Category: Morning Musings

Man writing notes at desk in home library surrounded by books

Summer Reruns: Being Different and Starting Fresh

Leave a comment

This will be another short week of blogging as we are sneaking one last trip in this summer before hitting the ground running in August. We’ll get back to our journey through Proverbs then as well. Today is a little different from our other summer reruns because I’m including two posts today. The first is a sermon I posted on this day about four weeks after we started meeting together in person again after the initial Covid shutdowns. We worked through the story of the church in Acts those first few weeks. The second post I should have shared a couple of days ago on Saturday, but I don’t blog on Saturdays, so you get it today. This one was actually the first post I ever wrote. That’s right, Saturday was the ninth anniversary of my starting this blog. It was also my first official non-Sunday day on the job here at First Baptist Oakboro. The post looks pretty rudimentary compared to posts now, but again, it was the first one I had done. I didn’t have any idea what I was doing. I didn’t have any idea I would still be writing nearly a decade later. Yet here we are. You never know what kind of a journey God will take you on. With almost 2400 posts and views from 217 different nations and territories under my belt, I can’t wait to see what comes next. Have a great start to your week!

Read the rest…
Family using telescope outside cabin at night under star-filled sky

Summer Reruns: Reflections on Camp

Leave a comment

A couple of years ago, we made the intentional decision to make the month of June really busy at my church. Okay, so that wasn’t our primary goal. Rather, we sought to make the month of July really quiet by cancelling basically everything except a handful of necessary meetings and our normal Sunday morning activities. The goal was to create time for everyone to vacation and rest and recuperate from a busy year before we got another one started in August with the start of school. In order to do that, we have to schedule all of our camps and Vacation Bible School in June. So, June is really busy. But four years ago this week, I was at camp as a chaperone. It was the first time I had been in quite a while, and it was a blast. This morning let’s take a look back at some reflections on the week and the wonder of the world God has created us to enjoy.

Morning Musing: Jeremiah 32:17
Toddler sitting with arms crossed in timeout while parent watches with hand on forehead

Summer Reruns: When Happiness Isn’t Enough

Leave a comment

In this post from 2020, a reflection on parenting proves to be an invitation to a broader reflection on God’s commitment to seeing us become more fully who He made us to be. The challenge here is that He made us to be perfect reflections of His holiness and righteousness. Perhaps you have noticed, but we are not a particularly holy or righteous people on our own. Getting us to that point takes some work on His part. It is work He is willing to do, but it is work that we are not likely to enjoy, especially if we are very committed to the sin currently standing in the way of our reaching that point. Our happiness isn’t God’s goal. Our holiness is. Let’s look back together today to see some of what this means for us.

Read the rest…
Woman sitting on couch looking frustrated at distorted TV screen showing a sports game with signal interference

Summer Reruns: Real Religion

Leave a comment

It never fails. Anytime a movie or TV series presents religious people these days, they are always the bad guys. Always. And, the more religious someone is in the script, the worse of a bad guy they are. The only solution here – as far as our culture sees it – is to become less religious. Well, while bad religion and people who claim religion but don’t actually live up to their religion’s moral expectations are certainly a problem, religion itself isn’t necessarily the problem. The antidote for bad religion is not less religion, but good religion. James here tells about a couple of things that make religion good religion. Let’s take a look.

Read the rest…
Man tied to tree with rope in dense forest looking distressed

Getting Caught in Your Own Trap

Leave a comment

“Why, my son, would you lose yourself with a forbidden woman or embrace a wayward woman? For a man’s ways are before the Lord’s eyes, and he considers all his paths. A wicked man’s iniquities will trap him; he will become tangled in the ropes of his own sin. He will die because there is no discipline, and be lost because of his great stupidity.” (Proverbs‬ ‭5‬:‭20‬-‭23‬ ‭CSB‬‬ – Read the chapter)

Have you ever done something that seemed like a good idea at the time only to run into a wall later? Had you really stopped to think about it, you probably wouldn’t have done it, but you wanted it. And so, instead of listening to the friend or two who warned you against it, you convinced yourself that you were right or even wise—at least justified—in doing whatever it was. Sin is a trap, but it’s one we often fall into ourselves because of a pattern of bad decision making. This applies to all sorts of situations, but especially times of sexual sin. Let’s talk about it.

Read the rest…