Living life with steps of faith

Why is there suffering in the world? A.       God created a beautiful world and gave humans volition (the power of using one’s own will). ( Genesis 1 & 2 ) B.       God gave us instructions on how to live well.  We can choose to follow God’s advice or choose to go our own way. (The book: The Bible .) C.        Problem is that when we choose to go our own way we create brokenness.  That brokenness impacts everything and everyone! ( Genesis 3 & 4 ) D.       There is suffering in the world because people choose to disobey God’s wise advice and the earth, our bodies, and our relationships have suffered as a result. ( Romans 8:18-22 ) So how do we find Joy in the midst of the suffering? A.       Recognize that Joy flows from God & we become conduits of this Joy when we worship God. ( Psalm ) B.    ...

My parents asked about choosing a nursing home for my grandparents - and this is what I wrote in an email in response: Hi Dad, Mom mentioned that grandpa fell last night and that you are interested in learning more about nursing homes.  I think the most important thing is to include grandpa & grandma in the process of choosing a place and to make that decision when they are still able to make it for themselves. I'm sure they have heard stories from friends that will influence where they want to be or where they don't want to be.  Just schedule visits to two or three places with them.  Each place handles costs, insurance, and finances differently - so you just have to go and visit and schedule a meeting with their entry people. I would make sure a sibling who is over the age of 65 and personally acquainted with medicare attend this meeting, alongside whichever sibling is going to be the key contact person if grandma and grandpa decide to m...

Sometimes a person can be oversensitive as a result of legitimate past hurt, but that doesn't mean their sensitivity is accurate. What do you think of this statement? Sometimes I wonder if one of the consequences of systemic injustice against a group of people who share a feature in common is that some individuals within such a group become ultra-sensitive which heightens the injustice. I've seen this in fellow women clergy. Where comments and events not at all related to their experience all of a sudden become related to their experience. I've seen this in peers who are of a minority race. Someone's kindness is discredited even though the person is genuinely kind to stranger and friend alike. I've seen this in people who have faced injustices in the criminal justice system. A police officer pulls him over for speeding and he thinks all cops are out to get him, even though the speed trap was set up before anyone knew he'd be driving down that ...

This Sunday I fell off a member of my church's pedestal.  And it hurt some when I fell.  From this person's perspective, I had done wrong; from my perspective, I acted with grace in alignment with the church's teaching.  I have to admit that I don't like having people not pleased with me.  I want to correct or fix the situation.  But what I realized today as I sat before God, contemplating the wise words of a woman of prayer in our church and the words just read of Jean-Pierre de Caussade, I should celebrate and be glad that I fell, because I never should have been on the pedestal in the first place. I can come up with very human reasons as to why God is blessing us as a gathered community of faith right now.  I can also come up with very spiritualized reasons.  But I know that according to God's word and my life experience that it rains on both the righteous and the unrighteous.  We may be in a season of blessing right now, but I am sure we wil...

My husband mentioned that there has been a few news articles most recently asking where God was the day 6 and 7 year olds lost their lives at Sandy Hook Elementary. I have to admit, that hasn't been one of my questions this Christmas season, rather I have found meaning in a part of the Christmas story that for the most part of my life I have overlooked: Matthew 2:16-18 New International Version (NIV) 16  When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi.   17  Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled: 18    “A voice is heard in Ramah,    weeping and great mourning,  Rachel  weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted,        because they are no more.” [ a ]         ...

I am utterly amazed by all that the Bible has to say about wisdom.  I really thought that in doing a word study on wisdom, that I would find one, two, or perhaps three unified themes.  What I am discovering is that the depth and complexity of wisdom is expressed in a variety of ways and that GOD really wants us to grasp wisdom.  It isn't something hidden or difficult to find.  It is there for our taking - if we will just seek it!

A friend wrote me an email asking how one can evangelize when being a Christian often carries a cost.  My answer was that the story of Jesus does not end on the cross, but it continues through the resurrection! Too often when we witness we focus on hell/heaven, the crucifixion, or even the Kingdom of God as the right way to live.  But the gospel is the Word and the Word is Jesus Christ!  When I share Christ, I want to share that Jesus is a personal savior who brings restoration and resurrection to that which is broken and needs restoration and brings life to that which is dying.  We aren't leading people to heaven or leading them to the cross (although we do this too), rather we are leading people to Jesus Christ and He'll lead them the rest of the way!

