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Mercy in Modesty

MELISSA MCPHAIL|GUEST So speak and so act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty. For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment. (James 2:12-13) I’ve read and studied James’ book of wisdom multiple times throughout the years, but this morning I realized the law of liberty is a New Testament explanation of Christ’s gospel of grace. Immediate conviction overwhelmed me. So speak and so act according to [grace]. Do I do that? No, most of the time, I do not. The recipients of this letter did not do that either. James instructed the believers to hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, and in so doing, they were to show no partiality (James 2:1). None. Zero. They were not to have a spirit of judgmentalism or display a critical eye having strong opinions of others. They were not to make distinctions among Christ’s people and become judges with evil thoughts. They, too, knew the right thing to do and struggled to obey...

Mercy in Modesty2023-03-24T17:55:26+00:00

When My Basketball Became an Idol

SUE HARRIS|CONTRIBUTOR I play basketball every Friday with a group of women who also love to play. When the shutdown hit in 2020, we had no place to go. We were devastated. I had access to a gym, but no one was allowed to play with me. Nonetheless, I bought a brand-new beautiful leather basketball and played on my own about three times a week for exercise and to get out of the house. I loved that ball. In some ways, it became a companion to me during a lonely season. If you ever saw the movie, Castaway with Tom Hanks, imagine Wilson, his volleyball. Unlike Tom Hanks, I didn’t have full conversations with my basketball, but I loved it. I spent time with it. I began to adore it...

When My Basketball Became an Idol2023-03-24T17:55:29+00:00

John 17: Lord, Make Us One

AMANDA PETERSON|GUEST “I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.” John 17:23 John 17 is a glimpse into the heart of Christ as we get to see His final prayer to the Father the night of His arrest. He is burdened for His disciples and for all who would believe in Him through their word, which includes us, His people! Jesus repeatedly prays to the Father that His people would be one. He is not just praying for comradery, but He is praying for all believers to be perfectly one as a witness to the world of the love of God and the gospel of Jesus Christ. If the oneness of His people was so heavy on His heart and mind, we then should seek to rightly understand how we can live as one Body to the watching world...

John 17: Lord, Make Us One2022-05-04T14:44:59+00:00

When Life Feels Like Constructing a Puzzle

JESSICA ROAN|GUEST It happens every Christmas vacation. The anticipation, the buildup, the excitement. My boys can hardly stand it. They are so excited to sleep in, have time off, and do what they want to do.  Then reality sets in. They don’t sleep in but awake at 6:30 am and are bored to tears by 8:30. Then the pestering starts. “Mom, I’m bored. What should I do?” Now, I can’t translate in any language well, but I can read pre-teen and teen boy well. They don’t really want me to tell them what to do. They know the options. They want me to tell them they can have screen time and watch television or play video games. Ugh. Raising kids in a virtual world is a daunting task. So, this year, on a whim in the aisle at Barnes and Noble, I asked my son to pick out a puzzle. It was beautiful, a picture of an idyllic Mediterranean setting. So, hoping to provide some screenless family time, we broke open the bag and started putting together the puzzle’s boarder. We have completed a few larger puzzles a before this, usually with my mother’s expert help, but I’m sorry to say that two months later, our scene is missing more than a few pieces. We are getting there, and we will finish it, but our “holiday puzzle” has sadly outlasted the holidays. A Puzzling Life Life is a bit like an unfinished puzzle. Sure, we have the promise of “everything we need for life and godliness,” but that doesn’t mean each day doesn’t require trial and error, just like constructing a 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle. For example, sometimes a piece simply doesn’t fit where I think it should. In our recent puzzle adventure, we complained that pieces didn’t fit in spaces where it seemed they ought to fit. This is true in our spiritual lives as well. I often have specific plans and expectations for the way God should do things. More specifically, I think I know who I ought to minister to and what that ministry should look like. Often, however, God brings me a person I wasn’t expecting with a ministry opportunity I didn’t plan for at all...

When Life Feels Like Constructing a Puzzle2023-03-24T17:56:13+00:00

John 17: One with God and Others

SARAH JEFFERSON | GUEST “ … that they may be one even as we are one …” (John 17:22) Beginning in November of 2019 and in the 18 months that followed, a tsunami of hard, unexpected events crashed into our lives. My husband and I lost a very close friend as well as both of our mothers. As I sifted through the ashes of our lives, my father reached out to reconcile after ten years of our relationship being broken and estranged. Overwhelmed by it all, I wanted to blow the whistle in the game of life and scream, “Time out on the field! Unsportsman like conduct, Lord!” Wading through so much grief while trying to wrap my mind around the work of reconciliation felt like a hard “no.” But I never want to linger in resistance to God’s word and will. When suffering guts your life so deeply, to whom will you go? How will you respond when waves of hard threaten to steal your very breath? When obedience in the hard circumstances of life beckon, what will you do?

John 17: One with God and Others2023-03-24T17:56:30+00:00

The Mist of Motherhood

RACHEL CRADDOCK|CONTRIBUTOR If I am being completely honest, laundry is my least favorite household chore. Like Mary Poppins, I can find an element of fun in most jobs that must be done around the house. But when it comes to laundry, I long for a fairy godmother’s power to simply swoosh away the piles of dirty clothes. Being a mom to four means my laundry basket is always full and sock-matching seems never-ending. We have forty-two pairs of socks in a week’s worth of laundry; the odds of finding all eighty-four socks in the same week are slim. In the new heavens and the new earth, when Christ returns to redeem and restore all things, I have a holy anticipation that socks will no longer go missing. I am convinced sock causalities must have something to do with the Fall. In my flesh, laundry is a begrudging chore. In my flesh, I can’t see laundry rightly as important kingdom work. When I focus my eyes on the earthly things I can see—the piles, the baskets, and oh-so-many socks—I easily become overwhelmed.

