Choices

Renew

Have you ever just needed a fresh start, a clean slate? Ever wanted to start over?

One of the many amazing aspects of following Jesus is the reality of new beginnings. No matter where we’ve been, what mistakes we’ve made, God offers each moment as an opportunity to choose a different path.

Renew doesn’t have to mean a complete overhaul. Sometimes it’s just an update, taking stock of where you’ve been and making necessary course corrections. Six months is a good time to assess, evaluate, and renew. I want to use this week to look at my goals for the year and see where I might need to change some tactics, and I want to use it as a time to renew my commitments to those goals.

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Moving from Passive Victim to Active Seeker

Curiosity has its own reason for existing. Albert Einstein.

I’ve been thinking a bit (an unusual and dangerous development) about the notion of overcoming adversity. As a paraplegic, I’m often asked questions like: How did you deal with it? How did you get past it? What helped you move forward?

When I recall twenty-one years of adjusting to life in a wheelchair, first impressions include frustration, anger, and isolation. Each challenge seems to elicit a sense of impossibility and hopelessness, and my initial reaction is capitulation. It’s as though I’m programmed to greet difficult circumstances with: I’ll never be able to …

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Save Your Marriage By Starting With a Clean Slate

If you really want to save your marriage, you must start with a clean slate. That means to get rid of the worldly attitudes and practices that have polluted your marriage and follow God’s plan for your marriage instead. We’re so used to treating our marriage like everyone else does, or the way we were taught, or from what we think is the right way to handle it, but look where all that has gotten many of our marriages of today.

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Heal Marriage After Adultery

Do you want your marriage nursed back to health? If you want your marriage restored it will take some effort on your part. Stop peering over the fence at your neighbor, and put your eyes back in your own yard where they belong.

First, the offended spouse needs to forgive completely (see my article, forgive a cheating spouse), and secondly the offender has to understand why he strayed from the marriage bed in the first place. Infidelity is only a symptom of a greater problem within the framework of the marriage.

If you have been unfaithful or have anything else pulling you away from your spouse, ask yourself why? What am I doing that would cause me to be disloyal? Don’t blame your spouse for your weakness. Grow up and take responsibility.

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Are You Trapped Behind an Open Door?


I saw a catchy phrase yesterday that summarized the way I seem to live a good deal of my life: trapped behind an open door.

A story’s told of Houdini once being challenged to escape from a jail cell. After he was placed in the cell and left alone, he removed a thin strip of metal concealed in his belt and began working at the lock. But no matter what he tried, he couldn’t unlock the door.

The great magician had been tricked, because the door was never locked. All he had to do was open it, but his belief that the door was locked was sufficient to confine him.

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Where Are You Going?

I once knew a guy who went on a road trip with the express purpose of traveling rather than arriving. He was determined not to be driven by a destination, so whenever there was a choice of which way to go he turned left. I suspect it was a politically motivated scheme, but he had a pretty interesting trip anyway. He probably missed some interesting sights, but he also saw some things he might have otherwise passed up.

This week our pastor (Jeff Lucas) talked about “the God of the journey.” He observed that God is always about moving, going somewhere, and that He doesn’t just sit back and point like a celestial traffic cop. In Jesus He actually journeys with us.

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Serve Him Today, Release the Problems of Tomorrow

Hebrews 9:11-12
But Christ came as High Priest of the good things to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is, not of this creation. Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.

I find myself so focused on things that, in the long run, probably don’t matter. John Wesley writes:

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Is Bulimia or Addiction Your “Temper Tantrum at God?”

Last week, David Powlison of the CCEF posted a superb series entitled
“Making All Things New: Restoring Pure Joy to the Sexually Broken”. The 2-part article went into some depth in giving biblical counselors insight in identifying problem patterns in those who struggle with lust and pornography, as well as helping the counselee truly grasp the grace Christ offers and allow himself to be transformed from within. I highly recommend you read the series (there are many parallels between the life-dominating sins of sexual lust and eating disorders).

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