This semester, I re-enrolled as a student at a community college. I always thought I’d want to keep learning something, but that’s not the only reason I made my student comeback. When I realized I should probably upgrade my software because it was 3 generations behind the current release, I shopped around and was reminded how beneficial it is to have a student ID. So I enrolled in a couple of music classes, one of which is Popular Songwriting (as opposed to, my friend pointed out, Unpopular Songwriting). Thanks to FAFSA, it’s been more than worth Continue reading…

Several times when people have prayed over me, they tell me God wants to give to me, not because He has to or because I need it, but just because He wants to. He gets a kick out of giving good gifts to His kids. I’d receive that gladly, but I never knew what that meant, what it could look like. This week, I got just a taste of it. Continue reading…

This year, I thought I’d challenge myself to do a few things that have been (to me) intimidating. One is to pray through Operation World. Thanks to Facebook accountability and the occasional pre-scheduling on WordPress, it’s been completely do-able and extremely informative. What has been most striking to me Continue reading…

For the past month or so, God has really been challenging me to be honest in my beliefs about Him. It started innocently enough: catching up on over a year’s worth of Francis Chan sermon podcasts. (Two months down, at least 15 months more to go!) He has a talent for pointing out the obvious, yet ignored, parts of Scripture so that even one sermon will inspire me to confession and repentance, even while I’m cracking up at his jokes.

The underlying theme for me seems to have been how God used very inclusive terms throughout the Bible. When He does or says something, He doesn’t go half way. He doesn’t stop short of His goal. Even — or especially — when it comes to our salvation, He doesn’t make exceptions: nothing short of holiness will do. Thanks to Jesus’ embodiment of this trait, holiness is actually possible for us!

I, on the other hand, assume exceptions when applying biblical principles to my life. For example, Continue reading…

When I committed a year to Japan, I wasn’t sure how to articulate what I expected, but I knew I wanted to see God work somehow. It was a bit of a surprise, then, to hear several people tell me not to expect to see anyone come to Christ during my time there. I appreciate their concern for me — they only didn’t want me to be too disappointed because the typical Japanese person needs to hear the gospel an average of 7 times before entering into relationship with God.¹

I accepted that piece of advice because I respected the experience from which it came, but I don’t think I received it in the way it came across to me. If I didn’t expect God to do amazing and miraculous things (the highest of which would be granting eternal life to a person condemned to eternal death), what kind of god did I believe in? Why else would anyone interrupt a relatively comfortable life-as-usual? Instead of changing my expectations, I began to examine them. Continue reading…

1. Not sure where that statistic came from, but that’s what I’ve heard repeatedly regarding evangelism in Japan. [↩]