To live a life wholly positive is, fortunately, impossible. Were any man able to do such a thing it could be only for a moment. Living positively would be like inhaling continuously without exhaling. Aside from its being impossible, it would be fatal. Exhalation is as necessary to life as inhalation. Let us not be... Continue Reading →
Contend, Dear Ones
Heidi St. John is a Christian writer and leader of 'Momstrong International', an organization focused on equipping moms to raise confident and wise warriors for Christ in today's sin-sick world. She has a great website which I link at the bottom here, but I wanted to share her thoughts from an upcoming Bible study on... Continue Reading →
The Game Plan
“You want to save America? Here’s the plan. This is the play we need to run, on three. Love your wife. Respect and obey your husband. Control your temper. Stop drinking so much. Learn to be as precise and as honest in your business dealings as a person can be. Get your kids a Christian education. Bring your family to church, every... Continue Reading →
Fault Lines
We have an opportunity to say to a world seeking the false, inadequate, burdensome law, "we have something better; something more." God's law in the life of the believer manifests as vertical and horizontal love: We love God, so we keep His commandments, and in doing so, we love our neighbor. This cannot be legislated.Voddie... Continue Reading →
Faith, Works, and an Un-Burdensome Lent
The Christian High Holy days are just about upon us again, a time when Catholics and some Protestants pause for a bit of a spiritual self-assessment over a 40-day period called Lent. Today is Shrove Tuesday, "pancake day" or Mardi-Gras, however you choose to look at it. A kick off celebration of excess before we... Continue Reading →
Hatch, Or Go Bad
The terrible thing, the almost impossible thing, is to hand over your whole self — all your wishes, and precautions — to Christ. But it is far easier than what we are trying to do instead. For what we are trying to do is remain what we call “ourselves,” to keep personal happiness as our great aim in life, and... Continue Reading →
The Winds of Persecution
But our goal as Christians should be to stay detached from the frantic demand that everything be ramped up into a frantic crisis. I distinguish here a real crisis from a frantic crisis. These frantic crises are the handles on the hand basket in which we are all being carted off to the Bad Place.... Continue Reading →
Rebellion
I have gone out of my way to be provocative, mischievous, and unclear, reflecting my belief that clarity is sometimes overrated, and that shock, obscurity, playfulness, and intrigue (carefully articulated) often stimulate more thought than clarity. There is great danger in the quest to be right.Brian McLaren, A Generous Orthodoxy Yesterday I pondered the idea... Continue Reading →
Wielding and Yielding
First we practice sin, then defend it, then boast of it.Thomas Manton Photo courtesy Pinterest Every single day we wake up to a world fueled by emotion, desperate for affirmation, and fragile to a frightening degree. Dull or deaf to the truth, quick to react but slow to understand. There's my happy, peppy take on... Continue Reading →
Wilderness Curriculum
Well, we have collectively flipped our calendars from March to April. I for one, was happy to toss old March into the trash can and be moving on to a new month, one that traditionally brings hope, renewal and happy memories. As I stared at a big, blank April, something annoying and unwanted popped into... Continue Reading →