Tag Archive - Church

What’s Your Story – Faith

May 16, 2012 in Daily Devotionals, Dating & Relationships, The Church with 0 Comments

[Guest Post by Anonymous] – I’m going to call her Faith, to protect her identity and country.

She found a Christian program on her satellite receiver, watched, and called the telephone number on the screen, leaving a phone message in her language. For seven long minutes she poured out an absolute tirade. Faith used every filthy curse word imaginable:

“What are you people doing?! Why are you saying there are two gods, when there is only one God? You are all going to Hell! You are all evil!”

She slammed the phone down. A telephone counselor (whom I’ll call Niki) endured the entire message:

“It was so painful for me to listen. There was much anger and horrible language. But the Lord gave me a burden for her. I didn’t want to, but somehow I knew I needed to call her back.”

Although fearful, she dialed her number. The woman answered. Faith exploded:

“Who gave you the right to call me? I don’t want to talk to you.”

Although it was very difficult, the Lord gave Niki grace to listen and then to do something that she knows was of the Lord. Gently and lovingly, Niki said,

“I could tell by your message that you have been deeply hurt, that you needed to talk to someone.”

Niki spoke to her of the love of God. Again, Faith let her have it:

“What are you talking about? You don’t know love! Life is very hard for me. You haven’t any idea what I’m dealing with. Tell me, have you ever been raped by your own father at the age of five? Has your brother raped you? Has your husband slept with your best friend? Have you had a court take away your children from you? All this has happened to me.”

Then, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, Niki said,

“God has put it in my heart to call you and tell you that He truly loves you and is there for you. He wants you to know that He won’t leave you. He won’t take your children away. He’s not going to hurt your body.”

At this, Faith broke down, and began to weep:

“I’m 28 years old. This is the first time I have been swearing at a person and they responded to me like you have. Why are you doing this? Why are you so kind to me?”

Niki said:

“This love is not from me. It’s from God. Please, may I help you to know the God who loves you so, the one that Pastor on the Christian station was telling you about on the program?”

Niki said that verses of Scripture began to flow from her lips. She knew that the Holy Spirit was speaking to Faith thousands of miles away, but through Niki. The once-angry woman took in every word…crying the entire time. Then she asked Niki for a Bible, which Niki arranged. Five days later Faith called back. She had been reading the Bible and was so peaceful. Again, they talked. After some minutes, Niki asked Faith if she would like to invite Jesus into her heart. She said yes and prayed with Niki. Immediately, Faith began declaring with joy,

“I’m free…I’m free…I’m free!”

She apologized for her language and anger, and could not stop talking about the joy, peace, and love she now felt. Faith has since called this Christian program several times. The last time saying:

“I’ve lost 28 years of my life, but now I’ve begun to live. I’m so happy…so happy that I found you, that I’ve come to know you. Thank you for giving me life, for introducing me to Jesus.”

Faith is but one of thousands who fear detection by the authorities, reprisals, and even jail time for sharing their story.

Instead, they view the programs with their doors closed, in the safety of their homes, taking it all in. Now is the time to P-R-A-Y for the Persecuted church for Christ! For those who are disillusioned, discouraged and depressed. Many stay home, not wanting to go out on the streets. Most turn to their televisions for news and hope, and particularly, satellite television from the outside.

What a wonderful door of opportunity to walk through, to give them hope, love and Christ…all to His glory.

[Photo courtesy of The Split Stitch]

What’s Your Story – Ashley

May 9, 2012 in Daily Devotionals, Dating & Relationships, The Church with 2 Comments

[Guest Post] I always had a close relationship with God, and felt I could always lean on Him.

In high school, I got a job at a leather store in the mall. I was a trainer on the football team and fell head over heels for popular guy on the team. I had my whole life planned out. I wanted to be a stay at home mom and be an active part of a church.

I knew I wanted to save myself for marriage, but I started to drift from God. He wasn’t into going to church or praying. I ended up dating him and we had a child born out of wedlock. We were engaged for about three years.

