life. faithful.

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light

Our nation--and our world--is in a very dark place right now. Everywhere you turn, you see chaos, confusion, fear, despair, loss, and hopelessness. People are lost. People are broken. People are living with shame and regret, desperate to hide the parts of themselves they are afraid for other people to see. In their desperation to hide, they are running toward the darkness... " Still some people preferred the darkness over the light because their actions were dark. Some of humankind hated the light. They scampered hurriedly back into the darkness where vices thrive and wickedness flourishes." (John 3:19b & 20) When people are ashamed of their actions, they hide them in the dark. They don't want them exposed to the world--it would be embarrassing, humiliating for people to see all the things better left hidden. They cling to the darkness because they are afraid of what will happen if light shines on the things they are ashamed of. People fear things they don't kn

a nation...

We are not a nation built by bureaucrats. We are not a nation built by politicians. We are not a nation built by the godless. We are not a nation built by the government. We are not a nation built by the uncaring. We are not a nation built by the weak. We are not a nation built by the selfish. We are not a nation built by takers. We are a nation built by those who chose to set out on voyages that carried them across an unknown ocean, to settle a land they had never seen. We are a nation built by those who left everything they had ever known with the hopes of creating a better life. We are a nation built by those who signed the Declaration of Independence with the words, "with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor." We are a nation built by those who loaded up their families to take on the dangerous journey "out west" because they were looking for opportunity. We are a n

a prayer for our nation

Dear God, I know You were there at the founding of our nation. The founding fathers weren't perfect by any means, but they did their best to consult You at every step. They wanted to please You, to create a nation that would serve as Your light to the world. For generations, that was the case. Our nation sat as a beacon on the hill, a light in the dark, salt to preserve and help heal a broken world. We have been seen by the rest of the world as a Christian nation, and for the majority of the life of our nation, that's what we've tried to be. As a nation, we claimed Your promises for ourselves--we claimed the covenant. Like the founding fathers, we weren't perfect. We made wrong choices. We promoted attitudes and actions that went against Your plan, even when we knew better. We started moving further from Your plan, pushing You aside. We demanded that people should abandon their faith when they entered the public square--insisting that freedom of religion meant freedom

Stand up and speak

Pastor Allen Jackson recently said, "I think when you accept your Christian identity card for the Kingdom, you forfeit your neutrality with evil." In my writing here, I haven't been very vocal when it comes to politics. A quick count based on the "politics" tag shows 37 of 409 posts, so 9% through the years. Of those, I've been pretty diplomatic in my writing--encouraging you to do the research and exercise your right and responsibility to vote, no matter who you vote for. I've basically remained neutral...but I don't think that is something we can do any longer. If you listen to the loudest voices in our society right now, we as Christians should keep our beliefs out of our politics. We are told to keep quiet, and if we do on occasion try to speak up for biblical truths we are told that our words are hateful and bigoted. As a result, most of us have listened. We've pretty much agreed to sit down and shut up. It's past time for us to stand u

dear christian teachers...

As schools are starting back, you're on my heart a lot right now. Whether you are walking into a public school or private school, you're headed back to the front lines of a battle you haven't been prepared for. You're prepared to teach--I don't mean that's the battle. You know your material, you have your curriculum, and you've been trained in all the methods of classroom management. For that matter, teachers are required to get more hours of professional development each year than many of the health professionals I know. You know your subject matter. You've spent hours figuring out 3 different ways to understand something so that you can walk into a classroom and teach it...usually 5 different ways. You are more than prepared for the education side of your job. But that's not why you're on my heart. That's not your main battle. The battlefield you walk onto every morning is the one on which the battle for the souls of our children are being

light in the dark

I've been listening to Allen Jackson again, and he said something that stuck in my mind: "One of the reasons we find ourselves in this mess we're in is we've stopped imagining the promises of God were necessary and we started accepting the promises of a government." In another sermon, he pointed out that the only way for darkness to increase is for the light to diminish. We are living in an incredibly dark time right now, and it just continues to get darker. And as much as we would like to blame all those who are against God, this mess isn't their fault. It is ours--the people who claim to be followers of Christ, who have decided that it's okay for us to hide our light under a bushel. I'm not ignoring all the political upheaval happening right now. In fact, I'm probably paying more attention to it than I really should be--the chaos and lies have me distracted more than I would like to admit. I fully believe that we are in for more than most of us