Easter Weekend: It Is Finished

April 15, 2022Leave a comment

I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.

Galatians 2:20

Happy Easter weekend, I hope you get to spend it celebrating with loved ones. I want to take this time to talk about peace and forgiveness.

We call Christ the Prince of Peace and it’s a fitting title for the lamb who delivered us from evil. We have been given the chance to find deep lasting inner peace with him. My life hasn’t been peaceful lately, it’s been chaotic. I’ve felt posed for the next thing to rattle us. But that’s not to say there hasn’t also been deep joy, I’ve got a beautiful healthy family and a ton of love in my life. Yes there are flaws, both in me and in life, but if the Son of God can die for the flaws within me the least I can do is make peace with the flaws forced upon me by unseen circumstances.

There is a lot of talk in the self help world about inner peace and I think it’s good talk, but for someone religious I think it’s important to look beyond the guru talks and find the extremely humbling inner peace that comes with being loved, forgiven, and knowing God has a plan. If you’re anything like me you find yourself in phases were you hang onto that and phases when you manically forget that deep peace. I’ve been forgetting it in this season, so what better time than Easter to rewrap myself in the loving cloak of The Prince of Peace?

The truth is God is unmoving, it’s us who drift back and forth to Him, shall we all make an effort to bask in His Glory this weekend and find the peace and love He offers us.

Let’s talk about Sacrifice:

March 8, 2019April 8, 20191 Comment

I used to give up things for lent as a child, we didn’t make a big deal of it, but I remember doing it. This year I decided to give up gluttony, which looks like giving up late night snacks, eating less overall, and eating better overall. I decided I wanted to partake because I realize that I’m bad at giving things up.

We don’t talk about sacrifice enough when we talk about getting our goals. We streamline the discussion by talking about hard work, like those two things are completely interchangeable, but they aren’t. Sacrifice is hard work, but working hard doesn’t mean that you’re truly sacrificing, especially if it is hard work you enjoy.

The point of sacrifice is that you’re giving up something you don’t want to. The point of sacrifice is to suffer now in order to succeed later on. In terms of your life it means later on in the years, in terms of your soul it means later on in the next life. But either way you have to give things up to get anywhere.

The path you are on has lead you to where you are now, but you might not get any farther if you don’t change yourself. You might be stuck here or stuck inching along at a snails pace forever. You don’t want that, but you might deserve that with how you’re currently living.

Continue reading →

Doing charity in private: The problem with public giving

October 15, 2018October 15, 2018Leave a comment

I did a certain charitable act a month or so ago and I wanted to tell someone about it, almost immediately. Maybe that’s a normal reaction; when we do something we feel good about we want to share that overwhelmingly positive emotion. But maybe we just like to lift ourselves up by telling others how great we were in that moment.

Maybe it’s a little of both. Maybe we think it’s the first but in reality it is the later.

I choose not to tell anyone that day, or the next, in fact I didn’t tell anyone, and if you don’t count this (which I can’t decide if I should) I still haven’t. But, the overwhelming desire to tell someone did open my eyes to my own desires. It made me step back and wonder why, after the joy from doing good had passed, was the next emotion a self serving one?

I want people to know I’m a good person, which is a flawed logic, because if you are a good person, people already know. Goodness isn’t something that goes unnoticed. Perhaps people don’t see to which degree you are good, but they still know that you are. Goodness doesn’t come from one charitable act, or even a handful, it comes from a mixture of constant charitable acts and other acts of kindness and righteousness.

Telling people of one charitable act, won’t change their mind if they’ve decided you’re a bad person. It takes them seeing a visible transformation in your everyday actions for them to suddenly change their perspective on you. That’s possible, keep in mind, if you fear you are seen as a bad person, or even a not-so-good person, there is plenty of time to change that. Change is real and possible, so don’t stop seeking it.

But change doesn’t come from bragging. In fact, bragging always has the opposite effect that the bragger means for it to. If someone takes to bragging people take to disliking them and thinking of them as a worse person than they probably are. We can’t stand self-righteous people, yet somehow we still manage to be pretty self-righteous ourselves.

Continue reading →

Trying to live as a reflection: A post about representing Christ

August 22, 20182 Comments

I passed a church sign the other day that read: “You might be the only bible that someone reads.”

Its a universal enough thought, but it really struck me hard. How many people do we pass by who aren’t religious? The numbers are growing. There is also a growing number of people like me, who try, but not hard enough. I’m not an avid church goer, though I do make it from time to time. I read my bible some, but most my Christian life is wrapped up in prayer, which is good, but not enough. If I’m like this and I consider myself a Christ follower, imagine how little others come in contact with the word.

We’re supposed to think about our actions a lot as Christians, we’re supposed to repent when they aren’t well, and pray about how we can do better. We spend so much of our lives fighting our own demons and sins. When we’re trying to be better the effort is often pointed inward, because we realize that’s were most of our bad forms. We sometimes let down our outward reflection of Christ in this battle. It’s easy to do, we’re trying to be like Him, but none of us really are.

Continue reading →

Book Review: The Problem of Pain

March 2, 2016May 18, 20164 Comments

IMG_3439h

“For centuries people have been tormented by one question above all: If God is good and all-powerful, why does he allow his creatures to suffer pain? And what of the suffering of animals, who neither deserve pain nor can be improved by it? The greatest Christian thinker of our time sets out to disentangle this knotty issue. With his signature wealth of compassion and insight, C. S. Lewis offers answers to these crucial questions and shares his hope and wisdom to help heal a world hungry for a true understanding of human nature.” -Goodreads Bio

Continue reading →