The not-will of God can be a hard reality to accept, even harder to live out; yet ultimately, the fact that God’s will is beyond our individual preferences or desires is a good thing. God’s vision for our lives is not based on our prowess or ability.
Loving My Worst Enemy
Jesus calls us to love our enemies, but frankly, I don’t want to. My enemy is my enemy for a reason. Either the individual has hurt me in some way, insulted me and put me down, or they represent a course of action to which I am diametrically opposed. I don’t want to love my enemy; I want to put them in their place. I want to ridicule them and reject them. I want them to experience the hurt and discouragement they have brought into my life.
When Faith Gets Messy: A guest post by Sarahbeth Caplin
Slowly but surely, a new foundation of certainty grew. Once I was certain that our God is in fact a good God, and someone who could be trusted, other things fell back into place. I can’t say I understand everything, but that which confuses me are the things I promise to wrestle with.
Alive and Loved
Bobby Flay’s cat has more Instagram followers than I do. This fact plays havoc on my self-esteem. As someone who battles the constant torment of comparison, the fact that a celebrity feline makes a bigger splash in people’s lives speaks only to my own self-judgement; I can’t help but condemn myself.
Unringing the Bell of Condemnation
I once sat with an elderly gentleman who told me that whenever he would step out of line, his father would wag his finger and declare “God will get you for that.” He heard this phrase so often that it stuck with him, becoming the very basis of his picture of God. Despite his years in the church, the countless sermons he listened to, and the hours spent in prayer and ministry, he couldn’t unhear a message of condemnation. It was like a bell that could not be un-rung.
No Worries: A guest post by Matt Brough
Are you worried about something? Go and pray. Give everything over to God. Let it all go. Trust God enough to give God everything. That takes a lot of trust. Whatever it is in your life right now, give it to God and actually trust God with it. Don’t let it be yours anymore. Pray that prayer.
Forgiven (even when I don’t feel it)
Every week we put out the garbage. We take the orange peels, the plastic wraps, the used yogurt containers, and place them in the bin outside the house. We remove the refuse from our lives. It might not be an enjoyable process to go through it, but it’s necessary. I don’t know about you, but I have yet to bring the garbage from the outside bin back into the house. I have never wanted to be re-surrounded by my old garbage. It just doesn’t happen. Why then do we do this with our spiritual lives?
The Danger of Self Rejection
Have you ever felt that way? Have you ever felt that God blesses everyone else but you? Have you ever felt that, despite your best efforts, you can never climb the spiritual heights needed to “earn” your place in God’s good graces? Henri Nouwen once wrote that the greatest danger to our spiritual lives is our self-rejection.
Believing You’re Beloved – A Guest Post by Molly LaCroix.
Molly LaCroix writes: The (often young) wounded parts of you are the ones who believe things like, “I’m unlovable,” or “I’m not good enough.” They think it’s their fault bad things happened, that they are defective. Until their wounds heal, you will struggle with fully accepting God’s gracious, unconditional love.
Silencing the “shoulds”
We can live our spiritual lives under a spirit of duty and demand. Our spiritual practices become burdens we must undergo, activities to begrudgingly plod through. When we live this way, our spirituality feels lifeless, and we can’t help but feel condemned. No matter how hard we try, we rarely perform our practices a perfectly as we would like, or as we believe they should be performed.
Reverend Kyle Norman 