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Trusting in the Name of the Lord Our God

October 20, 2014
| 18 Comments
| Categories: Spiritual Growth

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That sweet moment when you’re brought back to gospel sanity.

The truth, once again, falls fresh on your heart and mind and you feel like you’ve heard it anew.  Like it is the most amazing fresh insight from God.

That it is for sure.

You know it must be from God because who longs for the beauty of death unless you have the Holy Spirit who brings just that?

Like the beauty of the yellow dying leaves changing and falling around me, my life could be similar.

As I die to myself a…

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The Most Promising Investments

October 6, 2014
| 15 Comments
| Categories: Hope

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I’m seeking to invest in what never ends.

Love is patient.

Love is kind.

Love rejoices with the truth.

Love bears all things.

Love believes all things.

Love hopes all things.

Love endures all things.

Love never ends.

The love investment.

Love is one of a couple of things that the bible affirms will endure beyond this world as it is.

The Word.

“The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.” -Isaiah 40:8

Love.

“Love never ends.” -1 Corinthians…

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If Patience and Slowing Feels Painful

September 28, 2014
| 18 Comments
| Categories: Patience

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This carousel at the St. Louis zoo always makes me dizzy.  Not unlike how I feel in life.  Days rushing by like everything around this ride.

Colors and lights blurring past me like the years that have passed since the carousel’s first use in the 1904 World’s Fair.

Sometimes as the days, months and years pass I can catch a glimpse of what my aching heart longs for.

Love.

Jesus.

My loved ones.

The church.

The last months have felt like this.

I tried to take a picture of my children on…

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If You’re Thirsty and Longing For More…

September 23, 2014
| 17 Comments
| Categories: Encouragement

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“…but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” John 4:14

“And he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment.” Revelation 21:6

To slow down…just for this…

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Love Without Hesitation

September 13, 2014
| 19 Comments
| Categories: Ministry and Serving

 

Each day of Vacation Bible School this summer the children tossed spare change and dollar bills into the wicker basket.  Little hearts and hands moved to do something in response to what they were learning and now know.  That 200 women are forced into slavery a day in India.

And that isn’t even the full story.

When you can’t tell young people the atrocities carried out on other human beings, you know you’re dealing with evil.

We called it slavery, modern day slavery.  But it it so much more than that.  Two hundred women are…

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The Truth About Jesus Christ Crucified

September 6, 2014
| 11 Comments
| Categories: Grace, Jesus

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Jesus Christ crucified.

The truth about this statement is…

It’s not a simple teaching to be forgotten as we grow in our faith.

On to deeper things?

It can’t be done.

“Jesus Christ crucified” is the Christian’s focal point.

I was thinking this morning of when I played basketball in high school.  We would do wall squats.  I have not forgotten the pain even after almost 25 years!  I used to fix my eyes on something in the gym.  A focal point.  My eyes did not leave that focal point.  It is how…

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Moving From “Yeah, But…” to “But Now”

August 30, 2014
| 11 Comments
| Categories: Encouragement, Renewing the Mind

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I love this picture.  The dying stalks lifting up frail heads to seemingly worship.  The sun casting its transforming rays through and beautifying them.

Without the sun and with a different perspective, this picture would have turned out so much different.  It was actually taken at a cemetery.  The nearby tombstones were not caught but the light filtering through seeds was.  A reminder to me of hope beyond death and of perspective.

What a difference perspective makes.

What an impact our words have on our perspective.

“Yeah, but…”

These are words that are moving toward extinction…

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When You Fear What Life May Bring

August 2, 2014
| 24 Comments
| Categories: Fear

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I’ve been enjoying some early before-the-kids-wake-up bike rides this summer.  My usual route takes me over a bridge which hovers over the enormous churning Missouri River.

For me, riding over the Missouri River bridge by myself early in the morning is about as daring as life gets!  My morning bike ride, when I take it, might as well be Mt. Everest.

I used to do truly dangerous things without even noticing that they were dangerous.  I did them without much of a second thought.

That was before I had kids and before…

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If You’re Weary of Doing Good

July 21, 2014
| 17 Comments
| Categories: Ministry and Serving, Rest

 

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It happened about a little over a year ago.  A night when I was getting the kids ready for bed and I just couldn’t imagine doing the next day.  I couldn’t imagine doing the bare minimum let alone the things I felt I was called to be doing in ministry at the time.  Just getting the kids jammied and brushed was heavy to my heart.

I didn’t want to go to bed, because I knew that I’d wake up and it would be morning and I’d have…

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