on connections

One of my good friends is an entrepreneurial, go-getter kind of marketer guy. I love the man dearly but there are a few areas where our ideologies are very different. He’s a dynamic, risk-taking kinda guy, I like to play it safe; he likes organising, I like following, etc.

So once when he explained the importance of knowing the right people, of connections, you can guess what I thought. It was something along the lines of “Pah! A man shouldn’t have to rely on connections, he should work for things!” Continue reading “on connections” →

05/01/2013 0

on what christians are best at

We are the Church. We are the bride of Christ. We are a light to the world, a nation of priests, a royal people who were brought out of darkness so that we could share the light with other people. We are God’s people, we are the children of Abraham, we are the co-heirs of the Son of God, we are the ones who can see in Christ the very image of the invisible God.

Yet how far short we fall! Continue reading “on what christians are best at” →

04/03/2013 0

on seeing jesus for the first(ish) time

What did you see when you first saw Jesus?

We saw a baby who the angels said would become the Saviour. We really shouldn’t have left our flocks to see him, but how could we not? (Luke 1:11) Continue reading “on seeing jesus for the first(ish) time” →

03/25/2013 0

on being a good man

Remember that scene at the end of Saving Private Ryan? An old James Ryan, having remembered all the hardships and sacrifices that were endured to bring him home, kneels in front of the grave of Captain John Miller, the man who saved his life. It seems Miller’s dying words to him, “earn this,” have stayed with him all his life.

Ryan turns to his wife and says “tell me I’m a good man.”

What if the answer had been “no”? What if Ryan had tried but failed? What if he had never tried at all? Continue reading “on being a good man” →

03/21/2013 0

on seeing

There’s this really awesome moment in 2 Kings chapter 6 when the prophet Elisha and his servant find themselves surrounded by Aramean soldiers, on orders to bring them alive back to their king. The servant wakes up one morning and finds the city encircled with horses and chariots, and so he goes to Elisha and asks “what do we do?” You can almost hear the panic in his voice. Elisha then prays that his servant’s eyes will be opened, and then and there the man sees – he sees the armies of the living God surrounding the Arameans. The latter, of course, fail their mission. Continue reading “on seeing” →

02/28/2013 0

on alexander the great and broken cisterns

The historians tells us that Alexander the Great was driven by great yearnings. He had a yearning to cross into places his people had never gone before; he had a great yearning to know and understand the world around him; he had a great yearning to live up to his ancestor Achilles and always be the best at everything; he had a great yearning to conquer and explore. Continue reading “on alexander the great and broken cisterns” →

02/21/2013 0

on learning and faith

I recently gave a talk on evolution and creationism. It involved some very challenging research, with some pretty challenging implications.

I was raised in the tradition of literal six-day creationism, but reading about the other ideas of creationism (and evolution) gave me a lot to think about. What did God really do? Did it really happen in six days? Is it really that important? Was it literally like that? If not then how literal are other parts of the Bible? Did God use the imagery in Genesis merely to speak to what we know? What then are the implications for the other imagery of Scripture? What is God? Continue reading “on learning and faith” →

02/06/2013 1

on the craziness of the bible

I’ve written previously about what makes the Bible speak so truly. It is a book of hope, a love letter from God, a brutally honest assessment of the way we are as people.

But there is another characteristic of the Bible which seems overlooked.

It’s a fundamentally crazy book. Continue reading “on the craziness of the bible” →

01/22/2013 0

on being happy

We should gladly accept good things when they come, but don’t let them make you forget where the fountain of happiness is.

Good things, good people, good jobs, good moments come and go. If they don’t go they will change. And during that change they will definitely disappoint you along the way. Continue reading “on being happy” →

01/07/2013 0

on lessons learned

Some things I learned this past year:

• The importance of empathy cannot be overstated. Uncaring cold-heartedness, bullying and generally being a shithead can be cured in part by putting yourself in someone else’s shoes. Continue reading “on lessons learned” →

01/01/2013 0