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The Significance of Little
I smoked my first cigarette in high school and continued for seven years. I so thoroughly enjoyed smoking that I overlooked the ridiculousness of my hiding the habit with breath mints, perfume, and darting from disapproving eyes. It took seven years for the hypocrisy and enslavement to exhaust me. I cried out to God and within two weeks I had quit–cold turkey. No patch. No pills. It was a miraculous deliverance that sparked my fledgling faith in God. Many people have shared similar stories of God working in their lives, usually at a point of their first coming or just returning to relationship with Christ. I think God sometimes…
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People-Pleasing: To Sin or Not to Sin
“I’m such a people-pleaser,” she muttered, swatting another tear from her cheek like it was some pesky insect. Throughout our conversation she’d quoted from the plethora of materials that rail against “the sin of people-pleasing.” With a tone of indignation thinly-veiling her self-loathing, she now cited Paul: “If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ” (Gal 1.10). I listened as this precious woman questioned her loyalty to Christ, convinced that a true follower would never desire something so base as pleasing people. I empathized, then unplugged my grenade...Tick…Tick…Tick…and hurled my question into the air: “People pleasing. It’s a sin?” Tick…Tick…BOOM! Consider the child…
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Hope: A Risky Venture
Have you seen a cutting horse at work? The masterful way she sorts out a single cow and then maneuvers, step-by-step, to keep it away from the herd? With surpassing wit she leads a spectacular dance of wills. Actually, I know a cattleman who once trained and then showed his cutting horses at rodeos. He won several belt buckles and soon became wrapped up in something dangerous: hope. His thoughts drifted beyond the tedious baling of hay and mending of barbed-wire fences. His thoughts became dreams, gradually morphing into a business plan. He wrote a check in the amount of his life savings to purchase a broodmare–a female horse bred…
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Jael
Nondescript. The daughter of no one, married to a drifter whose family name was her only defense in a world gone mad. The days slipped away indistinctly, reckoned only by periodic returns of the drifter, drenched in stale wine and declaring marital rites. With a yank and thrust he dashed her humanity, dispensing with it like the delicate yarn restraining her raven hair. She watched it descend to the floor— silent, soft, slow. He dressed, turning back while departing to demand that she pack; they’d decamp within the month. She stepped outside into the downpour— a welcomed washing of his dankness from her skin. Despite the drumming thunder, an eerie silence fell. Her…
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My Prayer
"Guide us waking, O Lord, and guard us sleeping, that awake we may watch with Christ and asleep we may rest in peace."* Gather us wandering, O Lord, and govern us gathered, that united we may image Christ and waiting we may worship him. Grieve us wronging, warring, wasting, O Lord, that waivering we may receive forgiveness and walk in your love. Greet us weeping and worrying, O Lord, that while saddened we may hope and gladdened we may share joy. Grapple with us wallowing, O Lord, and grip us boasting, that searching we may reach for Christ and satisfied we may celebrate provision. Gratify your will. Glorify your name.…
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Easter: A Holiday of Hiding?
Soon people across the globe will participate in Easter egg hunts. South Africa heralds the world’s largest, hiding over 100,000 eggs and tiny treasures. Soon, people of Jewish heritage will participate in the Seder as part of their Passover celebration. Adults will hide a piece of matzah called the afikoman and kiddos will hunt it down for some splendid prize. Soon people across the world will attend resurrection services, many trying to understand the fascination with hiding. Do you feel Jesus is hiding? Life’s gotten rough. Infertility persists. Bankruptcy hit. Addiction ravages. Abuse resumes. Unemployment continues. And it feels like Jesus is playing heavenly-hide-n-seek to test your sincerity and spiritual…
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Come, union
How does your church celebrate Communion? Brass-plated trays passed across the row once a quarter? 2-in-1 cups containing wafer and juice together, drive-thru style? It's time habit and sheer logistics stop trumping intimacy at the Lord's Table. It's time we engage our Savior in this sacrament with our souls and bodies. The incarnation is a mystery – God choosing to enter earth, embracing finiteness and physicality. It's a mystery the way human and divine intertwine in the person of Christ, not only as he walked this earth, but also as he sits enthroned in heaven. It's a mystery that continues as he ministers to and through us. It's a mystery…
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Who Determines Your Value?
It feels euphoric. You hit the deadline and get props from the boss. Receive a compliment on your outfit. Have a romantic second date with a stellar guy. Watch your kid sink the winning shot. In moments like these your confidence surges; you have or do something the world determines to be valuable. But, what about when you miss the deadline and the boss goes off? When your outfit gets a disapproving stare. When no one asks you out. When your kid doesn’t even make the team, much less the winning basket. In moments like these your confidence plummets; you don’t have or do what the world determines as valuable.…
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Heart Transformation is God’s Handiwork
The rocky ravines and steep elevation of the Semmering Pass kept people skirting that portion of the Austrian Alps for centuries. But, in the 1800’s, before there was a train capable of crossing the treacherous terrain, a track was laid. Before there was technology capable of surveying and mapping the route, engineers designed the track. Before there was dynamite to blast, twenty-thousand workers hand-dug through nearly one mile of limestone and carved out a tunnel for the track. Before there was a train capable of making the journey, the track was laid. God’s work in my life resembles this railroad project. It always seemed that other people and other things…
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A Christmas Carol Prayer
Christmas has a way of poking around in the shadows of my heart, unearthing the inner Ebenezer. “Bah! Humbug,” she snarls with a stiffened gait. Oh, Holy Spirit, lead me to Christmas Past – the first Advent. Guide me like those awe-struck shepherds – to the scene of revelation. To the trough where a newborn baby whimpered in the night. Wash my soul with wonder as I ponder the mystery of an uncontainable God slipping into skin and skeleton to make his dwelling among people and destroy the works of the devil. When my inner Scrooge advises me to double count the coins before dropping them into the red pail…
