I once posted this Eugene H. Peterson quote on the Flowing Faith Facebook page and have not been able to forget it ever since: “What a waste it would be to take these short, precious, eternity-charged years that we are given and squander them in cocktail chatter when we can be, like Jeremiah, vehemently human and passionate with God.” I think all human beings are afraid of wasting their lives. We crave for meaning and purpose in our lives. It’d…
Are you looking for abundant life? Make sure you’re looking at the right places. Check twice that you’re not running after false gods. Because you become what you embrace. If you go after false idols, you become false. If you worship the Holy God, you receive life upon life.
Is life worth living? Is there purpose for your life? The writer of Ecclesiastes seeks answers for these existential questions. And most of us ask them at some point in our lives. Why on earth are we here for? What’s there to show for a lifetime of work, a lifetime of working your fingers to the bone? One generation goes its way, the next one arrives, but nothing changes—it’s business as usual for old planet earth. The sun comes up…
Blaise Pascal’s famous quote “Not only do we not know God except through Jesus Christ; We do not even know ourselves except through Jesus Christ” gives us a lot to ponder. It states that Christ is the only way to God. But that’s not so surprising. It is one of the fundamental beliefs of Christianity. But the second part -that states that we can’t even know ourselves without Christ- can sound a bit odd for many. How could our identity…
I’ve never felt comfortable writing a Mother’s Day post. Actually, I’ve never written one before. And even this is mostly an unlikely one. I have a wonderful mom (love you!) and I love being a mom. But my heart goes out for anyone who would (have) like(d) to be a mom and isn’t. I don’t feel comfortable boasting about my blessings. (But we are certainly encouraged to count our blessings). The only thing I want to boast about is God’s…
Too often we just let life happen and we wander without thinking, even without praying. But then we are in danger to get where the flow takes us and not where we want to go. We need to put our faith in action. Because faith is not a sentiment, it is a call for action. We need to start our days by praying for guidance, for wisdom, for direction, for strength. Tommy Barnett explains “I’ve discovered it is not sufficient…
Even though the world around us is full of marks of death and dying we try to deny our own mortality. We like to live in La-La Land and pretend we are not aging and our life will go on forever. But the sooner we face the reality: we are dust and we will return to dust, the better we can embrace living fully. Like a parent feels compassion for their children— that’s how the LORD feels compassion for those…
Are you in need of grace? Good for you, the most difficult step is to recognize your need of grace. Because God has plenty of grace to give you and he loves to pour more and more grace on you. Over and over again. There’s grace for every need and every situation. However, we can’t store up grace. We need to ask and receive grace every single day of our lives. But there’s plenty of it. God will -with gladness-…
Did you know that you are a very important person in God’s plans? For real. It does not necessarily feel like it or even look like it from your perspective. But when you look at the big picture or from God’s perspective, you see the importance of every person in the relay of faith. Just the same way we need to look at the big picture and not to be satisfied with partial truths when we are reading the Bible….
You have a place in God’s plans. Yes, God is calling you to enter deeper into his grace. God is calling you into a full partnership with him. How do I know this? Just by reading the Bible. Every follower of Christ is called to make disciples and serve the body of Christ. Not just pastors! Every single follower is called to partner with God. Malcolm Smith has said “We have one function in life: to be the manifestors of…
