For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need some one to teach you again the first principles of God’s word. You need milk, not solid food; for every one who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their faculties trained by practice to distinguish good from evil. -Hebrews 5:12-15 RSV
White belt mentality in all things. I’m better at listening and learning than teaching. I can model once I learn, but I am cautious to instruct.
Even more so when it comes to God’s Word. The stakes are high and I work hard to act and speak with humility. I might be getting it all wrong, I try to remind myself of that whenever I speak.
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Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged. -Colossians 3:21 NKJV
Peaceful parenting is a long journey out of ancestral trauma. It’s multi-generational. My father broke a cycle of violence perpetuated by his father. It is my task to continue that exodus out of fear and into love.
It is imperfect and I do it wrong in all types of ways. My sons will be charged with carrying on better than I have.
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Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love. -1 Corinthians 16:13-14 ESV
The Greek word used for “love” here is “agapē.” This the highest, most selfless, form of love. Without interjecting Ego, we can love each other as God loves us.
I pray to love others in this way.
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“For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and return not thither but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and prosper in the thing for which I sent it.” -Isaiah 55:10-11 RSV
I believe God’s Word is directing the universe toward His purposes. I believe those purposes to be good and I want to align my life with them.
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Children, obey your parents because you belong to the Lord, for this is the right thing to do. “Honor your father and mother.” This is the first commandment with a promise: if you honor your father and mother, “things will go well for you, and you will have a long life on the earth.” -Ephesians 6:1-3
I honor my parents by scrutinizing the fruits of my childhood with honesty. I embrace and passionately recreate the positive and lovingly release the negative.
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I’m a sap. We saw Thor: Love and Thunder today and I cried…a lot.
Somewhat necessarily, Marvel is killing off more and more of their earliest on-screen heroes and the survivors are dealing with grief. Avengers: Endgame and WandaVision used grief as a central motivation for key characters and the latest Thor installment carries on Marvel’s skillful handling of this emotion.
By “skillful,” I mean “fucking triggering.” The Marvel Cinematic Universe(MCU) was born in 2008. Mary and I were newlyweds a year out from becoming parents. I wasn’t a huge Iron Man fan as a kid, but we both loved movies and it looked like there would finally be a great super hero movie that wasn’t another Spider-Man (okay, we liked the X-Men flicks too).
Not long after, Chris Hemsworth’s Thor hit the big screen and Mary found her favorite super hero. We had two babies by then and had to wait for the DVD release. Date nights were rare and we watched most of the MCU from our couch.
Eleven years later and Thor is in the theaters again. Our sons are huge fans and my girlfriend joined us for a matinee.
I won’t spoil anything, but there was a lot of loss throughout the film. This fictional world still has a strong connection to Mary and my fears regarding death.
My body didn’t feel right after an active weekend and my head was swirling with a resurrected grief. I was drained and not ready to create, or do anything, for that matter.
I pushed myself to the Lego table to try to focus on something simple. Lego is the oldest therapy I know and just the sound of pieces being moved around takes me back to a carefree time.
Spaceships are a comfort build as all my sets as a kid were space themed. They are also a mental torture as so many have been made by Lego, fans, and myself.
The balance of challenge and familiarity worked. I put my hands to use and found calm in creating.
The same is being done to females through puberty blockers, chemical birth control, and the poisonous diets and drugs pushed on younger and younger children of both sexes.
Get away from prescriptions, eat cleaner, live more naturally, and connect more often with God’s creation.
What then shall we say to this? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, will he not also give us all things with him? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies; who is to condemn? Is it Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us? Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, “For thy sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. –Romans 8:31-39 RSV
An internet disagreement went well. That might be enough of a story to hit Publish right now and be done with it. However, it got more interesting as my conversation partner direct messaged me because his next thoughts might be construed as pagan or occult and he didn’t want the potential backlash.
There’s a narrowness to allowable Christian discourse that doesn’t help our messy search for truth. Certain precepts are not to be questioned and wisdom from non-Christian religious teachings is all but outlawed.
In this video, Jonathan Pageau addresses some of the knee-jerk reactions that Christians have to symbols they don’t understand.
My understanding is that God uses all things to His good. I also understand that symbols can be powerful and one shouldn’t be lackadaisical when engaging with them. The answer is to intentionally focus on God. If you stay in His love, you will receive wisdom and remain in a good place.
Learning is fun for me, I play with ideas and try to remain aware that I might be wrong about everything. That keeps Ego in check and prepares me to change course when truth is revealed.
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I never shrank back from telling you what you needed to hear, either publicly or in your homes. -Acts 20:20 NLT
I don’t carry a megaphone, but I don’t shrink from bringing my faith into conversation. I’m open about my lack of study and understanding, but share the guidance and wisdom I’ve gained from the Word.
We’re each called to share our faith in our particular way. My place is here and in the many opportunities I have to meet and get to know people.
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