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The Joy of the Lord Is Your Strength
“Then he said to them, ‘Go your way. Eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions to anyone who has nothing ready, for this day is holy to our Lord. And do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.’ So the Levites calmed all the people, saying, ‘Be quiet, for this day is holy; do not be grieved.’ And all the people went their way to eat and drink and to send portions and to make great rejoicing, because they had understood the words that were declared to them.” Nehemiah 8:10-12 In Israel’s history, this passage comes directly after Ezra reads the law…
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New Construction Doesn’t Mean Perfect Construction
We live in a beautiful, new house. Our house sits on a treeless lot, previously used as horse pasture, and overlooks the rolling hills and corn fields of the Midwest countryside. We live on the top of one of the hills. We can see across to the tops of the other hills around us, like standing on the edge of a bowl and looking to the other side. The country on the inside of the bowl stretches out before us like canvas. I can see cars traveling down the roads that criss-cross the bowl. Their small shapes stream along black lines of ribbon. At night, the lights from the other…
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The Man Born Blind, and You
So for the second time they called the man who had been blind and said to him, “Give glory to God. We know that this man is a sinner.” He answered, “Whether he is a sinner I do not know. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” John 9: 24-25 Those who are blind live by the truths of this world. They believe that wealth can satisfy and that they can save themselves. They put their trust in only what they can see with their eyes and physically touch with their hands. They believe that this is all there is. Maybe they hope for…
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To Correct or Not to Correct: How Getting the Right Answers Made Me Prideful
I felt the purple chalk dust stick to my fingertips and suddenly sneezed as I inhaled stray particles floating through the air. I paused to think and then wrote “20 + 4,” “8 – 6,” and “33 + 7” on the board. Samuel stood ready to solve whatever math problems I sent his way. He shuffled his feet across the grey-and-white-square patterned carpet in our basement. “Zero plus four equals–four! Put the four in the ones column and the two in the tens column,” he said. Good work, buddy. “Twenty plus four equals 24.” “Thanks for repeating the problem,” I said. “Let’s move on to the next one.” Samuel thought…
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The Hero Complex
In many ways, this is a “part two” to the article I posted on Monday. In Monday’s article, An Odd Social Distancing Phenomenon, I talked about how this past year God taught me that my physical and mental capabilities have limits. Those limits are good and when I recognize them, I bring glory to God by relying on Him instead of myself. God made me and you with limits so we can learn to lean on His strength instead of our own. As I wrote Monday’s article, I started to realize I missed an important component to the overexertion equation. I never discussed why I overexerted myself in the first…