Author: Adventures

As we talk about brokenness and getting through it, I remember back to just about a year and a half ago, when my daughter launched for her World Race. Everyone was talking about brokenness, and how necessary it was.  How it was “part of the process”.  I remember sitting in session after session of the parent launch, hearing about all this brokenness and wondering to myself….what are they talking about?   How can brokenness be a good and necessary thing?  In my mind, I always thought brokenness was a bad thing…we must be strong and never...

During the last nine weeks of this course, we’ve visited seasons of soul-crushing pain. We’ve asked God to help us learn from that pain. And we’ve walked out of those seasons stronger for it. We’ve considered how God may have equipped us to transform that pain and to use it for ministry. The challenge before us now is to live in freedom. How do we know if we are really free? And how should we think about pain going forward? Paul fought to help the brothers who lived in Galatia to stay free after others sought to pull them back into the bondage of religious,...

In life, we walk on this tightrope between overwhelming pain on the one hand and too much comfort on the other. During the last five weeks of this course, we’ve all shared times where the pain in our lives was so extreme, we felt like God had forgotten us.   To read some of your blog posts has been harrowing. As I read some of them, I couldn’t help saying, “How on earth did this person survive?” It was just too much.   Most of us can’t live in places of throbbing pain like that. We need some level of comfort. We need someone hugging us and giving us a...

  In our last session, we wrestled with the question of “Why pain?” Why do the people I love struggle so? Where is God in the midst of the pain?   Today let’s look at some of the answers that the Bible and Christian thinkers give in answer to that question.   As I’ve shared with you guys, at times in my life, I’ve been in such pain it felt overwhelming. There were just no answers. Each new day felt as miserable as the one before it. And you have each shared that you have felt the same way. We are not unique – if we’ve felt isolated...

This blog post is from Seth’s during my course.  He has some great wisdom that I feel is way more insightful than any thing I could bring you.  So here is today’s post:   God heals our pain and then expects us to use it to heal others. In the last post, we looked at one way this works – when we are able to mourn with those who mourn. Today we look at the rest of what Jesus says he (and by implication his followers) are called to. Here are other ministries Jesus was given and we’re given as well from Luke 4:18-19: The Lord has anointed me…The...

Today we move on to taking an inventory of the pain in our adult life.    The point of all this is effort is that we want freedom from the pain of the past. We know that it is the truth that sets us free. So we are pressing into the truth.   To encourage you as a coach might encourage an athlete before a tough match, I want to give you an example of what it can look like from my own life.   A few months ago I took this course myself, as I came to this day, I knew God was prompting me to let a truth set me free.     I shared about a painful season in my...