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Enemies of God
enemy: a person who is actively opposed or hostile to someone or something. Is God our enemy? It’s a question that I have been pondering for the past few weeks. Sometimes He feels like our enemy, and I’ve heard Bible verses that make Him sound like our enemy, but is He really? This is an important question! Because, I am much less likely to want to get to know Someone who is actively opposed to me… There are plenty of verses that talk about God opposing the proud, or sending judgement on the wicked, or hating certain sins. Can He do those things and still not be our enemy? I think…
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Choosing Trust
(Re-blogged with some tweaks from a post I originally wrote a few year ago.) Looking at the ultrasound monitor, I didn’t need anyone to tell me. I knew as soon as I saw him. My baby was dead. Less than an hour later, we sat silently in a small waiting room, surrounded by dim lighting and multiple Kleenex boxes, waiting for the doctor. Four weeks ago our baby was wiggling all over that monitor, waving to us, measuring just right, looking good. And now he was dead. Why would God do this to us again? We had just lost our first baby seven months ago. By the time I started miscarrying at…
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Chasing Eden
Something isn’t right. We know it in the very core of our being. We see it every day in the news, in our relationships, and in the creation around us. We are surrounded by death. Beauty and brokenness. Hope and disappointment. The contradictions overwhelm us. Life is a struggle. Relationships hurt. We sense the wrongness. There is an emptiness within us that we cannot fill…not with money or possessions, not with job promotions or titles, not with exercise or food, not with sex, alcohol, or our drug of choice. We dim the ache by staying busy and avoiding silence. We appease the longing with social media and various forms of…
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The God Who Wants to be Found – Pt. 2
If you read yesterday’s post, then you know that I am treading on some shaky ground according to some conservative Christians. Asking some slightly heretical questions. 😉 That’s okay! Questions are good! Let me clarify some things before I continue. I don’t believe that sincere faith in just any religion guarantees access to heaven. I do believe that Jesus is the only way to the Father. I do believe in a literal hell. But I also agree with C.S. Lewis. “We do know that no person can be save except through Christ. We do not know that only those who know Him can be saved by Him.” C.S. Lewis, Mere…
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Fireflies, Chili, and Hope
“You are the light of the world…No one lights a lamp and then puts it under a basket…” Matthew 5:14-15. How strange would it be…if you sat on your porch one summer evening and watched as one firefly after another flew into an open container. Instead of floating free, blinking their lights in the summer dusk, the fireflies huddled together. Willing captives in a jar. And yet, I think many Christians do the same thing. Somehow, protection and safety have become more important than being the light of the world. They huddle together around common ideology and values. Protecting good things like marriage, family, the sanctity of life, and moral…