The Mist of Motherhood2023-03-24T17:57:01+00:00

Wrangling in the Pew

HEATHER MOLENDYK|CONTRIBUTOR A modified journal entry from not so many years ago… Today’s church service was such a blessing! Getting to witness my four children fight each other using subtle gladiator-style battle strategies to be the ones to sit right next to me in the church pew totally validated my worth as a human being. It was an enriching experience to helpfully point out each word in scripture to my younger children only to realize at the end that they had been studying a small ant crawling on the floor the entire time. It was so joyful to sing those old hymns as a family while my small ones bounced mosh-pit style, accidentally knocking my hymn book to the floor. I took such pride in the generosity of my offspring as I pried open his little fingers from the dollar bill that belonged in the offering plate instead of his snug, little pocket. But then, like the eye of a hurricane, I was able to buy myself a limited amount of uninterrupted time when I passed out a small suck-on candy to each child. The winds hadn’t stopped blowing quite yet. I knew full well that when the eye finished its journey overhead, the storm would continue with the winds blowing in the opposite direction. Nevertheless, while their little legs swung back and forth, their little fingers twisted empty candy wrappers, and their little mouths were momentarily occupied, I was able to take that deep breath I so desperately needed. I opened my Bible to the sermon text.

Wrangling in the Pew2023-03-24T17:57:31+00:00

John 16: A Perfect Peace

BETHANY BELUE|GUEST It is 6:00 p.m. on a Friday night. The kitchen is a mess with dirty dishes scattered on the counter and crumbs blanketing the floor from a toddler who thinks throwing his food is funny. My hair is tied in a messy ponytail, and spit-up stains dot my shirt. My 19-month-old is running wild awaiting bath time while my two-month-old cries, ready for her last little nap before the end of the day. As I look around at this scene, with toys scattered everywhere and the sounds of young children filling the home, I can’t help but laugh. Although I’m living in my very own circus and a far cry from how I used to spend a Friday night, I laugh at how different my life is now and how peaceful my heart is in this moment of chaos. For all of us, the last few years have felt heavy, unnerving, and probably at times like living in a dramatic movie. Between a pandemic which has completely changed so much about our world, political divisions, racial unrest, and continual brokenness that fills our lives, we can all say we have faced tribulation. While all of these things have impacted my life personally, the biggest focus in my world has been the birth of two children in less than two years after years of struggling with infertility. These babies were prayed for, longed for, and still very much a surprise to us. In a short period of time, while the world around us changed dramatically, everything in our personal lives changed as we welcomed these two little lives into our family. As I navigate this new season that feels like I’m barely keeping my head above water, I surprisingly told a friend recently, “I think I may be more at peace now in this season than I've ever felt before.”

John 16: A Perfect Peace2023-03-24T17:57:50+00:00

The Church In One Accord

SHARON ROCKWELL | GUEST My husband and I recently attended the 34th Annual Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast in our small town. Several hundred people gathered to pray for our nation, our state, and our city. We watched our area Explorers and the Pipes and Drum Ensemble post the Colors and lead the Pledge of Allegiance. We acknowledged those in local leadership and first responder roles, and we listened to our public high school sing both hymns and patriotic music. Several community pastors read Bible passages and led us in prayer. It was a deeply moving time to come together with those who live side by side with us, who may attend different churches, who may disagree on the need for masks, and who may be on the opposite side politically. But none of that mattered. For the few hours we were together praying, we were in one accord. I was reminded of the story of the early church. After Christ’s resurrection, He returned to present Himself alive to the apostles. He offered many proofs that He was alive, appearing to them for forty days and speaking to them about the kingdom of God. The apostles were undoubtedly excited to spread the news of what they had seen and heard. But Jesus commanded them to wait for the promised Holy Spirit to come. After this commandment, Jesus was lifted up into a cloud and taken from their sight. Acts 1:12-14 records their obedience, “Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day’s journey away. And when they had entered, they went up to the upper room, where they were staying, Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot and Judas the son of James. All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.” The crowd totaled about 120 people. Later, after Pentecost and the anointing of the Holy Spirit, the church grew as 3,000 were baptized and continued in prayer and thanksgiving.

The Church In One Accord2023-03-24T17:57:59+00:00

John 16: Peace in Jesus

ALLISON VAN EGMOND | GUEST The world news blares updates about recent warfare. An email alert chimes with bad news from a doctor. A mom yells in frustration. A pastor is persecuted for speaking the truth. A teen is plagued with suicidal thoughts. A kid screams for attention. A couple quarrels regularly. A woman struggles with falling into the same sin. There are many daily concerns that threaten to steal our peace. Longing for Peace Our chaotic lives can cause us to feel overwhelmed and unsettled. We are surrounded by various forms of suffering. Sometimes in the midst of the turmoil in my own life, I dream about lounging on the beach with a book in my hand, a salty snack to nibble on, and the soothing sounds of the ocean around me. Perhaps you’ve had a similar daydream. When life seems to swirl in chaos around us, we tend to want to escape the noise. We dream about another world, another place where there are no demands on our attention, no noises filling our ears, no fears or sorrows filling our minds. We long for a break. A pause button. Peace and quiet.

John 16: Peace in Jesus2023-03-24T17:58:18+00:00
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