I wanted to join a church that I had been visiting, so I went down to the altar and spoke with a deacon. A few days later, I got a call from the membership Pastor at the church. He invited us into his office for a meeting. He advised that the church wouldn’t allow me to become a member unless we were married. I was embarrassed and ashamed.

I didn’t go back to church for almost 2 months when I finally talked him into getting married so I could be a part of that church.  

We got married, and things were already headed down hill. I had been a stay at home mom and recently had a got a part time job at a local retail store. He had started gambling and taking pain pills on top of his marijuana addiction. His six figure income supported his habits. The days continued to get worse.

He would come home late at night drunk and had been spending time after work at bars and strip clubs. I became depressed. I felt ugly on the inside and the outside.

Why wasn’t I beautiful anymore?  

Why didn’t he want to spend time with me?  

One night in our kitchen, I prayed over him as he was trying to crush a pill to snort. He was so angry that I put my hand over a line of pills that he had crushed, then he put me in a headlock that took me to the floor. I pleaded for him to let me go…He snorted the pill in front of me off the kitchen counter.

I was devastated.  

He took off to the bedroom and said he was leaving. I begged him to stay and talk.

He pulled out a gun and put it to my head and pushed me to the floor.

He yelled some profanities and took off out the door. I opened the door and yelled that I was calling the police. He came back up the steps with the gun and told me he was going to kill me. I kept locking the door as he was unlocking with his key. I prayed for God to please let me survive. I made it, and so did my son. It was a miracle that he slept through all the commotion.

I didn’t leave the marriage.

I thought I was doing the right thing. He would tell me that I had broken my vows because I was trying to leave him while he was sick (drugs were making him sick), and that I had promised to love him in sickness and in health.

At this point, I had taken on a job with a good company and could support myself and my son. My brother was very close to me, and he had been staying the night with us a lot and he could keep the arguments down at the house. I never told him about what he had done to me, but he knew something was up.

A few months after the gun incident, we took my son to a baseball game and came home to find my brother had passed away in his sleep on my couch.  

My three year old son and I had found him. This was the most devastating thing that has ever happened to me.

I wanted to know where God was and why was He letting this happen to me?

I tried counseling and buying books on how to save your marriage. It was the end.

He didn’t want to be a part of our lives.  

Drugs was his life.  

I had been reading in Job and all the trials he experienced. This is where I gained my strength and renewed my trust in the Lord. I attended Celebrate Recovery at my church, where I learned how to deal with my codependent nature. God had given me little signs in the form of hearts, that made me realize that He was beside me each step of the way.

I decided I needed to divorce.

My son and I had moved in with my parents. I reconnected with my boss from the leather store, and we began dating. We both were single parents with ex spouses who didn’t seem to care about anyone but themselves. We both had a strong Christian background. He proposed to me last year and we ended up marrying a few months later. May 14th is our one year anniversary!!

I can say that I am thankful for the trials that I went through to make it where I am today.

I have a wonderful, loving husband that prays with me and keeps me positive. He is a great father figure to my son. He works hard every day to provide for all of us. I stayed true to God during all my sufferings, and He comforted me. He blessed me with the greatest husband ever. I cannot wait to bow at His feet and thank Him for the many blessings He has bestowed upon me.  My best advice is to keep holding onto your faith when everything else is falling apart.

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.  Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything” (James 1:2-4).

Ashley is a 28 year old mom of an 8 year old, and a step mom to a 15 year old. I enjoy Bible study and love spending an immense amount of time with my husband and kids. Over the past year, I have learned a lot about marriage. I now understand why it is important to be married to someone with the same beliefs. It is also an amazing feeling when you spouse prays for you. Connect with Ashleigh on Twitter.

Singleness Is NOT A Disease

April 10, 2012 in Dating & Relationships, On Writing with 8 Comments

[Guest Post] American culture values independence.

