Fractured Saints - never beyond mending - a christian blog for the broken ones

I considered several topics for the blog post this week.  Some were ok topics, others were relevant to what is going on around me.   They were all personal and many dealt with how I need to live or act.  But to be honest, I realized that a lot of them were essentially just me whining.  Specifically whining about why I can’t be a better Christian.   I don’t know about you, but I do that a lot.  Sometimes I worry so much about why I am not a good  Christian  that I forget to just go out and be  the [...]

I don’t read the Bible nearly as much as I should. I am not quite sure how often it “should” be read by Christians, but I am pretty sure it’s more than “never” which is close to where I am. I do have it permanently resting next to my bed though, so perhaps I am absorbing through osmosis. The paltry reason I have for not reading it too often is also a prideful one. I’ve read it all. Multiple times. Growing up in a Christian home with two parents who are very vocal in their faith means that by the [...]

In Matthew 19:16-22, there is a great, yet pretty terrifying interaction between Christ and a rich, young man.  In it, the young man asks God what he must do to be saved.  Jesus lists several portions of the law, including ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’  The young ruler boldly says that he has kept these, which Jesus doesn’t challenge (wow!).  Beyond that, Jesus calls the rich young man to sell all his possessions and give to the poor.  And with that the rich young man walked away dejected. I have been thinking about this a lot the last couple weeks. [...]

This morning sunrise was amazing on the way into work and I just had to agree with Chris Tomlin. How great is our God.

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable–if anything is excellent or praiseworthy–think about such things. – Philippians 4:8 So, um … this is really hard, is it not? I’ve spent some time this week reflecting on this verse and holding my thoughts up to it. I’ve discovered a couple of things: * Sometimes following this advice makes me feel very boring. There, I admit it. Nobody likes a Pollyanna. Except God, of course, whose opinion ought the be the only one that matters … * Most things [...]

Anne Lamott is my literary soul mate. She writes in the same style and tone that I do, and her work tends to contain the same level of self-deprecating, sarcastic cynicism as mine does. Or at least, I’d like to think so. Therefore, it goes without saying that I’ve taken a lot of the advice in her book on writing, “Bird by Bird” to heart. Which means that I have spent quite a lot of time recently thinking and writing about my family. To be a writer, you have to not only think that you are interesting enough that people [...]

For the past couple of weeks I’ve been reading Brett McCracken’s book Hipster Christianity. It’s a pretty good book overall, although I personally think Brett could have done more research for the chapter on the emerging church. And he does suggest that social justice is just another fad. But Brett does bring up some good points. For example, near the end he explains the differences between authentic Christian cool and being a self-righteous hipster jerk. Hipsters, as Brett explains, are all about individualism. Everything they do is a self-conscious attempt to be better and cooler than the average square (do [...]

Ever struggle with surrender and sacrifice? Maybe the right start is to look over the questions we ask ourselves in the first place.

Look at how the bible tells us to treat one another as Christians. Paul does a great job throughout the New Testament describing how we should view ourselves as the Body of Christ left on earth to fulfill his work. A beautiful metaphor, something that is apt, easy to understand and should probably be the guiding principle whenever we have differences of opinion or opposite ways of working.

The past couple weeks, God has really been showing me how privileged I am and how much of it has so little to do with my performance and so much to do with his immeasurable grace.  It has led me to confession and even a bit of weeping.  Here are the points that hit home – The movie Precious –  Wow I only made it through about 20 minutes of this movie.  The movie gives a view into the life of a young, overweight African American teenage girl that is truly horrific.  To describe the depth of despair, her mother [...]