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Distractions

I’ve traveled to Guatemala, Belize, and Mexico on three separate mission trips. On each of these trips, I had deep, emotional, and intimate encounters with God. While I was on my trip to Belize, God showed me how being pulled away from distraction, from routine, from technology, and from responsibilities allowed me to hear from my Heavenly Father clearly and grow closer to Him. One morning in Belize, I woke up early and walked to the beach before sunrise. I sat on a nearby dock and watched the waves lap at the beach. At the water’s edge, God spoke to me so strongly, and so clearly. Since those mission trips, I’ve noticed that when I need to talk to God, when I need answers, when I need to feel His intimacy, I have to get away. I have to find a place that’s quiet and away from the distractions of everyday life. When we look at scripture, we see this theme repeated. In Exodus, we see Moses spend forty years in the wilderness before God spoke to him through a burning bush. God p...
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Jesus Would Advocate for Civil Disobedience

In March, executive orders from governors across the country forced us to stay home, to close schools and churches and to shut down private businesses. Businesses were classified as either "essential" or "non-essential." All businesses deemed "non-essential" were forced to close. This included markets, clothing stores, boutiques, dine-in restaurants, and beauty salons. State parks, city parks, beaches, walking trails, lakes, and other wide open spaces were closed as well. Many people feel that the "social distancing," as it has come to be known, and stay at home executive orders violate their constitutional rights, such as our First Amendment right to freely exercise our religion, our right to peaceably assemble, and that we shall not be deprived of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Some of the people who feel their rights have been violated have decided to exercise their First Amendment right to protest. Some have even chosen...
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Covert Red Flags: The Real Things You Should Be Looking Out For in Relationships

Your relationship with your spouse should be the closest human relationship you ever have. As we are dating, we are assessing whether or not that person could potentially fit into our inner circle. This causes us to be on high alert for red flags. Most red flags are obvious--lack of communication, anger issues, irresponsibility, controlling behavior, abuse, etc. A quick Google search will bring up list upon list of red flags we should look out for. Being rude to waitstaff, not making your relationship public, not caring about XYZ, stone walling, gaslighting, and more can all be found on most lists. But what about the covert red flags? Those things that are less obvious. My first marriage taught me to look out for the overt red flags like the ones found in every advice column. My second marriage taught me to look out for covert red flags, ones that I never even realized were red flags until I could look back. The entire time we dated, I kept looking for the overt red fla...
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The Church

My pastor fell. He fell hard.  He fell in the most public way possible, and what makes it worse is that he actually committed the crimes he's accused of. My heart has been broken for months about it, and it's taken me that amount of time to write this whole article.  He was indicted last week, and he turned himself in to Oklahoma authorities today. I’ve already seen at least 7 articles about the story posted just today.  I started attending Gateway Church in 2007. From the moment I stepped foot on their Southlake Campus, it was home. The worship was moving, and every sermon--whether it was Senior Pastor Robert Morris, Preston Morrison, Tim Ross, Tom Lane, or any guest speaker--spoke directly to my heart. I took voracious notes each week. I have volumes of sermon notes on my bookcase in my bedroom. Soon after joining the church, Gateway started expanding to satellite campuses. The NRH Campus opened, which was much closer to our home, so we started attending this campu...
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