It’s funny how much I always need to be reminded of the basics in life. The most fundamental truths I forget the easiest. Bible verses that should fill my mind and heart always, I forget for months at a time. This just happened again. Around me recently there has been much debate over how to …
I love the Romans. Last year, I took a class about the Roman Republic and absolutely fell in love with them. I could read or talk about them for hours. They fascinate me. I even wrote a sonnet from the point of view of a foot soldier during the First Punic War. For my senior …
Yesterday was Valentine’s Day. It seems people either love the day, if they have someone to spend it with, or hate it, if they have no one to spend it with. My whole life, I’ve been in the latter category, often deigning to just ignore the holiday and treat it like any other day. Still, …
Lately I’ve been reflecting on how our definition of “smart” as it regards choices is a very strange thing. We have all probably given advice to someone at some point who was doing something we didn’t think was the “smart move,” in the hopes of deterring them from a bad decision that could wreck their …
Welcome to the “What God is Doing in my Life” segment of this blog. For about the past month, I have been feeling slightly distracted. It was not like something big happened; rather, something inside my spirit was distracted, not at peace, not focused as it should be on God. I was aware of it, …
The story of Israel’s first two kings is interesting. In an act of rejecting the Lord’s total control over them, Israel asked for a king. God gave them exactly what they wanted: Saul, the “kingliest” king possible, a go-getter, a an of action. When the Ammonites threatened the city of Jerush Gilead, Saul went to …
It never ceases to amaze me the ways in which God speaks to us. He knows exactly how we will listen, exactly what we need to hear, and He loves us enough that He says it in precisely the right way at precisely the right time. Sometimes, He whispers in our ears. Sometimes He draws …
“It’s not who I am underneath, but what I do that defines me.” ~Batman, Batman Begins The above quote is from a scene in Batman Begins, in which Rachel, the childhood friend of Bruce Wayne, does not yet know that he (spoiler alert) is Batman. She asks him, as Batman, to tell her his …
Who am I? This question begins to haunt us in about junior high, and continues to plague us for a while after that. The answers–or lack thereof–determine what path we follow after high school, what we do with our time, who we associate with. In a large part, our answers to this question become more …
“We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” ~2 Corinthians 10:5 I recently became a leader in the youth ministry at my new church. After each mid-week gathering, we have a leader meeting around a firepit …