Born to be Free

“ Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters ; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price .  Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy ? Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food.  Incline your ear, and  come to me; hear, that your soul may live ; and I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David ." (Isaiah 55:1-3) This passage has kept me up at night lately. There are some days, some times when it seems like you live in the flood-zone.  Time and trouble are rushing, always rushing by and you feel helpless.  You try to be strong.  You try to hold yourself and the people you love together because you feel like that's the only option.  The only way the world can go on is if you carry it on your back. So it seems. I ...

Jesus was followed by crowds during much of His ministry.  Those who accompanied Him were seeking many different things. Some sought healing from disease, some wished for advice from a "good teacher", and others sought the sort of Messiah who would liberate them from Roman oppression. Jesus on the other hand wanted people to see Him for Who He was - the Son of God.  And to follow the Son, there was a risk.  So Jesus told them exactly that. “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life,  he cannot be my disciple .   Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple .  For  which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost , whether he has enough to complete it?  Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This ma...

A few days ago, I returned home from my last national tournament as a Bible quizzer.  In the days following, there has been one thought that is yet to leave my mind - "There are no ordinary people.  You have never talked to a mere mortal..." (C. S. Lewis) Lewis goes on to say "... Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors..." I met a lot of people this past week at this event, many different types.  Some of them I've known for a while, while others I had met a few months prior and I knew I would see them again next season.  But sadly there were also several others I met this weekend that I know I may never see again. It's strange to try and explain how you can feel so connected to people after only knowing them for a few days.  It would be even harder to explain it to non-C...

During some of the hardest parts of last year, there was one phrase God told me more than others. "You forget Who I am." When I've been on my knees in my closet, scrawling God's promises to me out on the walls, that phrase soon joined them. In the midst of my everyday, in the middle of any crisis we face - We end up forgetting Who He is. Isn't it strange?  How we can develop this soul-amnesia, lose sight of all that He's gotten us through? Remembering the past and passing down stories of their ancestors was very important to the people of Israel.  There were accounts delivered from generation to generation by word of mouth.  There were feasts, festivals, sabbaths, fasts and even certain years in their entirety set apart as a time for the people to gather, rest and  remember.   Remember the faithfulness of their God - how He had delivered them, brought them to the place they called home, gave them victory over powerful armies - and would soon send ...

I've been thinking over Ezekiel 37 a lot lately.  Ezekiel was a priest called to be God's prophet during the Babylonian captivity.  In chapter 37, we see God's power demonstrated in His ability to raise up His people in a new spiritual birth. "The hand of the Lord was upon me, and he brought me out in the Spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of the valley; it was full of bones.  And he led me around among them, and behold, there were very many on the surface of the valley, and behold, they were very dry.  And he said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” And I answered, “O Lord God, you know.”  Then he said to me, “Prophesy over these bones, and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.  Thus says the Lord God to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live.  And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall l...

As people with beautiful souls in a broken world, we've become well acquainted with many kinds of fear. There's the fear of failing that test; not finding a job; never feeling better; never finding out where we fit in all of this. It will manifest itself in a variety of ways.  It might be the worry that makes all your days seem unbearably long yet agonizingly too short - the kind that is the source of your gray hair.  Fear could be what drives you to tears and panic as you're held a captive to your own mind. Fear isn't make-believe.  You can't tell someone they can't be sad because others have it worse any more than you can say they can't be happy because others have it better.  Sometimes it takes a re-working of the schedule, a weeding out of stress.  Other times it requires a re-working of both mind and spirit, a tearing down of the Devil's strongholds. But do you know what else? Fear is a lie.   Whole multitudes of shrieking fal...

Yesterday, my little sister fell asleep on my lap, and it hit me - how much I'm going to miss these days. People live in different mindsets, some are great at focusing on the subject at hand.  I'm not one of those people. When I was little, all I could ever think of was growing up, seeing the world - and I suspect that many people have done the same.  My nine-year-old self wanted to be an Egyptologist and solve the ancient mysteries of the pharaohs.  I wanted to do great things with my life, and frankly I've never lost that thought - to dare greatly. Fast-forward to the teen years, when people begin the great and treacherous journey to discover who they are and where they belong in the world.  We're a people looking forward to when we'll know more, but still looking back and wishing things were like they used to be. When I was sixteen, I began Bible Quizzing - something that God used to rock my world and turn my life upside down in the best of ways.  No...