Rethinking Christian Life

Taking Charge of Your Attitude: Finding Hope in the Messiness of Life

I don’t want to! My mind only spoke what my heart had been whispering to me all day. You are too tired. You need a break. You just feel off. You want to get back in bed. Why is life so hard? And I allowed my heart grumble all day long. No wonder making dinner seemed like…

How to Dig Deep for Joy When Life is Hard

You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. Psalm 16:11 ESV Nothing can shake God’s joy, no one can steal it, nothing can tarnish the fullness of God’s joy. So why do we feel joyless? Too often I convince myself that joy…

Grumbling or Gratitude

“25 was holding my player that’s why 14 got the open lay-up,” I grumbled as the referee ran past. I coach a team of third and fourth graders in the Upward program at my church. The referee was a 14-year-old volunteer, but that didn’t matter at the moment. My team was wronged! In retrospect my…

Fear God for Freedom’s Sake

You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. Matthew 5:48 Doesn’t this make you tremble, even a little? I’m not perfect. I know that and I can’t do it. I can’t be perfect even when I try. But Angela, there is forgiveness…Jesus lived the perfect life and died the death you deserved and so…

The Ugly Truth About Sin, Blushing, and Laughter

“You’re blushing,” my oldest’s observation served to deepen the color of my cheeks. I felt embarrassed, which is not a habit of mine, and my cheeks warmed up as my heart rate increased. Interestingly enough I will blush when I’m unsure of my role, when I feel embarrassed about a social situation, but I rarely…

Longing, Rebellion, and Joy

Lent day 5 is today, for the introduction click here, Day 1 here, Day 2 here, Day 3 here, Day 4 here, and the bonus one here. There is a longing known to all humans. We try all sorts of things to fill it: Sex, relationships, drugs, music, good deeds, work, art, success, kids, marriage,…

A Little Lent Secret

If you are like me and you hear Lent lasts 40 days and then you start counting on the calendar…wait there are 46 days between Ash Wednesday (the beginning of Lent) and Easter Sunday… WHAT GIVES? Because seriously I like chocolate or whatever it is I decided to fast from during Lent and uh, it…

Hypocrisy, Self-Examination, and Lent

The thing about asking God to search you is that inevitably something will be found. We spend time in God’s Word, we ask Him to show us our sin, and we repent. We tell God thank You for showing us that nasty stuff and washing us clean. Then we get off our knees and like a dog…

Search Me: Living an Examined Life

Lent day 3…Here are links to day 1, day 2, and the introduction. The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? Jeremiah 17:9 ESV Isn’t it interesting that we don’t really know our own hearts? How many times have I wondered why I felt a certain way or why…

God’s Righteousness, My Wrong-ness: Trading Guilt for Grace

Welcome to Lent Devotional day 2. You can check out my very brief description of Lent here and the day 1 devotional here. Who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify your name? For you alone are holy. All nations will come and worship you, for your righteous acts have been revealed. Revelation 14:6 ESV God…

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 Faith

Rethinking Christian Life, Rethinking Hard Times

Rethinking Christian Life, Rethinking Gratitude

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