Something About The Joy

This evening I found an old article written by Dave and Linda Olson called, "Hearing God."    The byline said, "We may imagine that He only speaks about deep, intense matters, or commands.   However, God's preferred way is conversation." What a sweet thought.   My heart was lonely.   I reached out and said, "I'd love to have a conversation with you, God." He said, "We did have a conversation today.   It was when you were reading your Bible this morning." This morning I'd been reading the story of Nehemiah, thinking how much he is a model for how we believers should be living and working faithfully in the secular society of our Western world.   Thinking about how badly our spiritual walls need to be rebuilt, and how difficult it is.   Then I thought, "But the walls were rebuilt, against impossible odds and overwhelming opposition." That was a great thought, and I thought it was my thought.  I...

Then Jesus said to His disciples, "If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me.  For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. . . ."   Matthew 16:24-25 One of the great, mysterious dichotomies of the Christian faith is that we can only find our life by losing it.   Jesus told his disciples this when he was on earth, and at first it must have sounded like nonsense.   How can we find anything by losing it? Though on the surface this truth does not seem to make sense, we actually experience the reality of it in our lives.   Experience teaches us that holding on to things too tightly will cause them to slip through our clenched fingers.   If we love something, we have to let it go. But it's so hard to let go of our life.  Life is the thing we love the most, sensing at the core of our being that it's essential--the essence--the ultimate...