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“Can I just talk to you?” she asked, pausing in our driveway before she left. She had stopped by while running errands, and I’d been helping her find the stuff she’d come to pick up. “Of course!” I replied, pretty sure I knew where this was going. Sure enough, she began to share some of the emotions and struggles she’d been wrestling through that week. The only reason I knew about them was in...
I’d love to travel on a sailboat. To hang out over the railing, the wind whipping the rigging, flying fast and free over the foamy blue. Sun, salt, and sea-spray lightening the red of my hair, utterly unbridled joy and excitement. This water-daughter has lived most her life by the sea, and would love to sail upon it, to reach glorious lands yet unknown (at least to me). And in a way, that’s what...
I stared out the window at a landscape of small towns and long-established farms rich with family history. My mom and I were on the way home after visiting my one-hundred year old great-grandma, and I couldn’t help but think of all the changes throughout her life. My reflections on the past mingled with the constant nagging questions about the future that many young people often carry in the back...
You are far too content! Yes. You read that right. You are too content. You need to become dis-content. You need to become hungry for more. Until you do so, you will be virtually useless to the kingdom of God. Don’t Be Content With Simple Scales As a child, I took piano lessons. I learned to play scales and simple songs and hated it all. I hated it because none of it sounded good. I heard...
Life seemed like it should be full. True, the first semester had been absolutely insane. I was at a new school, yet I had adjusted fairly well all things considered. Everything was picking up speed as we approached the mid-terms and consequently, Christmas break. I was constantly studying and making sure my end of term grades were perfect (or as perfect as they could be). Friends wanted to hang...
If my generation woke up, we’d realize we’re being treated like babies. The world is coddling us with low expectations, stroking our flesh and rocking us into lethargy. We’re being spoon-fed the tasty lies that we don’t need to act. We don’t need to try. We don’t need to slap ourselves awake. God is saying something different. Jesus is demanding us to wake up (Matt. 24:42), sober up (1 Thess...
I really like being in control. I always have. I enjoy knowing exactly what is happening, when it is happening, why it is happening, and how I can change it. I know everyone values different things, but I’m pretty sure most people can relate to some extent. Because of my obsessive (and often sinful) desire for control, there was one question that graced my lips more often than any other. Why...
What if? Few phrases in English are so full of possibility, fear, and anticipation. What if I finish that project? What if I don’t? What if I achieve that goal? What if I fail? What if everything somehow goes right? What if something terrible happens tomorrow? Tomorrow—it’s all in the future. And with all of tomorrow’s possibilities come all its fears. Tomorrow everything could be wonderful...
“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.” (Colossians 1:15) For a season this past year, I had been going through a bit of a dry season in my relationship with God. Though in my head I knew that God never has and never will abandon me, my flawed and corrupted emotions often try to tell me otherwise–that when I sin, God turns His face away; or when I...
“It is finished,” Jesus said, and then he died. The image of the immortal, invisible God died. The only righteous man allowed himself to be unjustly murdered in order to bring many unrighteous children into union with the just Father, and “it is finished” were some of his last words, eternalized in the Bible for all the world to know. Here are three implications those three miraculous...
rebelling against low expectations
