When God wrote my aching heart a letter

You are successful, PC. No matter what anyone else says or expects of you, if you will remain obedient, faithful, and passionate, you are and will be successful.

Trust this, PC. Trust it and allow your aching heart to be affected by what I am saying to you.

I have given you this word:

SUCCESSFUL

You are my son. I am very pleased with you. You have been obedient and faithful through your ache and dryness. PC, you are successful and I have wired you for this success.

I DEFINE YOUR SUCCESS, PC. No one and nothing else defines your success. If you remain obedient to the things I have wired you for!

I love you, PC. I have never left you. I have never been far off from you. In fact, your aching heart has been so much closer to me than you even realized.

We will be lovers once more. I have your heart. I always have. Even when it aches, it has always been mine. I am proud of you, and you are successful, son.

Magnify

Have you ever read certain terms in scripture or used certain terms in your Christian speak without knowing what they mean?

Me neither...

Except all the time.

Have you ever had moments when those terms just open up to you in meaning?

'Magnify' is one of those words for me. We are to magnify the Lord, and the Lord shall be magnified. It is one of those words that are vague until you put such a simple understanding to it.

It made so much since when I thought about a magnifying glass and its purpose. Now suddenly, magnifying God makes plenty of sense.

As with a magnifying glass, I would make anything within its focus BIGGER.

Everything else is smaller. God should be and is made so much bigger when he is in focus.

I magnify God when He is made bigger than all my other things...

bigger than my stress bigger than my problems bigger than my deadlines bigger than my deficiencies bigger than my accomplishments bigger than my...

Anxious in everything

"Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." -Philippians 4:6-7

This peace that surpasses all understanding is the peace OF GOD. This is a God who is immanent, transcendent and omnipresent. So peace of a God like that is available NOW. This peace is here and available now.

The problem is we fight and resist it.

Why would we resist that sort of peace? More importantly, HOW do we resist that peace?

That is answered in verse 6. If I am not experiencing peace that is available to me in my life, it is likely because I am anxious in everything and praying in nothing.

Peace and strength

"The Lord will give strength to his people; The Lord will bless his people with peace." Psalm 29.11

God, I am strongest when I am in your peace. I am strongest when I rest in a peace only you and your presence can give to me. Please help me know your peace. Help my heart, mind, and soul experience peace only you can give to me. I am weak, timid, and weary, but I can know strength in peace if you give to me both. I cannot give myself real peace. Only your gospel working change in me can give me peace where I would not otherwise know peace; in the places I would normally stress, freak out, give up, and fail.

Help me know peace in those moments and in those places. Change my weary and bedraggled heart to know peace. Give me peace and change me that I may know a strength I cannot attain myself.

When I tell my students not to listen to their parents

As a college pastor, there are a few very common conversations I have always had with several students like it was the first time. One of those conversations walks students through following God's intent for their lives to the chagrin and often in the face of their parents' intent for them.

Acts 21:10-14 shows Paul being clear of God's intent for his life in the face of people who love him. They are people who deeply care for Paul, and he knows that is the reason it breaks his heart so much when he sees their advice and strong intent going against what he KNOWS God has told him to do.

This stress of the tension between disappointing those who care for you in order to follow God's intent for you is one I hear all the time.

There has to be a challenge here for all of us to answer God's call while realizing it is not what our loved ones will aways want for us.