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Month: October 2018

Excuseville

Then I said, “Ah, Lord God! Behold, I do not know how to speak, for I am only a youth.” Jeremiah 1:6 I’d like to think that if God showed up and commanded me to do something, that I would do it, no matter how crazy it seemed. It’s God, so I’d obey no matter what,…
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Surrender Is Hard

We are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand. Isaiah 64:8 Have you ever believed a thing to be true and then acted in a manner completely inconsistent with that belief? There are those for whom right belief just naturally leads to right behavior. I don’t understand…
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The Cure for “I’m Better Than”

We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. Isaiah 64:6 As I ran a race with thousands of others last weekend, I found myself people watching . . . and comparing. One of the worst parts of running a race is being beaten by those…
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Rise. Shine.

Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you . . . for in my wrath I struck you, but in my favor I have had mercy on you. Isaiah 60:1,10 Yesterday at 9:45AM, I ran under the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis while running the Twin Cities Marathon…
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The Worst Consequence

Your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear. Isaiah 59:2 I occasionally meet those who believe that, because we are forgiven in Christ, God cannot see our sin. Based on passages that say, I will remember their sin…
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Antidepressant

If you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday. Isaiah 58:10 For the most part, whatever depression, despair and anxiety I’ve experienced has been self-inflicted, resulting from my destructive behavior. I don’t know your situation.…
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Becoming Whole

Behold, in the day of your fast you seek your own pleasure . . . Fasting like yours this day will not make your voice to be heard on high. Isaiah 58:3-4 In chemical dependency treatment, everyone was committed to following God’s path . . . when it came to drug use. There were those guys though,…
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Save Me – But Don’t Change Me

“There is no peace,” says my God, “for the wicked.” Isaiah 57:21 I’m no stranger to jailhouse confessions of faith that dissolve when the inmate is released. Incarcerated, with a life in shambles, it is not uncommon for the inmate to ask for divine assistance. God, get me out of this and I’ll go to church…
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My Best Thinking

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. Isaiah 55:8,9 When I was in chemical dependency treatment, one of the counselors used a puppet to…
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Eating Dirt

Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters . . . Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Isaiah 55:1-2 Pica is a psychological disorder in which an individual develops an appetite for non-nutritive substances like soil, clay, detergent, hair or paint.…
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