"Consider the Ravens..."

So, there's something about me you should know. For the last six months, I have not had internet at home.  That's right -- I'm a millennial who has a job that requires internet access and yet I have no internet at home.  By extension, it means I do not have Netflix, Prime, Hulu, Spotify, or any of the other internet-based subscriptions so common to the American household today (and I don't have cable, either -- just 3 channels that come in when the weather is nice, haha).  I told this to a few people lately, forgetting how uncommon it was and was humored by their reactions.  What has become normal to me is outlandish to a few of my fellow millennials and completely unheard of when GenXer's compute that such a Millennial exists!  To be clear, I still have a smartphone with a (very small) data plan, so if absolutely necessary, I can access the online world... but honestly, my life doesn't require it from 4 PM to 8 AM, so I've foregone the $50+/month price ta...

I recently heard an excellent sermon on this very topic and while I wouldn't want to one-up it, I will say this is well-worth a watch or listen:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLKFXqy7X3Y If you skipped the video, here's the thesis: sometimes God complicates our lives on purpose.  (What?!)  If you're new to Christianity or were of the belief that God only wants us to be happy, this might hurt a little bit... but hear me out. I've been reminded a lot lately that God functions much like a parent.  Because His lens is so much wider than any one human's ever will be, we need to acknowledge that some things we will just never have the answer to on this side of heaven.  So, to start, if you've got something you've been praying about and asking the Lord for and it just seems like the answer is always no even if the "thing" you're praying for is inherently good, it may be worth praying about His 'no.'  His answers are trustworthy, even wh...

It's been said that we can tell a lot about a person by the way they wait.  The way we spend our time is an indicator of our priorities and our motivations.  Life requires waiting.  There's no way around it.  Modern technology has sped up many small things in life to speeds our great-grandparents could've only dreamed about, but there are still constants: one hour still holds 60 minutes, each of which hold 60 seconds, and the length of which has never changed.  There's a weight to this constant.  Honestly, who hasn't been subject to sitting in a doctor's office or a waiting room before an appointment, just watching the minutes tick by?  When there's a particularly important bit of information on the other side of those double doors, time may seem to speed up or slow down, but it doesn't.  It just feels like it does. Often, internally, we have a lot to process as we wait.  Many of us would rather not process the internal and would prefer to...