Firmly Planted

As unjust as Christ's particularly hideous death, that is the extent of our injustice against God.

What does it mean for us, and what does it say about God, when the rains don't come and the grass shrivels and dies? Is He enough, always?

I wonder how many answers we miss because they look like Relationship instead of taking the shape we expected: a husband or a child, a healing or a job, or deliverance from some temptation or relationship.

Are [our kids] an inconvenience? I know we would never say that, but if they knew the word and its meaning would they recognize it in our tone, schedule, and priorities?

Did you know you can drown in a sea of hope?

A challenge to pause in gratitude.

We are far too easily pleased.

I felt that one hard kernel of truth: God saves an entire nation from destruction, but He doesn't rescue Esther from her situation.

Why does it feel like God's not hearing us when our prayers aren't answered the way we'd like?

While it is a great mercy to experience the consequences of our sin, it is not enough to restore us. We must also confess. There is no grace or forgiveness in the shadows, in secrecy, in denial, or in private promises to do better.

The way through the waiting is in walking side by side with Christ; and the way back to His side is through praise.

Sometimes we mourn what was and should have been, and there is nothing in the now that makes it all ok.

Instead of preserving his character with distance, the angel asks Joseph to sully his name, tarnish his reputation and shoulder those assumptions alongside Mary.

The greatest miracle of that first Christmas is not that a virgin gave birth, or even that a deity would choose to dwell with us, but that he would choose to dwell AS us. 

Being full of thanks is a habit to be cultivated for every day, one which will naturally lead to expressing that thanks in giving.

We struggle to forgive because we compare the offender's sin to our own.

God doesn't give patience; He cultivates it.

I came to a point where the option of walking away from God, of living as though He did not exist, was on the table.

The more faithfully I turn my straying thoughts to Christ, the more I will look like Him.

We live as though God opened a bank account in our name when He brought us into the family and deposited a certain amount of forgiveness in it.