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Showing posts from June, 2018

My God Is Not a Super Hero

I really like literature and reading, and as such, series often appeal to me. I like to know the breadth and depth of a story, the whole complex mess. This year at school, I immersed my seniors in the idea of story and its heroes, beginning and ending with the idea that we create heroes because we live in a fallen world that only Christ can redeem.   As such, I have immersed myself in studying the heroes of literature and comparing them to the heroes this generation is creating through its favorite media forms—TV and movies. It was only natural that when Avengers: Infinity War by Marvel Comics debuted in the spring that my students would go see it and want to talk to me about it. However, at the time I was moving, so I told them to hold that thought until I could go see it. Well, yesterday I finally had a chance to go see it, and I have been stewing on it since. Warning: Plot Spoilers Ahead . . . My first reaction to the movie was to engage it on the level of enjoyment. I can e

The Kingdom of Heaven (Jn. 8; Matt. 5)

In the summer I blog often because I have much more time to type my thoughts about the way the Lord is working in me, but this year I’ve scribbled them down instead, going back to an old-fashioned journal. I had forgotten how rewarding that can be, but it is the reason for my extended silence this summer. I’ve pulled back and plugged in to where I need to be, God’s Word. After the business of moving and the end of the school year, it has been much needed. My husband has been preaching through the Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) for the past two months, and I am facilitating a ladies’ Bible study this summer about the same, so the intersections have been frequent up to this point, and the impact has been significant. However, today’s study took me beyond where he has preached into the territory of the scribes and the Pharisees. Part of my homework today was to define both the words scribe and a Pharisee , so I went to my go-to, Webster’s 1828 dictionary of the

But God . . . Change? (Romans)

Many have heard an epigram attributed to Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr but haven’t heard of this French teacher and writer of the 1800s. Until today, I would have to lump myself into the same category. The one I’m referring to is this: “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” His original epigram was “the more it changes, the more it's the same thing.” Hmmm. This is relevant yet hard to grasp. Much like life. Life is perpetually in motion. If it stops, you’re dead or decaying, yet many who claim to like change (clearing of the throat, me) will resist change that is unwanted or unsought. Life can feel like a constant changing sameness at times. I get older, gain weight, but everything still rolls on. My life this past year has been on the rollercoaster of change.  First, God called my husband (undeniably) to preach, a definite God thing. That itself required a change because with his call, I was called to minister alongside him. It was change that felt the same at th