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Another Joy Robber-Taking Offense
With the recent media’s focus on what brings joy, I posted last month on Joy Returners and Joy Robbers https://blogs.bible.org/?s=Joy. This month I thought of another joy robber—taking offense. An offense can be a sin or something that causes hurt feelings or anger. It can be an injustice. Part of the problem stems from calling something a sin toward you while it is really someone just disagreed with you or saw something differently. It is easy to confuse what is a sin or just that your feelings were hurt. Ways we can get offended can be from not being included, someone disagreeing with what we say, others being elevated,…
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When Your Heart is Choked by Hurt
Today's guest post is from my friend, author & ministry leader Ally Holland. The darkness was thick and suffocating, like a heavy blanket had been draped over my entire body. I had been sitting alone in my office for several hours, contemplating my circumstances, knowing full well I should have chosen my words more carefully. Anger can cloud your mind as it did mine, and before you know it you have hurt someone you love. Hurts from family members run deepest of all. Time passes and your heart goes quiet with apathy and indifference. You put up emotional walls hoping to prevent further harm. You even start stiff-arming God.…
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Danger in Digital Dust
In our electronic world of texts and instagram, conversation tends to get left in the digital dust. Condensing relationships to tweets and texts often shortcuts the heartfelt encouragement or support of friendship. Yet this is the world we live in and simply dismissing or dissing it doesn't truly address practical reality. Can we capture the convenience of instant communication and couple it with the deep realization that conversations matter because people matter? In the past several weeks two friends entered eternity unexpectedly and I was reminded again that only two things last forever: people and the word of God. People matter to you and me and to God. How we…
