daily thoughts

“Wake Up, You Need to Make Money”

M and her family are missionaries in Africa. Their life has been characterized by moves and shifts, encountering the most broken people, and utter reliance on the Lord.

She didn’t finish her degree at Bible college and is in the process, after almost 20 years, of completing her last two semesters. Because, hey, there was no money, and then they got good jobs and had kids, and then they moved overseas where ministry happened. Now she walks into brothels and shares the Gospel and rescues babies from their pimps and brings them home.

We were eating dinner at Dr. G’s apartment, and I was fascinated by her story. Her husband’s business is what completely supports her ministry to these women, and because of his connections, he’s been able to get them out of trouble on many an occasion.

She said, “What God redeems, he uses.” Her husband’s terrible childhood and exposure to the

“Wake Up, You Need to Make Money”2015-09-28T05:00:25+00:00

Today I ran errands

It’s too easy to worry. I hate it.

Sometimes I look around me and wonder if other people are even thinking about some of the things that drive my mind to oblivion. Like, the kind of thinking that just snowballs races runs jumps until I’m standing teetering on the edge of anxiety. Where are the brakes on my thinking?

I know I’m analytical. I write to help me understand what’s going on in my life and what God is doing. Sometimes, though, the analysis slowly draws my head downward until I’m navel-gazing and trapped inside a melodramatic bubble where I forget Jesus is still Lord and that he’s in control because, hey, he made the universe and holds it together. Col 1:15-20.

I’m reading Luke. I’m taking each piece and just studying it, instead of glazing over and neglecting to ask questions: what does Jesus mean? Why did Luke choose to include this

Today I ran errands2015-06-12T21:29:21+00:00

We’re having leftovers for dinner tonight

There is so much left to know about God.

Until about two years ago, I was sort of “yeah-okay-cool” about reading the Bible; I was frustrated that I had a hard time reading it, and I dutifully tried my best to please God by reading it. I didn’t really “study” a whole bunch. I didn’t invest a lot of time into thinking about what I had read, how it affected my beliefs, and what it all meant for reality, for life.

After all, growing up in church, I had essentially heard it all before. Right?

I think that, all too often, we as Christians forget about why we do what we do. Why do you read the Bible? Why do I?

“…that I may know Him,” wrote Paul in Phil 3:10. For too long, I was really only reading the Bible to check it off a list, to feel better, to assuage my own personal

We’re having leftovers for dinner tonight2019-10-08T02:29:19+00:00