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Thinking through my entire adult life …
During our vacation, one day I had over an hour to myself to just sit and think and pray. I was very relaxed and I began to “replay” or think about my entire adult life. It made me very sad. I thought about high school where I so desperately wanted to have real friends and some sort of “home” … and I thought I did in my circle of (choir / marching band / french club / speech team / NHS) friends. But then I remembered how my friends confronted me on my (many!) weaknesses and I had to PERFORM to get to keep being around them (which I did)…
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Suffering and Glory
This week I received another email from pastor and professor (and missionary and hero of the faith!) Ajith Fernando and I was (yet again!) reminded of the goodness and the glory of God … and thus drawn to worship Him more rightly. Since so much of peacemaking involves suffering … (check out my “Search Past Blog Entries” on Suffering and you’ll see that I’ve posted on this topic a LOT), I thought it might be a particular encouragement to you all. Hope so. Sending you my love, Tara Barthel PS If you don’t yet know Dr. Fernando and his ministry and books, I urge you to get to know him.…
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John Piper on Jesus’ Commands
I just received a wonderfully encouraging email that included a link to a John Piper sermon and I thought it might be a blessing to you too: The Man Went Down to His House Justified I encourage you to drink it in and head into your day with your heart fixed firmly on the Saving, Redeeming, Steadfast Love of the Lord! To tempt you a little, I’ll let you know that in this sermon, Pastor Piper asks three questions: 1. What difference does it make that the eternal, incarnate, fully divine, fully human, sinless Son of God spoke this? 2. What difference does it make that his main reason for…
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When We’ve Wronged Someone
Sorry that I can’t remember the citation or where I read this article … but I thought it might be a blessing to you, so here it is: Donne and the Return Home Keith Cox “John Donne, the Renaissance poet, left us numerous treasures in his work. Recall that he instructed, “No man is an island” (Footnote 1: John Donne, Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, xxvii.) and “Never send for whom the bell tolls, the bell tolls for you.” (Footnote 2: John Donne, Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, xxvii.) Beyond these now famous lines Donne, through his works, has left us the witness of one who deeply understood and insightfully expressed the…
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Don’t use your “personality” as an excuse!
Many times when I’m talking and praying with women, I hear things like this: – “But that’s just the way that I am!” – “SHE needs to ACCEPT ME!” – “No one talks to me at church! I sit there every Sunday and NO ONE approaches ME. Same thing at women’s Bible study. So THAT’S why I’m not going ANY MORE.” I think about this a lot because I am so often tempted to say those EXACT SAME THINGS. And yet … and yet … – Didn’t Jesus come to save you from that “just the way that I am”-ness? (paraphrasing Patsy Clairmont) – Are we called to BE accepted…
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Faith is …
“Faith is the gaze of a soul upon a saving God.” A.W. Tozer
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Why Did God Ordain that Evil Be?
From Jonathan Edwards: “It is a proper and excellent thing for infinite glory to shine forth; and for the same reason, it is proper that the shining forth of God’s glory should be complete; that is, that all parts of his glory should shine forth, that every beauty should be proportionably effulgent [=radiant], that the beholder may have a proper notion of God. It is not proper that one glory should be exceedingly manifested, and another not at all. . . Thus it is necessary, that God’s awful majesty, his authority and dreadful greatness, justice, and holiness, should be manifested. But this could not be, unless sin and punishment had…
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Bible Study DVD?
Wow! I just found out that one of my 2007 events MIGHT be able to videotape my teaching … And they are interested in possibly producing (or helping me to prepare a proposal for the production of) DVDs of me teaching the “Peacemaking Women” material. What do you think? Might this be a helpful resource? If so — would you please join me in praying the Lord’s will to be done? (Oh–and THANKS AGAIN to this amazing 2007 event. You know who you are! And whether or not this video-thing turns out, you have already blessed my socks off. I always LOVE it when I get emails from you.)
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Prayer as Love
A few thoughts from Ajith Fernando: In Christianity love is an end and not just a means to an end. That is, we don’t love only because we want to achieve something through that loving. Loving itself is an achievement. When we teach or train someone our aim is primarily not to help someone pass an exam well or do brilliantly in sports. True, those are legitimate aims, but they are not primary aims. If we work like that, we won’t be able to help Jesus in the forms that he comes to us as described in the parable of the sheep and the goats. There he comes as a…
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Uh-Oh! She’s MAD at me!
Yesterday was my last day before our trip to run errands and try to get organized. I was doing pretty well until I had to swing by and ask a friend for a favor. I thought I had set everything up in advance and it was going to be no big deal … but do you ever have a conversation where the hair on your neck is standing up and you can almost feel the adrenaline charging the air? That was what happened to me. My heart was racing as I left and I was concerned for hours (as I continued to go to appointments and hop in and out…
