When Suffering Is A Mercy
January 5, 2022
One of my friends shared with me what she had imagined her adult life would be when she was a child. She'd had grand plans—an illustrious career that enabled her to be a gift to society, so everyone would praise her. She'd have a family of perfect individuals or be contentedly independent. She'd be surrounded by beautiful possessions but would have such a peaceful and humble spirit that she barely noticed them.
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Of all the women and men of the Bible, Jacob can seem like a strange person for God to associate Himself with. "The God of Jacob" is a frequent title used for the God of the Bible, and Jacob is referenced 22 times in scripture.
January 4, 2022
In the Bible book of Luke 10, Jesus explained that the way to live is to love God with all the parts of who we are—with our hearts, souls, our minds, and our strength. These parts of us are distinct but intertwined. We might think of these aspects of ourselves as our emotions, our eternal essence, our reasoning, and our dedication. We engage with God through all of these. Understanding how to live fully in alignment with God, in every aspect of our personhood, is the key to a life of fulfilment.
January 3, 2022
Most of us would own up to having parts of ourselves that are messy. The most honest among us would admit to being wrecks, apart from the grace of God. Our inclination is to hide our flaws and failures, just like Adam and Eve did back in the Garden of Eden. Scripture says that God sees the conduct of all people (Jeremiah 32:19) and because of His love (that makes no human sense), He has compassion on us (Psalm 103:8). The God of the Bible, rather than demanding that we reach up to Him, reached down to us in love, through the gift of Jesus. Moreover, He continues to reach down, to refine us and heal us.
December 31, 2021
My friend Kim had had a bad night. Expecting her first baby, she and her husband had recently discovered that the family dog had a stomach condition that made him ill in the night quite often. After a night of little sleep, she wondered how she was going to be able to cope with being up with a baby and a dog in the future!
December 30, 2021
Imagine filling a pot with water. Then you put the pot over a fire, put on the lid, and wait for it to boil. Now, only a fool or a character in a fairytale would expect to take the lid off and find that the water had turned itself into a hearty soup!
December 29, 2021
How important is Scripture? Pastor Rich Villodas points out that, "When Jesus was tempted, scripture flowed from his lips. When Jesus was challenged, scripture flowed from his lips. When Jesus was crucified, scripture flowed from his lips. One of the ways to live like Jesus," he concludes, "is to internalize scripture, so that when we are cut, it spills out."[1]
[1] Villodas, Rich [richvillodas]. Instagram, December 3, 2021, https://www.instagram.com/p/CXBetZZAlaz/?utm_medium=copy_link.
December 28, 2021
When one year turns over into another, we tend to reflect. Most of us sense or are even embroiled in global unrest, fear, and uncertainty. Many of the goals we'd hoped to reach remain unmet. We're not the first people to feel this way! The Apostle Paul lived in the thick of trials and tribulations of his own era. His practice was to always train his focus on following and being together with Jesus. He wrote, "Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me…." (Philippians 3:13-14).
December 27, 2021
Christmas time can make you feel like one big failure. It used to be popular to send a "creatively written" Christmas letter that bragged about everything your family had done that year. We knew what had really happened in our lives—failed marriages, kids that got into trouble and jobs that were lost. But we didn't include that in those Christmas letters.
December 24, 2021
There's more than one disease plaguing humankind this Christmas--loneliness is a global epidemic. Locked down and socially isolated by the pandemic, people of all ages have felt the pangs of loneliness. Many are still working from home and large numbers of former churchgoers have simply given up gathering together in person. Now, we greet Christmas in our loneliness.
December 23, 2021
Christmas, no, make that all of life, comes with a great big platter of expectations. We expect that Christmas will mean gifts, cheer and goodwill. In life, we expect that parents will love and protect children, marriage covenants will be kept and that doing the right thing will bring the right results. But this is not always reality. Sadly, Christmas can make the brokenness in our lives searingly more painful; like the young mother in the troubled marriage who realized one Christmas morning, after all the gifts under the tree had been opened, that there were no gifts for her. Our hurts, our brokenness, feel like an extra heavy load to carry at this time.
December 22, 2021
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