Rethinking Christian Life

Know God Know Myself – Day one of Lent Devotions

Welcome to Day one of my 40 days of Lent devotions. If you are interested in what Lent is all about check it out here. Have you ever stood next to a seven-foot tall basketball player? Or just a very tall person? If you are that very tall person, have you ever stood next to…
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Lent for Protestants who Don’t “Do Lent”

Growing up I didn’t understand Lent… A friend or two would mention giving up something for Lent. Then there was eating fish on Friday and I was completely lost. How does “giving something up for Lent” and eating fish on Friday get you closer to God? But God is the God of seasons and festivals.…
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How to Endure Under the Pressure of the Mundane

For far too long I have allowed my inner editor to silence my writing. “I have nothing to say,” I would tell myself. Besides if you can’t keep your house clean, what right do you have to write words? My inner diatribe would chide. So I’ve been silenced under the pressure of the mundane… …under the…
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How to Praise God When Storms Rage

How to Praise God When Storms Rage

“I will praise You in this storm…” I’ve made that choice many times. I have stood at the edge of the storm and decided that “I will praise God even here.” But the will and the follow-through do not always go hand-in-hand. Paul said it best, “For I do not understand my own actions. For I…
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Joy, Trust, and Labor

Trust, Joy, and Labor

If joy is found in trust… Trusting God has a good plan. Trusting His justice. Trusting God cares. …then do we just wallow in the status quo? Do we simply say “this is how God made me and so I trust His plan, His justice, and that He cares. So I don’t have to do…
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Finding Joy when it isn't fair

Finding Joy When it is Unfair

looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Hebrews 12:2 ESV Last night my favorite basketball team, the Kansas Jayhawks, beat their in-state rivals, the Kansas…
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Finding Joy in Grief

Finding Joy in Grief

And do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength. Nehemiah 8:10b ESV Grief can rub a soul so raw that the soothing balm joy feels like it acid. And it can taint a mind so that it only sees pain, heartache, curses. But joy of the Lord is strength. Not the only…
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When God Doesn’t Fix Your Problem

My friend Lindsey Bell is sharing her heart and part of her new book Unbeaten over here today. I pray her words touch your hearts and encourage you today. When God Doesn’t Fix Your Problem By Lindsey Bell What if God doesn’t fix your problem?
 Of course, I hope He does. I hope He heals your…
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Kicking Against the Goads

“And when we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew language, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.'” Acts 26:14 (ESV) def goad: a spiked stick used for driving cattle. There are times in my life that…
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How to Breathe When Hope Hurts

“Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.” Proverbs 13:12 (ESV) Sometimes hope burns and scars a weary soul like acid. I knew God was able, but He wasn’t doing what He was able to do for me. For every wonderful God praising miracle there are many who…
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Obedience, Running, and Calling

“So don’t throw away your confidence, which has great reward. For you need endurance, so that after you have done God’s will, you may receive what was promised…But we are not those who draw back and are destroyed, but those who have faith and are saved.”     Hebrews 10:35-36 and 39 CSB I’ve been silent for…
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A Season of Silence: Experiencing God’s Peace

“Silence is the perfectest herald of joy: I were but little happy, if I could say how much.” -William Shakespeare Much Ado About Nothing Words have been hard for me lately. Silence is easier. I wasn’t so full of joy I could not share like Claudio in the above quote. The big emotions – all of…
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The Hope that Does Not Disappoint

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces…
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Sovereignty: Three Ways to Trust God When Failure Looms

Last week I watched Clemson trounce Alabama in the NCAA’s Football National Championship game. Clemson was up 31-16 at halftime and never looked back. After a botched fake field goal at the beginning of the third quarter Alabama’s loss seemed imminent. Failure, at least in that game, was coming. Still Alabama did not walk off…
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The New, the Not Yet, and the Gone: How to Live Fully When Now is a Struggle

“The struggle is real,” is our snide mantra over laughable “struggles” like not having coffee in the morning. But real struggles do exist. Depression turns just getting out of bed into a war. The struggle for parents to love, guide, discipline, and direct children who want their own way. The battle to overcome addiction. Physical…
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Newly Broken: How to Live Fulfilled

2018. A year of breaking. God broke my comfortable world. He called me to teach high school seniors (a leadership class), enroll my kids in the school where I work, and step back into nursing by becoming a school nurse. Nothing felt comfortable. Nothing normal. In the midst of all the change my brokenness became…
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Hope and Character: How to Find Lasting Hope

Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope… Romans 5:3-4 ESV Character produces hope… I always thought imagination produced hope. Imagination that figures out a way through a difficult situation. Or an imagination that dreams big dreams. But God tells us character…
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The Day After: How Hope Changes Everything

But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake…
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Depression: How to Explain It to Others

The Lord is near to the brokenhearted     and saves the crushed in spirit. Psalm 34:18 ESV Looking back I can see it plainly. I was depressed and desperately clinging to my faith. No one from the outside could see it. They knew I injured my foot. They knew my house had to have all the…
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New Beginnings: Grace, Growth, and Gratitude

Behold, I am doing a new thing;     now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness     and rivers in the desert. Isaiah 43:19 ESV God is in the business of doing new things in our lives. Why? For our good and His glory. So that this world…
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