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A La Carte (August 11)

thursday

Grace and peace to you to.

(Yesterday on the blog: When God Took Away: His Goodness in My Grief)

Knowledge Is Not A Bank

I identify with this. “When I was younger, I thought about knowledge as if it was a bank: that what I stored in my mind would be safe and accessible, and that once I had it, I would have it forever. Now I know that my bank is not a very good one. Not the kind I’d trust my money with, anyway.”

An On-Going Battle

“To put in a flower bed, you clear the ground of rocks, debris, and weeds. You use good soil and quality plants. You stand over your work and admire it, but weeds are starting to pop up in just a few days. These weeds will take over the bed and choke out the flowers if left unattended.” This is an apt illustration of sin.

The Wind, the Waves, & Me

I appreciated Madelyn’s compelling reflection on the wind and waves and on life and death.

Postpartum Bodies and Unordered Thoughts

“Unordered thinking can creep in oh so quickly. If we’re not careful to take thoughts captive and discern if they have any truth to them, we will fall prey to the serpent’s lies. And it seems like women who are walking through the postpartum season are vulnerable targets for the enemy.”

Anglican Division over Scripture and Sexuality Heads South

Christianity Today reports from the recent Lambeth conference where 125 bishops met for discussions. High on the agenda was LGBT issues. “These disagreements over LGBT rights occur amid the demographic decline of Anglican/Episcopal churches in North America and the UK and the rapid rise of traditional churches in the so-called Global South.”

Faithful in (sm)All Things

Amber Thiessen: “We often calculate the degree of our own influence as dependent on the position – or title – we carry, the number of followers, likes or viral posts we have on social, or the amount of people gathering to our ministry.”

Flashback: The Great Stores of God’s Provision

As we look back on the race we ran, we will see that the God who planned our days, the God whose providence knew the end from the beginning, laid out his provision for us at exactly the points we most needed it, the points we would otherwise have been most likely to be disqualified.

There is a lot you can do to make a difference after you have prayed. But there is really nothing you can do to make a difference until you have prayed.

—H.B. Charles Jr.

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    Building Churches Out of Other Churches

    What is your church really made of? Or perhaps better said, who is your church really made of? This is something we all do well to ponder from time to time, for there are good ways and bad ways, better ways and worse ways to fill a church.

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    People of all faiths pray. Some pray to gods, some to ancestors, some to nature, and some to the universe, but all speak out words, all utter desires, all hope to be heard. But Christians pray differently and Christians pray confidently, for we pray to a Father. We alone “have received the Spirit of adoption…

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