Meekness

Meekness is one of virtues I’ve been guilty of underestimating. I’ve associated it with weakness, with appeasing and submitting. But I think at the heart of it, meekness is accepting and following the will of God no matter what the cost. As I’ve studied the scriptures and experimented with this in my own life, I’ve found that meekness is the opposite of weakness. In fact, it requires the utmost strength and courage, and it is the harbinger of the greatest grace.

Read More

As Little Children

In Matthew 18:3, Jesus tells us to “be as little children.”

As someone who has recently acquired a little child, I sometimes find this request puzzling. Like last week when Molly threw a fit because I wouldn’t let her wear her flamingo socks for the third day in a row. After twenty minutes of negotiating, I managed to distract her from the socks with a tutu.

But the other day, I was reading something else Jesus said, about coming to him when we are heavy laden, and the Psalm that asks us to go to Him with a broken heart and a contrite spirit. And I remember the time Molly was hurt after she shut her fingers in her drawer, and all the times she’s sad after her dad leaves for work, or when her mouth hurts from teething—every time, she turned straight to me. She comes up and grabs my legs or reaches up, and I hold her while she cries.

Read More

Talk: Women in the New Testament

This is a talk I gave in church a few weeks ago, so you might notice that there are some genre elements that are different than usual:

Today, I’m going to talk about how the women in the New Testament are different than in any other type of scripture because they are not introduced or usually primarily characterized by their relationship to men. I am pretty convinced that that’s because Jesus was there, because you can’t tell Jesus’s story without telling at least some of theirs. He cared about them too much, talked to them too much, interacted with them too much for them to disappear in scriptures about him. 

Read More