Category: Speaking to the Soul

Sometimes, keeping faith can seem like hard work

“So if we are to use the Marie Kondo criteria, we would have to throw out probably most of the Old Testament or a good chunk of the Old Testament and a good bit of the epistles to get it down to 30 books.”

“Every journey starts with a single step and every project (learning skills included) goes faster if you start.”

“Here we are, God’s people. Now what? We are the inheritors of the upside down understanding that is Christ’s message to the world. We have seen something that has changed the human heart forever.”

“Rest feels so countercultural when everything else seems to tell us to get more and do more and be more. Our schedules fill up in the blink of an eye and vacations get pushed off to someday.”

“These are the bonds of a parent to a child, between a bride and a bridegroom, of lifetime friends. These are the bonds which bind us as the Body today. And they all hang on Jesus’ death so that he can rise in eternal life, ascend to his Father and complete his task in creating a new covenant for us. Silly sinful us, in the dark of Lent and the blazing light of Easter.”

“Of course, there’s always the family, but then there are events with friends, coworkers, people from church, or the people we feel we owe an invitation to because they have been gracious enough to invite us. Each category is its own brand of intimacy or congeniality. So who we invite seems to be a matter of with whom we feel comfortable.”

“I concluded that God didn’t send these tests, being human did. No one gets out of this life without having to pass or fail lessons that come upon us as we grow, learn, age, and experience what life has to offer.”

“Sometimes, in our not knowing, over time we come to learn that whatever transpired or evolved ended up better than we imagined or would have scripted…and the truth is, we wouldn’t have been able to handle it.  We would very likely have gone off in another direction and missed the gift.”