DEEP // WIDE // LIGHT

Don't you just love God's paradoxes? Our righteous deeds are like filthy rags. (Isaiah 64:6) Faith without works is dead. (James 2:17) Grace is free, (it is offered to all) but not cheap. (you must give up your life) For a branch to bear fruit, it must be pruned (cut). (John 15:2) Give God a tithe, and you will have plenty. (Malachi 3:8) God loves you (John 3:16) no matter how much you hurt him. (Matthew 23:37)

The father looks over at his daughter, who is hard at work. He asks her what she is doing, while already knowing the answer. She says, "I'm doing something for you, Dad." She grins. He smiles back, but with a twinge of sadness in the creases of his smiling eyes. He gently places his hands on top of hers, stilling her movements with a firmness that belied his quiet ways. She always wondered how he could do that. How can anyone be as gentle as a snowflake and as unyielding as a mountain of stone? He was both a fuzzy, cuddly teddy bear and a fierce, powerful, towering grizzly simultaneously. In his presence, she felt both tenderly loved and fearfully small. He held her hands and turned her to face him. He asked quietly, "Did I ask you to do that?" She looked at him in bewilderment. "What do you mean?" He smiled and said, "Did you decide to do that, or did I ask you to do that?" Now, she was thoroughly confused. "I'm not sure.&qu

i'm really not a guy who rants all the time. i'm actually a very light-hearted kind of guy. but something bothers me, and i'm going to get it off my chest. if i see one more TV show or movie that shows a character feeling guilty about not spending time with their kids/spouse only to receive a phone call bringing them back to the office, i'm gonna yell. not that it would do any good. they always have these bleeding-heart stories of a working man or a woman who is in serious internal conflict over missing their kid's game or not picking them up from school, but their cell phone goes off, and they say, "Daddy's got to go to work now." come on! you don't have to go back to work. i don't care if you're spiderman! take a night off to spend with your spouse and kids! take a vacation. let the world spiral towards destruction for one evening. it'll still be full of crime tomorrow. i have seen way too many pastors and/or ministers spend no t

Check this out. I've highlighted some verses of what I like to call “optimistic prophecy.” Many times, God’s prophets did not have good news, because God was angry about sin in much the same way as a parent is flustrated (that is not a misprint, it's a combo of flustered and frustrated) with their kid b/c they've told them and told them, but the kid just doesn't listen. But when those same bullhorns of God (that is, prophets) announced good news, it was good news indeed! In an effort to remind ourselves of what wrongs exist in this world, we remember the call of the prophets of what life will be like when that sin is gone. We see a beautiful picture when we imagine a better life – one without the aftereffects of sin. The neat thing about this is that it is said positively. If I can say that I love peace, then aren't I also saying the converse -- that I hate war? After God judges sin and sets things aright, it will look like this: Isaiah 11:6 - 9 (NKJV, emphasis mine