I used to have a narrow understanding of God’s will. It was only at major forks in the road where I would “seek God’s will”: But at the right time – which happened to be on a plane leaving Haiti after my first visit in 2010 – the Lord revealed that the phrase “God’s will” means so much more. I was reading the Bible and came across a passage that triggered an insight – I don’t remember which verse it was exactly, but something like one of the following: 1 John 2:17  The world is passing away, along with its desires;…

The second time God spoke to me through Scripture in my teenage years came just a few days after the first time.  I am certain I have written about the first here before, but because the first and second were closely connected, I will recap it here: It was the end of my junior year of high school and my Sunday school teachers had challenged us to read a chapter a day in our Bibles.  I had read a good portion of the New Testament by the time Memorial Day weekend rolled around and a car accident took the life…

I sat down to write and within 60 seconds Melissa’s phone rang. It was Hannah and she started the conversation with “I don’t want to freak you out. I’m OK.” She had just walked away from her car – likely totaled – now sitting on the shoulder of an interstate in New Jersey. She told us she had been going about 60 mph when she hit a deer. The airbag had deployed but she managed to get the car stopped safely. Thank God. Melissa and I had worried about her traveling around Europe by herself all through the month of…

Come October I will be free to begin my dissertation in earnest. Of course, I have been mulling over possible topics and friends are starting to ask what I have in mind. I haven’t talked to any of my professors formally, but here’s what has my interest right now: I would like to appropriate what social scientists have learned in recent years about habit formation and apply it to spiritual formation within the church. It seems to me that at least the modern American church is lacking in discipline and that our lack of seriousness about prayer and Bible study…

In the interest of demystifying speaking in tongues, here is the upside of this practice as gleaned from the first few verses of I Corinthians 14: It is a spiritual gift. It is speaking to God, not to other people. It is “uttering mysteries with one’s spirit”.  It results in self edification. (i.e., it is something you can do to build yourself up.)  Paul would like every one of the Corinthian believers to speak in tongues.  You can pray or sing in tongues. When praying in a tongue, it is your spirit which is praying.  Paul suggests the best practice…

Like “being filled with the Holy Spirit”, the Biblical topic of “speaking in tongues” is one of those things that makes people nervous. So we avoid discussing it. Speaking in tongues is mysterious and controversial – we can’t even agree if it is something that continues today or was just a feature of the early church. And the vast majority of us have not even been in the same room with someone who is speaking in tongues, much less experienced it firsthand. But it seems too prevalent in the New Testament to simply sweep it under the rug. (That doesn’t…

Anyone can second guess an important decision – But expert-level overthinkers like myself can fourth, fifth, and sixth guess even trivial decisions – I know this is tied to my perfectionistic tendencies. If I think about it long enough, surely I will find the perfect solution. If I don’t think it through well enough, I am likely to make a mistake. But certainty is elusive, so I go round and round in my mind. Knowing this is how I am wired, I take great comfort in 1 Corinthians 13:12  “Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror;…

Anyone can second guess an important decision – But expert-level overthinkers like myself can fourth, fifth, and sixth guess even trivial decisions – I know this is tied to my perfectionistic tendencies. If I think about it long enough, surely I will find the perfect solution. If I don’t think it through well enough, I am likely to make a mistake. But certainty is elusive, so I go round and round in my mind. Knowing this is how I am wired, I take great comfort in 1 Corinthians 13:12  “Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror;…

Before I started preaching on a weekly basis, my personal Bible study time had reached new levels of depth. I was making big connections between various strands of theology at the same time I was starting to notice important things that seemed to be outside the major concerns of any systematic theology I was familiar with.  My time in Scripture was something I looked forward to every morning. My day just seemed off on the rare occasions I allowed it to be squeezed out of my schedule.  Now my Bible study experience has changed and I am trying to figure…