“I am what I feel” sums up expressive individualism. Our culture frames identity around discovering what our deepest desires and longings are. To know our longings is to know ourselves.
In Billie Eilish’s 2023 song “What was I made for?” written for “Barbie,” Eilish reflects on the confusing journey to understand her feelings. It’s this journey, she assures herself that will lead to her happiness.
“The end is near!” “Repent!”
Have you ever seen a statement of prophetic warning spray-painted on a wall or in a subway station? got to be honest, I don’t take much notice to such warnings. But what if those warnings were for me and for you?
We are feeling all the feels. Our youngest, Soren, is about to graduate from high school. This has been a season of reflection for Angel and me and a season of preparation. In our children’s ministry hallways at New Life next to each age level we have containers that represent how many days of influence remain for you as a parent before your child launches. I recognize, of course, that there is no finish line for parenting, but one’s influence and role changes significantly in each season.
As we look back on our parenting, the most important things we taught our children were who God is and who they were.
Intrusive thoughts are unwelcome and hard to control. I can remember having intrusive thoughts from the time I was a child. When we drove, I often felt the compulsion to press one foot down on the floor between the telephone poles (and yes, I also hopped over the cracks in the sidewalk). At other times, when walking alone, I remember the persistent thought, “He’s watching you.” I would search the bushes and trees for the one my mind told me was watching me.
The aged prophet Isaiah showed up at the bedside of the middle-aged king. Hezekiah was only about 39 years old and terminally ill. But the prophet was not bringing good news, “Set your house in order, for you shall die, you shall not recover” (Is. 38:1).
The weak king cried out to God, “’ Please, O LORD, remember how I have walked before you in faithfulness and with a whole heart, and have done what is good in your sight’. And Hezekiah wept bitterly.” (Is. 38:3).
“That isn’t a toy!” parents warn a child playing with a knife or a hammer.
Pharaoh thought he could play a game with God and win. He lost.
Your heart is not a toy.
The story of God’s battle with Pharaoh in the book of Exodus is the story of the consequences of a hardened heart. It’s the story of someone who thought they could toy with God and with their heart. We cannot.
You can tell a good piece of fruit or vegetable by its color and by its feel. The avocado might be the trickiest one I know. A novice might think that a bright green, hard avocado is the best, but counter-intuitively, the best avocados are dark, with shades of brown, giving easily to the touch. The heart of a growing Christian also gives easily to the touch.
No one comes to see a counselor or pastor to talk about their problems not wanting success, but the state of our hearts so often resists the very thing we want. A soft heart can turn my mediocre counsel into pearls of wisdom. A hard heart will turn the wisest counsel ever offered into sawdust.
1. Church Membership Falls Below 50% for the First Time: The latest Gallup poll reveals that only 47% of Americans report being part of a church, synagogue, or mosque. That number was at 70% in 1999. Meanwhile, the number of Americans who express no religious affiliation is on the rise, “Over the past two decades, the percentage of Americans who do not identify with any religion has grown from 8% in 1998-2000 to 13% in 2008-2010 and 21% over the past three years.”
2. Why You Can’t Have Your Cake and Eat it in the Church: Stephen Kneale explains how a recent dust up at Buckingham Palace relates to the Christian life.
3. How the Bible Defines Anxiety: We are an anxious creatures. The Bible offers wisdom and hope for our anxiety. Cory Brock explains. “Anxiety is not mere concern. It is not the type of fear that helps us survive in a dangerous situation. It is not concern for the moment that we put our sixteen-year-old behind the wheel for the first time or for our sick child’s health. Rather, it is an ongoing, fearful restlessness wherein we imagine hypothetical circumstances of loss.”
4. No Bitter Root: Glenna Marshall’s article on bitterness made me pause to consider my own heart and the ways bitterness has grown up unawares. She reminds us that “bitterness doesn’t need my attention to grow.” You’ll appreciate her illuminating analogy.
5. I Met Messiah: A powerful (and funny) testimony of how Andrew Klavan met Jesus.
1. According to Research People With "Too Many Interests" Are More Likely to Be Successful: This is really interesting and runs against the prevailing wisdom, "The warning against being a generalist has persisted for hundreds of years in dozens of languages. 'Equipped with knives all over, yet none is sharp,' warn people in China. In Estonia, it goes, 'Nine trades, the tenth one — hunger.' If being a generalist is an ineffective career path, why do 10+ academic studies find a correlation between the number of interests/competencies someone develops and their creative impact?"
2. How to Move from Bitterness to Forgiveness: Roger Barrier responds to an important question that plagues so many. He begins his post with this advice, "Don’t minimize the hurts in your life. Mourn your hurts. Express them to a trusted friend or spouse and allow you to be comforted. Jesus died for those hurts. Talk honestly about them. Who has hurt you the most? With whom have you not reconciled? Who does the Holy Spirit bring to your mind when you think hurtful thoughts? Jesus said, "Blessed are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted."
3. What Does it Mean to Be Baptized in the Spirit? Clear and helpful post by Adriel Sanchez. He reflects, "Understandably, people typically focus on the miraculous signs that accompanied the Baptism of the Holy Spirit in Acts 2. In doing so they often miss the big picture the Bible gives us with regard to this significant event in the history of salvation. The Baptism of the Holy Spirit is not primarily about speaking in tongues but about the beginning of a new creation, the advancement of a new temple, the giving of a new law, and the commissioning of a new group of prophets."
4. How History's Revivals Teach us How to Pray: This is inspiring. Davis Thomas reflects on a very different sort of prayer than most of us are accustomed to, "I was confronted with how the Bible appears utterly unfamiliar with casual prayer, prayer of the mouth and not the heart. Travailing prayer—the kind of burdened, focused pressing my friends in the Hebrides described—seemed closer to the heart of prayer in Scripture. A stream of this manner of praying flows from the early church all the way through the Reformation."
5. The Best Weapon is an Open Door: Rosaria Butterfield on just how significant hospitality is. She concludes, "Perhaps our everyday lives would reveal that the hand of God reaches into the hardest situations imaginable and that nothing is impossible with God. Hospitality is the ground zero of the Christian life."
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