Category: Uncategorized
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Magnify :: Magnificat
Mary’s Magnificat is a famous song / poem during Advent. You might have read it before. It is Mary’s recorded response to the many absurd events that had happened in her life surrounding her pregnancy with Jesus (an angel appearing to her to tell her that she would be pregnant though a virgin; Mary’s cousin…
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Work & Prayer
“Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.” John 14:12-13 Jesus here brilliantly brings together work…
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Is Your God Too Fragile?
Mine was. (He still is sometimes, unfortunately.) He was always teetering on the edge of psychological imbalance, fully out of control of his emotions. If I did something wrong – either willfully or unintentionally – I risked his fury. If I didn’t believe the exact right thing about a particular, obscure Christian doctrine, I risked…
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Apical Dominance. Spiritual Formation series, part 6.
For one year during my college years, I tutored a Korean-American high school sophomore named Stephen. Our primary focus was his Biology class (my degree was in the sciences). I mostly remember that he was a really great kid and that we laughed a lot. If you’ve ever taught anyone anything before, you won’t be…
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Self-forgetfulness. Spiritual Formation Series, Part 5.
Life with Jesus has seemed to me lately simply growing in self-forgetfulness. If I had to summarize all of the work that I have seen God do in my life in the past decade, it would probably be something along these lines. He keeps carving out more and more space in my heart and mind to…
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A week of death in America.
I know a lot of people have already written about our past week in America. I join, humbly, a cacophony of other voices: some angry, some terrified, some heartbroken, some astonished. Two isolated deaths motivated, apparently, by racism. Five collective deaths motivated, apparently, by retribution. Other deaths, other lives interrupted that I’m sure didn’t make the…
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One Square Block
Every other week or so, I go on a prayer-walk around my church building. Sometimes I pray more attentively when I am moving instead of holding still. I just walk around our one square block a few times, silently listening and talking to God. Mostly I pray for the people in our community, leaders and…
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Mere mortal
I’ve done Bible studies before that preach over and over again that I am a Princess in Christ, a daughter of the King, a triumphal conqueror over sin and the Devil, an emissary of Jesus with His power at my fingertips. Maybe you’ve done those studies, too? And maybe I’m showing my inflated self-perspective here,…
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Quotidian Romance
(Before I begin: A sincere apology to all of my readers who happen to be single at the moment and who hate reading about people being married. I try really hard not to write to one narrow audience, but I need to say something to my married self and my married friends; you’ll forgive me…
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The Passions of Christ’s Death: A 12-Day Lenten Devotional
It’s Ash Wednesday – the beginning of Lent. And I am so pleased to introduce to you – in its debut release – The Passions of Christ’s Death: A 12-Day Lenten Devotional. You may have read The Passions of Christ’s Advent: A 12-Days of Christmas Devotional. This is her Lenten partner, with a similar premise: to observe the very human…