what must it have been like as the parents of john the baptist, jesus, or sampson? Knowing your child is born for some great task, yet seeing them grow toward it from infancy. God does not often reveal the future with such detail because we tend to be foolish when we have a guarantee of His blessing.

Foolish, yet courageous. God’s promises and loyal love are what give us courage for the days ahead. As lamentations says in today’s reading, “i have hope when i think of this, the Lords love never ends”

I have a weak will and make plenty of mistakes, and this promise gives me courage amidst my failings. Gods love never ends. His mercies are new every morning.

Father help me to love with great courage knowing that you won’t abandon me in my failings. thank you that although i don’t have many promises regarding the future, i have this one.

lamentations 3:21-26

You can’t escape the news related to planned parenthood. It’s plastered all over the web on news sites and social media, it comes up in every news discussion on the radio and the television. And I won’t reiterate the videos or comment on the emotional and political impact they are making here, because what you and I really need, it to see the call to action that we desperately need to follow if the problem is truly going to be fixed.

When all is said and done, Planned Parenthood is going to lose a lot of support and funding. It will forever have trust issues based on the publicity it has received. You don’t need to express your outrage or share any more news articles about it, in fact, you REALLY need to stop sharing your feelings about all of it. At this point, you are not tearing down Planned Parenthood as much as you are tearing down your own reputation and opportunity to connect with other people. Too much sharing and people will come to see you at hateful and judgmental. They will distance themselves from you out of fear that you’d attack them with the same ferocity as the posts you share contain if you really knew them. And chances are, they are hurting and need someone who can be understanding. In fact, chances are quite a few of the people you know have some shame related to how they got pregnant or an abortion they had…and you are killing your opportunity to be the one that leads them through it to healing.

The truth is, the church has been and should always be the BEST place for people to run for answers and support in a moment of crisis. And if we had been or provided a better place for millions of mothers over the past few decades, Planned Parenthood would not have had as much of an audience. The popularity of their services is partly due to our lack of popularity in serving those same hurting people. Now that they have lost funding and trust, the best thing YOU and the other faithful believers can do it put more money, resources, and volunteer hours behind good pregnancy ministries and services. The church has the opportunity to step up and fill a gap—saving BOTH ADULT and children’s lives in the process. I pray hard that we will step up to the challenge. I pray that you will care more about saving lives: physical and emotional lives, more than you care about seeing the demise of Planned Parenthood.

Lastly, the news and attacks of Planned Parenthood have caused pregnancy and abortion to be on everyone’s mind. If someone has lost a child or aborted one, you can bet that they have had to revisit those emotions as they process these events. Others are currently pregnant, and overwhelmed with physical change, fear, and not knowing where to turn. They should be able to turn to you. I BEG you…let them know that they will be met with compassion, understanding, and prayer, regardless of what they have done or what they believe. Remind yourself that Jesus healed, fed, and talked with people who didn’t agree with Him. He knew that they needed to know Him before they could follow Him. The same is true today. People need to know the heart and kindness of Jesus through you before the specifics of morality make sense. Relationship before rules.

As a good friend and colleague of mine said quite controversially a few weeks ago:

“God will never call you to hate someone.”

Jesus called us to love our enemies.

Christian – you need to step up!
Now is not the time for you to spread hate. Now is the time for you to fill the gap that is left and invite people to come close to you and the church for healing. Support the church and pregnancy ministries. Rally around women who need support, regardless of how they arrived in their situation. Make this opportunity a redeeming one, not a repelling one.

I pray that we can shine in this moment, not screw it up.

Two thousand pigs…drowned. Two THOUSAND!
I would be pretty willing to send away the guy who caused that to happen too.

I find that there are more unanswered questions than answered ones regarding this event:

• Where did the demons go after the pigs died?
• Why did Jesus allow such destruction?
• Did the death of the pigs help His cause, or hurt it?
• What was the point of this encounter?

I am reminded of the words of C.S. Lewis in this encounter:
“He’s not a tame lion, but He is good.”

Jesus is rarely predictable, and often controversial and even astounding in His actions…but they served His purpose to spread the news of the kingdom, of that I am certain. I just think I would have done it differently.

I need to keep an eye out for how God wants to work in unexpected ways in my own life and community. I need to be more willing to follow Him if He does something controversial or risky. And I need to remember how valuable one man’s life was to Jesus.

One of the hardest things to grasp in the Christian walk when you are excited and pursuing God with great diligence, is the lukewarm attitudes of so many others. I didn’t really appreciate the parable Jesus tells of the four soils until I started to get discouraged by the people I meet at church sometimes.

I realize now that the world is full of distractions and challenges that take our energy and effort away from the spiritual life…and that it is a blessing to be young and have more time than responsibilities, like I was, when you start following Jesus. That time and flexibility allow a lot of spiritual growth to occur that the average adult does not have.

Take advantage of your free time if you have it. Invest it well, and pursue God passionately.

And make sure you use every ounce of time you can make available if you don’t. Sacrificing hobbies, getting up an hour earlier, and even reducing expenses or income by changing your job or possessions are worthwhile sacrifices if you use that extra time to grow spiritually.

The Christian life is one of growth into a state of maturity, and that’s a lot harder than growing physically to maturity. You can’t stop physical growth, but you can stop mental, emotional and spiritual growth. It’s not uncommon to see a 20 year old acting like a twelve year old. It looks odd when a senior citizen behaves like a teenager. And I often fail to hold myself accountable to acting my spiritual age too. Sometimes I am the twenty year old Christian acting like a two year old Christian.

Jesus is quick to point out our attacks on new believers–the way we are quick to point out their faults and failings in faith matters. But the opposite is also true: the longer we have been a follower of Jesus, the more maturity and faith we ought to show. Unfortunately that is rarely true. Most long time believers have acquired a sense of dignity and poise in life, but rarely to they hold themselves to a life of dynamic faith and outreach. They’ve got the morality down, but not the mission of Jesus…myself often included.

God help me to act my age!

Let these disciplined times with you break me out of a life aimed at stability so that I life a dynamic, mission-filled life of faith each day.