The day God wrecked me began like any other: a thirty-minute commute (listening to Christian music), four college classes (with some fellow Christians), a little down time (reading a Christian book), and then work (for a Christian organization). Later I’d go home (to my Christian husband) and get ready for our midweek youth service (to help teens grow as Christians). Life—very ‘Christian’ and very undisturbed by Christ—was humming along happily.
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Call me nerdy, but I just love a good schedule. Give me some stickers, colored pens, and a blank calendar, and I’m a kid at Christmas. There is so much calm in the regular rhythm of planning—a chance to exert order and beauty and life over the chaos of time that doesn’t yet exist, an opportunity to mold the moments that make up whole seasons with purpose. Looking forward in anticipation is my jam.
Then there are the days that call for looking back. Because hindsight is 20/20, this practice provides perspective so I don’t rush from one experience to the next in an unending string of random events. When I sit down and quiet myself, God shows me what He’s been up to in the middle of, in the white space around, and in the interruptions to my beloved plans.
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It’s easy to think of the Bible like a little old lady in her church clothes—prim, proper, and very straight-laced. But when you flip the pages past Psalms, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes, you find a book that will induce more pearl-clutching than a steamy romance novel. According to Matthew Henry’s commentary, “The Jewish doctors advised their young people not to read it till they were thirty years old.” Admittedly, Solomon uses some archaic descriptions (breasts like fawns of a gazelle… what?), but once you dig into context and interpretation, you’ll find that God is less embarrassed by sex than many of His children are.
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Dashing princes, dragons that breathe fire, heroines feisty and filled with grit—such scenes sparkled across the walls of my mind as I’d drift off to sleep as a child, golden shapes embedding themselves deep within me.
We’re a people of stories, a culture of stories. We love a good flick on the big screen or the latest plot twist in a real-life drama. But are stories safe with us?
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Few stories in Scripture can affect the heart as profoundly as that of the prodigal from Luke 15:11-32. Despite the parable’s fame, I find it sad that we so often limit the cast of characters to two rather than three. (I tend to identify more with the guy usually left in the shadows—the older brother.) Ready to immerse your senses in this gospel-shaped tale? Gather around the feet of Jesus. Instead of, “Once upon a time,” He opens with, “There was a man who had two sons.”
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We began painting the nativity scene with creative strokes last week, but what’s a great plot without supporting actors? Today we turn to the heavens, the fields, and the lands far away from that lowly stable.
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Every once in a while, I let my imagination run wild with characters found in Scripture, blending earthy elements from the original historical setting with some modern twists, to get an idea of what they might have been like. Which sensations and experiences could capture each individual’s essence? Adam and Eve, Esther, Samson and Delilah, Ruth, Mary and Martha—all of these have taken a turn. It’s time for a seasonal spin, don’t you think? With eggnog in hand and twinkle lights as a backdrop, let’s view the main cast of Christmas through creative lenses.
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An amazing story waits for women in Luke 10. Two sisters with very different heart orientations host Jesus in their home, and despite His guest status, He ends up tending to both of their souls in a way that only the Great Home Maker could. Here’s my creative take on what these famous sisters might have been like.
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If it’s been a while since you immersed yourself in the story of Esther, I guarantee it will be a half-hour well spent. With equal parts romance and bloodshed, the tagline could easily read, “All’s fair in love and war.” Oddly enough, you never see God’s name even once, but He’s there working behind the scenes of this epic chapter in the Big Story. Want a teaser of the main characters?
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Two sisters, orphaned and isolated, loose winter’s blast across the summer landscape and embark on a journey to drive it back home again.
They fly a bicycle across the moon, the boy and his otherworldly creature.
A little girl from nowhere shuts up a nightmarish beast into the fiery hole in a wall, saving her friends from certain death (with the help of an Eggo or two).
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