Tag Archives: faith

Refresher from Physics 101

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Krissy and I read a great devotional thought this morning written by Dan Haseltine of Jars of Clay, in the daily email devotional I get from Relevant Magazine. (I love Relevant by the way.)  He related Sir Isaac Newton’s laws of motion to our life of faith in this world.  It gave me some great “ponder fodder” or food for thought as I drove to work.

If you took Physics in school, you remember that the first law of motion basically says that an object, once moving, will keep moving unless some outside force encounters or impacts it.  Continue reading →

Daredevils

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What some find entertaining, I often find too stressful to enjoy watching:  daredevils.  Those reckless, bold, wild people who love to walk a tightrope way too high over a busy street or catapult themselves across canyons or jump long rows of semi-trucks, just for fun, just to prove they can do it.  Have you noticed that a single danger isn’t usually enough?  “Not only will I jump my motorcycle over these trucks, I’ll do it BLINDFOLDED!  And we’re setting all the trucks on FIRE!  AND I’ll be holding my tiny, helpless kitten ‘Snuffy’ as I jump across!  I SPIT in the face of fear and death!”  Did Snuffy get a say in this??  The crowd leans forward on the edge of their seats to watch, holding their breath, loving every minute.  Continue reading →

Really trusting

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It’s one thing for a little girl to say she trusts her daddy, it’s another for her to crouch down and jump up away the firm concrete, out into his arms over the deep end of the swimming pool.

It’s one thing to say you believe in heaven and another to keep believing when you’ve lost someone you love and your faith means they’re actually in heaven now.  Are they really?

It’s one thing to proclaim God will provide and another to have to depend on that claim, waiting for some miracle or revelation of something you can do because you’re out of money and have rent to pay or an empty pantry. Continue reading →

Roots

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My sister, Jodi, writes a monthly newsletter for women about overall well-being and making healthy choices.  Her words are always encouraging and helpful.  This month she shared a great illustration about a vine that keeps cropping up near their house, because although they’ve cut and pulled it away time and time again, there is evidently still a root in the ground somewhere and so it keeps coming back.  Jodi says that similarly, in our lives, if we don’t get to the root of a problem, we can cut and pull at symptoms that show on the outside but they’ll just keep recurring.  So true!

If a negative attitude or thought sits long enough inside our hearts, I believe it begins to take root and will be harder to get rid of than if we extract it as soon as we notice it there.  Continue reading →

Fighter

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I’ve talked so much about Zumba class and how much I love it that my friends and family are probably tired of hearing it.  Let me just say that God brought it to me when I needed an outlet, some fun, some community, and of course some exercise.

Right now one of the songs we dance/exercise to is Christina Aguilera’s song “Fighter.”  We do some kickboxing during the chorus:

It makes me that much stronger
Makes me work a little bit harder
It makes me that much wiser
So thanks for making me a fighter
Made me learn a little bit faster
Made my skin a little bit thicker
Makes me that much smarter
So thanks for making me a fighter

Christina Aguilera “Fighter” ©2003

She’s singing about someone who cheated on her and did her wrong, but I when I hear those words I usually think of something I’m struggling with (or friends and family are facing) like temptation, feeling down, disappointment, challenges, etc.  Yesterday I was thinking about cancer.  Continue reading →

Where else could I go?

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It was 2:42 a.m. and I was getting up once again (third time) to see what my girls were up to.  Kaitlin almost always goes to bed at a decent hour, that blessed child.  Krissy was finally in bed but had fallen asleep with her lights on.  I turned them off and closed her door.  I was tempted to hug her while she lay there sleeping.  If I can’t get hugs from her when she’s awake maybe I can steal some.  I didn’t.  Kimmi was finally home but was doing laundry and taking things to her car!  Today, she and her sister are moving to their apartment for the summer.   Why is it a mom can’t sleep unless she knows all the girls are settled and resting?  It wears me out!  I laid back down unable to go back to sleep, my mind racing through concerns, thoughts, questions, frustrations, more questions, and just plain exhaustion.  Fatigue always intensifies emotion for me, too.

When I’m tired, the lying voice of the enemy is so much harder to ignore.  My heart strained to hear God’s voice instead.  I called out through quiet tears for some peace, some relief from hurt, a sense of His love.  The room seemed completely empty.  I felt empty, my stomach still tight in a knot.  I laid on my side looking at the clock.  3:51 a.m.  Continue reading →

Faith Hero #1: Joseph

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The story of Joseph has been one of my favorites for a long time, but especially lately.  If you are lacking faith or need encouragement about having to wait on God, dealing with the unfairness of life sometimes, trusting even when it seems God has left, even reconciling family relationships, you should read his story (Genesis 37-50).

