Your confusion doesn’t confuse God.
Your weakness doesn’t separate you from His hand of power.
Your wandering doesn’t isolate you from His leading.
Your loneliness doesn’t deny His steadfast presence.
Even your death is no barrier to His manifest care.
[click to continue…]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
“If this man were not from God, He could do nothing” (John 9:33).
The Bible has its share of comical scenes. Here’s one. A man born blind can now see. But because Jesus “broke the rules” by healing him on the Sabbath, in the minds of the Pharisees, this was impossible.
Moses? He was righteous. He gave us the law.
Jesus? He broke the “law,” and had to be a sinner.
But there’s this pesky issue of, “once I was blind… now I can see.” And now here’s Mr. Newsight offering a little theological insight to the no-sight clan: “If this man were not from God, He could do nothing.” [click to continue…]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Are we there yet?
No.
When are we gonna get there?
Five minutes sooner than the last time you asked.
We’re never gonna get there.
We’ll get there.
When?
Soon enough. Look outside and see how far we’ve come and how fast we’re moving.
Are we there yet?
+++++++
I’ll bet you’ve had a few conversations like that if you’ve ever been on a road trip with kids (or maybe a few adults). And inevitably, the younger he or she is, the sooner this question pops up:
Why does it have to take so long to get there?
And the only right answer, which they can never seem to grasp at that age, is, because to get there, first you have to go here. And here is where we are. But we can still enjoy being here until we get there.
The Christian life has its own version of “There Yet.” [click to continue…]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
The clock in my office, as you can see, says it’s 8:24.
Come back in an hour, it’ll say the same thing.
All day, every day, 8:24.
What the picture doesn’t show is that the battery isn’t dead.
The clock ticks.
The pendulum swings.
Regardless, the results are the same. [click to continue…]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
(Cool Things I’ve Heard Somebody Pray, #4)
Back in the day I was meeting with our church elders and we were talking about some pretty heavy circumstances somebody was going through. I don’t remember the details, but I remember what Michael prayed. It totally changed my perspective about the circumstances, and served as a reminder of where to go to recharge my faith.
I thought maybe you could use a similar reminder.
As he prayed over the situation, Michael said, “There’s no vacancy on Your throne.”
What a tender reminder that if the only thing missing is unlimited power and authority, that job’s been taken, and the chair’s still occupied.
Thrones are seats of authority, and when it comes to this one, this is no game. When the monarch is on his or her throne, both symbolically and practically, they’re saying, “Let’s get down to business… and it’s my business.” [click to continue…]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Ever see something funny that wasn’t intended to be? When language could be interpreted a bit differently than its original meaning?
Example: One day when the kids were still at home we were on the way to school and passed a local hotel. In their attempt to be friendly to an industry meeting there, they posted this message on the marquee: Welcome Pest Control.
Yeah, that’s probably not what you want to see when you’re checking in.
More to-date, once a year I teach a strategic planning class for Crown College – a fine Christian school in Minnesota. Like most schools, Crown has an online system for maintaining accounts, library access, classes and the like. In their case, it’s called “my.crown.”
A few months ago, Jeff, the IT guru there, sent notice that the system was having some technical problems. The message: My.Crown is Down.
Go ahead, call me weird. But put in a different context, I just thought that was sorta funny, in a Dr. Seuss kind of way. [click to continue…]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Jesus got himself in some pretty interesting predicaments. Seems strange to me – He could walk on water and command the winds and rain, but He never could satisfy a bunch of legalists about why He performed miracles (miracles!) on the Sabbath.
“This can’t be from God. He didn’t keep our rules.”
Sigh… I just wish somehow… oh, never mind.
Anyway, on one occasion, Jesus healed a man who hadn’t walked in 38 years. It took place at the Pool of Bethesda and yes, it was on the Sabbath.
And yes, Jesus had to account for his tawdry behavior. Here’s what He said: [click to continue…]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Be the fly on the wall for this conversation…
It’s not that life here is so bad right now.
Okay.
It’s that life is so busy. Urgent all the time.
I can relate to that.
And not even that it’s urgent, but that I don’t feel as though I am responding well to the urgency I do have.
What do you mean?
Nothing ever gets completely done. Or so it feels. My weekly schedule is pretty busy as it is. Then factor in anything else that has been added to the schedule lately, and I’m having a hard time breathing.
I think I know what the problem is.
You do?
Yep. Your Urgency Response Index is low.
My what?
Your Urgency Response Index.
Sounds serious.
It can be. [click to continue…]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Know why some people want to be leaders? Because they want the power that comes with it.
Now I’m sure that if you’re a regular reader here, that would in no way describe you. But haven’t you ever known somebody who was super-nice, very inspirational or whatever… then they got the promotion or the big office and turned into Little Caesar?
Or did you ever know somebody who was an awesome “number two” – a great assistant whatever… but when they finally got their chance to pull the organization’s strings royally flopped because they still acted like a “number two?”
“Power corrupts,” Lord Acton observed. “And absolute power corrupts absolutely.” But here’s the rub: all real leaders (and others in leadership positions) have power. Does that mean we’re doomed to lives filled with moral cavities?
Yes. Unless you do something about it.
Oh… I have good news… You can do something about it. [click to continue…]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
John Smoltz was famous for getting himself in trouble.
He’ll be in the Baseball Hall of Fame for the ways he could get himself out.
Smoltz didn’t always start well, but he knew what to do when he got himself into trouble. He describes the mental process he would go through in his book, Starting and Closing. At some point he would take his game to an entirely different level. And the mental signal he would give himself: Rally time.
That’s a theme that I’m seeing all over the world these days. In one situation after another, we’ve gotten ourselves into trouble. In baseball language, there’s one run in, the bases are loaded, and nobody out.
Rally time.
It’s rally time in places like Colorado and Pennsylvania, as people are looking to make sense out of the senseless and somehow create a world where kids can be safe. But the rally comes from recognizing that our hope isn’t built on metal detectors and psychobabble, but on the peace of God that passes all understanding.
It’s rally time in places like Washington and state capitals everywhere, as incumbents try to keep their jobs and others try to take them away – all based on promises and politics. But the rally comes from recognizing that our hope isn’t built on Republicans or Democrats, but on the government of the Lord God. [click to continue…]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }