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God Trivia and Trivializing

June 11, 2013

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                                    June 11, 2013

 

Our family used to play “Trivial Pursuit”- the non-Biblical version. We tried to play “Biblical Pursuit” and came away feeling that we really didn’t know Jesus because we couldn’t answer the question “Where was Benaiah, the valiant fighter and son of Jehoiada, from?” Many of you immediately responded “Kabzeel.” It was an any question, I know, but we couldn’t come up with it.

Trivial Pursuit wasn’t much better. I thought I was the cat’s meow when it came to the “Sports and Leisure” category, and would end up getting something about “cricket.”

Trivial Pursuit, the pursuit of trivia, was popular for a number of years. My brother, an expert on meaningless trivia, was actually a panelist on a call-in radio show back in Lexington, Kentucky, for a couple of years.

There have been a number of books written that deal with Bible trivia. Just google “amazing Bible facts” and see what comes up.

The thing about trivia is that is fails to create intimacy. It’s interesting, and may even cause us to open our mouths in sheer unbelief, but trivia doesn’t bring us to know God even as we’re knowing about God.

Almost twenty years ago Don McCullough wrote a book entitled The Trivialization of God. One of the points that he makes is that there has been a tendency within the church to de-emphasize the God of the Bible- all powerful, all-knowing, holy and majestic- and create a God that is more comfortable for our lives. The holiness of God is hard to focus on because it has such tremendous implications for the life of the believer and the church.

McCullough’s point is that the church has steadfastly lost its influence because it has trivialized the holy things of God. He writes, “We prefer the illusion of a safer deity, and so we have pared God down to more manageable proportions. Our era has no exclusive claim to the trivialization of God. This has always been the temptation and the failure for the people of God. (The Trivialization Of God, page 14)

Trivia is safer than deep relationship. Holiness, however, is God’s gift to the church. The realization that God has called us to be a community of love that seeks to reflect his holy love…is life lived at a deeper level.

I may not know where Benaiah was from, but I do know a little bit about what God has called us to.

Categories: Christianity, Community, Faith, Freedom, Jesus, love, Pastor, Prayer, Story, The Church, Uncategorized
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“Two Year Old Praying”

June 10, 2013

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                                          June 10, 2013

 

“Two Year Old Praying”

 

My two year old granddaughter, Reagan, decided she would pray for our shared meal the other day. She started: “T’ank you, God, fo’ this food! And make Granddad stop eating food. Amen!”

My wife started laughing, and I immediately got a perplexed, shocked look on my face.

“Why did you pray that Granddad would stop eating food, Reagan?”

“Cause he was eating and we hadn’t prayed yet!”

Saying grace before dinner tends to be a bit legalistic for a two year old. Reagan would do well with the Old Testament sacrificial system of procedures and instructions.

“You can’t eat food if you haven’t prayed!”

I was sufficiently reprimanded.

A a few minutes later her brother, Jesse, bonked his head on the back of his chair and started whimpering. His sister reached over and laid her hand on his head like she was praying for healing.

“Were you praying for your brother?”

“Yes! I was praying fo’ him!”

We have a praying granddaughter! She prays for judgment on her grandfather and healing on her brother. I think when I was a kid I reversed those.

And where does her tendency to pray come from? It comes from being a part of a family that prays- prays at mealtime, prays at bedtime, prays in church, prays whenever the situation warrants it, prays just because.

Prayer gets rooted into a kid’s life early on. Yes, prayer for a child becomes an action that reflects what is being practiced in the faith walks of the parents…and even grandparents and teachers…and aunts and uncles.

Just as Reagan caught me sneaking a bite of pizza she already catches on to what is being practiced in the lives of those around her.

Now…I have to be sure she doesn’t catch me sneaking ice cream before dinner! Surely it would bring down the wrath of God!

Categories: children, Christianity, Community, Faith, Grace, Humor, Jesus, Parenting, Pastor, Prayer, Story, The Church, Uncategorized
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Lord, Give Me Rest!

June 10, 2013

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                                   June 9, 2013

 

Resting is something that not many of us do well. We live at such a hyper-pace that resting seems weird. It seems…useless!

