I'm done with waiting for my next encounter. I'm going to give thanks for everything I consume and everything I partake of and everything I engage with as though they were each different expressions of God saying directly to me: "I love you."
I refuse to live like a love-starved beggar. I am not love-poor. I do not live in a poverty of love. No one lives in poverty—they waste away, they decay, they die.
I will subvert every experience of the...
This is the second time it's happened—hitting a wall, that is. You know, the emotional kind. You know you've hit the metaphorical wall when you can't think, you can't process conversation, you can't make a sound. The air gets stuck in your throat and the universe seems to pause. In moments like these, I'm not sure if it's easier to know why you've hit the wall or easier to not know. All I know is I knew. I knew why I hit it and I know now. It...
When the woman saw that the tree produced fruit that was good for food... she took some of its fruit and ate it. She also gave some of it to her husband who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them opened...
To be honest, now Adam was hurt. It was personal now. He had told her that God put this tree off-limits, yet she violated his boundary right in front of his face! If God wouldn't allow him to eat of the tree, how could Adam...
It often feels to me like there really are no safe or reasonable assumptions in life. I think my feeling is based on the experience that hurt happens and people die and flowers grow and the supreme court makes people angry. I don't want to change my assumptions based upon my experiences. I want to choose my assumptions based upon the values they cause me to embody. I assume (based upon the suggestion of scripture) that God is a comforter. This...
"Wow, this is deep," I mused. I find myself enraptured by the words I read on the screen, when the inevitable moment arrives: I disagree with the author. "No, that's a horrible way to look at it. This is exactly the mindset that irritates me about people today." Then I remember a crucial detail: I'm reading my own posts from 3 years ago. At some level, I wonder if this points to growth. It surely shows change of some kind... I'll just call it...
I struggled greatly trying to title this post. I came across this shot completely accidentally. I was attempting to take a picture of the wire mesh at an askew angle for fun when I noticed the gleam of light from the sun's last rays. It's like a light that strikes your peripheral vision. Have you ever had that happen to you and had it catch you unawares? Something about the idea of a sudden, unexpected ray of light speaks to me of the way God...
We've all heard it, the age old question: why does God allow evil and suffering in the world? Nothing makes this question more relevant than the present experience of pain. There is brokenness in this world, some call it sin—the point is that things are not as they should be. At least, that is the opinion of the Text, the Tanakh, the Bible, Holy Scripture. The Jews, similarly convinced of the brokenness of the world, gave us the idea of...
Today I want to share with you my vision. Often I blog about life lessons and realizations that fascinate me. Earlier today, however, I was listening to a sermon by Kris Valloton on dreaming. It hit me so deeply. So many of my worries in life have been related to my future, and so many times I have side-stepped the real issue by telling myself that I needed to stop worrying and start trusting God. This is true, to an extent. For me, the issue...
We can call God our Father because it is how Jesus taught us to pray. We also know that God is love. Therefore, the Father's heart is a heart of love. How beautiful it is to see the Father's heart lived out in the people around us. How encouraging to see this memorial in the middle of Sacramento:
Have you ever been provoked to jealousy? When I first think of the word "jealousy" I think of something that needs to be quenched, done away with, or removed from me. It connotes a lack of harmony and inner turmoil. On the surface, it's something I just want to get past, but like any emotion—toxic or otherwise—it points to something deeper. For this reason, jealousy is a gift in the spiritual realm. There are heroes of the faith and...
