The House You're Building

    Family.  It is a word that stirs feelings of affection to some and memories of pain for others.  One of the reasons I love the church is that God has always provided spiritual mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers.  There is a kinship among the gathered body that transcends blood--a bonding that comes when people house the Spirit inside them.  The outside world looking in doesn’t understand why the church must meet, as those who have found joy in fellowship understand the connection that occurs in the physical presence of those who have the same Father.     Unfortunately, just like our families of origin are the cause of heartache, the church can duplicate the experience.  So much division would be avoided if we would live out Peter’s words to the church in chapter 3 verse 8 as we interact with each other.     Unity of Mind To have unity of mind means to be focused on the same goal, be around ...

    When you study the bible verse-by-verse you don’t get to skip the tricky parts.  For ladies, who make up the majority of my blog following, the group of verses in this section of 1 st  Peter [1]  are a counter-cultural revolution. I was fascinated by this passage and have so much I can say about it, but I’m going to try and boil my points down to one clear theme.  Beauty is vulnerability.  When I first studied this in the ESV translation, I came across verse 3:6 and the wording of it was very strange….  Don’t fear anything that is frightening .  In our humanity, a common response to things that are frightening is fear. That seems pretty intuitive and people who don’t respond in fear might not be living in reality.  And that my friends is the key!  It is not in our nature to confront what the world fears and display a different response.  It is other-worldly, of the divine nature, the cultural p...

  Have you ever thought about what it was like when God created the animals?  I’m a huge Harry Potter fan and one of my favorite parts is seeing how the artists in the films visually recreate some of my favorite magical creatures like hippogriffs and thestrals.  Imagine the whimsy of God, making the massive blue whale, the intricate hummingbird or the pieced-together platypus.  Not only inventing their physical characteristics but choosing their behaviors.  I on team dog because God made them loyal, sweet, and playful.    What was God thinking when He created sheep?  Did you know that sheep are mentioned more than any other animal in the bible [1] ?  Not only were sheep an important part of the ancient world’s economy, but God uses them in the Bible as an analogy of how we act.  It’s almost like God knew us and decided to design an animal that reflects our tendencies to show us our need for Him. Most ar...

  Anybody reading this want to be like Jesus?  I do, I do so much and the more I grow in my faith, the more I see that I have so far to go.  One area I constantly find myself struggling with is when I am treated unfairly.     Let me confess a big social faux pas I made recently.  Yes, I’m gonna go there on mask/no mask.   A few weeks ago I was running some trails without facial protection.  I’m going to justify my choice for all you haters out there.  I live in the northwest and I am used to 40-degree weather 8 months out of the year.  When it hits above 70, I could literally be a poster child for a deodorant add.  Add on the activity of running and I would be curled up in the fetal position and out of breath with face-gear on.  When I see people running with a mask on, I actually stop and stare at the unicorn that just passed me.     I’m attempting a bit of ...

Who is a news watcher?  We haven’t had cable in my house since I got married so going on 19 years…When 9/11 happened and everyone was glued to the set I had no idea it was happening until my husband called me from work.  To this day I have still gladly not seen images of that tragic part of American history.    With all the current events we are exposed to daily via the media, we are often overwhelmed with sorrow. From current headlines about the pandemic and racial unrest, phases, new regulations, and rioting, our hearts can tend to feel on a rollercoaster. Even myself, who is often sheltered from the latest reports, feels the anxiety and tension.  John Eldridge says this about the cumulative effect on our hearts in his latest book  Get Your Life Back:    You’ve got to release the world, you’ve got to release people, crises, trauma, intrigue, all of it.  There has to be sometime in your day where you just let it all ...

                                   When you think of who you are, what first comes to mind?  We’ve all been at parties making small talk and often, the first thing people say is “what do you do?”  It’s easy to express your value, especially at an acquaintance level, which focusing on the outward.  It’s awkward to share who you are inside.  Now I’m not advocating we all go out and share our truth with everyone we met.  Be wise and know that privilege is earned by those who over time have earned your trust.  But honestly, I think most people don’t share who they are because they don’t know who they are.  The human race endlessly chases things on the outside to try to define who they are on the inside.     The Bible in 1 Peter 2:9-10 describes who we are in a world searching for identity.     But you a...