Laura Diehl, Author at GPS Hope Page

April 20, 2016 by Laura Diehl 2 Comments

Why Does a Good God Allow Pain in Our Lives?

Basically we all want a pain free life if we are honest. Why doesn’t that seem to be God’s way? Especially if He is such a “good” God?

I’ve been hanging out in Isaiah a lot lately. The passage in Isaiah 48:10, “I have purified you by giving you troubles,” is a loaded statement.

What? God gives us troubles?

Later in Is. 66:9 we read, “ ‘In the same way I will not cause pain without allowing something new to be born,’ says the Lord. ‘If I cause you the pain, I will not stop you from giving birth to your new nation.’ says your God.”

There are a couple of key parts to that verse.

1) Pain comes in birthing. (For sure!)

2) He will not stop us from giving birth. (That’s a huge relief, if you have ever been in labor before!)

We often think life is supposed to be pain free if we are really walking with God, but clearly God doesn’t see it that way.

He always offers a plan in our pain. Not only that, He suffers with us in our pain.

And there’s more! He always offers to birth something that brings new life, if we don’t give up! Wow! That is amazing! Only God can bring life from death! And may I remind you, He has lots of experience and does it quite well!

God says He will not stop us from giving birth, but I wonder if we stop ourselves sometimes. We go out of our way to stop the pain, to stop whatever is happening from continuing, not realizing we are actually sabotaging ourselves by trying to stop a birthing process.

If we choose to see things our way, we risk the forward movement He has planned for us.

Is. 50:10-11 says, “Who among you fears the Lord and obeys His servant? That person may walk in the dark and have no light. Let him trust in the Lord and depend on his God. But instead, some of you want to light your own fires and make your own light. So, go, walk in the light of your fires, and trust your own light to guide you.”

Once we pray and put something in God’s hands, He is at work, whether we can see it or not. We can trust Him, and depend on Him. God has never lost a battle He has entered, and He isn’t going to start with your battle.

Remember, God created Satan and his minions. They were flicked out of heaven because of rebellion and pride. Good and evil is not an even match. Sometimes we forget that, because of the result of evil affecting our lives. We think God and Satan have the same amount of power, and it is a wrestling match to see who wins.

God ALWAYS triumphs! We just have to let Him use His own battle plan, and surrender to it, instead of making up our own (because it doesn’t make sense to us in our painful situation). Starting our own fires and trusting in our own light to guide us will really take us off course, and make things even worse in the long run.

Let me just say, if I could make sense of God and figure Him out, I would actually be really disappointed and lost, because then He wouldn’t be big enough to be God!

Have you EVER asked God to cleanse and purify you? (That question makes a couple of worship songs come to my mind immediately, that I know I have raised my hands to and sung from my heart as a prayer to Him.)

Then guess what? As Isaiah 66:9 says, He doesn’t allow the troubles we go through to be wasted in our lives. He uses them to purify our hearts. Fire is a purifier. He is actually answering your prayer of purifying you.

I talk about this in my book Triple Crown Transformation.

For all my adult life, I have told God to do whatever He wants to do to get me where He wants me to be. Many years ago, I was praying about a situation I wanted God to fix.

He asked me, “Which prayer do you want me to answer?” I had to ask Him what He meant.

He replied, “You have always told me to do whatever I wanted to do, to get you where I want you to be. I want to use your situation to answer this prayer. So, do you want me to answer the prayer you have been praying for years, or do you want me to answer the prayer to fix this situation?”

I surrendered, and told Him to do whatever He wanted to do, to get me where He wanted me to be.

Surrender to His process. Surrender to His plan to birth new life through you. Don’t stop your birthing process because of the pain. Don’t make your own fires to guide yourself.

Allow God to use the pain you are experiencing to purify you, and to birth something new in your life.

Gems from the Crown is a weekly blog from Crown of Glory Ministries to strengthen and encourage believers in Christ in their walk with God, especially in the areas of vision, authority, and identity. If you would like to have Gems from the Crown delivered directly to you, please click here.

April 6, 2016 by Laura Diehl Leave a Comment

Two Keys to the Power of Your Hidden Authority

Hidden authority sounds kind of like an oxymoron, doesn’t it? How can we have authority if it’s hidden?

What about a teacher and her authority over her classroom? If her authority was hidden, then her students would just run over her, and the classroom would be in total chaos. How about at work? Your boss has the authority to fire you; he has the authority to tell you what you should be doing (or shouldn’t be doing) at work, and obviously his authority is not hidden. And some bosses are pretty good at letting you know just how much authority they do have over your life at work.

The authority I want to look at though, is our spiritual authority.

Colossians 3:3 talks about our life being hidden with Christ in God. In that place, we are one with Jesus, inside of the Godhead. I see this as part of the intimacy Jesus was praying for in John chapter 17, when Jesus prayed for us to be one with Himself and the Father, like He is one with the Father.

I like the way the Message Bible puts this scripture in Colossians. It says, “Your old life is dead. Your new life, which is your real life, even though invisible to spectators, is with Christ in God. He is your life.”

