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How to Get the Most out of Your Suffering
Suffering in some capacity is inevitable. My shoulder aches from a car accident three months ago. I am a little down from lack of sunlight in the three and a half hour Alaskan winter days. I could go on, but you get the point. You have your list too, I am sure. But so much of the time, our suffering is a hamster wheel. We can get worn out trying to run from it, only to end up at the same place. Only now we are exhausted from running without purpose. “Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you, as…
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The God Box and How to Let Him Out
I imagine everyone has a box inside their minds in which their ideas of God fit nicely. I know that my God box existed, for the most part, completely unconsciously in an unexamined part of my soul. After all, trying to understand who God is a strenuous activity for most of us. I think that for myself, my earliest imaginings turned the idea that man is made in the image of God completely around. I believed, without recognizing that I thought this, that God was just like a man, only much, much larger. My box was designed to keep God safe and knowable. This is a childish view, of course, but…
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The Great Reversal is Coming!
Reversal is everywhere in the Bible. That the Bible is a revolutionary document probably comes as a surprise to some because these days it is commonly viewed as an old-fashioned narrative that is out of date. But the philosophical and literary weight the Bible pulls influences so many current arenas, not the least of which is how we relate our personal stories. To give some historical perspective, the pre-biblical narrative of the day was a circular one. Like the snake devouring its own tail, the pagan narratives were stories of endless cycles that never arrive, merely circle back around to its origin over and over. Reincarnation is an example of…