I read his story again this morning and was moved several times to tears.  As I read, I tried to imagine his emotions, the surroundings, the events and life that happened in between the lines of Genesis.   Having heard the story so many times as I grew up, I read it in The Message version today.  I really took my time to think as I followed him from being born to a joyful and relieved mother and father who had waited a long time for his arrival, to growing strong and handsome as the favored son, to being betrayed and disposed of by jealous brothers, to success then unjust imprisonment, to being forgotten and waiting years for change, to success again and eventually restoration of his relationship with his family.

Can you hear his voice yelling up to his brothers, who sat calmly by eating their dinner, as he yelled for them to pull him up out of the cistern?  Continue reading →

Day 17 – “Free” thinking

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I saw a news story yesterday about a group of college kids who call themselves the “Atheist Agenda” who set up a table on the campus of UTSA in San Antonio, Texas offering porn to students in exchange for their holy texts.  One of the leaders said it was trading smut for smut.  He said porn is consensual “unlike religious texts that condone lying and using violence against individuals which is the exact opposite of let’s say anything that is peaceful.”  To view the short story click here.

It sounds like he hasn’t read all of the Bible at least and is taking a few instances out of context on which to base his argument – which is ridiculous to me.   And why hand out porn in exchange?  Does porn stand for peace, for something better than what holy texts offer?  That doesn’t make sense.  They were just appealing to an urge and desire as a lure to come away from God.

I don’t understand why some atheists feel it is their obligation to enlighten others to the error of their ways if they believe in God or some other diety, or follow a religion.  Why should they care?  If they don’t believe in God or an afterlife, why would it bother them if someone else believes that way?  Seriously.  At first I thought they were only asking for Bibles in exchange for porn and that led me to think “is this really an opposition to believing in God or an opposition to Jesus?  Why not a Quran?  Or one of the Vedas of Hinduism?  Or the Book of Mormon?”   Is it all to satisfy some need we all seem to have to feel superior to others?  To proclaim that we’re right and they’re wrong?  Do they feel they are doing a civic duty by leading Christians back to reasonable thinking, back away from following the teachings of Christ, back from their foolish lives of faith in things that are often unseen?

If I share my faith with someone, or testify about something God has done for me, it is because I believe it will benefit them in their life and give them hope.  If I knew of a cure for an illness or a medicine that would relieve pain and met someone in great pain or with that illness, I’d want to share what I knew with them to hopefully help them.  If I was walking through a really dark place with some others around me and had the only flashlight or torch, I’d walk closer to them and hold out the light to help them see the path.    I think it would be odd for someone who didn’t believe in light to come and tell me to snuff out my torch or turn off my flashlight.  If they want to walk on their own and find their own way that’s their choice, but why bother to try and convince me I don’t believe in or need the light I have in my hand?

What do you think about the reason behind atheists’ campaigns against people who believe in God?

Another interesting interview with the leader from Atheist Agenda on Youtube

More than anything…or anyone.

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There are those moments when faith claims you’ve made seem to fly up in front of you and you have the choice to act and prove they’re true or recant.  One moment I recall this happening for me was when I got my cancer diagnosis.  All of the sudden all the claims I had made about always trusting God, His constant presence, and believing in healing sprung up in front of me and I had to decide whether or not I would put feet to my faith, the good ol’ “rubber meets the road” cliche.   All I could do was try.  Put one foot in front of the other and see if God was there.  He was.

Another instance that comes to mind was the passing of my grandmother almost two years ago.  I have always believed in heaven and eternal life with Jesus, but all of the sudden her death triggered a time to re-think and decide if I really believe it.  Do I really believe that she’s there now?  Do I really believe that I’ll see her there, that we’ll live forever?   I’m choosing to believe what Jesus said…that if we trust in Him we’ll live with him, even though our bodies here die.  If anyone trusted Jesus, my grandmother was front in line.   Continue reading →

Really?

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One of my pet peeves is when people forward an emotional story or prayer request, or sensational news story that gets people all riled up and isn’t even true.  It seems we, the human race, are pretty quick to believe what other people say.  Either that or we’re too lazy or careless to find out if it’s true before spreading it around to others.

I’ve had emphatic pleas from friends who read that if you forward this email to 100 people such and such famous company will send you a check for lots of money, using some email tracking program that doesn’t even exist!  I’ve received prayer requests that are no longer valid – either the person was healed, found, or the situation remedied and the request just keeps circulating and circulating.   The fabricated stories about faith are the ones that frost me the most.  I once read an email story about Billy Graham evangelizing with the entire crowd from one of his rallies in New Orleans, many being saved, only to find out that someone made it up.  It never happened.   Continue reading →