In many of our Christian circles we talk a lot about people "getting saved." Usually what is meant by this statement is that spiritually dead people are brought to life by the shed blood of Jesus Christ. It's a glorious thing. Dead people don't come back to life. Dead people don't get saved. But in God's amazing mercy and kindness towards cold, dead sinners, he awakens us to the truths of the gospel and leads us to everlasting life.
God's Sovereignty at 35,000 Feet
Those who are close to me know that I hate to fly. And when I have a trip coming up that involves flying even the stranger on the street knows I hate to fly. I suppose it's some crazy way of coping with the fear, but when I have to fly every conversation leading up to the flight entails my deathly fear of the coming trip. The conversation usually goes like this:
Missions Wednesday: Famine in Africa
Last week I wrote about the current famine in the Horn of Africa. It's really consumed a lot of my thinking as reports continue to come out of this drought and famine ravaged region, like the fact that 29,000 children have died from hunger in the past 90 days (as of August 4). The news reports show desperate mothers and fathers carrying weary children hoping that their long travel will mean aid for their families. It's absolutely heartbreaking.
Tim Keller on Suffering
Daniel has been reading The Kings Cross by Tim Keller and for the last couple of weeks has been reading portions of it to me at dinner. It has blessed me immensely. So on this Monday I would like to share a little of this blessing with you. I pray it encourages your soul like it did mine.
Desperate People Pray
I’ve always been a little envious of people who pray well. You know who they are, the ones who genuinely seem to seek the face of God when they pray. They don’t get distracted, or fall asleep, when praying. They want to pray, and often come out of praying feeling energized and alive. Usually I hear them talk about joy in praying and feel like the kid who wasn’t invited to the party. Like there is something really important I’m missing. I have always known that prayer is how I talk to God, and that God wants me to pray to him, but I haven’t always felt like it’s the spiritual discipline that gives me the greatest spiritual high. And I always wondered why.
Missions Wednesday: Pray for the Horn of Africa
More than 11 million people in the Horn of Africa are currently threatened by the most severe drought and famine in decades. In southern Somalia famine has already been declared and is feared to spread to other nearby countries (like Ethiopia and Kenya) who are already affected. While much of America is focused on our debt crisis, millions of vulnerable people, largely women and children, are facing death from malnourishment and disease. Many Somalian women have walked long miles into Kenya, desperate for refugee camps to provide shelter and aid for them and their children, if they can even get into these camps.
What Jesus Does for Women
Often when someone is arguing for the ordination of women he or she will turn to Jesus as the model for how women are to be viewed in today’s society. They see the number of women who were mentioned as followers of him, or even the fact that he included women at all, as biblical evidence for no gender distinctions for clergy. And if we believe that our Bible is true (and I do), we can’t deny the fact that women were the first witnesses to his resurrection (Matt. 28:1-10; Mark 16:1-8; Luke 24:1-12; John 20:1-18). All of the Gospels talk about the women who were around Jesus, but Luke includes more accounts of women than any of the other Gospels. But does Jesus’ seeming endorsement of women present a clear directive for our churches today?
Fearfully and Wonderfully Made in a Fallen World
The last two weeks have been pretty busy for us around here. Between travel for Daniel's job, my trip to Florida to see my parents, the church plant, and various writing projects I have had little time to think about this blog, which makes me sad. But I have been writing even if it isn't appearing here. That will change once August rolls around. In the meantime here is a link to something I wrote for The Gospel Coalition. Earlier this week they published an article I wrote on Psalm 139. The idea for the article was born out of multiple conversations Daniel and I have had about understanding the physical brokenness of our bodies (infertility) in light of the great truth that we are "fearfully and wonderfully made" by our Creator.
Writing is an Exercise in Humility
For my senior writing project in college all of the writing majors were assigned small groups that would meet every other week for intensive peer critiques of our final project. We would meet at a local coffee and bagel shop by school, only critique with pens that were in "non-threatening" colors, and pour over the work our fellow students presented us.
Psalm 1 and the Righteous One
Daniel and I have been traveling for the last few days, so that is why there has been so much silence on the blog. July has turned into a crazy month for us, which has been good but not allowed as much time to write for the blog. But Psalm 1 has been lingering in my mind over the last few days. The first time I ever heard D.A. Carson preach was in chapel at college. I didn't know that much about him, but everyone said it was a big deal that he was there to preach so I listened a little more intently that day.