“God is the only comfort. He is also the supreme terror: the thing we most need and the thing we most want to hide from. He is our only possible ally, and we have made ourselves His enemies. Some people talk as if meeting the gaze of absolute goodness would be fun. They need to think again. They are still only playing with religion. Goodness is either the great safety or the great danger—according to the way you react to it. And we have reacted the wrong way. . . . Of course, I quite agree that the Christian religion is, in the long run, a thing of unspeakable comfort. But it does not begin in comfort; it begins in the dismay I have been describing, and it is no use at all trying to go on to that comfort without first going through that dismay. In religion, as in war and everything else, comfort is the one thing you cannot get by looking for it. If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end: if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth—only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin with and, in the end, despair” (C. S. Lewis).

I think of what Jesus said that in this world we will have suffering and trouble. It’s not a matter of if but when. It would have been so much nicer if Jesus has said something along the lines of how in this world we will have kittens or bunnies or rainbows or perpetual sunshine. But He didn’t.

The fact is that we live in a beautiful but broken world. We live in a fallen society and to be adjusted to a sick society is to be sick yourself. Nothing works like it’s supposed to work, especially us. God wants us eventually to be happy, but I believe more than that He wants us to be holy and whole. And the way to get to Christlikeness isn’t through comfort but most often through discomfort and pain and sometimes suffering.

I guess the closest analogy I can think of is working out and getting in shape. Usually, both of those involve being extremely sore the next day. I never knew anyone who lost weight and got into shape by only doing what made them feel comfortable and good. But the end result is always worth the effort and the pain.

What God is making us into involves the same kind of discomfort and pain, but the end result is so much better than simply having a better physical body that will still wear down and get old in the end. God’s end goal is us looking like Jesus and coming into all that He created us to be. That’s worth any amount of sacrifice or suffering.

I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but I’m ready for Lent to start. I’m ready to begin my social media fast.

I’m in no way fed up with Facebook or done with Instagram. I actually love interacting with friends and seeing all the funny and creative gifs. There’s so much on there that can keep me occupied for hours and hours . . .

And there’s the problem. Lent is when I get my time back. Lent is me having more time to pray, to meditate, to sit still in the silence, to just be. I break my habit of picking up my devices every five minutes to see the latest posts or to see who liked my last offering.

I don’t get nearly as anxious from social media as I used to, but Lent is still a time for me to breathe more freely and to slow down and savor the moments of life more. I can actually pick up those things with pages called books and actually read one. Or two.

It’s where I make margin in my day and room in my thoughts to hear from God. My mind is less cluttered, less frantic, and more filled with peace and joy.

Some people fast from television. Some from sweets. Some, like me, from social media. It’s beautiful to be able willingly to sacrifice for a season to make room for God’s presence and God’s voice. I can’t pretend to understand all the ramifications from fasting, but I know that it is God-honoring and God honors those who honor Him.

Even if you don’t choose to do a Lent fast, I encourage you to take time away from phones and devices and social media and all things electronic. Give your brain time to rest and refresh. Go out in nature and enjoy what God has made. All that Facebook stuff will still be there when you get back.

I confess that I didn’t watch any of this year’s Grammy award ceremony except for the one tribute to Christine McVie and all the other musicians we lost this year. I didn’t see the infamous part where Sam Smith wore a top hat with devil horns on it.

I’ve often wondered why believers get so riled up when lost people act . . . well, lost. Why do we expect people who don’t know Jesus and don’t have the Holy Spirit inside of them to live Christian lives? Do we think that the Christian faith is merely about having better morals and nothing else?

I’m not suggesting that we should endorse music or movies that promote evil. I am suggesting that maybe we also don’t need to promote it by constantly drawing attention to it and going on about how horrible it was and how deeply offended we were by it.

Wouldn’t we be better off to promote the positive aspects of our faith instead? People aren’t drawn to Christ by learning what we’re against but what and who we’re for.

These are just my own thoughts. I don’t speak for anyone else. I admit that I could be wrong and I’m willing to keep an open mind. I know that Jesus loves Sam Smith and Kim Petras as much as He loves me or anyone else. I know that God is not willing that either of them should perish and be lost but that both of them come to repentance and saving faith in Jesus.

