Forged By Faith

Ezekiel 7:26 NIV In real time Can’t speak for anyone else as I’m not anyone else but for me personally I grew up with this tendency to see the Bible as some really old book that was written a really long time ago by people who then lived a really long time ago in what was, in light of our culture having long proven one of continuous advancement and progress and innovation and such, probably really not all that much like us. I mean, how could they be? We have cars and stuff now! And so the Bible has always seemed something of a promised antiquation from a truly bygone civilization. And so to see it unfolding before our very eyes is something which, to me, proves it very much still alive as just as active as back when it was likely more acted upon. Something that itself seems to be growing in a daily clarity. For anymore all it seems that we seem to see is but this sea of a burgeoning insanity consuming all but all of humanity up until this point today in which we all have so much to say...

Amos 8:11 NIV The emptiness There’s a coming day upon which we’ll all of us finally understand fully the version of God’s justice that is to be defined as just in the upmost. For to be just is to be well founded, something thus justifiable as it's built upon a foundation that is well poured and seated solidly upon whatever it is that has elsewise been chosen as the footing upon which the building might begin. But to be just is too defined as that which is considered to be understandably deserved and thus too appropriate given the particular circumstances or situations within which whatever decisions are finally determined. In other words, there’s a violently simple version of justice that is retained by God that is defined by God who is a God who is just. Because as He is the very Author and Maker of all life on earth, even making the earth upon which all of life is, for now at least, this thus means that whatever else He determines to do is too something which is done that He just...

2 Timothy 4:3 NIV Death by algorithm Can you imagine having that written on what is that coming certificate which is given unto all of us and records the time we’ve left this earth and even how we managed to leave at what is then the very end of our every life as has been lived by and for and through and to so many different ideas and directions and decisions and divisions and destructions? Each of them combining unto the telling of what is the final page of the story we’d given an entire lifetime to living. All of them to be contained within something that seems only to say that the way we left is the way we’d lived. Or that barely at all. For though it quite crushing to consider, the reality is that this time has come. And it’s come in such a measured approach that we didn’t see it coming. We didn’t feel life shifting. We didn’t notice any of the minuteness to any of this. It came, oddly enough, as if a thief in the night. A vagabond sneaking unto the stealing of life as we once knew...

1 John 4:6 NIV But to listen Contrary to current convention, the reality is that to listen demands an intention of attention be given unto whatever the hearer determines is worth more than just hearing. For there’s in truth a great and growing difference between the ability to hear and the act of listening. One is something all of us can do, to a given degree of course considering the existence of such varied abilities regarding hearing impairment and deafness being real realities for some. But even they desire not only to hear some things but to in fact listen sometimes. And that’s because the other is a done by a brother, a sister, a mother who determines it’s worth their effort given unto the going deeper into appreciation for whatever another is saying. A difference of direction, decision, determination, devotion even that defines the line that separates those who we can help because they will both hear but, once that willing, will in fact go that extra mile and actually pay attent...