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Showing posts with the label brokenness

Broken Pitchers

My absolute favorite thing about teaching high school students is when I get to have real, genuine conversations with my students. Today, my students took their state exams, so at the end of the day, I put on a movie, and I let the kids talk, hang out, and relax a little.  A boy who sits near my desk was finishing some of his late work, and I overheard him talking to another boy about this girl he's been talking to. After a particularly funny comment one of them made, I looked over at them with wide eyes and asked if he had gotten in trouble with his mom for what he said. One thing led to another, and we started talking about relationships.  This boy conveyed that he didn't want to put his all into a relationship with this girl, because he was afraid if he put his everything in, what if she broke his heart? A wise thought from a 16-year-old boy.  It got me thinking about relationships, brokenness, and how important it is to put God at the center of every relation...
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Is Divorce a Sin?

The question of whether divorce a sin or not is asked often in Christian circles. Most of the time, people are looking for a simple yes or no answer. We want categories. We want labels. We want a clear line between what is righteous and what is sinful. But many times, we focus so much on labeling actions that we completely ignore the condition of the heart behind them. Let’s just make one thing clear: actions aren’t the sin. It’s the condition of the heart that is the sin. Sometimes we get so caught up in trying to label things as a sin, that is the sin. We become so focused on appearing righteous, condemning others, and sorting people into categories that we forget the deeper issues Scripture continually points to—pride, hardness of heart, selfishness, cruelty, bitterness, abuse, betrayal, unforgiveness, lack of mercy, and lack of love. We have to ask ourselves: Does it edify and lift up the person? Does it edify and lift up the Lord? When the Pharisees asked Jesus about ...
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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 flag...
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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 campus,...
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