For the Love of God
I’m blessed to live in a house on a wooded lot in a small neighborhood. When I have the chance, I sit on our back deck among pots of brightly colored flowers and let my senses wake up. I hear chattering, chirruping birds of all kinds, as well as buzzing insects. I feel the light dance of the breeze; smell the grass’s pungency. Recently, I’ve watched the spectacle of three hummingbirds zip in and out to drink from our slender, tube-shaped flowers.
Let It Be
How did your heart respond when you noticed this month’s topic of endurance? With a sigh? Hope for an insight or two? I’ve wanted to think about endurance with freshness. Here’s the irony: endurance requires “remaining under.” Picture a person successfully carrying a heavy load for a long time. Friedrich Nietzsche called this “a long obedience in the same direction.”
3 R’s of Vision Keeping
In the middle of the messiness of life, it is very difficult to see and hold to the vision that Jesus is working out His “good pleasure.” Last year during a particularly difficult transition season, I met with a friend who asked me the question: “What would you counsel someone who was in your position right now?” After commenting on her question-asking laziness, I’m sure I mumbled something smart-mouthy about counseling being stupid and very unhelpful and why would anyone listen to me anyway. Her wise question, however, awakened truth inside of me and helped me start taking steps back to Jesus.
A Vision of Who We Truly Are
Have you ever been “the other,” the one who didn’t fit in, didn’t belong? It’s not a nice place to be, as the message is always, “There’s something wrong with you.” As a young schoolboy living near Belfast, North Ireland in the late 1960s, my sisters and I would sometimes be spit at walking to school. My 6-year-old brain could not fathom why kids would line up at a fence to spit at us as we ran past them—but the message was clear, “You don’t belong here!”
Seeing Beyond the Tangled Mess
When I was 16, I spent some time with my sister’s in-laws at their house on a lake. One huge draw was the ski boat. We spent some fun but exhausting days out on the lake. Then came the day I got to drive the boat. I had been watching Ray intently and was eager to try something new. It took a few tries to get the skier up smoothly, but that third time was going great…until the skier wiped out and I put the boat into a “power turn” that I couldn’t recover from.
Building Walls
A few months ago, we made the decision to renovate a property my mother wants to sell. Armed with confidence, a little bit of skill and HGTV, we bit off what we thought would be an easy four-week flip. We are now in deep with rotted joists, plumbing issues and gutted walls.
