The fifth psalm brings with it some familiar themes from the preceding four: God not answering prayer, lament, crying out to God, and struggle against bloodthirsty adversaries. Whenever Scripture repeats itself, this is a flashing red light to take notice, God is trying to make sure we really understand something. It’s ironic then, how these themes have been lost or minimized in much of modern day Western Christianity. We seem to have crafted a religion around comfort and God making you feel good. Like we are selling a product and we need to convince those in the pew that it works. In order to do so, we have to hide these more uncomfortable truths and only emphasize the happy ones.
Psalm 4 Devotional – Answer me God!
Verse 1 implies that God has not been answering the psalmist’s prayer. I love the honesty we can go to God with. The psalmist is basically saying, “Hey God! Answer me! I know you can! But you haven’t been! I am suffering! I am struggling! Have mercy on me! Hear my prayer!” With full use of exclamation points in the emotion behind this prayer.
Ep. 37: Jesus bringing great calm to great chaos + new Flip Side book club exploring gay celibate partnerships with Wesley Hill
The topic of this episode is based around a sermon Noah preached recently on Jesus calming the storm in Mark 4:35-39. In a chaotic season of COVID-19, racism, and a divisive election, let this passage of Scripture bring peace to these chaotic waters and the daily pain of living in a fallen world.
Where #BlackLivesMatter Lost Me
I’ve been an outspoken supporter of the #BlackLivesMatter movement for years now, attending events, writing blogs, and posting a sign in my front yard. Over the course of time I’ve been supporting BLM, I’ve had to combat a lot of push back about the movement. Especially when more dramatic protests started happening, like people laying […]
What does the Bible say about anger?
What does the Bible say about anger? Ditch Your Goals for Adventures, Ditch Your Anger for Peace I’ve struggled with anger for most of my life. There are generally two types of anger. One is projected toward a specific person or persons like the spray of a machine gun, the other is brooding and internal […]
Worshiping an Uncool God in a Cool Culture
The USA Today section of my Lansing State Journal has an article in it with the startling title “Multitasking teens pick texting over sleeping.” The article goes on to say how teens spend around 9 hours a day on “entertainment media” which includes social media, music, gaming or online videos, (i.e. time on their smart […]