What Girls Get Wrong

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 bett...

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 ...

"...Who among us doesn't have sin or discouragement? Who among us doesn't fail? There are a million things we don't want to let anybody know about us, but He knows them all. And He is not discouraged about us..." ~ K.P. Yohannan, founder, Gospel for Asia Confession time: I am an overachiever. And while there are a lot of good things that can be said for having that kind of drive, it can also be a very dangerous thing. Being an overachiever means that, if I fail at something, or if I don't get something done on my to-do-list, I feel like I've failed for that day. It doesn't matter if I got five other things done which were really important. I'm unhappy with myself for not getting that one little thing done. For almost the whole month of July, dipping into August, I've been struggling with some health issues, and looking back on it, I feel like this area of my life is what God was trying to teach me about. There have been so many days these...

Today found me very not in the Christmas spirit. Usually, I'm a last minute shopper. There's two reasons for this. First, I usually forget I have shopping to do until a few days before (don't ask me how, I don't know why I can remember random stuff like how many tablespoons equal a cup* but I forget all about getting presents for Christmas). Second, I spend a long time actually picking out what to give someone. Needless to say, this combination means I'm usually grabbing gifts two days before Christmas. This year, though, I finished my shopping a week ago Monday. I went to the mall yesterday, but it was just to hang out with a friend (and there was one more thing I was thinking about getting for my mom). All I had to do was wait for the rest of the presents to arrive in the mail... Until today. All of my gifts came by Monday except one. I wasn't too worried, because that one said it'd be delivered by today. Sure, it'd be a bit of an inconvienie...

As an intern in a public school district, I see so many kids who just won't let it go. They've been hurt, horribly treated by monsters of humanity. They've been bullied, harassed, abused in unspeakable ways, teased mercilessly, called names, shunned, ignored. And while the people who did these things to them deserve every bit of punishment they're getting and more, these kids just won't let it go. They live their lives with a chip on their shoulder, waiting for the person who hurt them to die, get in trouble, go to jail. And instead of overcoming these issues, instead of being able to become greater than their problems and to become spectacular people in spite of the horrid things they've had to go through, they play the victim card over and over again. Their lives become a continual downward spiral of "I've been hurt, so you should give me what I want. You should treat me like I'm king/queen." But real life doesn't work that way. Because...

We've all dealt with them. That girl in your project group who does her part half-baked last minute, way after you agreed to send it to each other. That teacher who tells you to study one thing for the test, and then has something completely different on it. That guy who keeps calling you to complain about the universe (but especially girls). No, I am not making these up. These are all examples of people I've had to deal with. I'm sure you could add more (hey, I could add more). Life just includes dealing with difficult people. And, if we're honest, sometimes we're the difficult people others are dealing with. It's part of our fallen world, where our sin nature slams into our many different personalities, values, and cultures to make a steaming hot pot of difficult. When we're with Jesus in Heaven, where there is no sin, we'll get along. But here, where we're all flawed, where we all are focused on pushing our own agenda, we're going to be deal...