This is a core memory for me. I was not quite four and certainly not allowed to sit in the beautiful pink velvet armchair that had belonged to my great-grandmother. I was pretty certain it was reserved for princesses; I had never seen another soul sit in said chair. Yet my mother had directed me and my brother to perch in the throne of pink velvet and I obliged. Then my baby sister was settled between us like sapphire in open prongs.
Author: Anna
When we begin to follow Jesus, we can adopt a higher level of thinking. What God desires can eclipse what we desire. We are able to move from ‘What do I want?’ to ‘What does God want?’. A simple exchange of nouns opens up an entire new world to us!
We are called to be seed-casters. We have one job: faithfully spreading the seed everywhere we go. We cannot afford to get discouraged and drop out in stretches where we don’t yet see a yield.
“I cry aloud to the Lord; I lift up my voice to the Lord for mercy. I pour out before Him my complaint; before Him I tell my trouble.” (Psalm 142:1-2 NIV) Rob’s preaching on rejection today, and I can’t help but wish we weren’t…
Job reminds us: we have an obligation to speak the truth about God to our friends. God expects us to be forthright with our knowledge of Him AND accurate in our theology. Anything less injures. Forthright and inaccurate bludgeons the beholder. Timid but accurate won’t accomplish anything Kingdom.
We all battle the temptation to get ahead of God and the complacency to stay behind. Christ-followers must match the Father’s pace. All too often, He’s a three-mile-an-hour God. But once in a while, it feels as though He is in an awful hurry. Sons and daughters appreciate His presence profoundly and stay with Him at every speed.
Our individual yet collective quarantine has scarred us deeply. We’ve emerged from our couches and houses even more inward-focused. The Non-Playable-Character paradigm has filtered in to real life. Our increasingly narcissistic society views self as the epic-center of existence and everyone lesser as obstacles to the main objective: leveling up.
“Young man, I say to you, get up!” He is somehow authoritative and loving at the same time; wielding the tone and affection your father would use to steer you away from danger. Suddenly the weigh shifts in the bier upon your shoulders and you nearly topple from the unexpected nature of it. Dead boys don’t speak but it seems the widow’s deceased son is sitting up and having a conversation with this strange teacher. Good glory, what just happened?
The leper was cured. His body was restored. The bio-nerd in me wonders what that looked like. How bad off did he look pre-Jesus?
The woman at the well with Jesus was a shameful lady, living in a shameful city, amidst a shameful country. She was buried alive beneath layer upon layer of shame and could hardly lift her head under the weight of it.