Do I love like this?

"In fact, it was the Christ-exalting love that the Christians showed in spite of risk that STUNNED the pagan world. The Roman Emperor Julian (A.D. 332-363) wanted to breathe new life into the ancient pagan religion BUT he saw more and more people drawn to Christianity (through their ministry to the poor). He wrote with frustration against these "aetheists" who did not believe in the Roman gods, but in Christ...


Atheism (i.e., Christian faith) has been specially advanced through the loving service rendered to STRANGERs, and through their care for the burial of the dead. It is a SCANDAL that there is not a SINGLE Jew who is a beggar, and that the "godless" Galileans care not only for their OWN poor but for ours as well; while those who belong to us look in vain for the help that we should render them."

-John Piper

Life is Not an Emergency

I repeat those words.  Slower this time.  Life is not an emergency.
I breathe in and breathe out.  Time seems to slow down as I repeat these words.
I breathe deep and start to feel God's peace.
In a world that's moving a million miles an hour.  In a world where there are pressures everywhere.
In a world where we sprint from one test to another, from one day of work to another, from another game to another, God whispers, life is not an emergency.
We can slow down, we need to slow down.
And when we slow down, we can begin to feel His peace and fully relax and trust in Him.
Belief in God, an unwavering and unshakable belief in God, full-out, all-out, total belief in God is expressed in our not trying to fix everything.  It is seen when we can stop, slow down, and realize that life is not an emergency.  That we are NOT in control and we never will be in control.  It's when we let go of things and let God take care of them, that we live out our belief in the soverign God of the universe.
Slowing down is crucial to our seeing God.