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I’m currently working through a Bible in a year reading plan. For this year, I chose to do a chronological plan, so I’ve been winding my way through the Old Testament. Let me tell you, the number of stories that start with someone deciding to go

The other day, I was venting to a friend about some of the obstacles in my life and my knee-jerk responses to them. She let me pour out my thoughts until I suddenly sighed and ended with “But if I’m frustrated with it, I’m aware of it. And if I’m

Sometimes, life goes horribly wrong. It’s not something we can avoid or dance around. You work and toil and struggle to reach your goals. You sacrifice and labor just to push yourself that much closer to your dreams. You do everything right, and

There’s a story in the book of John that I absolutely love. Like all the gospels and their recounting of Jesus’ life, it’s a powerful reminder of what it takes to follow God and what we have to lose. In John 9, Jesus comes across a man who has

Obstacles and hardships are not just a possibility in life, but an absolute certainty. That’s just a fact of life. Life is going to be hard. We just know it. I remember my mom once blithely saying “Life is dangerous! No one makes it out alive!”, a

No one, and I mean no one, likes the feeling of helplessness. There isn’t anybody who wakes up first thing in the morning feeling helpless and thinks “Aw yeah! This is awesome!”. It just doesn’t happen. The sensation of being weak or helpless is

In working through my current Bible plan, I’ve just finished the book of Deuteronomy. I’d be lying if I didn’t say that it can be a bit of a tough one to slog through.  My mom explained the book of Deuteronomy to me as “Moses’ Farewell

I have a soft spot for the story of Gideon. I’m a sucker for a story of someone who’s terrified overcoming their fear to do great things. And when we meet Gideon, that’s exactly what he is: terrified.  To be fair, I absolutely would be

With St. Patrick's Day today, there will be a surge of people wearing green, delivering pinches, and enjoying the enthusiasm of claiming even the tiniest fraction of Irish heritage. The legends of St. Patrick himself will likely experience an

“God, please help me be more ____.” I think it’s safe to say every Christian has prayed this at some point in the lives. If they haven’t, there might be an issue concerning lack of growth and that’s another blog post entirely. When we’re chasing

When I was little, I melted down way too easily. It honestly took next to nothing for me to end up in tears and sticking out my bottom lip in despair. If the littlest thing went wrong or took a turn for the worse I had to stop in my tracks and

When I was fifteen, I started doing ground fighting. Going into class my first day I had all sorts of expectations for what I would start with. Some of it was recklessly optimistic. There were all sorts of ideas that I would be a natural and

I love the story of the Exodus. It’s absolutely fantastic. One of my favorite verses of all time can be found in Exodus. Every time I work through it, God teaches me something new about himself through it. Just when I think I’ve understood this

You can’t ignore a neon sign. Bright and vibrant, they demand your attention whether or not you want to give it. If you’ve ever been to Las Vegas, you know this to be true on a whole other level. You can’t go anywhere in that city without a

Genesis 42-50 At my college graduation, I listened to what felt like a  hundred different speakers that I was told were great and important. If I’m being honest, I tuned most of them out. Half because I was nearly in tears from the weight

Genesis 39-40 Sometimes life drops you down to the absolute bottom of the barrel. It comes out of nowhere. It hurts like a maddening itch. It makes you want to cry and wail or scream and shake your fist at the sky. There isn’t a single person

Genesis 37 Joseph. I know this story backward and forwards, and yet just the other day I read it through in a completely new light. Somehow or another, I’d started to only look at Joseph’s story in light of how he handled it and viewed God’s

We don’t like to admit it, but so much of our world operates around the estimated value of our utility. Most often we actively try to deny it. Of course, it doesn’t work that way. How preposterous to suggest that we value people by their use!

If everything were as it ought to be, no one would ever need courage. Unfortunately, the world is most definitely not as it ought to be and courage is constantly in high demand. No one has to be told how difficult and confusing the world is, and

In the book of Acts, we find Christianity in its infancy. Early believers are zealously spreading the good news of Jesus and thousands are being saved. But as their numbers grow, so does the hatred for them. What starts in celebration quickly

When we think of what makes a wise person, certain images come to mind. We think of someone who knows everything, someone who always has an answer ready, someone who’s an expert at the ready. Very rarely do we think of someone actively learning.

We’ve all heard the phrase “It’s better to give than receive.” and many of us would agree. Who doesn’t love the look on someone else’s face when you give them something that delights or moves them? It’s vastly satisfying. Intoxicating even. The

There are a lot of notions out there in the world on how long a thing should take to be accomplished and what sort of milestones we should reach at certain points in time. We see it all the time in adulthood in the questions that get asked or the

Prayer is not an easy topic to discuss. If I’m being honest, most of the time I’m reluctant to even talk about it. It is so deeply personal and unique to each person that it can be hard to find common ground from which to make a discussion. On

There were a very fun, very fast, and honestly very painful two months of my life when I got to play rugby. I had just transferred to my university and wanted to try something new. I was drawn to rugby mainly because of the scale of it. Anything I