What really matters to God? Living right or loving well? Mark 12:30 makes God’s priorities clear: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. Love your neighbor as yourself. If everything we do is motivated by a decision to…
The tomb is empty so we don’t have to be. Will we remember that long after Easter Sunday? A woman once pulled me aside on a Sunday morning during communion and whispered a desperate plea. “What do you do when you’re completely empty?” I admired her courage and naked honesty, Only by God’s grace did…
rel•e•vant adj 1. having some sensible or logical connection with something else, for example, a matter being discussed or investigated. 2. having some bearing on or importance for real-world issues, present-day events, or the current state of society1 I’m clueless about post-modern culture. I don’t watch TV. I don’t read New York Times Bestsellers. (Wait,…
I believe with all my heart that God speaks in a variety of ways. He often communicates to me through my circumstances. I might hear a perfectly timed song on the radio that comforts or convicts me. Sometimes God will speak to me through my husband or a friend or even a stranger. He also…
To extol is to praise with great enthusiasm, to praise with a passionate or consuming interest. What a great word. Doesn’t it sound like fun? I can almost picture the one extolling. He’s cheering loudly after his favorite team won the Super Bowl. She’s clapping madly after her child rides a bike without training wheels.…
I bought Chuck Colson’s book Loving God because I wanted to sit down and read about how much God loves me. Instead the book challenged me to stand up and love God. Colson wrote of his goal for the book in the introduction: The greatest commandment of all, Jesus said, is “Love the Lord your…
Have you ever prayed a prayer that would require God’s constant vigilance if He chose to respond affirmatively? I petitioned God that way more than 30 years ago. My college roommate and I had discovered a fantastic Chinese food restaurant within walking distance of our dorm. We loved the chicken chow mien and pork fried…
God wants our faith to be genuine. That’s why He constantly calls us to a deeper level of trust. I’ve heard Him say, “Okay, Shawna, you trust me for this much. Now will you trust me for this much?” He repeats the question as He moves the bar higher and higher. When your faith is…
It probably won’t come as a surprise if I tell you I don’t make a living writing blog posts. For longer than I care to admit (only because I don’t want to acknowledge being old enough to have held a job of any kind since 1985), I’ve written advertising copy for a living. Since my…
“Experiencing” takes “believing” to a deeper level. I may claim to believe that God will meet all my needs. After all, the Bible tells me so in today’s memory verse. When I believe at this level, I intellectually trust that God will provide for me. But when business slows to a dribble and my income…
