‘Be perfect like your Heavenly Father is perfect’ says Jesus in the very last verse of Matthew 5. This is an important hinge in the chapters we call The Sermon on the Mount. Jesus’ kind of perfect was so very different from the ‘perfect’ defined by the world. Jesus not only described it, he modeled it for us.
Read MoreJust as I want to help my child and see him succeed, God wants the same for you. As much as I love my child, God loves His children more. Motherhood has shown me how much you can love your child and has given me a new understanding for how God loves us, his children.
Read MoreThe circumstances in our life that we are confronted with on a daily basis has a tendency to define us; but when we daily roll the losses we encounter onto the shoulders of a God who loves us fiercely and intimately, we learn to walk in His strength and not our own.
Read MoreJesus calls some to write a book, prepare a sermon, or start a podcast. He plans some to clean the toilets at church, design the cover page, manage the parking, or be a welcoming usher. As a college student, maybe he has called you to be a caring roommate and a hard-working student. At a particular time in my life, all I was called to do was be a loving wife and mother. Our roles change as we go through life. As we pray and wait on God, he shows us what we are called to do. He spells out our role!
Read MoreGod is not carrying around a big stick to hit or prod us with, to get us ‘back on track’ so that we can be ‘doing everything right’. He is leading us with gentleness.
Read MoreWhen dating, we have two choices. We can either lose ourselves by compromising who we are and what God has made us be or lose ourselves by allowing God to shape us in his image.
Read MoreWhen God always goes the extra mile with his boundless grace and overflowing love for us, shouldn’t we as his children do the same? Ephesians 5:1-2 tells us to “‘Be imitators of God and live a life of love’ for then our lives are a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God”.
Read MoreOnce upon a time, there was a girl simply following God’s plan. All of a sudden there was a young man in need of God’s love. That girl would be me, and for the first time ever, I can’t even tell you the first time we met. My most solid and best beginning memory of our friendship was the rooftop of a bar in Milwaukee where a young adult’s group was doing street outreach. I watched my quiet friend get chest bumped into a dance battle. All of a sudden he and another dude are in a full on break dance battle in front of me.
Read MoreAs I sit in the hospital cafeteria typing this, amid the hustle and bustle of the lunch crowd, I feel God’s presence. With the rays of sunshine through the window, I feel God’s presence. As I watch my newborn son on the webcam in his NICU room, I feel God’s presence. When I see my husband hold our son, I feel God’s presence.
Read MoreIt was the beginning of February; Alana turned the calendar to the new month and felt a tug in her heart. She had started January with lofty goals that she would not join gossip sessions at work, and she had already failed.
Read MoreWhat is it to love? It's to surrender everything I think about a person, and to lean in and pray, "Lord, teach me to love them as you do". There is no checklist. It's different for each person we relate to. It's a matter of growing to learn to love. Beginning to see the person through the eyes of the Creator.
Read MoreA couple of years back when I visited Appa, he took me to his room and opened a draw, as if to show me a treasure. There in neat piles were all the letters, cards and paper clippings I had posted to him over the years. My eyes clouded with tears. That day I saw the soft tender part of my tall, dark, handsome and strong father.
Read MoreWhat is love and how do we know if it is lasting? I have asked myself this question for years. It has been present in the back of my mind starting with my broken family when I was a teenager and continuing through my many broken relationships and deaths of family members and friends over the years.
Read MoreValentine’s Day is just a day. It’s February 14th every year. It has 24 hours in it. The sun rises at the start of it and the sunsets at the end. We eat. We drink. We go about our lives. Valentine’s Day is just a day. The ‘day of love’ has passed us by yet again and still, there is something deeply ingrained in our concept of this day that leaves quite a lot of us feeling a little more ‘lovey dovey’ than usual.
Read MoreDon’t be deceived by the title. This book does not assume that one fine day all of its readers will be married. It’s not even written solely to the singles crowd. With relatable storytelling and sound wisdom gleaned from Scripture and plenty of difficult, awkward experiences, Marshall Segal titles his book to remind us that “on this side of heaven we are all not yet married” (15).
Read MoreWhat would Jesus do? In this time we are living in, this is a question we may need to be asking ourselves a little more frequently.
Read MoreI’ve said “I love you” to three people. I’ve been heartbroken over two of them. And by the real meaning, I only love one. By that math, that means I’m with the one I really love, right? Not quite. But this isn’t a “woe is me” story about breaking up and losing trust and not believing in love anymore. It’s about forgiving better and loving more.
Read MoreI remember it more than I like. I have a story almost exactly identical to this. I was with a huge group of friends, who are so loving and welcoming. They’re not intimidating or judgmental. They’re the opposite - silly and encouraging.
Read More
