One of the most interesting things to me about the story of Balaam (in Numbers) is that Balak was so focused on cursing others, that he didn’t even try to pursue a relationship with God for Himself. And that just might have changed everything.

Reflection on identity.

Realization of the morning: an idol doesn’t have to be something you love. Often an idol is something you fear. Idols are anything besides God that occupies the central place in our thoughts and hearts.

My job has become an idol to me, not because I love it but because it terrifies and consumes me. If I am to live a surrendered life, God must occupy the space the vacuum of fear has created in my life. And if I am to learn to minister to others who struggle with fear, I must not take the common path of condemning them for lack of fear or “making God look bad”. We are human. If God depended on us for His reputation, what kind of God would He be? All I know is: He is much bigger than all this. And He is enough.

Tearing Down Reputations

Christians are perhaps the least willing of anyone to allow a person to keep a reputation better than the one that person may have ”earned”. I’m feeling regret today for the reputations I have tarnished with my preemptive judgments… and hoping to learn to see the good in people before the bad.