Confidence in Princes

04-25-2021Stewardship

Have you ever confided your problems to a friend, only to get the answer, “have you prayed about it as much as you’ve talked about it?”

Like all good advice, it can really irritate the recipient at first. Here I am, vulnerable and wounded, unloading my problems, and this joker tries to load them right back up and ship them off to Someone with a higher pay grade.

But again, like all good and irritating advice, it rings true if you sit and think about it.

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How to Fail Your Way to Heaven

04-18-2021Stewardship

You know what are some of my favorite moments in Scripture? The little “Easter eggs” of Jesus’ humanity, things like Jesus falling asleep, Jesus drawing in the sand, Jesus playing with kids. And how about Jesus rising from the dead, appearing to his disciples and saying, “So, have you got anything to eat?” It’s right for us to always keep in mind that Jesus is God. But we also have to remember that he was man. He got hungry. He cried when he felt sad and laughed when he felt happy. He got tired. He got bored. Because he was God, none of those feelings ever led him into sin, like they do us. He never spent a car ride trying to pass the hours by seeing how annoyed he could make his older sister. He never smacked Peter over the head for saying something really stupid. But he did unleash some Biblically righteous anger on those traders in the temple, didn’t he? And he wasn’t shy about calling Peter “a Satan” when his friend tempted him to take the easy way out. It’s the tightrope walk we all try to balance every day, honoring our human emotions while still answering God’s call to be better. Being perfect isn’t the domain of the Christian that’s the domain of Christ only. Trying and failing, then trying again (and failing again) and again and again? That’s the domain of the Christian. - Tracy Earl Welliver, MTS

Eye Has Not Seen

04-11-2021Stewardship

They say seeing is believing. But if you’ve ever ordered a pair of pants online, you know that’s not always the case. Whatever the photos promise us, what looked like a perfectly nice shade of navy blue on our computer screens comes in the mail as an unusual shade of blue green that only appears in the giant box of Crayola crayons.

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A Happy Ending Isn’t the Whole Story

04-04-2021Stewardship

“Is there a happy ending?”

When my kids were young, we never made it past the first whiff of any narrative tension before I got this question. As soon as whatever princess or furry woodland animal who was the hero of the story got into any small scrape, they wanted that reassurance, “Is there a happy ending?”

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Walk Every Step with Christ

03-28-2021Stewardship

Holy Week is a week for being mindful. We must set loose the baggage of Lent, and not be deterred by the dazzling sunrise of Easter morning beckoning in the distance.

It’s okay for us to be excited for Easter. We’ve waited so long, after all. In my opinion it’s one of the best feelings there is: the yearning we have in our hearts for the Resurrection as we embark on Palm Sunday. And in a purely logical sense, many of us have Easter celebrations for which we are preparing, and practical considerations to contend with. It’s going to be a busy week, one likely full of happy distractions.

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When our Own Hour Comes

03-21-2021Stewardship

We parents know that it’s tricky, tackling the topic of fear with our kids. We want them to know that it’s okay to be scared, that it’s something we all feel from time to time. We want them to understand that bravery isn’t the absence of fear, but the choices we make in persevering despite that feeling.

Most of all, we want to model the right kind of behavior for our kids. Whatever our scary situation is illness, a job loss, life changes we want them to see us make a choice to face that fear head-on.

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Pull Back the Curtains

03-14-2021Stewardship

Awake, O Sleeper! This morning came a little earlier than I would have liked Daylight Savings Time always does. Sometimes that morning sunlight seems more intrusive than illuminating. You’re still half-lost in sleep, and that sun is demanding of you a lot more than you’re ready to give.

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Parents Just Don’t Understand

03-07-2021Stewardship

Anybody remember the old rap song by the Fresh Prince, aka Will Smith, “Parents Just Don’t Understand?” As we grow up, it is sometimes a struggle for us to imagine that our parents understand us. It can seem impossible that Mom and Dad remember the stress of exam week or peer pressure. We never saw them as children; we never saw their disappointed faces when they weren’t invited to a party, or their dashed hopes at a bad test grade. We never saw them homesick their first week of college or nervous to ask their crush to Homecoming.

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When Sacrifice Becomes Mundane

02-28-2021Stewardship

It seems to happen every year, like clockwork: we drag a bit, as we enter into the second week of Lent. On Ash Wednesday, we feel a bit like soldiers banging our shields, rushing into battle. “We’re ready, God!” our hearts cry out. “Transform us through sacrifice! Your will be done!”

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The Unlikely Suspects

02-21-2021Stewardship

Have you ever taken a nature walk? Have you leisurely strolled through a forest or field, with no real destination in mind and your only objective being receptivity to and observation of all God’s creation?

Sometimes, Scripture readings can feel like a nature walk. All of salvation history plays out against the backdrop of the natural world, with all elements of God’s creation - plants and animals and the dust of the earth itself - turning in a supporting performance. How about Jesus in the hot and dusty desert, tempted, living “among the wild beasts?” Noah departed from his ark with the animals he rescued, observing God’s sign in the very clouds of the sky. Even God Himself, offering us salvation from original sin through the waters of baptism.

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The Unfailing Goodness of God

02-14-2021Stewardship

I have always wondered why Jesus told the cleansed leper not to publicize how he had been healed by the Son of God. It’s not that I can’t understand why Jesus would want to keep the matter quiet — after all, he knew that as soon as people heard, he would be mobbed with requests for healings, and his movements restricted.

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The Audacity of Holiness

02-07-2021Stewardship

Do you know a holy person? I’m not talking about piety — that’s important, too, in its own way. But right now, I’m speaking of holiness.

St. Therese of Lisieux called holiness “a disposition of the heart that makes us humble and little in the arms of God, aware of our weakness, and confident — in the most audacious way — in His Fatherly goodness.”

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