BCNE News
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The life-changing beauty of waiting
After twenty-two years, Tom Brady hung up his cleats. In New England, we enjoyed twenty spectacular years of Super Bowl trophies piling up in Foxboro and disdainful eyerolls from the rest of the country. Brady’s ability to play professional football at an MVP level into his mid-40’s boggles the mind. If you’ve followed Brady much, you’ve heard about pliability, avocado ice cream, and the TB12 method.
Our confused hearts are safe in our strong God
A few years ago some friends and I went to see a new Star Wars movie. As we ate tacos before the movie, some of the guys in our group talked with a nervous, Christmas-morning type of excitement about this newest addition to the Star Wars canon of movies. I did not have that same child-like excitement. I’ve never been able to fully immerse myself in Star Wars. I have tried, but there’s just something about the movies—they just don’t do it for me. Nonetheless, I was enjoying my tacos and the time with these friends.
Read carefully, you might hear yourself singing
Years ago I enjoyed the television show, “Storage Wars”. If you are unfamiliar with the show, people would bid on unclaimed storage units (and all of the contents that these unclaimed units held). Normally these storage units were unclaimed for a reason—they didn’t have anything of particular value in them. But there would be times where unexpected treasures would be uncovered in these long-forgotten storage units and the participants on the show would find that a storage unit they spent $200 to purchase actually contained $30,000 worth of goods.
Strange baggage but confident hope
My wife and I often joke about how different we are when it comes to packing for a trip. Days before we leave she meticulously makes a list of everything that will be needed on the trip, while I start to pack an hour or so before we are supposed to depart. Neither of us understands how the other one operates, but it works for us.
Yet, for as strange as we both think the other one is when it comes to packing, there’s something nestled at the very end of Genesis that would strike both of us (and probably you!) as very odd about what the people of Israel would need to pack and take with them when they leave Egypt in the exodus.
An Isaiah-sized vision of God
When I decided to begin a sermon series in the book of Isaiah, I knew that my church and I were embarking on a trek through a sometimes-dense forest of difficult-to-understand Old Testament prophecy. Sure, I had a reasonable familiarity with Isaiah from my own previous reading and study of the book. I suspected that we would behold God in his august glory in that vivid manner in which one finds in Isaiah. But I did not plan on Isaiah causing me to be undone by turning the spotlight on the rebellious disobedience of God’s people, and I did not realize I would receive the incredible gift of seeing my own sin.
The birds of the air and the hope of your heart
As I sat down to write this article, I looked at the computer for a few moments and wondered how to start. I typed a few words, hit backspace, then tried again.
Writer’s block is part of life. Whether you are writing a paper for school or a report for work, there are often times where you stare at the computer screen and feel as if your mind is stuck in quicksand. Though our minds might struggle to find words to write, our minds rarely struggle to muster things to worry about.
Christ is nearer than you think
Christmas will be different this year.
Changes, disruptions and difficulties have marked this year, and now we turn the corner towards a Christmas season that will, for many of us, be one more cruel reminder of how trying this year has been.
God’s judgment is our hope
One evening eight years ago myself and a few others sat down for dinner with a woman who was about to cross a lifeless border, pass through a foreboding customs office, board a worn-out city bus, and take a journey that would likely end in death.
Treasures in jars of clay: The secret to pastoring
Yet as beautiful as that morning was, my heart was torn in the darkness of fear over the future, self-doubt, sadness about past experiences and even grief over my own sin. It seemed these feelings had transitioned from being sporadic visitors in my heart to tenants who had unpacked and begun to pay rent.