https://www.adoptuskids.org/_app/child/searchpResults.aspx
These beautiful young people represent a fraction of the 400,000 children in foster care.
Please read their stories and pray that they would know each day how precious they are.
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/410/113/
Everyone should read this case and the raw testimony in
Where was it?
A stretch of Texas road, a small bridge near San Antonio.
There was a diminutive flood marker—five feet.
I have kept thinking about flood markers, the way they tell us what we cannot see beneath the rising waters.
Yesterday I wondered what we would do if the numbers were more metaphysical than material—travel past this spot and know that this is bottomless, an endless darkness.
Matthew 16:1-4 KJV
[1] The Pharisees also with the Sadducees came, and tempting desired him that he would shew them a sign from heaven. [2] He answered and said unto them, When it is evening, ye say, It will be fair weather: for the sky is red. [3] And in the morning, It will be foul weather to day: for the sky is red and lowring. O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times? [4] A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given unto it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas. And he left them, and departed.
I was driving in the car on what felt like a time-consuming and futile errand when the song lyrics from the Charity Gayle song I Believe caught my attention—
Coming back for a spotless bride
I don’t know about you, but I feel pretty spotty. The image I have in my head is of a woman dressed in a previously glistening gown which was once pristine, but she has been mucking through the wildfire- and flood-prone slog of Christian life (see James 1) of trying to do what she is supposed to, and in the process, cleaning up feces and having it occasionally flung at her. More mud-based and covered than spotless.
Jesus has always been the God of tautologies and paradoxes. Faith is the spotless bride. Faith and the call to be washed in the blood of the Lamb.
I do not exactly know how the muddied, bloodied, messed up Bride of Christ will emerge spotless, but I know that “the servant is not above the Master.”
Jesus was broken for his bride, why should we not be broken for him?
He is worthy of it all, and
Tend your lamps, girls
He is coming back soon.
Matthew 23:33-39 NIV
[33] “You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell? [34] Therefore I am sending you prophets and sages and teachers. Some of them you will kill and crucify; others you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town. [35] And so upon you will come all the righteous blood that has been shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Berekiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. [36] Truly I tell you, all this will come on this generation. [37] “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. [38] Look, your house is left to you desolate. [39] For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’ ”
Recently I read an article about a famous person who made an unbearable statement. I wrote him an email about what was true and how high the stakes can be.
He is an atheist, so at one point I told him that he should believe in hell for an hour.
The injunction is solid. If anyone as smart as you are is going to risk so much on randomized notions of self-determination, you should consider hell real for one hour.
This does not seem like a big ask. Hell is breaking through the windows and doors of this world every day. War is an iteration of hell, Child abuse is an iteration of hell. Starvation and violence and human cruelty all come from hell.
Believe in hell for an hour. Do the research if it helps.
Then what?
Jesus is the only one who has ever promised us the chance to escape hell. This is a purely substitutionary offer—he went to hell to save us from it.
Believe in hell for an hour.
Put your trust in Jesus forever.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68790673
This is a story of how laying down palm branches can save your life.
As a landlubber who gets sea sick on a calm day, I am at once awed and dubious about three experienced mariners setting off in a skiff on the sea, storm forecast or no.
The bones of the story are evocative—
Sailors
Storm
Disabled boat
Rescue sign in the sand
Searchers
Help comes
Officially rescued.
I am so grateful these unnamed men are rescued and I can see the parable as well—
We have to know we are lost
Put out the “HELP” sign
Then search the sky for our Rescuer.
Thank you, Jesus, for rescuing me.
John 10
People who say they have “seen” Jesus’ face should be regarded with a healthy dose of skepticism.
Yet doesn’t he tell us all to do just that?
He says we are supposed to look for him everywhere—in the light and in the truth and in the faces of others.
Sometimes we need him so much that we are driven to seeking his face, like young loves do or shipwrecked sailors do, clinging to shards of boat in an endless ocean.
Throughout my life I have sought Jesus in pain and grief and loneliness. I sought him because I needed him to get me through.
But there is something more now—a sense of urgency and expectation.
Jesus is coming back soon.
Seek his face
Carrying Light 