Blessing the voyage: launching them without losing them: My friend and colleague Stacy MacLaren with a timely piece, “We don’t raise our children to keep them. We raise them to release them.”
An unremarkable life: Jonny Pollock says, “The modern mantra appears simple. Be remarkable. Whether through career achievements, our social media feeds, or our personal brands (don’t roll your eyes, we all have them!), the pressure is relentless.”
While I grew up in a gospel-preaching church that formed the lifelong foundation for my faith, my theological awakening occurred in college. As I grew up in theology, I began to turn my nose up on some of the worship of my youth.
I had outgrown Precious Moments Christianity and left behind worship that felt like nothing more than love songs to Jesus. I’m thinking of sentimental songs like “Above All” where we sang,
Like the rose trampled on the ground
You took the fall
And thought of me
Above all
Has religion disappointed you? Has God let you down?
How do we make sense of God and the world when we feel so hurt by them? Doesn’t the world make more sense without a God who would allow the evil that we see and experience?
Friedrich Nietzsche, a prophet ahead of his time, saw the allure of the modern rejection of God. But he also recognized the serious consequences of such a conclusion. If Soren Kierkegaard demanded the Christian to take a “leap of faith” toward God, Nietzsche demanded that the atheist take a leap of faith into the abyss.
Is your fatherhood like a Rubik’s Cube? This equally pertains to moms, “I call this The Rubik’s Cube Effect. One side starts to come together, but in the very act of bringing order there, something else is thrown out of place.”
The paradox of the brightening path: Trevin Wax begins, “There’s a paradox you’ll encounter the longer you walk with Jesus. The more you experience the light of his love, the more clearly you see the remaining spots and stains in your life. Progress seems lacking. Stumbles continue to mark your journey. The more you know the Lord’s love for you, the more you feel your unworthiness and your dependence on his grace.”
Over and over again belief is directly connected to us becoming children of God, being given eternal life, being saved, and pleasing God.
But that raises an important question: what is belief? Most of us, when we think of belief, we think of it as accepting something as true. Merriam-Webster offers three definitions of belief. The second and third definitions reinforce our instinct: (2) “something that is accepted, considered to be true, or held as an opinion.” (3) “conviction of the truth of some statement or the reality of some being or phenomenon, especially when based on examination of evidence.”
Blessing the voyage: launching them without losing them: My friend and colleague Stacy MacLaren with a timely piece, “We don’t raise our children to keep them. We raise them to release them.”
An unremarkable life: Jonny Pollock says, “The modern mantra appears simple. Be remarkable. Whether through career achievements, our social media feeds, or our personal brands (don’t roll your eyes, we all have them!), the pressure is relentless.”
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