Onward, Upward, and Further In

Our minds are fragile.  That's a scary reality.  And since every good gift comes from the Lord, we never know if our minds can break.  Having a whole mind, an unshattered mind, is entirely God's gift.  That lack of control is too terrifying for most of us to admit. I think about World War I a lot.  So many men, who may have been physically whole in every other sense, came home with shattered minds.  Wives thought their husbands had returned home safe to them.  But though their husbands had physically returned, they were lost to mind crushing trauma.  Some men, seeing the same horrors, came home able to function in normal life, relatively unscathed in mind.  But those first men mentioned, they were completely and utterly broken.  Night terrors.  Chronic vigilance.  Paralyzing fears.  Broken.  Some were never to be healed in this lifetime. Studies on this phenomenon commenced.  But a hundred years later, there's st...

I really wrestle before God on the subject of humility. I confess, I am sorely lacking. But I also get jumbled in my mind. How do I, or better yet, how do we have the same mind, same love, being in full accord and of one mind, when all around us, everything is so polarized.   Phil 2:1-4 says: "So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any partcipation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others." I love Christ, and I DO want to emulate His humility. But I am human. I often don't know what this looks like. If I speak on behalf of those who suffer, there are many who have not experienced suffering, and can be offended by what I say - even if I didn...

"Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world - the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and the pride of life - is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever." (1 John 2:15) When I was growing up, I was often confronted with these verses. My Sunday School teachers, pastors and parents warned me often against the love the world and fleshly desires. Indeed, I have carried these verses close to my heart. Despite the serious warning against fleshly desires, I was deeply encouraged by the news that this 'world is passing away.' My experience of this world has often been dark (though I certainly wouldn't dare compare my own suffering with those in other parts of the world, or those who lived in different times, and many more). To be told that all that is wrong...