How we respond to loss – self-inflicted or otherwise – is critical to the outcome of our life.
Tag: sin
The forty designated stops in the wilderness afforded the Israelites time to learn live as sons and daughters of the living God. Similarly, we are transformed along our trek.
By the time we’ve hit middle age, though, we have somehow become wildly opposed to change. We’ve created routines and we cling to them like life rafts. They are soothing and safe. Most of us won’t change jobs or move across the street (let alone across the country). We don’t even want to alter our coffee order if we can help it. Is this really God’s best intention for us?
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.
Peter instinctively understood what we all need to hear: confession draws us near to God where concealment pushes us further away. Peter’s heart posture of desperation set him up for restoration.
We try to give God pointers on how to further His purposes here on earth. (Maybe not you, but it’s a bad habit of mine, for sure!) How quickly we forget, we are unqualified! We are servants, not sovereign.
Friend, we live in a fallen world with fallen people. Seed will be spilled. Dreams will shatter. We will hurt. But in that hurt we always, always have a choice.
Hating evil has nothing to do with hating people. Our world has falsely entwined the two. Hating evil is abhorring the affliction that plagues humanity and in the same breath, fighting tirelessly to extricate souls from sin’s deadly grip.