Somewhere between my twenty-fifth and twenty-seventh birthdays, my status as a single man in the church downgraded from laudable to questionable. People stopped celebrating my singleness as a gift affording me undivided focus on performing God’s will (see I Corinthians 7) and began seeing it as a problem. They also began analyzing why I had failed to solve it. The message was clear: My “malady” of being single was somehow my fault.

It wasn’t anything I did.

It was what I didn’t do enough of.

I didn’t do enough to prove my independence.

American men who cannot demonstrate enough independence begin to feel weak and undesirable. Once we hit twenty-five, any failure to become fully independent becomes pronounced—especially for men in the church.

Unless you are able to buy a house and afford to live in it by yourself, you might as well wear a sign on you that says, “Not suitable for marriage.”

At twenty-five, I was working my way through graduate school, driving a car that was held together by prayer, and living with a gracious family from my church. I was anything but independent, and I felt like a total failure. Then I visited Argentina the summer before my last year of graduate school.

In Argentina, all my presumptions about independence and manhood were challenged. I noticed how many of the single men or women lived with their families well into their twenties and thirties. They simply didn’t value independence the way I did.

The experience caused me to reexamine what the Bible has to say about independence.

I found out that God doesn’t like it nearly as much as his American children do. He’s into something quite different: interdependence. Why? Because it’s a reflection of his own mutually dependent, three-gods-in-one, nature. As early on as Genesis 2:18, God tells us it’s not good for a man to be alone (and lest you ladies think that doesn’t apply to you, the word for “man” here can also be translated as “human”). In Psalm 68:6, God tells us that he sets the solitary in families. In I Corinthians 12, we are given a lovely metaphor of the church as a body that can’t function unless each part works interdependently. Through scripture, the value on interdependence is upheld as God’s best for us all.

Independence can get ugly.

It promotes loneliness and teaches us to judge those who can’t make it on their own. It teaches us to never ask for help for fear we’ll appear weak. It prevents us from receiving God’s blessings that come through others. In contrast, interdependence is beautiful. It keeps us from staying lonely and builds compassion into our hearts.

When I learned to embrace interdependence as the cultural value of God’s kingdom, much of my frustration as an “old” single man faded away.

It didn’t change the fact that I was single.

It didn’t change how people treated me.

But it did change me.

So where does that leave you? Are you still striving after independence or have you embraced the kingdom value of interdependence? Do you even know where to start? Lest I leave you empty-handed, let me offer you some parting suggestions:

+Commit to a small group. Almost every church has them these days. Some churches are basically nothing more than networked small groups. As nice as Sunday morning worship services are, you can’t really experience interdependence in larger groups.

+Live in community, not alone. Remember that God sets the solitary in families. This doesn’t mean you should move back in with Mom and Dad, but you should consider finding people to occupy your extra rooms or seek to occupy someone else’s empty room.

+Borrow stuff (and share it, too). Have you ever wasted money on purchasing something you needed to use only once? Could you have borrowed that item from a friend? Independently minded people don’t even think to ask others about borrowing their stuff, and they don’t like lending it. That’s a far cry from the fine folks in Acts 4:32 who “had everything in common.”

+Become a people gatherer. Host events that promote interaction: Bible studies, potlucks, book clubs, game nights, etc. And don’t just invite your single friends. Married people need interdependence, too.

Vinnie Kinsella is in his early thirties and single, which makes him the male equivalent of a spinster by many churches’ standards. He works in the book publishing industry as a book editor and a consultant to independent publishers. He also teaches editing workshops and college classes in and around Portland, Oregon. If you ask him what he feels God has called him to do, he’ll look you square in the eye and say he’s already doing it.

Happy Easter

April 4, 2012 in On Writing with 3 Comments

I would like to wish you and your family a Happy Easter.

I’m really excited about an article I wrote because I anticipate my first Easter as a newlywed.

Easter exists.

I don’t know about you, but I need the resurrection.

I need the reminder of the empty tomb.

Jesus did actually die and come back to life.

To continue reading the article please click here.

Jesus is Risen! Jesus is Risen indeed!

