thinking & writing on faith, life, mentoring, and motherhood
Christina writes with transparency about her own fears and failures, doubts and trials and afflictions. But her focus is on the vastness of the gospel and the promises of Christ, and she examines how faithful and Spirit-empowered obedience to God’s word unveils the perspective we need to face life’s daily struggles. We are so inclined to start with the struggles and end with whatever Christianesque plug we can find to fix the problem. Christina puts things in the right order.
What is a Wenceslas, and why do we sing about it at Christmas time? What is it about this jaunty little tune by John Mason Neale that has earned it a place in the Christmas carol repertoire as well as in the hearts of many for the past 160 years — even though not a word about Christmas is mentioned anywhere in the lyrics?
We won’t be left on this island of misfit toys forever. He has prepared a room for us where he will be also.
A few summers ago I wrote this post after the weather in Pittsburgh had seesawed back and forth for several days between drenching rains and bright sunny skies. I have been often reminded of the lesson in it these past few weeks. Yes, we’ve had our seasonal stutter start to spring, but we’re also experiencing on a grander scale uncertainty and confusion as a result of pandemic, economic instability, and the loss of what we’ve always considered normal. Now more than ever we need the exhortation that we not, as Bridges says, “deprive ourselves of the peace” of knowing that the hand that sends it is good, wise, sovereign and perfect.
Can I say, “I can be satisfied in all things because God’s ends are my ends”?
Spiritual exercise for Christians leads to discipline, knowledge, faith and devotion, but what if you’re in a slump? How can I know I won’t end up a has-been spiritual athlete, you may wonder. When you’re struggling in your training program, give yourself The Talk.
Even though there may be many shepherds and many herds, there is only one shepherd for each herd. And only the true Shepherd—only Jesus Christ—can call sinners to repentance and faith. Despite all the good intentions of faithful and clever sheepdogs, all they are able to accomplish is an interpretation of the shepherd’s commands. Dogs can’t save souls. They are, after all, just dogs.
I spent a lot of years doing this kind of running—from one deception to another, from one sin to another, from one emotional entrapment to another, abandoning myself to sorrow and sin and despair at every turn. There is a better kind of abandonment.
No matter how tiny your life seems, every single second of it is weighty with the work of God. He—God of the universe, protector, guardian, governor, savior, redeemer, creator—is fruitful in all he does. His hand stirs the waters of his works of providence more deeply than any of us are able to see — and yet, for the sake of his own glory and our comfort, he does occasionally provide us glimpses of his amazing goodness demonstrated in his sovereignty.
No good can come from calling fellow believers enemies. These are people we fellowship with at the table of the Lord, meet with in corporate worship, lay our burdens down together before the throne. To determine that they are enemies when God Himself has declared them His friends at the expense of the blood of His Son is to pronounce that relationships operate on your rules and terms, regardless of what God has done. And because it’s possible that those you suspect are behaving badly are not believers, it’s still not grounds for alienation if all they’ve done is give the appearances of enmity. They are without the spiritual tools needed to do conflict well. Witness to them of the greatest work of reconciliation done in all of history and rightly inform them they are enemies to God—as you once were—and that they can be bought and washed and made new—as you are now.
The tax collector is beyond caring about how he feels. Whether he has been treated unfairly, whether he has honed just the right tone to signal his repentance, whether he was a victim of discrimination by the masses is inconsequential to his ability to enter heaven. He knows his own perceptions are untrustworthy (Jeremiah 17:9); the masses follow culture’s rules and culture’s rules are capricious and arbitrary. Neither change the reality. “God, be merciful to me—a sinner” is what he said.
#thereyougothinkingagain 