Deep-End Discipleship

“But your loyal love, Lord, extends to the skies; your faithfulness reaches the clouds. Your righteousness is like the strongest mountains; your justice is like the deepest sea. Lord, you save both humans and animals. Your faithful love is priceless, God! Humanity finds refuge in the shadow of your wings. They feast on the bounty of your house;you let them drink from your river of pure joy.Within you is the spring of life.   In your light, we see light. ” Psalm 36: 5-9 CEB What do you do when you’re having a really, totally, horribly bad day? Do you isolate yourself, or flock to friends? Do you seek out music or movies to relate to your feelings? Do you try and keep yourself busy with homework and tasks, or do you space out and let your mind go numb? I think that this is an important thing to know about ourselves. Sometimes these outlets can be good, but other times, our coping mechanisms don’t always help us face the problem at hand. When something happens, an...

Look, he is coming with the clouds! Every eye will see him, including those who pierced him, and all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of him. This is so. Amen.   “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “the one who is and was and is coming, the Almighty.” – Revelation 1:7-8 –                Time. We keep track of it in gears on a watch or more likely by turning on our phone screen. When we have fun it seems to go faster and when we’re stuck in that class we dislike it seems to crawl to a slower pace. Sometimes we want to add more time to the day to get more done, have more time with a friend, or to take a longer nap! Whether we wish time was faster or slower, we’re all living within the constraint of time. Since we live within time, it’s hard to imagine anything outside of it. It’s hard to imagine a Being that existed before time or outside of time. Since God created everything that ...

Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God. Psalm 42:5 I find that this time of year causes a significant amount of stress. The semester is wrapping up, assignments are due, tests abound and the holidays are fast approaching. It’s easy to feel bogged down in the struggle and anxiety, to despair that none if it will get done and that this hard time will never end. But this psalm tells us that we have hope in God. Even in the midst of stressful times, we hope that there will be an end to the struggle. May we be reminded to praise God, because God is the one who brings hope into our lives. It may seem like the “downcast” time is forever, that we will never have peace again. God says otherwise. Have hope in the Lord, and know that joy comes in the morning. Isaiah 43

  “Help, God —the bottom has fallen out of my life! Master, hear my cry for help! Listen hard! Open your ears!   Listen to my cries for mercy.   If you, God , kept records on wrongdoings, who would stand a chance? As it turns out, forgiveness is your habit,   and that’s why you’re worshiped. I pray to God —my life a prayer— and wait for what he’ll say and do. My life’s on the line before God, my Lord waiting and watching till morning, waiting and watching till morning.   O Israel, wait and watch for God —   with God ’s arrival comes love,   with God ’s arrival comes generous redemption. No doubt about it—he’ll redeem Israel,   buy back Israel from captivity to sin." - Psalm 130 MSG - Is it ever hard to have hope when you are in a hard situation? How does that feel? What about when you are waiting for a big decision in your life? How are the two different? This passage is very insightful into how God is listening when we are call...