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Showing posts from July 13, 2014

Redeeming Vulnerability

The kingdom of heaven is about vulnerability. Jesus came to redeem the idea of vulnerability and to change our minds about its viability. Consider how many times when Jesus was on earth that He went through circumstances or told stories that would challenge our ideas about vulnerability. More than once when the disciples found themselves in a life-threatening storm on the Sea of Galilee, they experienced intense vulnerability, something they did not like or want to face. Yet Jesus allowed them to experience that so as to teach them to always bring Him into the equation and to learn to trust in His love and power so as to overcome fear in every such situation. When thousands of people found themselves very hungry with no way to obtain food readily, they felt very vulnerable which often leads people to become angry or resentful or to look for someone to blame. Jesus led them through that experience to teach that being vulnerable in this way should not upset our trust

The Art of Questioning

I have started thinking about the art of questioning. As with most everything, there is a right way and then there is a counterfeit way. In addition, there is also the factor of timing. There is a healthy time to ask questions and there are times to focus more on answers or maybe living out what we have been learning instead of stalling with excessive and debilitating questions and feeding our doubts. Some children have their questions suppressed for most of the childhood. Are these the ones who end up trying to force answers on everyone else when they become older? I grew up in a religious environment where it seemed that the only questions that were welcome were the ones that fit perfectly the stock answers that were already on file with the church. As a result I began to notice that in our attempts to gain converts to our religion we were attempting to convince 'unbelievers' that they needed to ask only the questions we wanted them to ask that would

Arrows in the Ground

When Elisha became sick with the illness of which he was to die, Joash the king of Israel came down to him and wept over him and said, "My father, my father, the chariots of Israel and its horsemen!" Elisha said to him, "Take a bow and arrows." So he took a bow and arrows. Then he said to the king of Israel, "Put your hand on the bow." And he put his hand on it, then Elisha laid his hands on the king's hands. He said, "Open the window toward the east," and he opened it. Then Elisha said, "Shoot!" And he shot. And he said, "The LORD'S arrow of victory, even the arrow of victory over Aram; for you will defeat the Arameans at Aphek until you have destroyed them." Then he said, "Take the arrows," and he took them. And he said to the king of Israel, "Strike the ground," and he struck it three times and stopped. So the man of God was angry with him and said, "You should have struck fiv