I'm actually creating this blog for the purpose of receiving responses .  I want to hear from the people on the world wide web what they have learned about the differences in the lexicon or dictionary of evangelical and mainline Christians.  From my experience dancing between and in both worlds, I have discovered that often these two practices of Christianity will talk past each other even when they are discussing the same thing.  I think there are times when representatives of each perspective will agree with each other even though they don't really agree.  There are other times where representatives will be having heated arguments and they are saying the same thing, but using different terms.  So, I want to hear what you have heard - how do you translate the conversation? For example.  My evangelical friends may ask, "When did you accept Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior?"  While my mainline friends would ask, "When did your faith become...

I've just begun reading through the facilitator's guide for "The Significant Woman."  I realize as I finish this first chapter that I am afraid of normalcy.  I am terrified of living a normal life.  I feel that if I do, I will have failed.  I will have failed God, failed my family, and failed myself. I believe this fear comes from a deep sense that I am called for something great.  Is that too arrogant of me? This sense of calling leads me to always be watching for that thing that I am called to do and leaves me with the question "Have I already completed it?"  There is a part of me that wonders if I have already done what God destined me to do and if so, will the rest of life be boring? Recently I heard a story on the radio about a man who had been respected as a faithful/devout Christian who did not finish his life well.  I fear that too -- not finishing well. In many ways I think the older I get the harder it is to be a Christian.  As I d...

There are times that my arrogance makes it difficult for me to recognize my sins. At other times I realize that things are sins that I hadn't previously recognized as sin. Most of the time though, when I read passages about controlling the tongue, I am convicted of sin. When I was in college the idea of having an accountability partner was a big deal. Staff at our school would talk about meeting with another Christian or a small group of Christians to ask each other questions that would keep us accountable. The problem for my roommate and I when we decided to become accountability partners was that we had no clue what questions to ask each other. The lists provided by the school were not helpful and the questions we created for ourselves were too specific and they touched areas of our lives that we were not yet ready to change. Our hearts were not ready and we had not been given adequete resources. Yesterday I read the assigned lectionary Scriptures for this past Sunday. They ...

We all have passages of Scripture that we find difficult to understand and wonder about its meaning. There are two passages that stand out to me as confusing and other worldly. The first is Romans 5:12-21. Like so many passages, one of the reasons this section of Scripture is difficult for me is because of the various interpretations that I have heard of this text and the different theological beliefs that influence how one interprets this text. Some use this Scripture to explain original sin. They point out that through Adam we all have sinned. They look at the power of Christ's one sacrificial act and point out how the sin of the original human being could have such a universal appeal. But then I look at this passage and wonder, if this passage is used to justify or explain original sin, then wouldn't it also stand to reason that there is universal salvation. Because if all have sinned and all have gained death as a result of that sin, a parallel reading would mean tha...

Fatherhood. This is a word with much power. When we hear the word a variety of emotions and images come to mind, how they are shaped are dependent upon our personal experiences with our own father. In the church, there is a wide range of attitudes toward the title “Father” and its use in the church. There are movements that encourage men “to be men” and other movements that strive for gender equality and sensitivity in addressing God as Father. I suspect that there is a profound reason for God choosing to reveal Himself as “Father.” Perhaps God knew just how much this role would need to be redeemed. According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2004 Current Population Survey Report “Household Relationship and Living Arrangements of Children Under 18 Years, by Age, Sex, Race, Hispanic Origin,” 23.6 million children (that is basically 1 in 3 children) in the U.S. are “orphaned” by absent biological fathers. The absence of a father makes it 5 times more likely that a child will grow up in ...

Call me old fashioned, but sometimes the church just feels too overcommercialized. This morning I was looking at a resource book for church leaders (a.k.a. catalogue) and saw a new “package” of church materials that promotes something that I believe in. The problem with it is that it is a “package.” The idea that if you buy this audio-devotional for your teens, this video curriculum for your adults, these banners and postcards, and everyone goes and sees a certain movie and talks about it together afterwards you will start a movement. Perhaps I am just a bit jealous because it requires resources to do this. But at the same time, I am just weary of marketing fads. But then again if they work, why should I complain? Why do we need all of this pizzazz in order to convince people of the message that is already contained in the Scriptures? The message of God’s Kingdom – which is very different from the message of the kingdoms of this world. Kind of ironic using “cultural tools” to sp...