For example, I hear so many commercials for a drink called “Five Hour Energy”. The essence of the commercials seem to be about a man who has trouble waking up in the morning, or runs low on energy in the afternoon, and he drinks a 1.93 ounce bottle of Five Hour Energy. Rest is chased away.

It could be just if you are tired…you just might need to rest!

Starbucks has made a mint off of people who can’t rest.

God knew what he was doing when he called for a Sabbath rest. He knew what he was doing when he commanded his people to observe a “Sabbath Year” (Leviticus 25:1-7) to give the fields and vineyards a year of rest.

When we don’t rest we’re prone to error- error in judgment, error in actions, error in the things we say and the temptations we’re vulnerable to fall to. And our lives are so hectic that even when we do slow down we have a hard time resting. Three or four years ago I took a one month study leave. I found that it took me the first two weeks to get out of work mode in order to slow down to meditate, pray, and study. As I sat on a couch reading my mind kept thinking of things that suddenly seemed urgent…like checking to make sure all the windows were closed and whether the oven got turned off. I had a very difficult time just slowing down.

Oddly enough, one of the reasons I’m trying to write a blog post each day for thirty days is because it makes me sit down and focus.

This week take a walk that has no purpose to it except walking and praying.

Sit down in your living room and leave the remote control where it is. Don’t touch it. Just sit for a few minutes.

Sit on your front porch, or back deck, or even in the front yard and just watch and listen.

Take the Bible and read one of the psalms…and then read it again…and then read it again. Slowly, meditatively, allowing God to make certain words stand out.

Go to bed early and read a book. Not a murder mystery, but a biography or something like Lake Wobegon Days.

Eat dinner at a snail’s pace. Make sure there is a couple of nights this week where the calendar is free in the evening, and eat a slow dinner together with your family.

It’s Sunday evening and I’m ready for bed at 7:11. It’s been a work-filled day. My Sabbath usually comes on Monday.

Lord, give me some rest…and let my weary body be renewed.

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The Far Side of Church

June 8, 2013

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                                     June 8, 2013

 

“The Far Side of Church”

 

I love laughter, and I love “The Far Side” comic strip. It was a sad day when Gary Larson stopped doing “The Far Side.” Thankfully, my brother had given me “The Far Side Calendar” every year for Christmas for five or six years. When I get depressed or frustrated I take a look at a few of the calendar pages.

I wish I could blame my warped sense of humor on “The Far Side”, but that would be a lie. It was in my genes long before I started looking at funny-faced kids and adults wearing spectacles. And, as a result of that, I think of situations that might occur in church that I think would be funny. Others might not think they are even worth a giggle, but I’m ready to explode.

Like the Sunday several years ago when I asked a dear elderly lady named Pauline Jones to light the advent candle and I gave her a book of matches that had no matches in it. To further the humor I then gave her a second book of matches…that was also matchless!

I think of church pranks, like when I spoke at Ascension Lutheran Church down the street from us on pulpit exchange Sunday and they gave me a bulletin that had the pages mixed up. Page three ended with us singing “Crown Him With Many Crowns”, and then page four…in my bulletin had the second verse of “Spirit of the Living God.”

I can imagine a Far Side entitled “Deacon Pranks” with a picture of a deacon putting Super Glue on the bottom lip of a communion plate, or substituting prune juice for grape juice.

I can picture a wolf dressed up in a suit, wearing a wig and glasses, sitting in church,with the caption underneath “Being a life-long independent Baptist wolf, Peter felt justified in stealing sheep from other flocks.”

I can imagine a baptistry with sharks swimming around a circle within it, and the pastor saying to the fearful-looking teenager “As Paul tells us in Romans …all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death.”

In other words, church needs to encourage finding the lighter side of things.

“Ricky, the sound booth humorist, was known to turn off the pastor’s mic in the middle of the sermon and start playing a Richard Pryor tape.”

There’s a time to be serious. There’s a time to share hope and peace. And there’s a time to laugh.

“Ted didn’t see the humor in it. The one Sunday he fell alseep in church, the congregation had exited quietly and placed empty clothing on the pews with a sign, ‘Raptured! Sorry you couldn’t come.’”

Solomon wrote that there was “…a time to weep and a time to laugh” (Ecclesiastes 3:4a).

Look for the humor in church. I believe that it is one step along the journey to experiencing joy.

