Posted in Thought for the Day / Quotes, tagged anxious thoughts, cynical heart, no room, suffering servant, theology on July 22, 2024| Leave a Comment »
When You arrived, there was no room for You at the inn.
When You left, there was no room for a Suffering Servant in our theology.
When You speak, there is no room for a still small voice in a head full of anxious thoughts.
When You touch, there is no room for compassion in a cynical heart.
When You come back (Luke 18:8)?
Posted in Thought for the Day / Quotes, tagged legacy, live wisely, Solomon, wisdom on July 18, 2024| Leave a Comment »
We have a tendency to grab ahold of the things we like from scripture, and to ignore the things we don’t. We laud Solomon for asking for wisdom (1Kings3:7-9), and point to the resulting splendor that accompanied that gift (1Kings10:23-24), while ignoring the over-arching point of the entire narrative, which is that because Solomon failed to live wisely (1Kings11:6), he was ultimately rejected by God (1Kings11:11). In missing this significant lesson, many prominent ministers of the Lord have followed in Solomon’s footsteps.
Posted in Thought for the Day / Quotes, tagged identity, little boy, young man on July 16, 2024| 4 Comments »
There was a little boy who moved from place to place, struggling to find his place in the world
And
There was a little boy who grew up within a stable, supportive family
And
There was a young child who was consistently ridiculed and bullied
And
There was a young child who was consistently loved and encouraged
And
There was a teenager who struggled to read, and hated school
And
There was a teenager who never studied, yet passed all his classes
And
There was a young man who passed on the opportunity to go to college because he felt incapable
And
There was a young man chosen to be a part of an exclusive military nuclear program
And
There was a man who forfeited the chance to be a father, marrying a woman who never wanted children
And
There was a man who married a woman who made him the father of four children
And
There was a man, whose wife left him after 12 years of marriage to be with another man
And
There was a man whose wife of over 25 years stood faithfully by his side
And
There was a man who relentlessly pursued the world’s pleasures
And
There was a man who surrendered his life to a higher purpose
And
All of these men were in fact the same man
And
Each day that man gets to choose which of these experiences will shape his identity
Posted in Thought for the Day / Quotes, tagged condition of the heart, holiness, pattern of behavior on July 15, 2024| Leave a Comment »
Holiness is not a pattern of behavior. It is a condition of the heart, which should be evidenced within our pattern of behavior.
Posted in Thought for the Day / Quotes, tagged anti-anxiety, anti-depressant, drugs or jesus, pain meds on July 1, 2024| Leave a Comment »
There’s an old country song that says life will lead you to drugs or Jesus, and I’d say there’s some truth in that. That those drugs will likely be anti-anxiety, anti-depressant or pain meds, says something about a life without Jesus.
Posted in Thought for the Day / Quotes, tagged entangle, entangled, fruit, plant, weed, weeds, wildflower on June 18, 2024| Leave a Comment »
As I was trying to remove some weeds from my rose bushes, I sensed the Lord speak:
Weeds rob productive plants of their resources (e.g. nutrients, water), and often entangle themselves amongst healthy vines, in order to inhibit the competing plant’s growth. At times, we can mistake weeds for wildflowers, but just because they are able to sprout blooms, doesn’t mean that they have the capacity to produce nourishing fruit.
Though western religion tends to equate growth with success, nothing grows more prolifically than a weed. There is much that “the church” has entangled itself with that consumes it’s resources, yet has no hope of ever producing genuine fruit.
I set before you life and death – choose life! (Deut.30:19-20)
Posted in Thought for the Day / Quotes, tagged bless God, God bless America on May 29, 2024| Leave a Comment »
There is no question as to whether God has blessed America. It’s really a question of whether America has blessed God?
Posted in Thought for the Day / Quotes, tagged by hand, discipleship, in person, machine, systems on April 15, 2024| Leave a Comment »
Men are prone to build machines & develop systems in the hope they will do the work for them, but some things must be done in person, by hand, and in real time. Discipleship is one of those things.
Posted in Thought for the Day / Quotes, tagged drama, mole hill, mountain, trauma on April 4, 2024| Leave a Comment »
The ability to make a mountain out of a mole hill is generally afforded by the fact that there isn’t a real mountain that has to be scaled. People facing genuine trauma don’t usually have the time or energy for contrived drama.
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