Something More

You Renew

"I begin with recognition of the world declaring who God is. This is not relational; it is simply fact. I end with my own recognition of the delight of relationship with my maker. Where I started by hearing his praise, I end by participating in it. And I recognize that he took the doubt and grief I brought and renewed me with faith and joy. Though the days of hardship have been long and still continue, I end with the expression of trust that faith and joy will be mine in Christ forever."

The Garden of the Soul

"This is gardening at its finest – placing a seed in the ground that can be as tiny as a carrot seed and watching it sprout out of the ground and grow greenly upward toward the light...And in time, those tiny seeds become flourishing plants which produce fruit to scatter more seeds. / Isn’t this what heaven is about too?"

Peace

"At the eyewall, we know. We know that the storm will destroy us, and we don’t want to be destroyed. But our vision is too obscured to even know if there is a way of escape. And then, there is the eye. There is God. There is peace. When we come to the end of ourselves, we have reached the eyewall. We know there is no answer in ourselves, and we know that we want the answer. And even if a part within us it tempted to go back, we no longer can. But oh, the joy of this truth: the eye has found us!"

Munificinth

"Being mice, the natural timidity of the Sleeks and the Softs for quite a few generations prevented them from interacting with one another at all. Their paths would cross from time to time, but they would scurry off in opposite directions without speaking, or the one would covertly watch the other from the seclusion of the nearest plant. / However, one day that all changed when Roger, a Sleek, spoke to Freddy, a Soft."

My Vindication

"This is specifically what I want my vindication to look like. Ten, twenty, thirty, forty years from now, I want the person I have become and the life that I live to show clearly that listening to God’s voice is truly best, that the riches of his glory far exceed the riches that have a dollar sign attached to them."

Asymptotic

"[T]wo hundred fifty years after Newton posited the concept of universal gravitation, Einstein said he was wrong...Objects aren’t attracting other objects by their mass. Their mass is bending the fabric of time and space, and this distortion causes other objects to travel towards them...This begs the question of whether space literally has a fabric to it, and scientists are currently trying to figure that out...What if the invisible fabric of the universe is God?"

Daffodils and Spring

"You know how some people just carry light with them? Mom was one of those people. I could list off a whole string of positive adjectives for her without considering myself to be at all exaggerating, but “bright” just might be my favorite. And that’s not so much because she was a smarty pants – though believe me, she was! It’s because her brisk energy and optimism for the future were glowing. And the light of Christ shone through her in a way that made the gospel look like good news indeed."

To Fear or Not to Fear

"I want to start by saying that holding on to both fear of God and casting out fear is not holding on to legalism and licentiousness. It is letting go of them both for something infinitely better...What then is this better way, and what does it look like?"

Upheld

"I want you to know more deeply than you know anything else that God absolutely loves you. He doesn't love you for anything you have done, save trusting in Christ. You can't diminish his love by falling short of his glory. He knows that change takes time, and unlike us, he knows exactly how long the change will take. He wants our obedience today, and he's not judging us today for last year's mistakes."

Heartbeat of a Lamb

"What do I mean by saying, “Life forever calling”?...Life itself has a certain appeal...But abundant life calls out with a promise of life being worth living. The richness and beauty of abundant life is alluring. This is the sound of the heartbeat of a lamb."