Rethinking Christian Life

Celebrating Along the Way: How to Grow When You Fail

Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. Ephesians 4:29 ESV “UGH!” I groaned as I stepped off the scale. I was “trying” to eat healthier and watch my caloric intake. My…

I’m Not Throwing Away My Shot: Living in the Present

“…And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” Joshua…

Fasting: How to Develop an Appetite for God

Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him! Psalm 34:8 ESV Most revivals and spiritual awakenings began with a small group of people praying and fasting. People broken over their sin, who hungered for God to revive, to breathe life into dry bones. And fasting…

Already Not Yet Victory: How to Falter and Still Win

For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. 1 John 5:4 ESV Sometimes I wonder if John really gets it. I mean there are days when my faith is strong and I feel and see the victory that comes from my…

Faltering Steps: How to Walk by Faith

I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do…For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.Now if I do what I do not want to…

The Incessant Drip: How to Stay Sane with All the Things

“There is another leak,” my husband looked up to the ceiling and back down to the floor near his feet. A drop of water ran down our yellow walls. He raced to turn the water off at the meter. I crutched after him and helped him dig through mulch and mud to find the shut-off…

How Do You Love a God Who is Able, But May Not?

It is a wonderful thing to know that God is omnipotent. It means that every seemingly impossible circumstance is not hopeless. Miracles can happen. Things can change. But God’s ways are mysterious. He isn’t simply a divine vending machine. “I go to church every Sunday, I tithe, and I even went on that mission trip…

Cracked Places: How to Let God Shine Through

In high school I wrote poetry that I rarely showed anyone. The few times I let someone read the words I scratched out on notebook paper, I shook like a leaf. Scared I would be judged, sure my words were not good enough. Some days my inner editor keeps me from tapping out words. Especially…

Can You Help Me?

I’m working on creating an e-book. Which topic appeals to you the most? — Angela Mackey (@Rethinkingme) October 19, 2017

Feeble Offerings: Seeing God’s Glory in the Mundane

But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. 2 Corinthians 4:7 ESV Jochebed was a slave – a slave under Pharaoh. This Pharaoh noticed that the Hebrews – Jochebed’s people – were becoming too numerous. So he ordered that all Hebrew…

Obedience, Running, and Calling

“So don’t throw away your confidence, which has great reward. For you need endurance, so that after you have done God’s will, you may receive what was promised…But we are not those who draw back and are destroyed, but those who have faith and are saved.” Hebrews 10:35-36 and 39 CSB I’ve been silent for…

A Season of Silence: Experiencing God’s Peace

“Silence is the perfectest herald of joy: I were but little happy, if I could say how much.” -William Shakespeare Much Ado About Nothing Words have been hard for me lately. Silence is easier. I wasn’t so full of joy I could not share like Claudio in the above quote. The big emotions – all of…

The Hope that Does Not Disappoint

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces…

Sovereignty: Three Ways to Trust God When Failure Looms

Last week I watched Clemson trounce Alabama in the NCAA’s Football National Championship game. Clemson was up 31-16 at halftime and never looked back. After a botched fake field goal at the beginning of the third quarter Alabama’s loss seemed imminent. Failure, at least in that game, was coming. Still Alabama did not walk off…

The New, the Not Yet, and the Gone: How to Live Fully When Now is a Struggle

“The struggle is real,” is our snide mantra over laughable “struggles” like not having coffee in the morning. But real struggles do exist. Depression turns just getting out of bed into a war. The struggle for parents to love, guide, discipline, and direct children who want their own way. The battle to overcome addiction. Physical…

Newly Broken: How to Live Fulfilled

2018. A year of breaking. God broke my comfortable world. He called me to teach high school seniors (a leadership class), enroll my kids in the school where I work, and step back into nursing by becoming a school nurse. Nothing felt comfortable. Nothing normal. In the midst of all the change my brokenness became…

Hope and Character: How to Find Lasting Hope

Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope… Romans 5:3-4 ESV Character produces hope… I always thought imagination produced hope. Imagination that figures out a way through a difficult situation. Or an imagination that dreams big dreams. But God tells us character…

The Day After: How Hope Changes Everything

But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake…

Depression: How to Explain It to Others

The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. Psalm 34:18 ESV Looking back I can see it plainly. I was depressed and desperately clinging to my faith. No one from the outside could see it. They knew I injured my foot. They knew my house had to have all the…

New Beginnings: Grace, Growth, and Gratitude

Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. Isaiah 43:19 ESV God is in the business of doing new things in our lives. Why? For our good and His glory. So that this world…

Rethinking Christian Life

Rethinking Challenges, Rethinking Christian Life

Rethinking Christian Life, Rethinking Hard Times, Rethinking Infertility

Rethinking Challenges, Rethinking Christian Life, Rethinking Faith

Rethinking Christian Life, Rethinking Hard Times

Rethinking Christian Life, Rethinking Gratitude

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