Impacted By Grace

There is a perspective on God that is often preached as if He were a Burger King God. You can have it your way. Pray, ask for what you want, and if you do what you’re supposed to, you’ll get it. Have problems with what the Bible says you shouldn’t be doing? Just ignore those parts. Think the Bible tells you to do things that are too hard? You can just ignore those parts too. It’s fine. So long as you’re happy, everything else is debatable. If Job taught us anything, its that our happiness is always God’s top priority after all. Other times, God is pitched like Wendy’s. Pay a little money and you can get a lot for it. The four for four for faith, if you will.  Faith is all too often sold and marketed as a generic cure-all. Buy in a little, be a good person, and it’s an easy street to heaven from there. It’s pitched that bad things don’t happen to those who have faith. Since those who have faith are good people, and bad things aren’t allowed to happen to good pe...

Photo credts: https://www.agrocares.com/en/news/magnesium/ In this current contagious climate, it can be easy to become bored and stagnant in our current situations. It is easy to let ourselves slip into laziness as we lounge about our living rooms. After all, the quarantine keeps us intentionally closed off from the world. Alongside this lag in activity we can allow our spiritual lives to become lax if we are not careful. Our dull routines can run together, allowing us to fall behind on the duties that should regularly fill our time. It is important to keep active in this time of forced inactivity, both physically and spiritually. Thankfully, there are many ways to keep our spiritual lives safely proactive. While churches may have temporarily shuttered their doors, there are still several ways to remain connected to the church body. Most churches are broadcasting their services onto their websites or social media sites such as Facebook and YouTube. Many of these even includ...

Why? Such a simple question. At times, it is the only one that occupies our minds, especially when we are going through hard times. When tragedy and hard times befall us, we so often look for the meaning in the madness. However, the truth is that rarely, if ever, do we learn the reasons why things happen.  The book of Job is, perhaps, one of the more well-known narratives from the Old Testament. It is about the righteous man, Job. The devil maintains that Job is only righteous and God-fearing because he has a good life, a large family, and great wealth. God maintains that Job would remain righteous and God-fearing even if all these things were taken away. Job then has everything taken away from him. His family, his wealth, and his health are all ripped away as he is left to suffer. He rues the day that he was born, but Job does not curse God.  As the book goes on, the reason for his suffering becomes the focus of conversation between him and his friends. ...

Stress. It’s around that time of year where stress starts to come in for most people.   Christmas is right around the corner, with all the expectations and obligations it entails, students are gearing up for their finals, many workplaces enter the busiest time with year-end goals and deadlines, and to top it all off the weather begins to take a typical turn towards the frigid. While this change in temperature may be to my taste, for many it is yet another thing to contend with. In light of the stress you may be facing, I’d like to lay out a few simple tips for dealing with stress.   The first is rather simple: take care of yourself .   A good principle to keep in mind is that the less you take care of yourself, the less you are capable of taking care of.   Eating well and getting enough sleep are critical aspects of not just mental health, but health in general.   It may be tempting to stay up late and work on something, but you can often get it done faste...

There is currently an epidemic of loneliness among adults in the United States. A study published by Cigna found that 46% of adults report persistent feelings of loneliness either “sometimes” or “always.” Young adults are the hardest hit, followed by the elderly. Only around half of Americans report having meaningful in-person social interactions on a daily basis.  This situation leaves me pondering friendship and the question: What is a friend? A lot of people would agree on some level of definition that involves “someone you hangout with” or “spend time with” or even a flowery “do life with *twinkle* *twinkle*.” However, many can also agree that there is a difference between the kind of friend whose company one simply enjoys and a “real” friend.  So, then, what is a “real” friend? Many articles online list various traits one should look for in finding a "real" friend or for being one. Even more articles list ways, in click-baited fashion, that you can divine...