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Time Management and Wise Living
As you head into 2020, how’s your schedule? Are you looking for things to do? Are your days full? Or are you feeling buried by the demands of home, work, and church commitments? Commitments in my life sometimes tumble on top of each. In fact, when an event occasionally gets cancelled by weather or sickness, I’m sometimes secretly thrilled at the empty space in my schedule. Once, when a planned lunch outing was cancelled, I breathed a sigh of relief. Even without the lunch, activity filled the day as I prepared for a dinner. I shopped, chopped mountains of vegetables, put casseroles in the oven and scrubbed dishes. As guests…
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Resolve to Remember
From New Zealand to New York City, the world celebrated the beginning of not only a new year, but a new decade on January 1, 2020. Something exciting stirs within us at the prospect of something new. We are drawn to the fresh start and clean slate it provides. Whether the first page of a new journal, the fragrance of a new car, the butterflies of a new relationship, the opening chapter of a new book, or the scent of a new baby, “new” evokes a feeling of hope. We seek to make the most of our new opportunities, whether big or small, and begin to reflect on what’s to…
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Choose to Listen
After a lovely dinner with old friends, my husband turned to me, “Cindy, you hardly let me get a word in all night!” His comment took me by surprise. Had I really dominated the conversation so much? Oh dear. These were my former colleagues whom I hadn’t seen in more than thirty years. “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry. I totally got carried away with all the catching up,” I feebly mumbled. My apology sounded lame even to me.
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Your Help Wanted
Anxiety impacts an estimated 264 million people worldwide. For those living in “the land of the free and home of the brave,” things aren’t much better. Millions of adults (31.1%) are strangled by anxiety on a regular basis. Anxiety disorders impact over 40 million Americans (19.1%), earning the title of most common mental health concern in the United States. I’m passionate about this issue, not only because of a personal struggle with social anxiety, but also because there is a major void of awareness, compassion, and service from the Church to those struggling with anxiety disorders. To that end, I’m working on a resource that provides a robust theological framework…
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The Beginning of the Beginning
How does watching old seminary class lectures on the Gospels sound to you? To my husband and me, it sounds like Date Night. (Not sure if you got the memo, but nerds rule the world.) And right out of the gate starting with Matthew Chapter 1, the Bible wastes no time slapping us in our faces. Matthew Ch. 1 is a genealogy written for Jewish readers. We Americans don’t get excited over genealogies. But family trees matter in many old world cultures. (My husband’s aunt knows her family tree going nine generations back.) And the genealogy in Matthew Chapter 1 matters because it culminates in Jesus’s birth. (Matthew 1:1-16). In…
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A Christian Perspective on Including Exercise in New Year’s Resolutions
Exercise is one of the top New Year’s resolutions. Many people want to exercise more. But what are the benefits of exercise? How should a Christian view exercise? An article from the Mayo Clinic provided 7 benefits of regular exercise[1]: Controls weight Combats health conditions and diseases (anxiety, arthritis, high blood pressure, cancer, cognitive function, depression, Type 2 diabetes, falls, metabolic syndrome, and stroke) Improves mood (exercise stimulates various brain chemicals that can cause less anxiety, more relaxation, and happiness) Boosts energy (exercise delivers nutrients and oxygen to tissues and aids the cardiovascular system’s efficiency) Promotes better sleep Puts the spark back into your sex life Can be fun ……
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Instead of New Year’s Resolutions
Fill in the blank: New Year’s __________. You probably either supplied “Eve” or “Resolutions,” right? Resolutions are intentions that may last days or weeks, but so often they peter out before we even get used to using the new year in our dates. May I suggest that instead of forming resolutions, we spend time asking some powerfully insightful questions that will help us evaluate ourselves truthfully and helpfully? Here are three questions that many community/accountability groups ask each other regularly (as in, weekly): What am I doing to feed myself (spiritually)? How am I spending time in God’s word and other sources of spiritual truth and wisdom such as books?…
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Peace on Earth to Those with Whom God Is Pleased
“Glory to God in highest heaven, and peace on earth to those with whom God is pleased.” (Luke 2:14, NLT) These are the words the host of angels declared to a band of shepherds right after an angel of the Lord announced the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem—the Savior, Christ the Lord. They began with the words, “Glory to God in the highest.” Hundreds of years before this night, God promised to send the Christ, the anointed one who would be the deliverer they needed. The people lived with a sense of hope and expectation. Now, that promise is fulfilled! All heaven is giving God the glory. And, on earth—peace.…
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The Mother of All Virtues
“Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point…A chastity or honesty or mercy which yields to danger will be chaste or honest or merciful only on conditions. Pilate was merciful until it became risky,” C.S. Lewis What will you undertake this coming year that will require courage? God’s people have always been called to bravery. Obeying God, especially when it’s to our own disadvantage, is the crux of the Christian life. Scripture tells multiple stories of those who demonstrated true bravery in the context of their times. In Joshua 1:1-9, God instructed Joshua to lead His people into the Promised…
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Jesus: I AM
John 4:26: Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am.” It’s the middle of the day in the Near East. Jesus has walked all morning with his disciples, and they’ve worked up an appetite. So, while the twelve have gone off to buy bread, Jesus rests at Jacob’s well. And there he meets a woman who has lost five husbands and is now probably a concubine so she can eat. (It’s unlikely she initiated divorce five times, as legal action depended on men—more likely, she’s an older woman, widowed and/or abandoned.) This woman has experienced much devastation, yet she waits in hope for the Anointed One. She tells Jesus, “I…