What if we have it all wrong! What if by making Sunday into our day of worship, we have gotten in the way of people living their lives as an act of worship? What if we truly are to rest on Sunday? What if a better form of corporate worship can be found in festivals, special services of forgiveness or prayer, and community sharing? Could we make something like this work in our culture? (Exodus 23:12, 17)

Sometimes I feel like I am a walking oxymoron. I am both a mainline Christian and an evangelical Christian. At the same time I am indifferent toward or reject aspects of mainline Christianity and aspects of evangelical Christianity. I like to say I am only a Christian and that I need no modifier to explain my faith. Yet I get cornered into situations where I get labeled as either one or the other or am pushed to say certain things that make it seem as though I identify with one over the other. In my inbox right now I have an email from a mainline church that references my role on their evangelism team and an email from an evangelical church that references my role as a facilitator at their evangelism training. This is craziness! It is craziness, because I suspect each church would be uncomfortable with the other church's methods of evangelism. So I wonder - is there something wrong with me? Why is it that I can identify with both methodologies and both messages and see the stren...

Because of a conversation I had with my husband yesterday, I've been thinking about how men and women hear words and think differently. This conversation contributes to other conversations I've had with people about a recent sermon. It seems as though the flow of the sermon made more logical sense to women then it did for men. I also think of the sermons that I have heard that I have found frustrating, but for some reason have really spiritually fed men. I wonder about this and what it means. For example, my husband and I were discussing our conceptions of God. If I understand correctly he sees the military exploits of God in the Old Testament as exactly that - military exploits. Whereas I see them as stories of God's grace being repetitively extended and then FINALLY being worn out as God decides to act against an injustice that cannot be corrected in another way. This morning I read the beginning of 2 Timothy and realized how I clung to the emotive words (or somewhat inte...

Sometimes I am overwhelmed by the elite. When I start to think about all of the cultural rules that have been created that unintentionally separate the elite from those who are not, I get sick to my stomach. I think I become anxious because I realize that the elite don't know that they are creating these uncrossable boundary lines and because the fact that I realize this makes me somewhat responsible to translate what is happening. The trouble is that in order for me to translate I need to step into those cultural places and speak and act a certain way, which I want to think that I refuse to do. So I bind myself in this odd place of knowing and recognizing what is happening but being tongue-tied and feeling inadequate to translate. I don't think the elite really understand that they are elite. When they do understand, I don't think they understand how inaccessible they are. They think that anyone and everyone could do and be what they are if they wanted to. They don't u...

What would need to change in order to get the cost of a regular doctor's appointment to under $50? (This is the total cost, including the patient's, insurance company's, and government's contribution.)

Recently, my husband and I visited Mars Hill's main campus in Seattle, Washington. While there, I picked up a devotional on the books of 1 and 2 Peter . At the time I had been studying 1 Peter on my own and thought it was a bit of a coincidence that this was the focus of the church at the time. Anyway, at the beginning of the study, the first question asked is, "What does it mean to be a citizen of the Kingdom of God?" Here I write my answer, noting that I do not reference any Scripture or theological texts, but rather just write from the top of my head - what is my first response today? What does it mean to be citizens of the Kingdom of God? It means that we are called to live life differently – we operate under a different system of law. God is our ruler. Our citizenship is given to us. Much like how I am born as a citizen of the United States, so too I am born a citizen of the Kingdom of God. But just as there are naturalized citizens of this country, so too we are...

Throughout the New Testament, the slave-master relationship is used in an allegorical manner to point to the relationship between the disciple and God. In our present Western circumstances, we dismiss slavery as something that is not honoring to God. Another Scriptural allegory that is used to represent the relationship between Christ and the church is the groom-bride relationship. While all Christians recognize this allegory in Scripture, some give it greater influence and priority over other allegories. More specifically, in today's modern debate over homosexuality, it seems as though this allegory is revered in more conservative circles. I wonder how we as believers can use this allegory in an argument against homosexuality, while at the same time read allegories about slavery and still argue against slavery? This seems like an inconsistent interpretation of Scripture. What are we to do with this? Are we willing to admit that we think slavery is right? Do we explain away thi...