Categories: Christianity, Community, Freedom, Grace, Humor, Jesus, Pastor, Story, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
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It’s Friday, And Sunday Is Coming…Again Already!

June 7, 2013

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                                          June 7, 2013

 

“It’s Friday, And Sunday Is Coming…Again Already!”

 

Some people think I’m suspect because I don’t cuss…but I do say “Crap!”

Some people think I’m half a bubble off center because I have a personal “blankie” that I sleep with, and its name is not Carol. Its name is…Blankie! Carol has her personal electric blanket. Its name is not Bill!

And some people think my salvation is suspect because, for one, I preach from a manuscript, and, two, there are some Sundays that are a real struggle to give a word from the Lord. Ask any pastor who is trustworthy and they will tell you that. There are times where the message is about as easy as a root canal. The preparing of it is like being in rush hour traffic where there is no rhythm…stop and go…accelerate and brake.

Years ago Tony Campolo gave a message that he borrowed from an African-American Baptist pastor, entitled “It’s Friday, But Sunday’s Coming!”

Classic! Awesome!

For most pastors there are times, however, when the scream is “It’s Friday, and Sunday is coming again already!”

So soon? Last Sunday might have lifted the roof, but then it’s on to the next Sunday. Pastors are like catchers in baseball. The starting pitchers only appear every fifth game. The third baseman fields four or five grounders or line drives the whole game. But the catcher is in every play. He makes a great stop on a wild pitch, but then it’s on to the next pitch. Catchers don’t take pitches off.

Pastors don’t take Sundays off!

Yes, I know we really do. It’s called vacation, and yet how many times have I heard the joke, “Vacation? You only work one hour one day a week.”

Although said in a teasing way, a lot of people wonder what pastors do between Sunday noon and the next Sunday at 10 A.M. That sense of Baptist guilt stays with me, and so I find myself preaching eight to twelve straight Sundays before I take a Sunday off.

In the Book of Jeremiah (Jeremiah 23) there is a condemning statement made by the Lord towards the false prophets of Jeremiah’s time. A number of them were making claims, or speaking oracles and claiming that they were from God…and God said “No way! That’s not of me!” In Jeremiah 23:34 the Lord says, “I will punish that man and his household!”

Can you envision my Adam’s apple (“laryngeal prominence” for the smarter folk) rising and falling

six inches as I gulp deeply?

So, it’s Friday and Sunday is coming again and the folk who show up at 10:00 for worship are expecting a word from the Lord…and I’m saying to the Lord “Can I get a word? It can be short. It can even be Greek! It can even be in the old King James! Lord, just give me something!”

A fresh word, a new word.

Perhaps you think that this is just some affliction that pastors deal with.

No, it is something any follower of Jesus deals with. Some people want a word, but they’re too busy to hear it. A cell phone in one ear and Coldplay rocking it through the ear bud in their other ear. Or some people want a word in a take-out container, quick and easy. Those are two extreme situations connected to our hyper lifestyles.

But many of us who seek to touch the fringe of Jesus’ robe find ourselves from time to time grasping and missing. We deal with moments of indecision as to what direction God went in.

We want a fresh word, but we’re having a hard time forgiving the jerk who cut us off driving to church. We want a word from the Lord, and yet we’re not ready for the next step that word will take us to.

It’s Friday, and for many of us we long for Sunday, a new beginning…a fresh start. And for others, “Sunday” is an approaching time of uncertainty that we hope…we hope…is fresh wind and new wine!

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Persevering Past The Buffet

June 6, 2013

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                                             June 6, 2013

When I first moved to Colorado Springs I was taken back by all the Chinese buffet restaurants. Our family didn’t eat Chinese food in my growing up years. It was too weird for Eastern Kentuckians…didn’t mix well with our grits and Cracklin’ Cornbread. Lo Mein noodles wiggled too much. Fried potatoes were easier to spear.

Coming to Colorado Springs, however, I discovered Chinese food in abundance. You could eat all that you wanted…and then feel like death warmed over for the rest of the day. I started putting on some pounds. And the thing is, most Chinese buffets offer not just rice and noodles, but also whole food rows of fried foods. I was raised with the mentality that if you could eat it we could fry it.

Fried chicken wings, fried shrimp, deep-fried egg rolls and crab rangoon, fried fish, spring rolls! I pigged out, plain and simple!

