Musings

The last year and a half that Matt and I lived in Chicago, we had the privilege of being interns in our church's ministry training program, Chicago Plan. One year we talked a lot about what it means to be "missional." At the end of the year, each intern wrote and presented a paper in response to all of our discussions. When I wrote my paper, I was again working through the reality of God as a Being. So, while it is written in the context of Chicago, Holy Trinity Church, and my job at Jimmy John's, may it help you to consider whether you've had similar experiences in your own context.                 The Bible is not God. The Gospel is not God. But there is a Creator who is Ruler over all, who defines reality and truth. He is just. He is Love. There is a Savior who frees the enslaved and brings hope to those in despair and loves so deeply that I often can’t understand it enough to be emotionally affected by i...

    I have always squirmed when people talk about being "nothing" without Christ, being able to do "nothing" on our own, etc. In our self-esteeming culture, it doesn't easily integrate with our personal philosophies. I've never been the type to beat myself up; I don't really struggle much with feelings of failure. But through reading (again) The Search For Significance (by Robert McGee), I've realized that's because I don't often try the things I would probably fail at. So my confidence is based on my own performance just as much as a discouraged person's lack of confidence is based on their performance.      So how have I been dealing with this? By thinking more about my identity in Christ. It's a concept I had heard references to for years, but didn't really start to grasp it until a Moody professor taught me and my classmates to notice all of the references to Christ in the first few chapters of Ephesians. In looking at thos...