We all know what it feels like to hit rock bottom. But we struggle to imagine that God knows what it feels like too. We can’t believe that God is with us in those low times of our lives. Jacob’s encounter with God at Bethel is a powerful proclamation that we are never outside of God’s love. God is the best friend we could ask for – especially when we’re in low places.
Continue readingWe’ve all be stuck as the person who doesn’t get a say. That can make it hard to be faithful to God. How do we follow God’s will when we’re not calling the shots? The story of Rebekah and her two sons, Jacob and Esau, is the story of a woman with no authority who found a way to be faithful to God. What can we learn from her example?
Continue readingIt’s hard to read the stories of God’s amazing miracles and not wonder, “Where’s mine?” A lot of us feel less like Abraham and more like his servant – the one who never saw the action. But his story of connecting Isaac and Rebekah is a powerful reminder that when we only look for God in the miraculous, we miss God at work in the mundane.
Continue readingWe like to think we’re not responsible for anyone but ourselves. But God has called us to be priests – we represent God to the world. That has real stakes when we do it badly, as Abraham found out when he lied to Abimelech about the identity of his wife, Sarah. How do we find grace when we’ve failed to represent God to the world well?
Continue readingWhy do strangers make us so uncomfortable? Abraham’s strange encounter with God in Genesis 18 offers a picture of hospitality that’s radical and challengings: our hospitality is an act of worship. God often comes to us as a stranger because we have something to learn from these strangers. How can we learn to worship through our welcome?
Continue readingChange is always scary. No matter how dysfunctional our ‘normal’ is, it still feels like home to us. But God loves us too much to leave us in our sin and pain. Jesus invites us to go somewhere new with him. But to do that, we have to leave. We see a model of faithful leaving in the story of Abram’s call. He left without a plan… only a promise of God’s presence.
Continue readingWhat’s Summer without a road trip? We’re travelling back to the stories of the Patriarchs – Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph. They lived on the road, and in their travels, they encountered God in strange and unexpected ways. What do we learn about God on the road that we can’t learn when we stay in our comfort zones? How might God be calling us to go somewhere new, following after our creator?
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What does it mean to be a good father? And what do we do if we have bad fathers? In John’s Gospel, Jesus teaches us what fatherhood looks like – and why it matters that God is our father, whether we’re fathers or not.
Continue readingToo often, we pit Jesus against God, as though they’re playing good cop/bad cop with us. We end up afraid to reach out to God, afraid to pray. But John shows us that Jesus IS God, that he invites us into the interior life of God – a place where perfect love casts out all our fear!
Continue readingMany of us are afraid to share the good news about Jesus because we don’t think our stories are interesting or remarkable. But John’s introduction to the Holy Spirit reminds us that what makes our story good news is that God has brought us to life – and that’s worth sharing!
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