosen to prove the reality of His involvement in my life. It’s not just that He wants me to know that He loves me. Every kid feels {sometimes} that their parent is duty bound to love them. Most of us believe our parents love us; we just don’t know if they like us.

So, this whole year I have experienced Father God inviting me into His private counseling room. I call this ‘meeting Him in His tent’ or Tabernacle. One on one, He has opened His living word to me, and all through a lens of His name, Immanuel.

I’m so grateful to God for His intentionality. I hope to live more fully, experiencing God’s good pleasure, and desiring to make Him known every day that I have remaining.

Therefore, I want to share with you a number of resources for your perusal. I hope you find something here useful and beneficial, but if nothing else, I hope you will determine to read all the way through the Bible in 2026.

Daily sowing God’s word into your mind will transform your thinking, and grow your faith. Just this one simple activity will impact your understanding of who God is, and who He is for you, and with you.

First, I am grateful for our church home. God led us to a Bible believing, Bible teaching, discipleship focused church right here in the desert. We’ve found people who love us, and whom we love as family. You need a Bible believing and teaching church home. You need fellowship like we need fellowship.

I am grateful for opportunities to serve God and His people. And oh so grateful am I for our small groups of life on life discipleship. In 2022, this church family gave us the gift of a 10-week Rooted experience, and we are not the same wounded couple who left Georgia just a few years previous.

I praise God for His withness, for His tender mercies and for His care as He has taken us as clay to re-work and re-shape for His purposes and for His glory.

1. Rooted. This is a church discipleship tool, through which groups of interested men and women learn the 7 rhythms of purposefully following Christ into sanctification. Rooted is a 10-week commitment and process. In my opinion, the Rooted Experience is the BEST discipleship curriculum I have ever walked through. We love it so much that after we graduated as students we became facilitators, and have now graduated 8 more groups of disciples who are ready and hopefully emboldened to make disciples. Discipleship is a sanctifying multiplication lifestyle for a lifetime. I highly recommend that church leaders take an opportunity to review Rooted for the benefit of their own congregations.

If God needed to move us completely across to the other side of this large country, away from everyone and everything known, and comfortable, to teach me as He has… it’s all been worthwhile. I have grown up a lot in these 3 and a half years. Thank You, Jesus!

2. The Bible Recap: Beginning on January 1, 2025, I have read chronologically through the entire Old Testament, and God willing, by December 31, I will have read the Bible in its entirety. I highly recommend TBR and her hostess, TLC, as a quality Bible reading plan. It moves really fast so I’m looking forward to going back to read chronologically again in 2026.

3. Real Life Stories: Time and time again, throughout this withness year, God has reminded me of stories – testimonies – of people who have impacted my life. He has lovingly and intentionally mixed in the experiences of parents and grandparents, my mother in love, our sons, and many friends, mentors and pastors over the years to bring the truths of these wonderful resources to life with skin and bones. And so, I will be sharing a couple of these testimonies in blog posts soon. Stay tuned…

We loved you so much that we shared with you not only God’s good news, but our own lives too. 1 Thessalonians 2:8 NLT

The Bible Project – Wilderness Series: Following along with Tim Mackie, lead scholar, and his co-host Jon Collins, has often felt like enrolling in seminary classes. However overwhelming some of the details regarding the Hebrew and Greek languages, I thoroughly enjoy the learning journey. Lately, Tim and Jon have taken us on an in depth study of wilderness scenarios throughout the entire Bible. These men are gifted with creativity. God has imbued them with a unique ability to teach challenging concepts through interesting and fun techniques. They might be most well known for their comic book style videos. {Side Note: TLC with TBR often uses video teachings from The Bible Project to clarify particular book themes and difficult to understand passages of scripture.}

Back Porch Theology: The Back Porch girls, Lisa Harper and her 5 foot 12 sidekick Allison Allen, hosted this year a series of teachings entitled Mountains and Valleys. While I’ve gleaned much from the intellectual material presented by the girls and their guest seminary professors, it’s their life stories and genuine gratitude expressed to God for His kindness that keeps me coming back. It helps that Lisa Harper has more than once this year used my word {withness} in her description of God’s presence.

Please note that I receive no compensation for recommending these resources. They stand on their own merits. They have been a blessing to me on my journey this year, and I’m grateful.

I pray you, dear Reader, have experienced God’s real withness this year. If not I pray the Holy Spirit is igniting in you a desire to seek Him.

Thank You, Immanuel, for loving us first. I love You too. Amen.

Eyes on Jesus and Shine,

Lisa