Someone was telling me about this a while back. Praying for God to break him.
“What do you mean by that?” I asked. “And where is it in the Bible?” Continue reading “Do You Pray for God to “Break” You?”
Do You Pray for God to “Break” You?
The Thick Darkness Where God Was
Margaret Powers wrote a poem. It was about a man, but when I remembered it, I saw a woman. She was walking with God, so there were two sets of footprints. But sometimes there was just one, and she didn’t know why. She found out that they were when the Lord had carried her.
Why, I wondered, why didn’t she know the Lord had carried her? Why couldn’t she feel Him? Why couldn’t she see Him? Why couldn’t she hear His voice whispering to her?
But then . . .
. . . it happened to me. Continue reading “The Thick Darkness Where God Was”
The Prayer of Jabez, Revisited
When a theme is trendy, I tend to avoid it. For good or ill, my gut reaction is if everybody’s doing it, to back off. Shucks, I might not have even followed Jesus when He was on earth, because of all those crowds.
That’s why it took me about eight years to read The Prayer of Jabez by Bruce Wilkinson. When it first came out and was all the buzz, I scorned it and turned up my nose. Then, in 2009, when I saw it on the rack at a dollar store, I shrugged and picked it up. It wasn’t trendy any more, and besides, it was my price. Continue reading “The Prayer of Jabez, Revisited”
What Does Real Repentance Look Like?
Jesus cried out, “Repent! For the kingdom of heaven is at hand!”
A couple of years ago I posted on Facebook a question about the Greek word translated “repentance.” (It’s metanoia and its variants.)
Yes, I admit, it took me a long time to get back to all the links and ideas people sent me, but here I am again, studying repentance.
It’s because three things happened at about the same time. First, I was praying for pastors and other Christian leaders (the ones who have treated and counseled sexual abuse survivors as if they were pariahs) to repent about their wrongdoing.
Second, I’ve been praying for revival for a long time, and in the context of that, having a discussion with a Christian leader about whether or not repentance is necessary for salvation.
Third, I’ve been studying II Corinthians, where Paul talks about repentance in chapter 7.
I always used to hear repentance being taught as a change of mind. That very sterile, academic definition vaguely dissatisfied me. It seemed to accompany the academic, intellectual acceptance of Christ embodied in the “sinner’s prayer.” Continue reading “What Does Real Repentance Look Like?”
What Would Jesus Do, Revisited
Maybe you remember the What Would Jesus Do phenomenon in the 1990s. The Christian culture of the U.S. was abuzz with the question in youth groups and Bible studies because an awful lot of people sincerely wanted to use it to help them live a more consistent Christian life. Maybe the bracelets and coffee mugs and shirts and aprons and bibs (yes, bibs) would help. Continue reading “What Would Jesus Do, Revisited”