Category: Dying Daily

As I was counting down to September (my baby’s due date), I realized that the year is more than half over. At the start of 2011, I was all smiles and gumdrops, but as the year has progressed, I’ve sobered up a bit.

Back in January, I shared with you that I choose a word each year as a sort of alternative to a New Year’s resolution. I don’t just randomly select words either. I start by praying and it just so happens that, within seconds of praying, I usually have a word pop into my head.

This year’s word has been “surrender” and, let me tell you, it has sucked. Continue reading Surrendering Sucks

I have no problem believing the Bible. When I first became a Christian at 16, I had a few months where I questioned many of the accounts in scripture:

How did two people populate the whole earth? Did the flood really happen? What about dinosaurs (admit it you’ve asked about those pesky dinosaurs too)?

God quickly and effectively brought answers to those questions in different ways. Some answers came through other people, some through teachings, some through faith, and still others through simply reading the Word.

Since that time, I have fully understood scripture to be God-breathed, infallible, and inerrant. However, that’s not to say that certain passages, or even whole books of the Bible, I find difficult to swallow. That brings me to… Continue reading The Bible Story That Makes Me Uncomfortable

Growing up, the idea of God was presented as a possibility. God, the man upstairs as it were, was at least an option of the table for me as a child. Granted, He was not Jesus Christ, the Messiah, but He was at least mentioned.

Years later, when I finally did meet Christ, I believe I was much more open to saying “yes” because at the very least, I believed in a God, if not the God.

Ironically, now that I am devoted to Jesus Christ, my family wonders why–how. Why have I become a “Christian” (often said as a dirty word). Why do I believe so wholeheartedly and completely in God?

This question is a lot trickier than it appears. I’d like to give some simple, succinct, yet powerful answer, but the truth is…I can’t. The answer is so much more…. Continue reading Why Do You Believe in God?

I don’t really suffer from writer’s block. I suffer from writer’s motivation. I always have tons of ideas. I don’t, however, always have the motivation to write down the ideas.

What I often suffer from, however, is God block. Think of God block in terms of writer’s block. Writer’s block is defined as “A usually temporary psychological inability to begin or continue work on a piece of writing.”

Well, God block is my “usually temporary psychological inability to begin or continue working in God’s Kingdom.” Basically, when God block sets in, I convince myself that I have nothing to offer God or His people. I might as well stay home.

Besides the obvious problems, God block prevents me from serving in the ways I desire. It prevents me from loving in the ways I am called to love. And in some ways, God block stifles my creativity because, instead of focusing on others, I turn inward and become self-focused.

Self-focus does not write my blog. Something else does entirely…. Continue reading God Block

Remember back in middle school when you would play stupid games with your friends and list list out three things you would change about yourself? You also had to list your three favorite physical features.

That’s right, this game was strictly based on appearances. One of my friends would say “Oh my gosh, I like totally hate my ears. Dumbo.” Someone else would say that they like their smile or their feet. Ugh. Just remembering it makes me cringe.

Now, when I think about what I would change, I always examine myself in the spiritual. Sure, I’m already thinking about how I’m going to drop this baby weight, but more so, I want to drop bad habits. I want the Holy Spirit to some in and rip something out of me. Or do I? Continue reading If You Could Change One Thing About Yourself…

A few weeks ago, I read an article in the New York Times profiling a group of young Manhattan Christians engaged in actively turning the East Village into a Jesus-loving neighborhood.

I enjoyed the article, but towards the end of the piece there was a quote from one of the young pastors in the community, passionately explaining to high-schoolers that Satan was out to get them. Satan, he explained, was hell-bent on making them doubt their own self-worth.

I shuttered. I imagined some New York socialite or intellectual from, you guessed it, the East Village reading those words. They would laugh out loud. Satan? The Devil? The Prince of Darkness? What utter and complete nonsense, they must think. I wished secretly that the author of the article hadn’t printed that quote.

Then I was hit with a realization that I didn’t like. Continue reading Jesus and the Steakhouse