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Building the Church One Broken Life at a Time
“But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but the sinners.” Matthew 9:13 Transparently broken, standing on the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ, I believe this is where we are called to live as Christ followers. Not just the ones who have or are enduring public brokenness, shame-filled pasts, lived out one poor choice after another, but all Christ followers. Because really, aren’t we all falling ridiculously short of living a life that would qualify us to be identified as sons and daughters of God? There is tremendous rhetoric within the body of Christ regarding social…
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Discovering Steadfastness in a Shifting World
“I the LORD do not change.” Malachi 3:6 NIV In a world that is ever changing, in a culture ever shifting, where do we plant our feet? Why would we want to? Is freedom found in receiving the perpetual motion of change? Or is ultimate freedom found in anchoring oneself to that which does not change? One, a floating, if you will, the second an anchor while all else floats around you. If truth is relative to the lens of the truth teller, is it truth? The questions flow through my mind not unlike the shifting world around me. It’s tempting, isn’t it? A life lived receiving ever changing truth,…
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Trusting the Heart of Jesus; When our Faith in the Promises Falters
“His (Jesus) heart was gentle and lowly toward us when we were lost. Will his heart be anything different toward us now that we are found?” Dane Ortlund, Gently and Lowly I wonder at times if I will forever want my own way. It is possible to obey Jesus but at the very center of your being, want your own way. It festers, like a bad secret, a precursor to bitterness. I know this because I sometimes live it. I would like to write, I sometimes lived it, but that would lead you to believe that I used to experience this nagging desire, and now I do not, which would…
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Expectant; When Faith is Tangled with Disappointment
For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11 Expectant was my word for 2022. Expectant, wow! Who wouldn’t want this to be their “word”? My word in 2021 was brave, which made sense going into 2021, living through 2021 and looking back on 2021. I got it, I understood. But expectant? Honestly, I was afraid of it. Tentatively, I did what word of the year writers, content creators do with their word. I wrote it, I thought it, I prayed over it, but mostly I questioned it.…
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When Warriors Weep; How to Be Brave When You Do Not Want to Be Brave
“Then David and the people who were with him raised their voices and wept until they had no more strength to weep.” 1 Samuel 30:4 NIV I have a confession, a secret, I am tired of being brave. Like really just tired of it. I do not know if it is all of the bad news (I do not even want to list examples, there are too many and perhaps ignoring them will make them all go away), or social media, or getting older and watching everyday tick by until, until what? And why does not anyone tell you that one of the most bittersweet (to date anyway) aspects of…
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Whirly-Gigs and Wheezing; Now is the Time to Think Ahead
Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” John 14:6 The ground is covered in sprouting whirly-gigs, millions of them. Like a soft carpet, another billion tiny particles of fine yellow pollen blanket everything. They’ve got me shut inside, windows tightly closed, medicated around the clock, sipping on tea spiked with local (supposedly anti-allergy bursting) honey, breathing in and out with an albuterol inhaler close at hand. It’s finally springtime in West Michigan. And I am allergic, miserable, and short of breath. A few months ago, it was late summer in West Michigan and I received an…
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Faith Exhorting Faith; When Your Faith Becomes a Weapon
I have sought your face with all my heart; be gracious to me according to your promise. Psalm 119:58 (NIV) I am back in the book of Psalm again. And back means I need it in order to breathe fully as the day progresses. My initial response to this, to be honest, is anger. I have danced my dance with anxiety, and I have zero desire to dance it again. I go through my arsenal of weapons which somehow, for some reason are failing. The anxiety, the sleepless nights build like a flood wall in Indiana in the spring, one haphazard layer at a time. I am not interested in…
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Five Things You Need to Know Today to Get Through the Five Things You Need to Know for Today
I reach in the darkness, tap the snooze button, and close my eyes hoping 9 more minutes will make a difference. If I’m to start my day in the best way possible, after 9 minutes I will immediately open my heart and mind to prayer and sink my teeth into the Word. If I’m to start my day in a less than best way possible, after 9 minutes I will tap the screen on my phone and immediately open my heart and mind to the world, reading the words in the headlines which often start like this, “Five things you need to know for” such and such day. The things…
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In All Seriousness, Laugh
He will yet fill your mouth with laughter, and your lips with shouting. Job 8:21 Thoughts roll through the inner web of my mind something like this, question, quick question, maybe, why, what about this, perhaps it is this, question, hmm…, I don’t think that is the answer, question again. Not quite as chaotic as a small metal sphere inside a pinball machine, but yeah, kinda close. Let’s just say at any given moment, I have probably got a question. Sometimes I have a question about Jesus. Well actually, lots of times I have a question about Jesus. And sometimes He gives me an answer. For whatever reason my mind…
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Expect the Unexpected; When God Doesn’t Fit in Your Box
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts. Isaiah 55:8-9 ESV It is a tidy thing to put God in a box, limit his grace, his mercy and his love not just for us, but also for others, by our own understanding. We pray tiny whisper prayers, with specific outcomes in mind, and find ourselves fumbling in the land of disappointment because our prayers have not been answered. Again. Well, what if they have been answered but our thoughts…
