Testing and Transition

9 hours ago

2 Min Read

T

Miracles are great. Until you have to depend on them for a long time. Manna was pretty neat the first few times it appeared, but after forty years it lost its pizzazz. The daily wondering of “What if the miracle doesn’t come through today?” will wear on you after a while.

We like consistency and predictability—which the manna offered. But we also like control and agency—which the manna withheld. Imagine not being able to make a sandwich, or a burrito, or even pour a bowl of cereal. Simple self-determined meal prep was literally off the table.

Forty is a funny number in the Bible. Sometimes it very well could be literal; sometimes not so much. Regardless, it almost always marks a season of testing and transition.

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Intermission

2 days ago

1 Min Read

I

Your week needs an intermission. A break in the action. A chance for you to step off the stage and hit pause on your performance. To get some water or a snack. To go to the bathroom or to just sit and rest for a few moments. To regroup and recenter before going back out on stage for the second act.

Because you can’t just keep on performing.

Instead, make the regular, conscious decision to stop. Pause. Rest. Breathe. Cease and desist from all your busyness. Make yourself still and quiet. Make yourself invisible and inconsequential. Put down all the tools of your trade. Put away all your over-active responsibilities.

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Scarcity / Abundance

3 days ago

2 Min Read

S

Common knowledge is that the opposite of a scarcity mindset is an abundance mindset. For the most part, I say “Yes and amen.” However, I suggest that, for the Christian, there is a third option: a Provider mindset. I suggest that this is both more hopeful than a scarcity mindset and also more realistic than an abundance mindset.

In short, a scarcity mindset looks like this:

Resources are finite and limited. It says, “There’s not enough to go around.” It sees everything as a zero-sum game: if someone else gains, then someone else loses. It’s stingy. It’s pessimistic about the future. It thinks small and avoid risk. It’s primary emotional energy is fear.

Not a great way to live, TBH. Thankfully there’s also the option of an abundance mindset:

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Becoming / Arriving

4 days ago

2 Min Read

B

The thing about wandering is that every stop is a surprise. You never know where you’ll end up, or what it will be like. There’s no road map telling the name of the next town. There’s no GPS indicating when the next gas station might be. The available restaurants might be quality, or the food and service might be sloppy. The bathrooms might be clean, or they might be… well you know.

Perhaps this is an unpopular opinion, but I don’t think God is as big on plans as we are. At least not by our definition of “plans”. Following him tends to feel a lot more like wandering in the wilderness than it does a well-thought-out road trip. I’d wager that this experience is more the rule than the exception.

When it comes to you and me, and every other human, God is not assembling an automobile or a hamburger—he’s creating a life. A unique, unrepeatable life that is being shaped by the moment. There very well might be a goal, an ultimate “destination” or ideal, but there’s no blueprint to follow.

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3 AM Theology

5 days ago

2 Min Read

3

You know the hour. The dark ceiling. The glaring lights of the alarm clock. The soft click of the spinning fan. And all your spinning thoughts.

I’ve heard people offer advice that praying often helps you fall asleep. But it doesn’t when the prayers feel too heavy and the response comes too slowly:

Will the Lord reject forever?

Has he left us for good?

Has his love worn thin?

Has his promise burned out?

Is this as good as it gets?

Have we just been kidding ourselves?

Is there any hope at all?

What’s the point of anything?

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Cheers!

6 days ago

2 Min Read

C

Parents love to tell their kids stories about the early year that they may not remember. Like their birth stories. Or the time they took their first steps. Or the silly and inappropriate thing they said that one time to a stranger in a restaurant. All the stories that made us laugh or cry or wonder—we laugh and cry and wonder at them all over again.

We humans are story-based creatures. We tell stories not only for other people’s benefit, but for ours. Remembering is reliving.

Neuroscientists have discovered that every time we relive such moments, we re-experience the joy. A chemical cocktail lit up our brains in the original moment, and our retelling of the story calls out, “Hey, Bartender! I’ll have another!”

In the Bible, God’s people frequently retell God his own stories. Not because he has forgotten, but because they need to remember.

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Smaller Crossings

1 week ago

1 Min Read

S

Not everything is a Red Sea. Every situation is not a matter life or death. Every miracle doesn’t need to be of epic proportions.

Sometimes it’s a Jordan River. Sometimes the waters are simply at flood stage, a predictable season of added challenge. Sometimes a miracle can be mid-sized.

But really, life is mostly smaller crossings. Getting from point A to point B with minor, unexpected inconveniences. Most miracles are God’s power scaled down to creek-width.

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We’ve Got to Go Through It

1 week ago

2 Min Read

W

When our kids were really little, one of our favorite books to read with them was Going on a Bear Hunt. The repeated refrain goes: “We can’t go over it. We can’t go under it. Oh no! We’ve got to go through it!” Whether it’s mud or tall grass or windy rain, the hunting party has to muster up the resilience to press on.

For ancient people, the ocean was a place of chaos. Depth and danger. Uncontrollable and deadly forces. Invisible threats below and unpredictable weather above. Even for the bravest sailors, it was always approached with trepidation and a healthy respect.

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No, It Would Not Have Been Better

1 week ago

2 Min Read

N

Didn’t we say to you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians’? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!”

No, it would not have been better for you to remain enslaved to the Egyptians.

No, it would not have been better for you to stay with your abusive spouse.

No, it would not have been better for you to keep working for your bully of a boss.

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Detours

2 weeks ago

2 Min Read

D

When God delivers you from your Egypt, he may not lead you along the straightest path towards your Promised Land. A straight line is the shortest distance between two points, but it may not be the safest.

Life is full of detours. We can either disdain them as annoyances or accept them as blessings.

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