And then at my annual physical my physician (who happens to be tall, slim, and Episcopalian) told me to knock it off. My cholesterol level had risen as dramatically fuel prices.

I haven’t been to a Chinese buffet in probably six years, but even writing about it makes me consider the possibility…for you, right now.

James wrote these words in his New Testament book: “…You know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” (James 1:3-4)

Those last three words seem out of place.

“Not lacking anything.”

It would seem that the decline in the number of chicken wings I’ve been consuming would indicate that I AM lacking something.

That goes with American consumer mentality, that if I don’t have it I must be lacking it. We seldom think that not having something could possibly lead us towards fuller lives.

My youngest daughter, who scheduled her life around reality TV shows got rid of cable TV. Moving to Albuquerque and starting a new job where she pays all of her bills opened her eyes to where her money was going. Suddenly the young lady who watched every episode of Say Yes To the Dress went cold turkey…and she has survived. In essence, she gave up something in order to experience not lacking anything.

It is an easy concept to think about, but hard to live by. Persevering in whatever we do isn’t easy. Some weeks we need to persevere in our jobs. Other times we need to persevere in the parenting of our children. Each one of us comes to quitting points in the areas of our life that tax us the most. Every week I pastor has quitting points in it. I realize that some day I’ll be called to step aside and let the journey of my church continue. When that time comes it will not be because I hit a quitting point that I have no desire to persevere through. It will be because it is time, God’s time, the journey has been completed.

Persevering is something not many of us are good at. Our culture tells us that it is all about us…more specifically, all about me…and if there is anything left, it can be all about you. If you don’t believe me just go for a drive on a busy street, do the speed limit, and see how many people get frustrated driving behind you.

Whatever it is that you may be battling, stay strong, pray long, and let your life resemble an ever-evolving new song.

And yes, I know I just did a rhyme!

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Mixed Nuts and Other God Events

June 5, 2013

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                                  June 5, 2013

 

I used to be a separatist. The peas never touched the carrots on my dinner plate. Although the salad was tossed in to a heap of disarray it was kept in a separate bowl barely in the same zip code as the baked chicken. Gravy was allowed on the potatoes, but only if they were mashed!

And then I discovered mixed nuts- cashews in the same can with filberts, walnuts chumming up with almonds, Brazils cross-culturing with Macadamians. I found out that nuts of different shapes and sizes could be tasty together. This only came after a childhood of salted peanuts. Pecans were something that Georgians had. Our family kept to the basics. If I would have seen a Barzil nut back in those days I would have kept my distance.

Now, decades later, one of the simple pleasures of life is to throw a handful of mixed nuts into my mouth and chew. I feel a little cheated that I didn’t get to indulge earlier in my years.

At a recent meeting of our neighborhood pastors (Lutheran, Presbyterian, Mennonite, United Methodist, Evangelical Covenant, and American Baptist), the idea was thrown around about folks from our different congregations gathering together for conversations on faith questions.

Radical!

The peas were touching the carrots!

Call us radical, but the idea excited us. For most of our weeks we’re in separate “cans”, protected by the “wanna-bes”, and now the possibility of talking with people of other congregations about things of faith was rising to the surface. In the past most of the time that has happened has been because a para-church organization has been having a fund-raising dinner and we rub elbows with the Nazarenes, Episcopalians, and Catholics because we were assigned to the same table.

What might an American Baptist learn from a Mennonite about living out faith? Is the gospel the same for a Presbyterian as it is for a Lutheran? How does the proclamation of Christ happen in different denominations?

So often we have been content to stay in the same can with all the other “nuts” that look like us. Our understanding of scripture is challenged infrequently because we’ve been conditioned to be like one another. “Body life” is important for a congregation, but sometimes we become “body dead” as a result of stagnation. Evangelicals become suspicion of liberals. Pentecostals are leery of liturgists. Caucasian Protestants are nervous about Hispanic Charismatics.

It seems safer to stay in our own comfort zone, where we have a better handle on what is going to happen…so we do!

