A Word of Grace – November 15, 2010

Prayer is an important sifting tool in my experience. Many times I have sifted through a toxic mess of irritation, concern, humiliation and pain before my heavenly Father. As my jumbled thoughts and feelings tumble from my mind and heart, something will catch in my soul and literally pull me to my feet in indignation or distress. That leaves me with a choice to stuff what troubles me back into the crevices of my heart to be dealt with later in my own devices, or to let it go to God with a plea, “Here, Father, take this and my desire for vindication that goes with it. Remove it from the reach of heart and mind.”

A Word of Grace – November 8, 2010

am writing this week about rebellion against God, the kind we expect and criticize and the subtler kind we try to deny and explain away. Both bring us to the same place–opposition to God and obstruction of his plans for us. There is thread that runs through the seemingly unrelated stories of King Uzziah of Judah recorded in 2 Chronicles 15 and Jesus’ feeding of the 5,000 on a Galilean mountainside recorded in John 6:1-15. If we follow that thread we will find it leads directly to our hearts.