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Wanted: Nobodies and Nevergonnabe’s
Truth: God delights in using the weak, insignificant, least of these people to fulfill His kingdom’s purpose. While the world looks for the strongest and the bravest and the biggest and the best and the most accomplished; our God, seeks the weak, and the weary, and the poor, and the “insignificant,”and the lowly, and the unseen and the least of these. He empowers them to accomplish things beyond human comprehension. This is one of the many things I love about God. King David started out as a lowly shepherd boy, the least in size of all his brothers. So insignificant that his own father didn’t even beacon him from tending…
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Maundy Thursday: A Covenant of Hope
The room was dark, somber, even gloomy. Heaviness clung to the air and caught in their throat. The disciples didn’t understand what would transpire in the following hours. But they sensed a growing somberness about Jesus and growing uncertainty within themselves. For the past several days, Jesus increasingly talked about his death. And now, as the gathered round the Passover table, the theme emerged again. Jesus picked up the bread and broke it—his body, he said. Then he passed the cup, telling them to each take a drink. This wasn't like the other Passovers that the disciples had celebrated since youth. There was something new and different about this one.…
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The Profitable Wilderness
Leadership is broken because leaders are unbroken Wilderness Wanderings Series: Learning to Live the Zigzag Life What would it be like to be left out of your own family? To be unvalued and know it because you are not invited to major family events. You are sent on menial errands to help other family members who then tell you to “shut up” and not make any problems. How painful can it get? Do you think you could grow to be a leader coming out of that kind of rejection? Of course you can, but what kind of a leader would you be? Man’s Look, God’s Look It…
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A Leader’s Loves
Leadership is broken because leaders are unbroken What a leader loves determines how a leader leads. Consider Solomon, for example. Solomon loved the Lord and walked according to the statutes of his father, David . . . As long as Solomon loved the Lord and walked according to David’s ways, he was humble and trusted God for an understanding heart because he knew he was not adequate to lead God’s people. Solomon demonstrated his love for the Lord by living in radical dependence on Him. Because of this request God gave Solomon a discerning heart and with it, God gave him more than he asked for: riches and…
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Lion of War: David’s story as you’ve never heard it…and a ride outside our bubble
You never know if the dust on the horizon will turn out to be a band of raiders coming to plunder your community and pack you and your children up and take you home. Their home. You never know if you will find yourself claimed by a victor and forced to be his #3 wife or concubine. Or slave. You never know if in your husband’s absence an enemy will break in and rape your beautiful daughters while you wait your turn. You never know if your defenders will be defeated and everyone in your town will be killed. For most of the world…for most of history…women have lived lives…
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Shadowed Valleys and Splendid Tables
The dark night closes in around us, like a foggy mist clinging to the soul. Night give ways to another night, and it seems daybreak misses its cue. We step forward but stumble, reach out but cannot find something steady to which we can cling. In such moments all we want is a person, a presence, a guide. David, expressing the longing of his heart and ours, penned a promise for dark seasons. Often read at funerals or resigned to bookmarks, Psalm 23 gives hope to every journeying soul. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with…