There are times when everything looks bleak and it’s sort of like looking through dark glasses. It passes but, while I’m there, the “dark clouds” in my sky seem to be a very present reality.
Devastating hurricanes, catastrophic flooding, whole communities left in ruins… where is God when disaster strikes? Those standing in the muck get to see him. Join disaster response specialist, Curt Moore, on SBE as he talks about how God shows up in the worst disasters. Love is alive and well in places where most of us wouldn’t choose to go.
We all have hurting people in our lives. Whether you have a friend with a disability, a depressed family member, a child in pain, or a friend who has lost a loved one. It’s just like R.E.M. famously sang, “Everybody hurts sometimes.”
Because of Jesus’ finished work, God’s totally cool with us no matter what. We’re free, really free! One of the ways we can use that freedom is to, like the Apostle Paul said, become all things to all men, serving them to free them too. But before we can be all things to all men, we have to listen and taste the salt of their tears. Here’s a short video from Steve about it.
I live each day in a state of heightened stress. I used to say that the hardest thing about mothering is that you never feel like you are truly “off “, and that you always have to be aware of what is going on. Having a special needs child amps that up by about 3,000,000,000%. In the past month alone,
One time, when they were young, we took our granddaughters to Disney World for a “character dinner.” As we ate dinner, all the Disney characters (Mickey, Pluto and the rest) made their way around, greeting everybody and posing for photos. Our granddaughters…
Formal places of power are often not the real places of power. Sometimes the little old lady teaching the Bible study can have more influence in the church than all the elders and deacons combined. A lot of pastors get into trouble when they don’t recognize these pockets of power. Listen for help with identifying pockets of power and how to deal with them. Don’t wait until it’s too late.
He was right, but something about the way in which he was right felt very wrong. I couldn’t put into words what it was that I was feeling, but I knew that the way he’d responded wasn’t Christian, even though he is.
I had a miserable morning. Coffee and Jesus always wake me up in the morning. Well, this morning neither was able to make it better.