That’s what I’m really hoping and praying for.

It’s interesting that most of what I spend my time worrying about ends up not coming to pass. I’d say probably 90% of those possible worst case scenarios that keep me up at night never happen.

Further, most of what I worry about isn’t anything I can really control. Me getting worked up over certain stuff won’t make it go away or help in any way. All it does is steal my joy in the present.

All the time I spend in worry and anxiety could be better spent in prayer.

I get that sometimes it’s hard to pray when your stomach is in knots. But every time your thought leads to a worry, you can turn that worry into a petition. You can say, “Lord, you know how I’m feeling and what I’m thinking right now. Here’s where I am. Meet me in the middle of my worry and give me peace.”

I’ve learned the hard way that the worst way to handle worry is to tackle it alone. The best way is to find people to confide in who will help share your burdens. Even the very act of sharing your worries makes them less scary and makes you less anxious. Even if you feel you’re worked up over something you think is stupid or trivial, sharing it makes it seem less overwhelming.

Plus, the more you immerse yourself in God’s word, the less those anxious thoughts have room to take root and take hold of your mind. But above all, pray. Let God take your burdens instead of you pretending you don’t have them to seem more spiritual. God already knows.

I’m “borrowing” this from a friend’s social media post. It’s a great answer to the question of why anyone would bring up children in these times:

“Don’t feel sorry for or fear for your kids/grandkids because the world they are going to grow up in is not what it used to be.

God created them and called them for the exact moment in time that they’re in. Their life wasn’t a coincidence or an accident.

Raise them up to know the power they walk in as children of God.

Train them up in the authority of His Word.

Teach them to walk in faith knowing that God is in control.

Empower them to know they can change the world.

Don’t teach them to be fearful and disheartened by the state of the world but hopeful that they can do something about it.

Every person in all of history has been placed in the time that they were in because of God’s sovereign plan.

He knew Daniel could handle the lions den. 
He knew David could handle Goliath.
He knew Esther could handle Haman.
He knew Peter could handle persecution.
He knows that your child can handle whatever challenge they face in their life. He created them specifically for it!

Don’t be scared for your children, but be honored that God chose YOU to parent the generation that is facing the biggest challenges of our lifetime.
Rise up to the challenge.

Raise Daniels, Davids, Esthers and Peters!

God isn’t scratching His head wondering what He’s going to do with this mess of a world.

He has an army He’s raising up to drive back the darkness and make Him known all over the earth.

Don’t let your fear steal the greatness God placed in them. I know it’s hard to imagine them as anything besides our sweet little babies, and we just want to protect them from anything that could ever be hard on them, but they were born for such a time as this “ (Alex Cravens)

CarryTheLight

“Be thankful for the smallest blessing, and you will deserve to receive greater. Value the least gifts no less than the greatest and simple graces as especial favors. If you remember the dignity of the Giver, no gift will seem small or mean, for nothing can be valueless that is given by the most high God” (Thomas a Kempis).

There is no such thing as an insignificant gift from God. There are no small blessings or trivial graces. Everything that comes from God is good and everything that comes from God is worthy of your thanks, if only because it comes from the Almighty maker of heaven and earth.

So many seem bent on only seeing the curse. They only focus on the negative and what’s wrong with their lives and who’s treated them badly. They almost never have a spirit of gratitude. I do believe that if you only look for the bad, you’ll find it and nothing else, but if you look for the good, you’ll find it. If you look for God in everything, you’ll be most blessed because you’ll learn to see blessings in every detail of your life, the good and the bad.

It all starts with giving thanks for the smallest blessing.

“All sorts of people are fond of repeating the Christian statement that ‘God is love’. But they seem not to notice that the words ‘God is love’ have no real meaning unless God contains at least two Persons. Love is something that one person has for another person. If God was a single person, then before the world was made, He was not love. Of course, what these people mean when they say that God is love is often some- thing quite different: they really mean ‘Love is God’. They really mean that our feelings of love, however and wherever they arise, and whatever results they produce, are to be treated with great respect. Perhaps they are: but that is something quite different from what Christians mean by the statement ‘God is love’. They believe that the living, dynamic activity of love has been going on in God forever and has created everything else.

