I wrote last month about building our lives on the rock of God’s word and my current method of Bible study. Today, I wanted to share a few things that are encouraging my “quiet times.” As always, I don’t aim to be prescriptive in advocating a certain method of study or prayer. In fact, the term “quiet time” for me has so often been associated with my sense of failure and inadequacy, that I’m very hesitant to even use it....
It’s a new month and time for new screensaver art! This is the truth that I’ve been pausing on for a while. “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so...
“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the...
“Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear, and come to me; hear, that your soul may live; and I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David.” (Isaiah 55:2-3 ESV) Do you ever imagine what it would be like to have been...
Our pastor shared this video with us recently. I watched it last night and just had to share it with you. The thirty-plus minute video chronicles a pastor’s journey to understand what it means to live at God’s speed, a speed that allows us to know and be known (I’ve pondered this idea before HERE). The pastor argues that when we run all the time, “we miss things,” and that learning to live in the Spirit often means slowing our...
I’m turning 39 (wow!) this Saturday and yet it’s my very first time observing the season of Lent. I grew up in a Baptist-ish tradition. My dad was a Southern Baptist pastor who joined the Navy as a chaplain. We attended some Southern Baptist churches growing up, but because we were often part of military chapels, my upbringing was rather ecumenical: “The hanging of the greens,” advent candles, stations of the cross, dunkings, sprinklings, wafers, and loaves of bread–a denominational...
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:1-2 ESV) My dad...
God, I’m sorry you’re not getting the best of me these days. I was feeling discouraged with myself (DING! DING! DING! Discouragement with myself is the opposite of putting my trust in the Jesus, right?). I was discouraged with my “devotional times,” or lack of them. I don’t have a beautiful, daily, focused time of “devotion” in the prayer and the Bible, and I’ve definitely never been a morning person. My read-through-the-Bible-in-a-year plan petered out in 2 Chronicles ....
