Blessed Are The Peacemakers

I've laid the plans,  Now lay the chance, Here in my hands. If I ever need to open the floodgates and let myself sob, there are only a small handful of things in my toolbox that can get me there. One of them, ever since I was a teenager, has been Whitney Houston's One Moment in Time Oddly enough, it isn't the song by itself that moves me. I listened to it recently without the video and realized something was missing. I needed to see the images. The athletes. The Olympics. The competition. Watching people pour years of sacrifice into a few brief moments. Some win gold. Some win silver. Some don't place at all. Yet every one of them has given something extraordinary just to stand on that stage. It's the marriage of those images with the song that gives it its full emotional weight. Something about that raw display of human effort, determination and endurance moves me every single time. I actually avoid watching it too often because I'm afraid I'll beco...

  The Stewardship of Women and the Nature of Authority I've found myself returning to a question that seems to surface repeatedly throughout scripture, history and even our own day. What happens when God gives His people authority? At first, it seems like an odd question. We usually concern ourselves with what authority has been given, who possesses it and how it ought to be exercised. But the longer I sit with the scriptures, the more I wonder if God is asking a different question altogether. The greater question may not be whether we can exercise authority but whether we can refrain from exercising authority He has not given. That may be one of the central lessons. Again and again, the Lord entrusts His people with stewardships. Parents receive stewardships. Elders receive stewardships. Judges receive stewardships. Women receive stewardships. Communities receive stewardships. Rarely does He assign the whole burden to one person or one office. Instead, responsibiliti...

The Cost of Letting Desire Be Corrected Part 2 of 2 It’s one thing to talk about pure desire in the abstract. It’s another to recognize it, or its absence, in the press of real life. Most of us don’t discover the true state of our desire in moments of peace, but in moments of friction. Desire is easiest to describe when no one opposes us. It’s hardest to hide when the truth costs us something. In Part 1, we saw that truth, God’s love and our desires can remain pure. But purity isn't preserved in theory . Its tested, corrected and revealed in ordinary pressures: challenge, misunderstanding, being wrong, disappointment, community. This is where desire meets reality. And this is where it is corrected. Desire Is Revealed and Corrected in Friction, Not Comfort We usually think we know our desires until conflict, contradiction, delay or humiliation exposes them. God often uses discomfort to reveal mixtu...

  What Remains Pure The Only Things That Cannot Be Corrupted There’s something in us that keeps trying to build things that can’t be corrupted. We form communities. We organize structures and systems. Begin movements. And underneath it, there’s a hope that if we do it right, if we’re careful enough, sincere enough, principled enough, it might hold. That this time , it might stay clean. But over time, something always shifts. We may have the best of intentions. But anything shaped by human hands is also shaped by human desire. Which raises a question that’s a bit harder to answer than it seems: What (if anything) can actually remain pure? This is Part 1 of a two-part series. In this one we'll explore what cannot be corrupted. In Part 2, we will move into the harder question, what it actually looks like in real life to let desire be corrected. Denver answeres the question with remarkable clarity: “In the ‘Sunstone Conference,’ I w...

  Four short pieces on insight, authority, imitation and the utter strangeness of Human Nature. Breaking News: Local Human Accidentally Mistaken for Deity After Saying Something Smart A small reminder not to confuse good insight with authority. It started the way a lot of misunderstandings do: with one sentence. Not a dramatic sign. Just a decent thought from an ordinary person. Witnesses reported it was “insightful” Some even said “profound” One person described it as “exactly what I needed to hear” That’s when the trouble began. Within hours, the speaker, hereafter referred to as The Human, was discreetly promoted to a position they never applied for: Unofficial Source of Truth Phase One: Admiration At first, it was harmless. People nodded. They took notes. They said things like “Wow, I’ve never thought about it like that before.” The Human, still under the...

  Healing, discernment, tools and fear  Recently Stephanie Snuffer gave a talk that really resonated with me. As I've  pondered it, I've realized it has connected to things I’ve been trying to sort through for a while now, particularly when it comes to healing, growth and how we actually learn to live what we believe. This post is (in part) an attempt to work that out more clearly. Also, in a bit of irony that isn’t lost on me, I write as part of my healing process. Which is funny, given how hesitant we can be about therapy. Apparently I’m perfectly willing to do the work…. as long as I don’t label it too directly. So now I have a collection of drafts to prove it. This one is jumping the line, thanks to the current conversations and a little bit of pushback that made it harder to ignore ~~ There’s something I’ve been noticing more and more. We're not opposed to using tools to improve ourselves. In fact, that pattern is woven into how we already live. ...