Godly Insights for the 21st Century Life

 "Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her." ~ John 8:7 As many of you probably know, the Kansas City Chiefs won the Super Bowl last Sunday. Many of you probably also know that at one point in the game, tight end Travis Kelce was seen shoving and yelling at coach Andy Reid. Many people, Christians included, have said that he should have been benched and fined for that incident, with some even going so far as to say he should be kicked off the team. There was a mass shooting at Wednesday's victory parade. However, Thursday morning, the DJs at the Christian radio station I listened to were more focused on Kelce's comment that he would leave the team if Coach Reid retired, and speculating that he just said that to cover himself after the televised outburst. They didn't even mention the shooting at all. What all of these comments have in common is that they are judging someone harshly for nine seconds of irrationality. Who among us

"Those here without the Lord, how do you cope? For this morning we don't mourn like those who have no hope." ~ Newsboys, " Breakfast " "But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope" ~ 1 Thessalonians 4:13 Most of the time when I'm asked what my favorite song is, I tend to say the name of whatever song is speaking to me at that time. Christian music is full of so many great songs, and it always seems that another great song is released several times a year. It's almost impossible to choose just one to be an overall favorite, but a few years ago, that's just what I did. That song is the very one quoted above, "Breakfast" by the Newsboys. So what about this song makes it my all-time favorite? Yes, it's incredibly goofy, which some people don't like about it, but it also has some deep theological truth interspersed among all t

 "A certain young man was following Him, wearing nothing but a linen cloth. They caught hold of him, but he left the linen cloth and ran off naked." ~ Mark 14:51-52 This quarter in Sunday School, we are working our way through the gospel of Mark, and this Sunday's lesson covered chapter 14. That chapter covers a few different events from the last week of Jesus' life and ends with His arrest, His trial, and Peter's betrayal. However, between the verses about Jesus' arrest and the ones about His trial, we find the two verses quoted above about a young man who followed Jesus that night, was grabbed, ran away naked, and was never mentioned again. For years I wondered, who was he? A sermon I heard years ago theorized that the young man was none other than the author of the gospel himself, he was the son of the man whose house held the upper room, and that the linen cloth was actually a bedsheet. The more I think about it, the more I think that this makes a lot of s

 This past Sunday, I was working and missed the morning service at the church my husband and I attend. Usually, I just attend the evening Bible study and church service, but things were different this Sunday. On the first Sunday of every quarter, our church does a special Communion service instead of regular Sunday evening activities.  The first 30 minutes of the service are devoted to prayer and Bible reading, which I thought was nice. I spent the majority of that time praying for my husband and our relationship. I know that prayer is a great basis for any marriage, and I figured some dedicated time to do so would be quite helpful. I also read Song of Solomon, since it is a book solely about love and a marital relationship.  While I was reading, I noticed a verse that didn't make much sense to me, so I looked it up in another version on my Bible app. Our church uses the King James Version (KJV), so that's what I was reading, but the church I grew up in used the New Revised Sta

 Admittedly, it's been a while since my last post. The truth is, the last few months have been a bit busy. I got married in June, and most of the last few months have been taken up with wedding prep, and I've spent most of the time this last month laying down a good foundation for my marriage. I was surprised at how long it had been since my last post when I logged in to write this one. Five months is a long time between posts, especially when I was writing about once a month before that.  I've been thinking a bit about how to change my approach to writing this blog. I love writing long pieces where I dive deep into a specific spiritual issue, but as the last year has shown when that's my only focus, life can easily get in the way, and I don't end up posting to the blog at all. I'm not going to give up writing them all together, but I'm going to add in some shorter posts as well. I plan to write at least once a week, and most of the new posts will be reflect

 There have been several situations throughout the past few years where a communication breakdown has led to a misunderstanding that has caused hurt feelings or worse. Following those issues, here are a few things that could have been done in those situations to make the conversation go smoother. Apologize early, apologize often:  Early in 2021, there was a remote learning day that I was not aware of until I showed up at work and no one was there. For some reason that school year, calls and text notifications were not going out to all of the employees. I checked, and I had gotten an email, but it had come late enough that I was already getting dressed by the time I had received it. I sent a reply to the notification and the sender apologized and assured me that she had sent out the email as soon as she was told she could. Unsurprisingly, I was not the only person who had shown up at work not realizing we were remote. We received an email later that week from someone else telling us to