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Moving Your Stimulus Checks to Where They're Needed

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Day in, day out, the sun shines, bringing light and warmth to our land and our faces. When a sunny spring day dawns after several cloudy days (with April snow too, if you’re in Minnesota), I step outside, take in the sun’s rays, and remember how much I missed that great light. Morning comes, evening follows. Cold and darkness settle in with the night.  Right now, this pandemic feels more like nightfall than morning. Many future unknowns await us. But we can learn from an unknown Jewish prisoner who penned this line in a poem he wrote within his concentration camp cell. “I believe in the sun, even when it’s not shining.” ( choral arrangement ) This is the essence of faith, isn’t it!? We trust that God’s provision and love is on the horizon, even when we cannot see it. Very practically, we pray for our “daily bread” and calm our fears by relying upon our Father in Heaven to provide what we need. As we seek His kingdom, Jesus lets us know that “tomorrow will be an...
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Nostalgia and the Now

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Midnight. I write this after a spontaneous Facebook photo binge... looking through the past, remembering mostly just the good. What do I remember fondly? Being with the people I'm fond of, especially those special people who really enjoy life, who love others, and give themselves to God. My time at college, looking back, seems like bliss, daily encountering dozens and dozens of people whom my heart adores, in a place I called home. Like these fine fellows. This brings such a large smile to my face, remembering getting to know them their first year, my last year at Northwestern. Oh gall, I love these guys. But what do I do with this? with all this joy? joy tinged with longing and a little sadness? I smile. I laugh. I maybe almost get teary eyed. I thank God. I bless them. I briefly imagine reunions filled with warm embraces and a little bit of that awkwardness when you don't know where to pick up. But I exist right now. So why am I even taking time to remini...
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Ministries vs Ministry

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As I was clearing out my emails, I read a few of the ministry updates that also ask for money. Some of these emails are from legit missions organizations, and I am all about that. (Really, I would love to convince you to give your money away for missions.) And the other organizations I get emails from (Ligonier, White Horse Inn, etc.) are legit too (otherwise I wouldn’t let them email me). But the amount of these ministries seems to get overwhelming. So, I’m not against any ministry; they are good and God uses them. But I wonder if we have let these para-church ministries become so predominant in our thinking that it detracts from the life of the church. This is a gut-feeling post, not an analytical fact-based post. I  feel I know lots of people (or maybe this is all just me in my head) that want to make ministries that do this and that cool thing for the Lord, for the Gospel. Great, let’s spread the Gospel and do these great things. As the number of ministries go up, so do th...
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