So Creepy

When we lived overseas, we learned the hard way that what makes you more susceptible to being car-jacked is if you’re sitting in your parked car in broad daylight. These facts leave you vulnerable:

1. The setting can be clearly evaluated in the sunlight: no one else is nearby.

2. You have keys to the vehicle you’re sitting in: the get-away will be easy.

3. You obviously don’t know better: the target is naive.  

We couldn’t be totally immune to this threat ever happening to us again, but we could be on guard once we knew what made us vulnerable. And the same is true in our faith. 

I’m creeped out by the words of 2 Timothy 3:5-7, “…Avoid such people. For among them are those that creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions, always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth.”  

After describing the type of people who creep into homes with false content, Paul points out three characteristics that weakened the women’s faith, making them easy targets for creepers. They were:

Carrying sin around. A burden as heavy as unconfessed sin leaves us without strength under the weight of its accusations. But repentance releases us (1 John 1:9).

Controlled by pleasure. Shackled to every whim and desire, we’re dragged one way and then the other in search of the next comfort.  But the Spirit is stronger (Galatians 5:16).

Constantly learning, but never concluding. Content consumption is just spinning mental wheels if it doesn’t lead to or align with conclusive truth.  But the Word is the source of real life-change (John 17:17).

Let’s not learn the hard way. 

Playlists & Podcasts

Whether I’m working out or washing dishes, I’m motivated by music and by insightful conversations. Maybe you are too, so I thought I’d share a few songs that have been filling my heart with worship lately:

 Love of God, Brandon Lake and Phil Whickham (how can I pick just one of theirs?!)

Holy Forever, Jenn Johnson

Lead Me On, Chandler Moore

Daily Bread, Pat Barrett and Kari Jobe

Prince of Peace, Josh Baldwin

Thank you Jesus for the Blood, Charity Gayle

…and some of my favorite podcasts:

Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast for anyone leading people in some way.

The Graham Cochrane Show for anyone who owns a business or wants to start one.

Don’t miss this three-part interview! Jennie Allen and Jamie Winship:

Part 1: Conflict Zones, the CIA, and Listening to God

Part 2: Why are you Afraid?

Part 3: Finding Freedom from Fear

I hope one of these resources moves you to worship more fully with all that you are today!

How to Make Yourself at Home

I’ve just followed God’s people through the book of Jeremiah into their tragic exile in Babylon. They had rejected God’s word and ignored His intervention, unwilling to change their ways, and so the consequences God had warned them about, finally came. Their deportation occurred in waves over the course of 17 years as hundreds or thousands of them at a time were taken captive (Jeremiah 52:28-30). 

How they must have mourned all that they lost. A move itself is difficult enough emotionally and spiritually, but a move as divine judgment could have clothed them in sackcloth and ashes for the rest of their lives. They could have justifiably lived in their new location in a perpetual state of grief and disconnection, veiled in black and living in the past. But the most shocking thing about this discipline for their sin is God’s four-fold instruction to them regarding their new home:

1. “Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. 

2. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. 

3. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, 

4. and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare, you will find your welfare.” Jeremiah 29:5-7 

His message is essentially, Make yourself at home, and here’s how to do it.

At the end of this summer, Nate and I will celebrate 20 years of marriage. Over those years, we’ve lived in 4 states, 1 foreign country, and 9 apartments or houses along the way. That’s certainly not a record, but it’s more moves than I imagined for our family. Although none of our relocations happened for reasons like Judah’s all those millennia ago, the four-fold strategy God gave His people back then has served us well each time we’ve found ourselves in a new place:

1. Don’t live out of boxes. Unpack, decorate, garden, and live each day with a long-term mindset, rather than a temporary one. A temporary mindset is tempting, because it’s self-protection against the effort involved in starting over and the pain of eventual departure. But tears about leaving are better than cheers that you’re leaving.

2. Cultivate and celebrate new beginnings. Build deep enough relationships in the new place that you throw wedding showers and baby showers. God’s type of love multiplies, so with Him, you have enough love to keep giving.

3. Sarcasm about the new place or comparison to the last place delays your adjustment and denies God’s leadership. Instead, make it a better place because of your presence there with the experiences and insights you bring to it. Contribute to its good; don’t tear it down. 

4. When you pray, include the geographical place where you live. Its peace will be your peace.  Prayer softens our hearts, and that’s the change God is really after in His plan for our peace.

E for Enough

Continuing with the most popular letter in the English language, here is an encapsulated rendition of Philippians chapters 3 & 4:

Look out-

Evil hides in religion: 

Eighth day, a tribe, and some zeal.

Everything’s really through faith,

Eyes fixed ahead on our call.

All our

Enemies walk past the cross,

Ending in shame, filled with self.

Earth shapes their minds, but not ours,

Enabled by Christ to change.

Therefore,

Entreating sister workers,

Euodia, Syntyche,

Enter again side by side;

Everyone’s watching your lives.

And now

Each anxious thought in your hearts

Entrust as requests to God.

Everything worthy of praise,

Earnestly dwell on these things.

Know that 

Extremes in life will abound-

Empty or full, I’m content.

Except for you, I’ve had Christ.

Enough in his strength, I’m supplied.

Why condense a book into phrases that start with E? Does it do any good or is it just amusing? Here’s what you might find in an exercise like this:

1. You concentrate and meditate on a passage, which puts it deeper into your heart.

2. You look for meaning in paragraphs, not just single verses.

3. You’ll never forget that Epaphroditus and Euodia are in the book with lots of E’s.

E for Effort

As I read Philippians 1 & 2, it was surprising to me how many words or concepts in these chapters begin with one repeated letter. If you Google the most frequently used letter in our alphabet, the English language has a favorite one, and it’s apparently the vowel E.

Paul didn’t write in English, so I don’t believe E has any divine meaning behind it, but if I were looking for a way to remember the topics from these first two chapters in Philippians, I’d start with E.

I pray,

Eager to see what only

Eternity will complete.

Embracing love more, may your

Excellent lives bear their fruit.

I know

Each of my trials bring joy,

Envy or good will aside.

Even by life or death, our

Eternal Christ is proclaimed.

I am

Encouraged by Him who was 

Equal with God, and yet He

Emptied Himself to His death,

Even to death on a cross.

He was

Exalted by God above

Every name known in the

Earth and the heavens, so that

Every knee bows to Him.

It’s not

Easy to shine, just like these: 

Epaphroditus and Tim.

Endure, yet be sure that the

Effort’s all Christ’s, and He won.