Forged By Faith

Romans 8:28 NIV In all things I’m increasingly convinced that one of the decidedly weirder symptoms of what is our human condition is this baser inability to differentiate perspective from perception. Because the simple reality is that all of us can physically see what is clear evidence of a God so filled with grace that even life in this place remains largely more amazing than it should honestly be. And yet despite all that we do see we still find what are ongoing ways to doubt, to complain, to argue in fact with He who ensures that this life is better than it ought to be. Why? Because we’re just blind like that. Indeed, we’ve all the ability to see, to hear, to reckon, reason, recall and combine all into the honestly reasonable call unto righteousness and responsibility. I mean truly, we can all see things or hear things that are said or done within this world and differentiate between the good and the bad, those we like from those we don’t, the stuff that sets right and the more tha...

Psalm 34:19 NIV The misconception Something like this is almost always a result of this conception built atop a person’s personal perception which, if we’re being honest, is likely anymore rather prideful if not completely so. But it’s this idea that’s given birth inside this mindset sat upon this ongoing assumption that we ourselves can understand the baser foundation of pretty much anything. And while there could be some legitimacy to that theory, the truth is that unfortunately these days we simply allow too many things to get in the way of a simple understanding. In fact most days find us quite unsure if we’re standing and if so what for. No, anymore much of life is sadly defined as merely a time in which we daily allow our minds what’s amounted to basically a free-reign over, well, basically all things. Indeed, we’ve become of this obviously apparent understanding of life that has somehow, ironically, always managed to misconstrue free-will with freedom and thus too a general lack...

John 16:33 NIV The place of peace Oddly enough it’s not a place at all but rather a person, not that it would matter much either way as, well, neither is welcome here in this place in which we are for still yet another day that’s likely to prove much the same as all the others that we’ve endured thus far. And indeed, life of late does seem a matter meant of endurance, of enduring, of our having to endure that which by no means seeks to endear itself to us nor probably expects our to endear ourselves to it. Rather it’s quite clear that life here is turning quite violent, quite silent, quite pliant to the wants of whims of them who continue to measure that which matters in life as only that which is had here where all of us are and many for some reason wish to stay. A mindset that I find I’m failing more and more all the time to understand. Because, from where I stand, I just about can’t stand being here anymore. And while there’s nothing at all that I can do about that seeing as how I h...

1 John 5:4 NIV The rebirth of belief It changes not only what we see but what we seek and why. It alters what we think and causes us to reconsider the reasons for which we think it. It offers us a fresh start and that even every day if we need. For this faith, one built not on what we see but where it is that we hope to go and the narrowness that is the road by which we’ll arrive, it’s such a strange life as it always seems to find this audacity to continue imagining things better than we’re even able to believe in at the time. All because as this world spins so too do we lose our ability, our interest to continue spinning with it. Rather we begin to come apart. And, well, that’s where a life finally starts. Because all of us have lived what is one way. Now that’s obviously not to say that we’ve all lived the same as there are among each of us such varied differences in regard to desires, dreams, destinations, definitions, determinations, devotions, disciplines and the all too common l...