Living Truth in A Lying World

I remember back in elementary school, life always felt like it would go so slow.  Sitting in class for 7 1/2 hours, waiting for the bell to ring so I could go home.  The only time life seemed to move fast was when I was having fun.  Birthday parties, Christmas Break, vacations, these times would fly by.  It's almost like life was going in slow motion.  Once I hit Junior High though, things seemed to slowly ramp up.  In a sense, life is like walking on a tread mill.  You don't start out going a hundred miles per hour, you start with your warm up period.  That seemed to be elementary school.  In Junior High, you turn the speed up just a little bit more.  The more warmed up you get, the faster the treadmill goes.  In the same way, the older you get, the faster life goes. This year, I received a message (on Facebook), about my 10 year High School reunion.  WOW!  June will be 10 years since I graduated High School.  It seems like just yesterday I was walking across the stage, gett

Temptation is one of those things that you just can't get away from.  Anyone who has ever tried beginning a diet or giving something up can I'm sure attest to it.  I remember a few years back, when I decided to give up sweets for a month.  If you know me even a little bit, you would know that this sounds like an impossible task.  Any time I am within 25 feet of sweets, it takes no time at all to sniff it out.  There were times during that month, where I was completely content not eating sweets.  Other times however, it was a much bigger challenge.  One specific situation was when I was heading to a friend's birthday party.  Of course, at this party, there was cake.  I called another friend who was keeping me accountable and basically BEGGED him to say it would be okay for me to miss this once and eat the cake.  His response was a resounding, "No". Just like every human being ever born, Jesus too was tempted.  In Matthew 4 , it talks about what the temptation was

I walk into the sanctuary and find my seat.  As I sit down, the music begins to play.  One of the worship leaders opens up the service, greets everyone, and makes a few more comments about the morning.  As I read the words, my heart gets downcast.  It's the same song that has troubled me since I was young.  The worship leader begins singing, leading our congregation through a time of praise to God. ***** There are very few lessons that I still remember from my Junior High days.  Yet there is one lesson in particular that I still remember well.  The topic was worship.  We talked about what worship was.  We talked about what kind of a heart we should have when going into it.  Finally, we talked about how we should think through the lyrics, before allowing the vibrations of our vocal cords to utter the words through our mouths. During this lesson, we went through a few songs, and talked about what they mean.  One of the songs continue to stick out above the rest, "I

In every super hero movie, the superhero always has an enemy he has to fight.  The entire movie is spent building up to the point when finally, the two collide.  The final battle is often filled with intense fight scenes between the superhero and the villain.  Punches are thrown, weapons are drawn, and lives are threatened.  It is often one of the most exciting scenes of a superhero movie. Spiderman 3 follows this same script.  What is different about this movie than many others I have watched is who it portrays the villain being.  Spiderman is the superhero of course, and Venom and the Sandman are the enemies.   Venom is the character that draws the most attention to me.  Two different characters in Spiderman 3 wear this suit: Peter Parker (aka Spiderman) and one of Peter's colleagues at the Newspaper, Eddie.  In the final fight scene of the movie, Spiderman (Peter Parker) tries to convince Venom (Eddie) to take off the suit.  Venom is not an individual person, but a suit

If you are anything like me, the idea of slowing down may seem foreign.  I'm not just talking about sports, activities, school/work, and all of the other things we fill our schedules with.  I'm also talking about the constant "need" to look down at our cell phone to see if we received a text.  Checking facebook to see what new things come up on our news feed.  Getting distracted by the ads and quizzes on facebook.  Or the snap chat streaks that we "have to" maintain.  Watching youtube videos.  Listening to music.  The list goes on. I am no different.  I distract myself by looking up the latest news articles, checking facebook, and do other things to pass time.  In fact, while writing this post, I have distracted myself looking up how to treat back pain, facebook, and looked up personal financial information.  The struggle to not only do one thing at a time, but to experience silence and solitude, has become a serious challenge in our society, not only

Has there ever been a time in your life, when you really questioned God?  Is he real?  If he is, does he really care about you?  Is he good?  Can he really save you after all you have done wrong?  Am I to far down the wrong path? These are very common questions people ask.  In fact, the above list are all examples of questions I have wrestled with at different points in my life.  There have been times when I wondered if God really existed.  There are times when I have believed that God existed, but he was out to get me.  He didn't really want what was best for me.  There have also been times when I have wondered, can God really save me?  I have done so many things wrong.  How can God really love me, after all I have done? The last question especially, hit me right down to the core.  How can God really love me, after all I have done?  When I try to think through this question logically, I can't ever make sense of it.  I look back on my life, and I see so much sin.  I think o