We are hidden in Christ, and that fact actually gives us authority. I want to share a couple of specific keys of authority that are given to us, within that hidden place.

1. The Word

Jesus IS the Word. John 1:1 is the Scripture we’re most familiar with about this. “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” When I am hidden in Christ, I’m also hidden in the Word, because Jesus is the word Himself. He’s the Word of God. So when I speak the word of God into a situation, I am hidden behind that word because I am hidden with Christ. So it isn’t me the enemy sees; it’s the Word, which is Jesus, Himself, and he must respond to Jesus. He must respond to that authority of the Word in which I am hidden.

It’s not a blab-it-and-grab it, get whatever you want authority. But when God gives me a specific Scripture to speak into a situation, it’s like I am wrapped up and hidden within that truth; within that Scripture; within that Word. I am wrapped up and hidden within Jesus Himself; that Word going forth against the enemy.

2. The Name

When I speak the name of Jesus into a situation, I am also hidden. I’m hidden within the weapon of the name of Jesus. When I speak the name of Jesus, it’s not my authority; it’s Jesus Himself, because I am hidden within that.

I’ve had the blessing of doing a lot of international traveling (especially in Africa), as well as here in the United States. There are times I have had to cast out demons. (I don’t want to freak anyone out, but casting out demons is something we are told to do as believers.)

I remember one time in particular when there was demonic manifestation in a young lady. I started to pray for her and command it to go. Nothing was happening, and I realized that I was coming at it with my own mind. I was using words based on my own thoughts, trying to tell that demon to leave. So I actually stopped, pulled myself back, and reminded myself of my true position of authority; I am hidden in Christ, and I am seated with Him in heavenly places (Ephesians 2:6). Once I did that, and I positioned myself within Christ, I came back at the demonic manifestation. I was able to cast out those demons, because now I was coming from the position of being hidden in the authority of Christ.

“I think of it like an off-duty police officer. If an officer were to try to use his authority while in his street clothes, no one would take him seriously. It is the uniform and the badge that cause people to respect a law he is enforcing” (taken from my book Triple Crown Transformation). It is the exact same thing with us in a spiritual way. It’s like we are putting on the uniform of Christ, which gives us His authority. We are hidden in the authority (or the uniform) of Christ.

In Matthew 16:19, Jesus tells us that He has given us the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever we bind on earth is bound in heaven, and whatever we loose on earth is loosed in heaven. These keys work when we are wrapped up and hidden inside the authority of King Jesus!

I really want to encourage you to learn to wear the God-given crown of authority. I talk about this quite a bit in my book Triple Crown Transformation. As a matter of fact, it is the second of the three crowns I talk about; wearing the crown of His authority.

We need to see the crown, wear the crown, and be the crown, by being hidden in Christ.

If you’re interested in learning more about the book, Triple Crown Transformation, click here . You will find information on the book itself, along with where to purchase it, or how to get it for free.

Gems from the Crown is a weekly blog from Crown of Glory Ministries to strengthen and encourage believers in Christ in their walk with God, especially in the areas of vision, authority, and identity. If you would like to have Gems from the Crown delivered directly to you, please click here.

April 1, 2016 by Laura Diehl Leave a Comment

You Can Hear God’s Voice

Sheep are animals that need a lot of help. They don’t know how to find green grassy pastures or water without the shepherd leading them to the right places.

Jesus said you and I were like sheep and He is our Shepherd (the person who takes care of us). He said we need Him as our Shepherd to guide us through life and lead us to safety. John 10:3 tells us “The sheep hear His voice”.

Sheep have to learn to recognize the voice of their shepherd to be able to follow him. It doesn’t come automatically. They have to practice.

We have to practice hearing the voice of the Holy Spirit too. We have to know what His voice sounds like. We have to know the kinds of things He would say. We have to learn how His voice is different from all the other voices in the world. He wants to be able to whisper in our ear and have us recognize Him.

Do you want to be able to recognize the voice of the Holy Spirit? Take time to practice. Get your Mom or Dad to help you. Get really quiet, and ask Him to talk to you. He has something to tell you!

March 23, 2016 by Laura Diehl Leave a Comment

From Death to Life When Tragedy Strikes

Have you ever faced a tragedy, finding yourself in a very dark place as a result? You are confused, broken, in despair, and lost?

I have, more than once. (And many of you know about some of those experiences from my book Triple Crown Transformation.) But the one that left me in the deepest, darkest pit by far came from the death of our oldest daughter.

Many professionals say that experiencing the death of one’s child is the greatest trauma a person can face. Those who have faced the death of their spouse, a sibling, or other losses and have also faced the death of their child, say losing their child takes them to a much deeper darkness than other losses, and it lasts so much longer.

When Becca died (you can read about her story by clicking here), I didn’t know anyone who had lost a child, and had no one to guide me through the darkness that made me think I was going crazy. I started reading books from other parents who had experienced the loss of a child, and most of them seemed to carry the message that our lives are forever a black mess we can’t get out of.

I would read how angry and bitter these parents were; just waiting to die so they could rejoin their child.

I would read how their living children would say they also lost their mom when their sibling died.

This just wasn’t acceptable to me.