And that, by the way, is perhaps the most important difference between Christianity and all other religions: that in Christianity God is not a static thing—not even a person—but a dynamic, pulsating activity, a life, almost a kind of drama. Almost, if you will not think me irreverent, a kind of dance” (C. S. Lewis).

I don’t pretend to understand the concept of the trinity, but I do know that God didn’t create people because He was lonely. It wasn’t out of need that he made you and me. The Triune God had enough love and joy between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and was in perfect communion with Himself.

If anything, He created us out of an abundance of love that overflowed into something new. It’s a very little bit like when two people get married and the overflow of their love results in a baby boy or girl.

Love is giving, not taking. Love is sacrificial not selfish. If you want to know the true definition of love, look at who God is and what God has done. That is love.

It seems disheartening when I hear about yet another preacher who lost his way morally or got caught up in an ego trip or compromised his beliefs for the sake of acceptance and popularity. It seems as though there are so few people in leadership positions who are worthy of trust and respect.

But that’s what we do. We put people on pedestals. We elevate human beings to places and platforms that only God should occupy, then are distraught when these same people turn out to be fallible people who fail. But God never fails.

That’s why my hope for the present and the future rests in nail-scarred hands. Jesus is the only one who has ever lived and walked on this planet who has unfailingly shown Himself to be completely trustworthy in all matters. He’s the only one who makes a promise and keeps it every single time.

So once again, my hope is not in any preacher or politician or political party. My hope is not in any author or artist or celebrity. My hope was and remains in the One who is the same yesterday, today, and forever, in whom there is no shadow of turning or variation in character.

My hope is in Jesus.

I confess that I’m bothered where the devil says that you can’t withstand the storm and you’re supposed to reply that you’re the storm. Maybe I’ve been reading it wrong all this time, but it sounds more like a humble brag than faith.

I think about the Apostle Paul who did anything but boast about how strong he was. If anything, he boasted about his weakness. That’s not something that makes for a good social media influencer post. Boasting about actual weaknesses? But you don’t have any, right?

The classic Jesus Loves me song has it right when talking about the little children, i.e. us. “They are weak, but He is strong.”

That leads to another pet peeve of mine. How about how so many of the worship songs are focused on me? As in I’m going to lift my hands, I’m going to shout, I’m going to declare . . . It’s like the focus of the worship is my experience of worship and not the object of my worship, God.

Again, I may be nit-picking, but I’d like to sing a lot more about how what God’s up to. How God rescued me, how God fights for me, how God loves me daily even when I’m not very lovable, how God is worthy of every praise and every song for no other reason that He is God.

That’s why I have a growing appreciation for the old hymns. They had the right perspective. It’s not how I’ve got it all together and choose to have God be a window dressing in my life. It’s that I’m a big hot mess on my own and I need God and oh yeah, God’s not just a part of my life — God IS my life. God’s not a supplement to my strength — God IS my strength. God’s not just an option out of many throughout my day — God is my only hope at the end of the day, every single day.

I started a new series recently. More accurately, I watched a movie that will hopefully lead to a series down the road.

The movie is a modern retelling of some of Jesus’ parables in the context of the early church. The series will be more focused on the events from the book of Acts and is currently raising funds via the same kind of crowdfunding that has made The Chosen series possible.

So far, so great. The acting has been on point and the movie looked like it had a much bigger budget than it did. The parables are recognizable, even in their contemporary settings (and the parable of the talents has a clever twist that caught me off guard in a good way).

The early Church had it way tougher than the typical American church. They dealt with nonstop persecution from both the Roman government and from the Jewish religious leaders. They were a small minority with a radical message that turned the first century world upside down, and Satan threw everything he could at them to stop them in their efforts.

They were faithful regardless of the costs. Just about all of them made significant sacrifices, some up to the point of laying down their lives for the sake of the gospel. Yet to each and every one of them, anything they had to give up was more than worth it and they were able to rejoice even in the midst of their sufferings to see what God was doing in and through them.

Testament brings those struggles and sacrifices vividly to life in a way that makes me want to be more bold for my own faith. It will certainly challenge and embolden anyone who watches it.

You can watch the movie through the Angel Studios app, as well as catching up on The Chosen if you so desire. Both are more than worth your time.