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The Imperative Wilderness
Leadership is broken because leaders are unbroken Wilderness Wanderings Series: Learning to Live the Zigzag Life The real Jesus Jesus was real. Radically, totally, absolutely real. This means He was fully real God and fully real man in the same person. However, He emptied himself of His divine prerogatives, not of His deity, but of His rights as deity. On the other hand, He filled Himself with human limitations and human needs, yet without sin. This means He desperately needed the Father and desperately depended on the Holy Spirit. Now some may react to the word desperately, and I understand if they do. I don’t mean desperate as in…
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The Inescapable Wilderness
Leadership is broken because leaders are unbroken Wilderness Wanderings Series: Learning to Live the Zigzag Life Every leader will spend seasons of life wandering in the wilderness. It’s inevitable and inescapable. There are no exceptions… The wilderness. Barren, empty, lifeless, colorless, solitary, unending hard sand, rock outcroppings, and rugged mountains. Hot in the day, cold at night. Far from the action, from the crowds, from life and what matters. Yet, in the Bible, the wilderness is the place where the action is, where the holy God shows up, where leaders are called, a nation is formed, and a Savior prepared. It is the place of spiritual warfare, the…
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Who’s behind the sheer curtain?
I pray a lot but sometimes I wonder if my prayers bounce off the ceiling. Does God really hear? Does He really care? Do you ever feel that way? The first weekend of this month I was looking forward to speaking in Dubuque, Iowa, by way of Cedar Rapids, at the Emmaus Bible College women's conference. But I wasn't looking forward to getting there. Earlier this year on a similar occasion, my flight to that area of the country was suddenly and without explanation cancelled, leaving me to hopscotch around several airports, running from gate to gate, and arriving several hours after my first speaking session. I dreaded a replay…
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Gratitude Challenge
Each year in October the social media community challenges itself to post, share and declare one gratitude per day for 40 days. From what I understand, the effort started eight years ago by Tisha Poncia, who blogs at On the Wings of Gratitude. Usually, I shrug away from social media challenges. However, the more I thought about this one, the more I realized, I needed to do this. Although I didn’t post it anywhere, I thought I’d share my first seven days with you. Day 1: Toilets. I’m thankful for toilets—indoor plumbing, I should say. The first five years of my life, we had an outhouse. Words…
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The Way of Escape
No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it. 1 Corinthians 10:13 (ESV) I sat across the table from a friend who had just confessed her extra-marital affair to me. “My marriage is…
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Las Oraciones de Mi Madre—My Mother’s Prayers
I crawled slowly and ever so quietly towards the door of my mother’s room. Her weeping had awakened me from a deep sleep. I decided to go check up on her so I sneaked over to her room. I waited a bit and sat in the corner of the hallway where I could see her through the slightly opened door. I listened. Padre nuestro que estás en los cielos, santificado sea tú nombre. I felt relieved. My mother, kneeling down beside her bed, prayed and wept. She’s talking to God. She’s having the same conversation as the night before. I decided to stay for a while so I could hear…
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This Daughter of Mine
Sometimes life brings dark, lonely moments that seem endless. And just when you think it can’t get any worse, it does. Like a contraction during childbirth, you breathe through it, screaming every second of that moment for a glimpse of relief. I’ve had many, many moments like that but nothing comes close to what I went through in 1997. In the midst of it all, a baby’s cry—God’s gift of mercy and grace in a living song. This Daughter of Mine Seventeen years ago today, God gave me a daughter. This daughter of mine, I’m nothing like her, but in so many ways she’s just like…
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A Touching Story
I called her “The Bloody Woman in Mark 5” for the longest time. I can think back to my childhood and remember hearing about her in Sunday school. I can even recall when my mind made the connection that her suffering involved bleeding — the vaginal kind. I grossed out and groaned in horror when I realized she suffered for twelve years. Whenever I read about her today, I still cringe. And I continue to feel sad when I see that she did all she could to make it better…instead it only got worse. Others rejected her since a bleeding woman was considered “unclean.” The last time I read about…