I knew I had the seed of Hope living inside of me. I knew I wanted to be part of the lives of my other children and my precious grandchildren. I knew God still had a calling on my life, with a purpose.

So I fought!

I grabbed ahold of God with everything I had, and I fought. It took months, even years, because of how deep and dark that pit is when you have to bury your child. Sometimes I would feel the Lord reach down and help pull me up a bit, and other times I felt like I was fighting and clawing to the next foothold on my way up while He was under me, giving me the boost I needed.

It was messy, it was difficult, and it was painful beyond words. But I was victorious, because God’s specialty is bringing life from death!

Let me say that again. God’s SPECIALTY is bringing life out of death!

ANY death, when put in His hands, will birth life!

And not only did I receive life, but during the battle, the Holy Spirit taught me so many things about myself, and about Him. Things about how I was living out of a false identity. How I didn’t really know how to live from a place of resting in Him. How I had a deeply rooted sin of judging the heart and motives of others, and would try to manipulate them into doing what I thought they should be doing.

So not only did He bring me through the fire, He lovingly refined me in the process.

I must share that I still have the pain of grief. I will always feel my daughter’s loss deeply, and my life will never be the same with her gone from this earth. But I have life again, beyond her death. And it is a life richer in God’s love than I could have ever imagined.

If God can do this for me, He can do it for anyone. He can do it for you. He can do it for other parents who have lost a child from this earth through death.

And that is now a passion I have; to reach out to those parents behind me who have been thrown into that deep black pit, and offer them a hand of hope. I didn’t have anyone to do that for me, and I don’t want that to happen to anyone else on this dark horrible path of the death of a child.

About a year and a half ago, I woke up in the night with the title of a book (When Tragedy Strikes) and many of the chapter subjects. I got up and wrote everything down. It seemed the Holy Spirit was directing me to write a book, so I started. My plan was to learn how to publish the book myself, having no intent of pitching it to any publishers.

Apparently, God had His own plan which I wasn’t aware of. In February of last year, Dave and I were at a conference in San Diego, where I met David Hancock, who is the founder of Morgan James Publishing. We had a conversation, and by the time we were done, I had his business card with a request to send him what I had written so far with the book I had started.

Five weeks later, I was offered a book contract, and signed it on what would have been Becca’s 33^rd birthday. I am still in total amazement of this!

I never knew how much work is involved in writing a book and getting it published. And unless you are already a big name person with a huge public following, the greatest part of the leg-work of promoting and marketing a book falls on the shoulders of the author. And when you think about it, no one else is going to have the heart and passion for what was written on the pages more than the person who wrote it, so it makes sense that the author should be the strongest promoter.

SO…. In my passion for getting this message of hope and healing to as many hurting and grieving parents as possible, I am putting together a team of people who want to help.

I am seeking those who firmly believe in the power of unity! Those who know how God can move mightily through a group of people who are moving as one in Him, sharing His message of hope and healing.
I am looking for those who hate seeing the darkness Satan keeps people wrapped up in, and want to shatter that darkness with the light and life of the Risen King.
I want people who carry that seed of Hope within them and want to help me plant it in these precious ones who have lost their hope when they lost their child from this earth.
I need to be connected with those who have a passion to give others a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a mantle of praise instead of a spirit of despair and heaviness (Isaiah 61:3).

If that is you, please click here, to find out how to join our When Tragedy Strikes Book Launch Team. There will be lots of benefits, including a free pre-release copy of my book.

And if you are a bereaved parent, let me first say how very sorry I am! You have my heart, as we have an instant connection. I would be so honored, and absolutely love to have you join us on the launch team.

We are here to be a light of hope, in a time of deep darkness for those who have been shattered by the death of their child. Please help us spread that light of hope!

Gems from the Crown is a weekly blog from Crown of Glory Ministries to strengthen and encourage believers in Christ in their walk with God, especially in the areas of vision, authority, and identity. If you would like to have Gems from the Crown delivered directly to you, please click here.

March 11, 2016 by Laura Diehl Leave a Comment

“Virtue”? What’s That? Is It Something I Need?

Second Peter 1:13 tells us “… add to your faith, virtue…” Do you know what virtue is? It is doing what is right, and doing it the best way you possibly can, even when no one is looking. Virtue includes encouraging others to do the right thing, and doing what is right, even if it means you stand alone.

Why is virtue important? Who cares if you do everything right all the time – it’s impossible anyway, no one is perfect, right? It is very important for many reasons. But the most important one is that God won’t be able to trust you to do big things for Him if you do not have virtue. God has a purpose and destiny for each one of you, but he can’t throw you into it because you have to grow into it by growing in virtue (added to you your faith).

God has to be able to trust you with the little things, first. I tell the kids around me all the time, “The little things ARE the big things.”

We grow in virtue by doing day-to-day things. Things like kids who want to have a pet sometimes need to prove they are ready to take care of it, by proving they are responsible by doing other things like keeping their room clean and helping with house work. That is actually growing in virtue!

Ask the Holy Spirit to help you grow in virtue, adding it to your faith. He has big plans for you, not just later but right now, and needs you to be prepared.