Anyway, that’s my line.
For years I’ve told people, legitimately, that I’m not a worrier. I HATE
fear. You can wake up any of my adult children at 3:00 in the morning (assuming
they’re asleep) and say, “Complete this sentence: ‘We don’t make decisions…’”
They’ll reply, “based on fear,” roll over and go back to
sleep.
We’ve hammered that into them, and I love to see them living
that out in fearful times like these.
They heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden (Genesis 3:8)
The nature of the shameful is to hide from God when we sense He’s moving toward us.
The assumption of the fallen is to assume that the Great Unfallen would not pick us up. [click to continue…]
A.W. Tozer, in commenting on the difference between a yesterday and a today faith, wrote this:
We habitually stand in our now and look back by faith to see the past filled with God. We look forward and see Him inhabiting our future; but our now is uninhabited except for ourselves. Thus we are guilty of a kind of [temporary] atheism which leaves us alone in the universe while, for the time, God is not. We talk of Him much and loudly, but we secretly think of Him as being absent, and we think of ourselves as inhabiting a parenthetic interval between the God who was and the God who will be. And we are lonely with an ancient and cosmic loneliness.
Your capacity to believe God is the gateway to a life of power, usefulness, and joy. And yet during his earthly ministry, nothing caught Jesus by surprise more than the “people of God” or so-called “believers” not believing – living with that cosmic loneliness that Tozer wrote about.
Phillip and Amanda are an item. Second marriage for him, first for her. Two kids together. Christians. Raising the family. Paying the bills. Doing life.
And they’re both exhausted. It’s more a case of life doing them.
Phillip, as mentioned here, is nearing 40 and finds himself yearning for a return to more structure and discipline that kept him in shape, both spiritually and physically.
Amanda, as mentioned here finds herself choking emotionally and desperate for some sort of life-energizing change.
They each have a sincere faith in God and are committed to each other. They each are mentally, emotionally, and physically exhausted.
They need to hear the voice of God in a fresh way.
They both, but especially Phillip, need to go back to the basics.
They both, but especially Amanda, need a change in scenery, starting with that internal scenery we call vision.
And they both are on the cusp of something new and exciting.
Thomas Watson Sr., founder of IBM, often said, “Everybody, from time to time, should take a step back and watch himself go by.”
Good wisdom. But hardly lived. It’s reminiscent of the often-repeated story of the African (or Incan, depending on what you read) porters who carried the goods of an English (or American) type-A personality through the jungle with increasing pace for three days. Finally, on the fourth day, they matter-of-factly refused to go further, despite the pleas of the Western, time-bound explorers. When asked for an explanation, they simply said, “We have been traveling so fast, we have to wait for our souls to catch up with us.”
There’s a simple word for that, often reserved for quaint memories of the good old days or emergency sessions of the Jesus Name Disaster Management Club. It’s called renewal. [click to continue…]
The evidence: Unresolved technical issues, including some accidents.
The request: Please, Dear Government Agency slow down your aggressive approach to issuing guidance for technology that is not ready for guidance yet.
That seems reasonable. Safe. Wise for someone whose name has the word “Safety” in it.
That creates some tension for the agency, however. After all, they have a job to do – a service to the American people. So Mark Rosekind, Director of the NHTSA, commented:
“Everybody asks, ‘When are they (self-driving cars) going to be ready?’ I keep saying they’re not coming; they are here now.”
For the last 2,000 years people from all over the world have staked their futures around two events that, for them, represent the most transforming experience in history. I’m referring to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
One of the most compelling proofs of the power of those two events is in the changed character of Jesus’ followers. Talk about Jekyll-and-Hyde! This ragtag group of crazies went from cowering wimps to a fearless army of witnesses with a single message: Jesus lives.
These people didn’t wait until the resurrection to believe in Christ. But they experienced a profound change in their faith when they encountered a living, victorious Lord.
So will you.
Even today it’s possible to know in your head that Jesus is alive, but live as though it’s still Friday night. In other words to believe in Jesus as though He were dead. So how can you tell the difference? Here are five signs you’re living on “Friday night” faith: [click to continue…]
