enjoying times with God
Day 7. The alarm clock buzzes; it is morning again. I roll over and hit the snooze bar, not ready to get out of bed yet. My spirit cries out for nourishment; my body appeals for more sleep. I’m still struggling to have regular quiet time with God.
Whose Opinion Matters?
I carefully crafted a Scripture lesson for my church youth group. After I presented it, a young man in the group said, “I believe you could have done a better job.” I was hurt. But then I recalled a phrase once spoken by a longtime worker in the church: “We call ourselves servants of God, but when we’re treated like one we get upset.”
Inspired Wisdom
A-poe-la-pi is an elderly Akha, a member of a hill tribe people who live on some mountain ranges in China. During a missions trip, my friends and I visited A-poe-la-pi. He said to us, “Due to the downpour last night, I couldn’t make it to the gathering. Could you share with me God’s Word?” You see, A-poe-la-pi is illiterate, so the weekly gathering is the only way for him to take in Scripture. As we shared, he listened intently. And his earnest attitude reminded me that when we listen to or study the Bible to gain the wisdom of God, we honor Him.
If
If you had a crystal ball that could show you your future, what do you think you would see? What current choices or decisions would you make to try to change where your life is leading?
Living Wisely
Your Work Is Not Your Life.” “Burnout to Flourishing.” These recent magazine article titles reflect our need to find wisdom that can help us live well.
With Us
Why do people get cancer? Why do the innocent suffer? Why do hard things come into the lives of those who are doing so much good?
Why Pray Together?
There’s a prayer meeting at my church tonight. Instead of feeling energized by the thought of praying with others, an unexplained tiredness falls heavy on me. Maybe I should go home to rest. I won’t be missing much, will I?
Dealing With Skepticism
Organized religion is not for me,” a friend said to me recently. I have been praying for this friend’s salvation for more than 15 years, and every time we get together I pray that God will use me to lead her closer to Jesus. But she still seems so skeptical, and I’m afraid of saying anything that might sour our relationship.
willing to ask
A Chinese aristocrat by the name of Kung Yu, who lived several hundred years before Jesus was born, was known for his intelligence and diligence in his studies. Yet, he was humble and unafraid to ask questions of people who were not as well-educated. After his death, the Duke of Wei awarded him the honorable title of Wen (which means “refined” and “literary” in Chinese). So he became known as Kung Wen Zi.
nothing lasts forever
A friend wrote, “As I reflect on the past four semesters of student life, so many things have changed . . . It is scary, really scary. Nothing lasts forever . . . Things just changed without much notification or maybe I just wasn’t aware.”
our moral compass
What is a minute? Simply a measurement of time. There are 60 in an hour, 1,440 in a day. But during those 60 clicks of the second hand, a tidal wave of thoughts with their accompanying emotional responses can sweep over you. Today, during one particular minute, a feeling of dread hit me hard. Why? I was deeply afraid that I’d done something wrong.
if only i had . . .
Even as a child, I can remember coveting things that other people possessed. One day I was playing at my cousin’s house when one of his toys caught my eye. I begged to take it home, and when my parents refused me the pleasure, I cried and created quite a scene.
I Believe
Being a Chinese woman raised in a polytheistic environment, I used to think that Christianity was a Western religion or the “white-man’s religion.” My thought was, We Asians have our own gods. Later, as a young believer in Jesus, I still wondered from time to time if I had forsaken my own roots and believed in a foreign god.
But God . . .
A man dealing with despair confessed to a Bible teacher, “My life is really in bad shape.” “How bad?” asked the teacher. Burying his head in his hands, the man moaned, “I’ll tell you how bad—I’ve got nothing left but God.”
do you love God?
Do you love God? Just think about it. How can a lowly person draw near, much less talk about being in a love relationship with such a high and exalted Being? It blows my mind. A classic hymn describes God as “immortal, invisible, God only wise, in light inaccessible hid from our eyes.” Perhaps God’s “otherness” explains why we often feel so inadequate in claiming that we love Him.
