I Believe…Help My Unbelief!

Courageous Parenting in the Age of Evil

One of the most difficult challenges being a parent is trusting God with the ones we love. Somehow we can see that he worked through the greatest challenges of our lives for our good and for His glory and yet we are still tempted to bulldoze all the hard out of our children’s lives, pray against hardship, and stay awake at night playing the “what if” game. This is not how God would have us love our children: through fear, yet often times that’s the way we navigate the world for them. In today’s episode, we look at one story in the Old Testament that challenges us to consider what our children’s lives could be if we stopped parenting from a place of anxiety and let faith in God’s plan and His goodness lead the way.

Choosing Bitterness Rather Than Grace

You’ve messed up. Maybe really badly. You’re staring your sin in the face. In this moment you have one of three options: 1) you can overemphasize and exaggerate the burden of righteous living emboldening yourself to embrace rebellion and bitterness against a God who requires something of you 2) you can down play your actions while simultaneously minimizing your salvation or 3) you can wrench your eyes from your sin and look at the cross, accepting your wretched behavior but also finding life in His free gift of grace. Today’s readings focus on these choices either to vilify God, minimize God, or trust God. The readings are extremely rich, interesting, and even though the themes aren’t new, my heart heard them in a new way. I hope you have the same experience!

I Believe…Help My Unbelief!

“I believe…help my unbelief!” Few cries of desperation can be so keenly felt and understood than the vulnerable and overwhelmed cry of the father in Mark 9 who clung to Jesus for help in saving his demented son. Hardly a Christian alive has not found immeasurable relief in knowing that both states of being can co-exist in our hearts and that we are not only welcomed but helped as we stumble often but travel upwards if we are clutching to the Father in our humanity. Today’s episode is a celebration of those who have walked by faith, not by sight and a reminder that our Jesus, who endured the cross, disregarding the shame, not only made a way for us to go home, but has promised us help with every step we take on earth. No doubt, no fear, no threat, no power on earth or in hell can separate us from that love. May you be encouraged by the readings today, and may the Lord open your eyes to ways you can tangibly live out your faith.

Limping Between Two Opinions

Today’s episode is found in Elijah’s question to the Israelites as they stood before him and the prophets of Baal: “How long are you going to limp between two opinions?” The Christian life is very difficult. It’s hard to remain committed to the Lord when so much of the world is tugging at our attention. It’s so easy to reduce our spiritual life to a mode of moralism. We find ourselves, as CS Lewis puts it, hoping that when God has taken what he wants, we’ll still have a little left over for ourselves once the taxes are paid. That’s all wrong, and though we have a taste for the results of the good thing, we still don’t have a taste for the good thing itself. We want the blessing without the sacrifice. We want our way, without the consequences. We want spiritual maturity without the growing pains. And in all that shallowness, we wonder why being a Christian just isn’t really doing it for us; meanwhile we’re dabbling in all sorts of distractions to keep from hearing God call our name too often. When are we going to stop? When are we going to choose God with our whole hearts? As Elijah said to the people “If The Lord is God, then follow him.”

The Supernatural Sides of Forgiveness

After listening to a therapy podcast recently in which every episode centered around adults who had been crippled emotionally by an injustice done to them in their childhood, and most often by their parents, I found myself in a bit of a panic wondering if my children would one day find themselves on a therapy couch, broken, alone, and miserable. I was confiding these fears to a friend who said “Who knew we’d find ourselves apologizing so much to our kids. I had no idea I could be so impatient until I had kids.” And it was in that statement that it dawned on me: our obedience to Christ to humble ourselves and ask for forgiveness is what will keep our kids from breaking under the strain of our humanity as mothers. So I’ve been mulling this topic over in my mind for a while; the fact that as Christians we have a supernatural ability to transcend the instinct to justify our sin against another and courageously admit our wrongs, ignore our ego, and seek reconciliation and in that process neutralize the pain. And even more miraculously, we can transcend the wrongs committed against us and extend forgiveness sincerely and wholeheartedly even if we are never paid the courtesy of an apology. Today’s readings center around our redemption in Christ and the power that lives inside us to act supernaturally in the face of pain and pride.