The Hump Day Hope comes from two of my favorite grace rabble-rousers. My friend Ed Underwood wrote an excellent piece about our innate mistrust of grace. The title alone was enough to generate deep thought. Before You Decide that Grace is Too Radical: Who Thought of Grace? Religion is about control and performance. Jesus changed the dynamic completely and made it about relationship. Ed’s writes that the idea of grace does not come from the heart or mind of man. If you leave human beings to themselves and ask them, “If there’s a God, what do you think He’d demand from people if they wanted to have a relationship with Him?” the answer is always the same, “Be good enough for Him to accept you!” Grace says you can’t be good enough to earn it. Grace says you can’t be too bad to receive it. Grace gives up the need to control. Grace gives up the requirement to perform for
Continue reading...
I know that a few of you have been patiently wondering if Confessions of a Bad Christian would be returning anytime soon. If you have been staring out your PC Window looking for new posts I apologize. I took a brief leave from the blog which became a pretty long leave of absence. Now I am refreshed and ready to dispense my marginal “wisdom” for my tens of readers. I am sure as new folks stumble to this site I will get this question again. “Why do you call your blog ‘Confessions of a Bad Christian’? Do you really think you are a bad Christian?” And my answer is always something like this. Yeah. I really am. Sometimes “badder” than on other days. The blog heading of “Confessions of a Bad Christian” started out as a bit of a joke. It was based on the title of my first book, When Bad Christians Happen to Good People. But I will tell you that I have
Continue reading...
One of my contributions with this modest little blog is to continually ask the tough questions. While listening to “Away in a Manger” at church on Sunday my inquiring mind kicked in. You likely know verse three of the song. The cattle are lowing The poor Baby wakes But little Lord Jesus No crying He makes As I listened an important series of difficult and probing questions popped into my head. What noise, exactly, were the cattle making when they started lowing? Was this normal cow talk? Did lowing just sound better than mooing in the lyric or is lowing a more spiritual and reverent cow sound? And then the most important question came to mind. What is wrong with me? I can’t answer the last question but I can help with the others. Lowing is defined at dictionary.com as “the characteristic sound uttered by cattle; a moo”. So little baby Jesus was awakened by the characteristic sound uttered by a cow. That
Continue reading...
(Reposted from theFish.com) A very dear person in my life is facing a tough decision. This faithful follower prays for wisdom, guidence, assurance and peace. The result so far is confusion and doubt. When they pray to hear the voice of God they hear spiritual crickets. Nothing. The frustration is real. But should we be surprised with the process? A song by Laura Story resonated with my soul on a recent walk. The song is called “Blessings” and the words are profound. We pray for blessings We pray for peace Comfort for family, protection while we sleep We pray for healing, for prosperity There is nothing inherently wrong with praying for those things. But my attempt to maneuver God to grant my wishes is wrong. Laying out my will and praying for God’s notary seal is not what He desires. Blessings are not just receiving good things from God and that truth is beautifully captured by Story’s lyrics. ‘Cause what
Continue reading...