By their very nature, friendships morph and change. Why? Because of life changes like moves, births, deaths, marriages, sickness, graduations, aging. Sometimes friendships just get interrupted for a time and then resume again like nothing ever happened. We need to be flexible with our friends. What do I mean by this? I mean that we must accommodate change. If your good friend begins to be a good friend to someone else, then you should flex with it. Understand it. Be patient over it. Give it to God. Don’t fret or worry over it. Give her space. Just think about being constant yourself. So that, if your friend comes back later, she will find that you haven’t changed at all. You are still her friend, anytime, anyway.
Now this runs contrary to our fleshly tendencies. We want to feel hurt and we may be truly justified in feeling hurt if a friend fails us. But if we don’t respond quickly to those Continue reading ‘A Friend Sticks’
Sons are supposed to grow up to be strong. Consider Proverbs 20:29, The glory of young men is their strength. They know instinctively from a very early age that they want to be strong and fast and big. This is their glory. They are to be like plants grown up in their youth (Ps. 144:12), maturing early, strong, sturdy, and wise. The father of the righteous shall greatly rejoice: and he that begetteth a wise child shall have joy of him: thy father and thy mother shall be glad, and she that bare thee shall rejoice (Prov. 23:24-25).
But some sons are not strong. They are heavy, a sad burden to their parents, bringing Continue reading ‘Heavy Sons’
Yes, I know this is old news. But now you can’t go two steps in Oxford without being greeted by this merry little message on the side of basically every bus that zooms past – and every time I see it I just get extensively cracked up!
I mean, seriously. “There probably is no God.” What kind of gung-ho message is that?! Honestly – they’re practically begging every resident of the UK to seriously consider Pascal’s Wager . . . which you know they never would have done in a million years otherwise.
What kind of atheism is this anyways? I think they need to get out more and read a bit more Nietzsche. Nietzsche would never have settled for a peppy little message in pink that contained the word “probably”. And that little word “probably” is no doubt unsettling numerous middle aged women across the nation who had never given it a thought up until now, and are suddenly wondering every five minutes if they’re willing to bet their soul on that very uncertain message.
They’re also selling t-shirts by the way. It’s quite hilarious that now there’s a category of atheist kitsch. It must mean that all those Christian billboards and John 3:16 shirts are working far more than I suspected they were. The atheists have finally had it up to here, and are now copying the pop evangelical methods of getting the message out there! It’s kinda fun to have it go that direction for once. It used to be that across from every music store in every mall there was the Christian answer to it – full of knock-offs and almost-as-good-as paraphernalia. But it’s quite hilarious to think of the atheists then having to put up their own little kiosk with their not-quite-as-powerful answer to the evangelicals . . . tacky little key chains with humanist slogans and “I’m pretty sure there’s no Hell” bookmarks and inspirational posters that say things like, “I don’t think that Final Judgments are very nice to think about.”
It’s quite heartening, really.
One of the things that Christian people sometimes feel called to do is rebuke or chastise or confront one another. We see the faults of others oh so clearly, and so we think we might have the gift of rebuking (if there is such a gift). Or, more likely, we are burdened by the blind spots of those dear to us, whether family or friends, and so we feel it is clearly our duty to point them out. But I have news for you: it may not be your call at all.
Now I am certainly not saying that there is never a time for a rebuke. But most of the time we ought to steer clear of such ideas. What ever makes us think that we are the one to point out the faults of others? We may think that the Bible has given us the authority to do this. But not necessarily. Continue reading ‘Let It Ride’
One of the best feelings in the world has got to be grocery shopping. I mean the kind where you know what you need, you get it all,  preferably some pantry items that you don’t need yet, and you come home feeling a little more prepared for life. It is even better when I manage to clean the fridge out first. You get the great joy of seeing the fruit bowl loaded high, and you can say without a shadow of a doubt that you do in fact have an onion. Seriously, nothing beats it. I even Continue reading ‘Winco’
…sometimes you want to make brownies! I haven’t shared a recipe in a while, and so when a friend asked for a copy of this one, I realized that if I was typing it up, I may as well share it with you! This is one of those very low key recipes that is actually pretty handy for entertaining because they manage to look maybe a tiny bit more fun than a usual pan of brownies. My personal favorite Continue reading ‘But when you’re up on your luck…’
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