Over the past seven or eight years our neighborhood churches have gotten to know each other in  several ways. The pastors exchange pulpits one Sunday each January. The congregations have loved it, and then we get back to our own “can” again. We’ve teamed together in serving the neighbors in our community two Saturdays each year. This fall we are going to have a recreational volleyball league in our gym, where a devout Mennonite can give a Baptist “a peace of this” in a holy-moly spike.

As pastors, however, we want to take our congregations to the next level of discovering that we’re not that much different from one another, and that we do not serve multiple Jesus’s.

When we can talk about out faith it may bring each one of us to a new understanding as to how to live out our faith.

Pass the pistachios, Merv!

Categories: Christianity, Community, Faith, Freedom, Grace, Humor, Jesus, Pastor, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized
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Getting Too Cozy With God

June 4, 2013

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                                      June 4, 2013

Working on the staff of Young Life when I was in seminary, and then also being the Youth Minister at a couple of churches, I was trained to “earn the right to be heard’ by the students I worked with. Youth ministry was, and still is, very relational. A young guy struggling with questions about faith needs to know that there is someone he can meet at Starbucks for a chai latte and conversational counseling.

I confess! In those days there was a need to look cool and be cool. It was a part of earning the right to converse about God. Now in my final year of the fifties “cool” is a term I only use to indicate the last of heat in the house. We have more blankets folded and ready on our couch than Bed, bath, and Beyond has in the entire store. “Overheated” for our household now refers to laying on top of the electric blanket.

It seems that the emphasis with most evangelicals, myself included, is on having a personal relationship with our heavenly father who has his son be crucified on the cross out of love for us.

There is nothing incorrect about that. It’s scripturally right on. John 3:16 makes that intimately clear. The struggle is that we so often make the mystery of the holy absent from our faith. We like to snuggle up with God, like a comforter blanket. God-cozy is more to our liking than divine mystery.

One of my friends recently said that the only place we see veils anymore is on Arab women to hide their faces, and on surgeons to protect them from our germs. Veils hide, and we are people who are used to the Freedom of Information Act. We are accustomed to full disclosure.

Scripture includes a number of verses that tell us about the mystery being revealed…and the mystery that is. Paul talked about “the mystery made known to me by revelation” (Ephesians 3:3) and “the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the saints.” (Colossians 1:26)

But he also talked about the mystery of Christ (Ephesians 3:4, Colossians 4:3)!

The contrast of the gospel is that we can now approach the throne of grace with confidence (Hebrews 4:16), but the will not ever in this lifetime understand the ways of God. Revelation is partnered with mystery. The veil was torn away from the Holy of Holies, and yet are eyes do not fully see the moving of God.

And we shouldn’t! Mystery is what keeps drama in the story. If life was void of mystery our little ones would no longer ask the question “why?” Why questions lead them along the path of discovery.

Why do we have two ears and one nose?

I don’t know. Perhaps it has something to do with Mr. Potato Head. He would look weird with two noses and only one ear.

Why are some people scared of spiders?

Because they are…including me.

Why do women put make-up on, but men just put on deodorant?

Because men are in a hurry in the morning, and women…never mind, don’t tell Mommy I said anything about that!

Why does bacon taste so good?

Ahhhh….

The longer I walk with God the more comfortable I am with the Mystery. I also have a sense of peace knowing that I am always able to cry out to him, and he will embrace me. Perhaps that’s “cozy’, but I see it as evidence of the God who comes near.

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When a Follower of Jesus Doesn’t Seem To Be Following

June 3, 2013

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                                          June 3, 2013

One of the toughest things for a Christ-follower to struggle with is when someone he knows well…someone who has been a follower of Christ, comes to a time when he doesn’t seem to be following anymore.

It is quite convenient at that point for the committed follower to hold to the belief that someone can lose their salvation. It’s the easy way out. He’s in, now he’s out. He’s saved, now he’s not saved. There’s a bad odor present in that. It smells of judging someone’s spiritual condition on the basis of their actions and attitude.

Granted that the Bible talks about faith and actions, but I’ve witnessed a number of followers who can speak the Godly language, quote scripture like an attorney quotes the legal code, testify to God’s provision…and then hold to racist beliefs or a coldheartedness towards the poor.

I believe it is much more difficult, but scriptural, to hold to a faith that is immersed in grace. Grace doesn’t race to condemnation, but rather stays the course with the follower who has seemed to adopt an attitude of apathy.

