Mine, Mine, MINE!
When I am gipped with a scarcity mentality, I miss the opportunity to ignite hope through generosity. The solution, however, is not simply trying harder to be generous. It is not merely a change of perspective; it comes from a change in my heart that only God can accomplish. True generosity will flow out of my trust in the God who gives all good things.
Trick or Treat?
In the midst of this tragic situation, faced with their outright betrayal, what does God do? He ignited hope with the most generous act in all of recorded history. He promised them—and us—redemption. While they didn’t fully understand it at the time, we now understand the reality of that promise: “But God demonstrates his own love for us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8 NET).
Generating Generosity
We were huddled in our basement during the storm praying for safety when we felt as much as heard a thud. Looking up our basement stairs and through a window facing our driveway, all I could see were branches and leaves rather than the sky and my neighbor’s house. Not a good sign.
Strength in My Identity
“What’s your name?” It’s most often the first question we’re asked at the start of each new school year, at a party, when meeting someone for the first time, at church, or in a new job. “What’s your name” is more than just a request for your given name and surname. Often, it’s a solicitation for your story. Where are you from? Who are your kin? Where do you belong? Our name anchors us to our identity.
Strength in Surrender
In his book No Surrender: My Thirty-Year War, Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda tells his own remarkable story of being one of the very last Japanese-born soldiers to surrender in World War II. Onoda was trained as an intelligence officer and deployed to Lubang Island in the Philippines on December 26, 1944. His orders were to carry out guerilla activities and to hamper the enemy’s efforts in every way possible.
Strength in Servanthood
How many of us first heard the story of David and Goliath and imagined some massive muscle-bound giant squaring off against a scrawny little kid with a slingshot dangling limply from his fingers? A sort of pitting off between Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and that wimpy kid-version of King Arthur (“Wart”) in Disney’s The Sword in the Stone. A completely mismatched battle, right?
