1. Jesus is not a consolation prize when things do not go our way in life. He is the King.
2. I find it interesting how much we complain amidst so much.
3. Look, everyone has to miss church every now and again. But if you are not going every chance you can you are communicating to your children that something else is more important…almost anything is more important. Think about the logic, if it doesn’t take much for you to miss, then church attendance gets your leftover time, maybe.
4. Sometimes you have to say “no” to things that are wrong for you to do if you want to follow Jesus.
5. With the technology we now carry around in our pockets, we can access tragedy after tragedy. That is what the news outlets want. However, you were not created to be in a perpetual state of anger or grief over national and world events, of which there will be no end.
6. I am approaching two months of only listening to music that is explicitly about following Jesus. I’m not listening to anything with just a vague nod of spirituality in the direction of God. It’s all explicit. You would probably have to do it yourself to be convinced of the difference it would make in the way you think and act.
7. Lecturing never works. Think about it, the only time we use the word “lecture” in a positive sense is when we voluntarily go to one, which we have probably paid for. That tells us that sometimes we need to wait for the ones we love to come to us for help and guidance and entrust them to God in the meantime.
8. In between talking about how slaves should conduct themselves and marriage, Peter, in his first letter, says, “…Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.” I am not sure what else you need to convince you that Christ, the suffering servant, who had every right to demand he be treated fairly, is our example of how to live in this world. That is not legalism. That is the path of life.
9. Deconstruction kills joy.
10. When I worked at the bank a few years ago, I noticed something I could barely understand at the time. Nothing was never enough. A sales goal would always be moved when you achieved it. What was good enough last month was then seen as failure the next. I kept being told I was making “progress.” One day I asked if I would ever arrive and my boss had no answer. The goal was to keep in a perpetual state of unrest so that I would always make them more money. Social and political movements do the same. Nothing will ever be enough in the name of progress. But Jesus and his kingdom is always more than enough.
Echoes and Stars 