What Girls Get Wrong

One day I thought God didn’t care about me, and I almost died. Okay, that might be a little melodramatic. But I almost got into a bad accident. I was going through a rough time. God felt distant, like He merely observed what was happening to me, but didn’t care enough to do anything. I started to think that maybe He didn’t care. I was in zombie mode getting ready for work. I had slept fine, but everything just seemed meaningless. I got in my car, and headed down my street. I reached the stop sign, and turned on my left directional. The guy coming from my right stopped, his directional indicating he wanted to turn onto my street. I waved to him, and eased up on the brake. I looked just in time to see the car coming 50 mph from my left. I hadn’t pulled into his lane yet. The car went by without any issue, the other guy turned, and I pulled out onto the street on my way to work. But I was shaken. And to this day I’m convinced God let that happen to jar me out of thin

“LORD, You alone are my portion and my cup; You make my lot secure.  The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance.” ~ Psalm 16:5-6, NIV Sometimes, I have to beat that verse into my head. I have to repeat it over and over, insisting that I accept it, forcing myself to believe it. Because there’s a lot of times when I don’t.   When bitterness and hopelessness threaten to take over. You may be feeling the same way.   You may struggle with chronic health issues.   You may have lost all your earthly possessions.   Your life may not be going at all how you planned it, or how you would like it to go.   And yet that verse still stands. But you find yourself questioning, like I do, “Are my boundary lines really in pleasant places?   Do I really have a delightful inheritance?” Yes. If nothing else, all of God’s children have the promise of eternal life with Him in Heaven   (John 3:16).   That’s our inheritance.

I never knew her name.   I didn’t even realize she was in my class until we stood outside the classroom doors, waiting to enter for our final exam.   I don’t even remember now what she looks like, although I want to say she had her dark hair pulled up in a bun and wore glasses. All I remember was that she gave me a mechanical pencil. It was the end of the fall semester of my senior year.   I was in a lot of pain from Lyme Disease that day.   I’d just come from an internship meeting which had soured before it began.   I was doing all I could to keep it together. I’d been so focused on the meeting before that I’d forgotten to bring any pencils with me.   And when I saw the few girls studying outside the classroom doors, I realized my mistake.   But it was too late to go back and get a pencil.   So I asked if I could borrow one. The girls looked at each other, and one of them finally checked the lead in her mechanical pencils, and offered me one.   I thanked her, tol

You may be familiar with the Parable of the Prodigal Son found in Luke 15:11-32 .   Basically, the younger of two sons asks his father to have his inheritance now, and then goes and wastes it.   When he is broke, eventually he repents of his foolishness and asks his father to take him on as a servant.   The father, being overjoyed that his son returned, throws a party for him.   There’s a lot of food, and everyone’s having a good time. Except the older brother. When he hears of it, the older brother gets mad, and won’t go in to the party or greet his brother.   He’s angry that his father has thrown a party for his foolish, sinful, wasteful brother.   Here he has been good, well-behaved, hard-working, and yet his brother’s getting a party, not him.   It doesn’t seem fair. Instead of rejoicing that his sinful brother has come to his senses, that he’s repented and reconciled to the family, the older brother feels cheated. He’s so much better, so much more godly.   Why is t

A lot of us want to do something big for God.   We feel like we’re not serving enough, not doing enough, and we want to push ourselves to do more for God and His kingdom. I don’t think there’s necessarily anything wrong with that.   It is good to desire to serve God.   But I think we get it wrong with what exactly it means to serve God in a big way. Sometimes, serving in a big way means serving in little ways.   Sometimes doing great things for God means doing the small things. Take Ruth for instance. She is called a virtuous woman ( Ruth 3:11 ).   Her praises are sung by the local women.   These women call Naomi blessed to have such a daughter-in-law, better than “seven sons” ( Ruth 4:14-15 ).   Ruth is one of the most highly-praised women we read about in Scripture. What was this marvelous thing she did?   Surely she served God in a mighty way.   She must have had a three-album deal while being the soloist of her church’s worship team, or founded an orphanage.

I've been thinking again about how much God loves us. His love is so strong, so pure, He's willing to watch us suffer. Let me explain what I mean. When things happen to us which are painful, we tend to beg and pray that God will resolve the problem quickly, or make it go away. The situation will be really difficult.  Someone we love will be dying.  We'll be down to our last ten dollars, our last rent money.  We'll be struggling with a health issue. We'll be in agony over it, and we let our human perspective blind us. We begin to doubt God, that He is good, that He cares about us or our situation. But the amazing thing, if we take the time to consider, is that God never stopped loving us, or caring about what we're going through.  The Bible is full of verses declaring His love for us. God loved us so much: 1. He sent Jesus to die for us ( John 3:16 ; 1 John 3:16 ).* 2. He calls us who have accepted Christ's sacrifice and Lordship His child

Some time ago, I wrote a post about how dangerous it is to compare ourselves to others .  Whether your comparisons make you feel bad about yourself, or whether they cause you to feel superior to someone else, the comparing game causes pain. At least, when we're framing it in a me versus you format. Why did God include so many stories of people in the Bible?  If we shouldn't compare, why did He write of Esther and her courage, of Ruth and her diligence, of Tamar and her seduction, of Mary and her obedience, of Naomi and her bitterness? The Bible is ultimately the story of God, His creation, the first man and woman's betrayal, His undying love and sacrifice, and His rescue of mankind from their sin and complete victory over evil.  But along the way, we read of many people, both good and bad, both repentant and in denial. What was the reason for all of these stories?  Was it just to make the Bible longer?  Did God have a word count He wanted to hit, and so decided &quo