Posts from July 2019
The Beauty of a Little Life
“Do we value little lives? Do we see them as beautiful? Perhaps not. It’s easy to find someone preaching to follow your dreams, to aim for the stars, to become somebody. It’s even easy to baptize the fear of obscurity with Christian lingo, so that the measure of a life’s worth becomes how “radical” it is. What’s not easy is to hear a little life, given to a little family in a little town, held up as desirable. So much…
The Five Things You Want Your Church to Be
“Let’s say there are five things you really want in a local church. Through reading good books and listening to helpful podcasts, you’ve drawn up a list of key qualities. You want deeply biblical expositional preaching, passionate zeal for evangelism, close-knit and sacrificially-minded small groups, worship that is both physically expressive and grounded in truth, and a congregation that displays all the diversity of the neighbourhood around. Those are good and noble desires. But this is the real world. So…
A Tree Between Two Mountains
“We must not fall into the trap of only seeing God on the mountain tops of life; falsely believing that if we soak enough of Him in in those moments it will sustain us until the next peak. God is in the valley also. God is in the dry and barren places. God meets us in the shadow of the Broom tree. There, as he does in all places, God sustains us with what is needed for the journey ahead.”…
Gospel Generosity
Have you ever been to a restaurant where the food is exquisite but there is almost none of it on the plate? The meal arrives and there is a lot of white plate, an elegant arrangement, the finest cuisine, but it is disappointingly small. Personally, I prefer a meal that is little less exotic and a whole lot more generous. I love it when the food is not only good but plentiful. A similar difference can be seen among people.…
But God Makes No Mistakes
“Nothing in this world is haphazard. There is nothing random or unplanned about the circumstances you are in right now, even if those circumstances seem very hard. Rather, God is leading you by the way he deems most appropriate, the way he has determined is most fitting for your spiritual growth. Just as one tree grows best in a sheltered valley and one by the edge of a gentle stream, another grows best on a bleak mountaintop where it is…