So what does a Christ-follower do?

It begins with prayer. Cry out to God! Prayer is the seeking of divine intervention and interaction. Sometimes we fall victim to the idea that we have to fix someone. We strategize and come up with a three step plan. Prayer becomes an addendum to the plan.

Prayer is surrendering the person and our thoughts to the Lord. Perhaps God has someone else who will step into the gap…and it isn’t you.

A second step is having dialogue with the person to discover what it is that he believes. What does he believe about faith, how God interacts with us, and his purpose for this life? There’s a lot of weird stuff out there. Most of us have “customized faiths” that we’ve formed around us that best suit our lives. I may have strong beliefs about being stewards of the environment because I do a lot of hiking and backpacking, but doubt that God desires intimacy with me because I’m not comfortable with a faith that involves my emotions. Each one of us, whether we know it or not, has shaped our faith to embrace what we don’t struggle with.

To dialogue with someone who seems to be more interested in NASCAR than he is in having a God thing happen may reveal things that can be slowly pursued. (I want you to notice that I used NASCAR as the example because I have no interest in it. I can not say the same at certain times about Michigan State basketball, fried scallops, and Sunday afternoon naps.)

A third step is guiding conversations with the person about the faith journey. Instead of asking a lot of questions that begin with the words “Why don’t you…” start conversations, or at least the thinking about, with words like “Did you ever think about…” or “Has God seemed to be quiet lately?” or “Do you ever wonder if God is really interested in us?”

Our well-founded concern for the person sometimes causes us to chase him towards the throne of grace, or “guilt him” towards God. Guilt works well in getting out kids to eat their cooked spinach, but does very little good in having someone rediscover the intimacy of God.

Finally, we must stay the course. We see the immediate, but God sees over the next hill. Perseverance is as much a part of running our own race as it is a part of walking alongside someone who is on a different pace. Remember, there are plenty of people who abandon, but few who are willing to stay the course with the person.

Pray long. Be grace. Stay the course.

 

Categories: Christianity, Community, Faith, Freedom, Grace, Jesus, love, Pastor, Prayer, Story, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
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Spiritually Suspicious

June 3, 2013

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                                    June 2, 2013

 

There is something about our mindset that is strange. We often long for, and pray for, the touch of God upon our lives in such powerful ways, and yet when someone proclaims that he has experienced a powerful encounter with the Lord we are, more often than not, suspicious.

Perhaps it is because we aren’t quite sure God would present himself in such a way.

Or it could be that we are a bit jealous that someone else gets to experience the hand of God instead of us. Kind of like getting new underwear for Christmas while our sibling gets new Legos. Who would be happy about that?

Or perhaps it is because we’ve gotten burned for believing that such things happen too many times. Someone tells us how God has appeared to him, and then we find out a while later that it was all a hoax. We wanted to believe. Believing is risking, but like the boy who cried “Wolf!”, too many false alarms has left us leery of trusting in the real holy moment.

Let’s be honest! Sometimes people use our tendency to be gullible towards spiritual matters to pull the wool over our eyes.

The tragedy is that God still is working, and moving, and healing. He is still the God of the burning bush and closed lions’ mouths.

Facebook and Youtube have made us instant celebrities, but also immediately doubtful. As our culture becomes less familiar with the Bible it becomes prone more to being swayed by the spectacular. What if God, however chooses to be in the calm, the gentle whisper? At that point do we become visually-impaired to his hand?

I’ve witnessed a person be overwhelmed by the singing of a praise song. God was doing something in her life. I’ve also experienced the moving of God in the midst of a conversation with one other person. But I’ve also felt the uneasiness over the sharing of what was perceived as being a great moving of the Spirit.

It is confusing.

When talking to the Corinthian church about their worship issues, Paul said something that applies to this spiritual suspicion we feel. He writes, “When we worship the right way, God doesn’t stir us up into confusion; he brings us into harmony. This goes for all the churches- no exceptions.” (1 Corinthians 14:35, The Message)

If it is confusing, perhaps it needs further inspection, further contemplation and prayer. God is not a God of confusion, but he is the God of people who are quite often confused.

Categories: Christianity, Community, Faith, Freedom, Holy Spirit, Jesus, Pastor, Prayer, Story, The Church, Uncategorized
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