Forged By Faith

Psalm 14:1 NIV “Thoughts and prayers mean nothing to dead kids.” Ok. Sit down. Buckle up. Brace yourselves. I got some stuff to say. Can you imagine the kind of inherent hatred that must exist within someone to share that message in the moments and hours and days immediately following a truly horrific event in which truly innocent people lost their lives? Can you imagine the kind of contempt that someone must have in their hearts to utter those words, harbor those thoughts, consider that perspective when people have just had their lives ripped apart? Can you believe that we live in a world where that kind of response is not only possible but popular? Yesterday we discussed many of the heart-wrenching questions that are asked in the wake of a tragic unfolding such as we saw the day before, and in many days prior. In the days following a moment of immense misery there's always this instinctual searching for a reasoning, an understanding, some kind of answer to try and give the pain a...

Proverbs 12:1 NIV Well, you gotta love those verses that just say what needs to be said! This is probably one of those that many would find offensive, but that's okay. As we've talked about plenty in the past we need to be offended with the truth. It forces us to open our eyes and begin to consider the possibility of different perspectives. While it may not be comfortable to be called out it is absolutely crucial. If we avoid the things that make us uncomfortable then we risk more than we could ever imagine. We risk becoming disillusioned to what's real. We become used to a life where everything goes our way and everything always works out just as we want. Then that causes us to fall into this line of thinking where if anything doesn't go our way then we immediately lose our cool because that's not how we're used to life unfolding. It quickly becomes this vicious cycle of selfishness and foolishness where we lose all sense of reality in the process. We need the ...

Hebrews 10:27 NIV We're pretty good at pretending. So good in fact that we can reach this place where we don’t even realize that we’re deceiving ourselves. We paint on smiles that tell the world around us that we're okay. We cherry pick the best parts of our lives to piece together this picture perfect existence that we're nowhere close to living behind the scenes. We create these wonderful sounding lies that help us remain convinced that we're not struggling or doing anything wrong. We keep running full speed in the direction we selfishly want to go while telling ourselves that we’re the ones in control and that we can determine our own destiny. Maybe that’s one of the biggest reasons that we find ourselves tired so often. We talked about that a bit yesterday, and I think this may have some correlation to it. Maybe we wear ourselves down by stubbornly refusing to accept the fact that God’s will is going to be done no matter what we say or do. Perhaps we wear ourselves ...