Today where you live, religiosity slaughters Sabbath by the very way it tries to keep it. But when people desperate for rest leave the comfort of religious exhaustion and stumble toward God himself, Sabbath remains – and the Lord of Real Rest revives them.
Refusing to listen to different views robs us of the opportunity to learn, to grow, to “sharpen” one another, to love one another. So it’s important and wise to humble ourselves to listen to others. It’s also important and wise to seek discernment from God as we do.
If God wakes you up to lifelessness and powerlessness in people who identify themselves as his, time is of the essence. But what in the world do you do?
Abuse had begun to open my eyes to evils in my church culture. Then, God took me on a pilgrimage into the past, to show me what is happening now.
Most likely, none of us would choose brown and gray all year long. But if we don’t stop to appreciate what God has made beautiful in this time, we may get all our presents and miss all our moments.
Even in suffering, even in exile, may you find growing within you: A life energetic and blazing with holiness, conceived by God himself. Life healed and whole. Laughter and singing. Genuine faith proved genuine. Living hope. One-anothering love. A future that starts now.
Learning to dance with God means being vulnerable, flexible, brave, as he frees us from the paralysis of the religious and teaches us to move in sync with him.
"I let go of all I have just to have all of You." - A song that has encouraged me in the night, "Worth It All," Meredith Andrews
Psalm 46:10 says, "Be still, and know that I am God." But the Hebrew verb translated "be still" actually means: "Decisively let go, or abruptly cease, something strenuous you are doing." It urges me to let go of the tug-of-war rope called enmeshment, that robs me of identity and intimacy.
It's the best-loved verse in Jeremiah, and God says it to exiles. He announces to people who feel they have no future at all: "I know what I have planned for you. I have plans to prosper you, not to harm you. I have plans to give you a future filled with hope."