Rethinking Christian Life, Rethinking God
Praying
My voice reaches His ears. He who can hear my thoughts and knit me together. He who holds the universe in His hand and keeps us from floating off this rock that is hurtling through space. Yes the God who keeps the air breathable and knows the stars by name, He hears us. Not only…
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Five Ways to Take Thoughts Captive
It is done. You are hurt by another damaged soul. Your mind rehearses the pain, creates scenes in which you play the parts of both you and the one who hurt you. Your thinking has run a muck and you turn a simple mistake into World War III, at least in your head. You begin…
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Wrestling with God: The Series…Politics of Life
The deed is done and it stabs me through the heart. Their choices and actions stab and scrape against my soul. I cannot change their choices, all I can do is deal with the aftermath. Indignation rings and bounces in my heart and soul. “No one should act like this. Especially a fellow brother or…
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When the Winds Blow
Joplin, Alabama, Mississippi, Minnesota, tornadoes, floods…My heart breaks, my mind reels. Tornadoes touch down and damage and kill both in the West and East of my town. My mind wonders…Why not us God? Thankful it wasn’t us, but why did He allow the tornado to jump? Humbly I feel blessed and I hurt for those…
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Changes…SIGH!
I am standing in what feels like the eye of a change-hurricane.The place where I am not making major changes, but many close to me are. People moving away, folks finding new jobs. They are changing around me and I stand in the eye not changing, but watching the havoc that these changes are wreaking.…
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How to Know When God is Speaking to Us
Yesterday I shared a time when God was speaking to me. Today I want to help you determine how do you know it is God speaking? 1. God’s way takes us out of our comfort zones so that we cannot do it on our own strength. I was confident as a teacher of God’s word…
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Does God Really Speak to Us?
I had already made up my mind. I knew that I knew what I wanted to do. I thought that God was on board with me. Do you see see the problem? The only thing holding me back? My husband. He said he didn’t have peace about it. I was reluctant to give my answer.…
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Apart From Me You Can Do Nothing
Last week was extremely busy. Three programs, one field trip, my in-laws came to visit, and field day at school. I was running, running, running. When days are busy I don’t take good care of myself. I don’t sleep when I should, I don’t eat what I should. I begin to run on empty. Spiritually…
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How to Hunger for Him
My stomach often seems to be unsatisfied. It rumbles and gurgles begging for more. Sometimes I cannot trust it’s appetite. There are times I cannot seem to be filled no matter how much I eat. Those are the days that I feel like I could cut off my own arm and eat it if nothing…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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