Permission To Transition Part II

March 27, 2012 in Daily Devotionals, Dating & Relationships with 7 Comments

Sometimes, you need to give yourself permission for peace. 

I’m letting you know right now this post is going to rock your world. I may get vulgar and you might not like it.

But that’s what we do when we transition. Isn’t it?

We get rude.

In your face.

At first we think it’s our right. We were the ones wronged.

What happens when that apology we’re waiting for never comes?

I can’t tell you how frustrated life’s challenges have been in my life to the point where I refused to stay silent–and I’m the one who got burned. What the?

#1. Like that time my former coworker tried to force himself on me and didn’t stop when I said no–and I’m the one who got in trouble at work for reporting him.
#2. Like that time my roommates were so messy that I paid double rent just to move out immediately–and I had to leave the church we all attended because it was so awkward.
#3. Like that time my coworker acted inappropriately towards our boss at a Christian company–and I quit my job and moved back in with my parents.
#4. Like that time my guy friend acted like he liked me and then started dating someone else–the only girl I confided in about him.

One of my favorite movies is “The Wedding Date.” Debra Messing’s character is told that she has the exact love life she wants. Her face says it all. “You THINK I want to be this unhappy and miserable?” Well, yeah!

That taught me a lesson or two.

Just because I felt in the right, didn’t give me permission to give others the middle finger. That is when I needed peace the most.

“There will be times when we have to defend ourselves. When those times occur, let’s be sure we don’t confuse our job description with God’s job description. He is the consuming fire; we are not” (One Year Alone with God, Ava Pennington).

Going back to #1. After I quit my job God brought me into a place of abundance. Because that experience was so humiliating I ended up writing again. I started blogging. Most of the pages to Faithbook of Jesus, my first book, were from those few years of asking God where the heck was he was.

Going back to #2. God restored my relationships, although not to the point where they were–but it gave me permission to find a roommate that suited my needs at the moment. I wrote Faithbook of Jesus there, and I couldn’t have done it without my roommate.

Going back to #3. I am only responsible for my actions. I am only responsible for my actions. It took me months of therapy, disability classes, and anxiety meds for me to see that I was the one in error. God wanted me at that moment in time to leave room for faith and start writing full time as my ministry.

Going back to #4. I am not proud of how I handled that situation at all. It was the first time that I had the guts to give someone piece of my mind–to their faces. Still, I felt awful for my actions. After I apologized and calmed down, God used their prayers to bring the most amazing man into my life almost immediately–my husband.

Often times when God wants to transition our lives is when we’re most vulnerable to attacks of the enemy.

Satan knows how to push our buttons.

He knows our weaknesses.

God is patient and waits for us.

If you’re in the middle of transition and struggling with playing the blame game, here is a chart to keep you on the right path for peace.

Common Signs of Bitterness

1. Gossip and Slander. “See to it that no one comes short to the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many be defiled…” (Hebrews 12:15-17)

2. Ungrateful and Complaining. “Do all things without grumbling or disputing…” (Philippians 2:14)

3. Judges Motives. “Therefore do not go on passing judgement before the time, but wait until the Lord comes who will both bring to light the things hidden in the darkness and disclose the motives of men’s hearts; and then each man’s praise will come to him from God.” (1 Corinthians 4:5, emphasis added)

4. Self-Centered. “…do not merely look out for your own personal interests…” (Philippians 2:4)

5. Excessive Sorrow. “But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart” (John 16:6)

6. Vengeful. “Never pay back evil for evil to anyone…Never take your own personal revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God…” (Romans 12:17, 19)

7. Brooding. “Love does not take into account a wrong suffered” (1 Corinthians 13:5).

8. Loss of Joy. “And I shall delight in Thy commandments which I love” (Psalm 119:47).

9. A Critical, Judgmental Attitude. “You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye” (Matthew 7:5). (Taken from The Excellent Wife, Martha Peace)

The next time you find yourself in a rough transition remember there is always room for peace.

Read Permission to Transition, Part I.

[Picture taken by Nathan Colwell]

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