Category: Christianity

I haven’t known exactly what this would mean for me, but I’ve had a sense of needing to find out who I am. Not so much “what am I going to do with my life?” or anything especially profound, but just to know who I am when everything that isn’t me was stripped away. To go beyond everything I’ve known to know who exactly I am. This wasn’t a well-developed thought, just a vaguely conscious idea. I didn’t consider it much. I didn’t wonder much about what I would find when I “found” myself. Maybe I thought, “oh, this will…

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Sometimes, or maybe most of the time, we can’t avoid the hardships of life. There will certainly be long days, sleepless nights, heart-wrenching experiences, turmoil within and turmoil without. You will become so exhausted you will try to think of ways to escape. But it won’t work. You’ll question your ability to survive. You will feel like crumbling or running away. And you might give up. But sometimes there just isn’t a way to give up.  So what happens when you desperately search for the strength to endure and realize there is none? You may realize that our innate source…

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In our Sunday School sessions, we’ve been studying the Sermon on the Mount, which has been really good. One thing I had never really considered was the underlying theme of the sermon. The Sermon on the Mount is all about the heart. Jesus constantly reminds us that externalism just doesn’t work, and that it is the attitude of our heart that matters to God. So it is not surprising that we only got to Matthew 5.13 before the topic turned to a discussion of externalism and what it really means to live out the Christian life. And this is where…

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Life has a way of not happening the way we expect it to. I’ve just begun to figure this out in the last couple years. We have everything neatly plotted out, and then something comes along which challenges everything we’ve figured out. Sometimes other people do things which surprise us. And then sometimes we surprise ourselves. We wake up one morning and realize we’ve somehow turned our world upside down. We suddenly know we don’t know everything we thought we knew. The cherished assumptions we’ve held for so long are now looming question marks. We can’t explain it. We just…

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Ummm…what is happening to 2013? January 1st feels like yesterday. A sobering reflection. The days slip away and we’re left wondering what happened to our lives. It is funny how life has a way of doing things that we do not expect. I fully intended to get back to my blog right after Lakeshore, but I guess that was not the plan. So here I am, a few weeks later! Reflections on Lakeshore… It was an amazing week. The fellowship and sense of unity as we worked towards a common goal in the kingdom of God was, well, an inspiring…

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Posts are going to be a bit scarce for the next week or so. I’m currently in Lakeshore, Louisiana participating in what is called The Lakeshore Project. For a week every January since Hurricane Katrina people have come from churches all over the country to help rebuild this community, reach out to those in need, encourage the local church, Lakeshore Baptist, and have fellowship with other Christians. This is my first year participating, and so far I’m greatly enjoying it. I’m on the media team and primarily responsible for the Lakeshore Project blog, so if you want to know more…

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As I was thinking about doing this post, I realized I needed to get some thoughts out there about 2012 before moving on. So here goes 2013… This is going to be a good year. How can I know this? you ask. I know this because all things are ultimately good. Even what is intended as evil God will use for good. Nothing is random or by chance, all things are directed by the hand of our sovereign God. And related to that, I know that 2013 can be a good year because I have the ability to make it…

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I was going to write about this year, but I thought I’d just share some of my accomplishments of 2012 and some of my thoughts on the year. 43 blog posts have been published here, which comes out to a blog post every 1.2 weeks, on average! Of course it wasn’t very steady or regular, but at least I somewhat made up for it through the year! And I have to say, most of my posts tend to be pretty long, so 43 posts is pretty good, in my opinion. And in case you were wondering, I have published a…

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