Archives For Proverbs

Columbus Day

October 12, 2015 — Leave a comment
image courtesy clement127 @ flickr

image courtesy clement127 @ flickr

As holidays go, Columbus Day has often felt like a strange celebration. For me, though, Columbus Day has become something of an annual reminder of this truth:

We can make our plans, but the LORD determines our steps (Proverbs 16:9, NLT). 

Whether you think of columbus as hero, villain, or some hybrid of the two, the story of his journey and ‘discovery’ seems like a great reminder of how we can plan a course and destination for ourselves…only to find other circumstances being used to bring us to an unanticipated new world of possibility and adventure–something far different than we may have initially imagined.

My prayer for my family and for the teams I get to be part of is that we would be found trusting the Holy Spirit to determine our steps; that we would look upon life’s unexpected detours as divine opportunities for adventure which just might redefine the way we see the world and our place in it.

 

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inheritance

June 12, 2014 — Leave a comment

An inheritance claimed too soon will not be blessed in the end.
~ Proverbs 20:21

This truth is played out so often in us when we expect a journey’s worth of respect, experience, and influence at the beginning of that journey. When we expect to be given what ought to be earned in any respect, we claim an inheritance before it’s ours and seldom does that have the flavor of blessing we had anticipated.

The inherent challenge in something like this is that it demands a long view perspective–what do we want at the end of our inheritance? Of our life? Our vocation? Blessing comes not in claiming or demanding now what is ours anyway; inheritance is something given, in trust, by another. Blessing comes in the faithfulness and trusting necessary for life in the in-between.

In the waiting is a place of blessing.

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