A Firm Anchor

If we are going to find peace in a world that has gone mad, we’re definitely going to need to reorient our thinking and turn to prayer, but while those two things are necessary, they aren’t sufficient on their own. We need something more. In this next part of our journey and through the lens of Paul’s second letter to Timothy, we are going to talk about what this something more is. Thanks for reading and sharing.

A Firm Anchor

One of the saddest moments in all of film history was when Chuck lost Wilson. If that’s not ringing any bells, a bit of a reminder may be due. The Chuck I’m talking about is Chuck Noland. If that’s still not ringing any bells, that doesn’t really surprise me. His name doesn’t matter very much and in fact I couldn’t have told you what it was until I looked it up. Wilson, though, just goes by Wilson. He’s white, male, a little round, and wears a handprint on his face. Actually, the handprint is his face. You see, Wilson is a volleyball. Actually, he’s a great deal more than that to Chuck whom you may recognize now as the character played by Tom Hanks in the movie Castaway. After surviving a plane crash and landing on a deserted island somewhere in the Pacific, Hanks manages to survive by cobbling together what he needs from the various packages his FedEx plane dropped in the crash and which washed up on shore. One of these packages held Wilson who offered Hanks what was perhaps his most important survival tool: a relationship. I mean, Wilson didn’t actually have any lines in the film, but by giving Hanks’ character the ability to have the illusion of a relationship, it enabled him not to completely lose his sanity during his terrible sojourn. 

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Follow the Instructions

Happy New Year! If you’re like everyone else in the world, I suspect you were about as ready for this calendar turning as you have ever been for anything. We made it. 2020 is in the books–and my how that book will be remembered! We have a fresh start ahead of us. Yet, how do we make this fresh start more than just a new set of challenges? In a new teaching series called, A Fresh Start, we’re talking about that very thing. Keep reading to learn more.

Follow the Instructions

So…are you ready for a fresh start? Do you even remember this time last year? Remember how excited we all were about the prospect of 2020. There’s just something exciting about the turning of a whole decade more so than a normal new year brings. And maybe it was because of the place of life I was in, but for some reason 2020 just felt more exciting than 2010 had. And then…well…you know. This mystery virus popped up in China and a year later nearly 350,000 of our fellow citizens have lost their lives to it. Worldwide we’re up over 1.8 million lives lost. We’re over three-quarters of the way to 100 million infected.

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Morning Musing: Proverbs 2:6

“For the Lord gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding.”‬‬ (CSB – Read the chapter

Are you wise? That may be too forward. Do you know someone who is wise? What makes them so? Perhaps it is a way she speaks. She just always has the words to say in every situation. It doesn’t matter what it is, she speaks rightly into it. Perhaps he always knows what to do. In every circumstance, he always seems to know which path forward will be the right one. Regardless of what exactly marks them out as wise, we want to be like people like this. How can we manage that? 

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Digging in Deeper: Isaiah 55:8

“‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not my ways.’ This is the Lord’s declaration.”‬‬ (CSB – Read the chapter

Context is king when it comes to understanding the Scriptures well. This morning we started talking about a popular bumper-sticker verse out of Isaiah and then talked about the different contexts we need to take into account when examining a particular verse. Let’s put all of that into practice.

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