Out of the Chaos
Inspiration for living outside of the chaos.
Tag: scripture
OUT OF THE CHAOS 12.15.2021
There is an increasing emphasis on self-care. It is important to incorporate into our routines those practices that renew and rejuvenate our minds and bodies. It might be a massage, a quiet day away, a few hours of sitting with a good book and a glass of your favorite beverage, a shopping trip, fishing by …
OUT OF THE CHAOS 12.14.2021
What is joy? I wanted to make a case that joy and happy are not the same. Except that in the original language of scripture – Greek – the two words are quite similar. Perhaps I want to make them different because I always believed that happy depends on circumstances and joy is a deep, …
OUT OF THE CHAOS 12.13.2021
Advent Week 3 – Joy The focus of this third week of advent is joy. What is joy? Is it happy? Does it depend on circumstances? The writing of Nehemiah records the rebuilding of the wall around the city of Jerusalem after the people returned from captivity in Babylon. The wall was finished in fifty-two …
OUT OF THE CHAOS 12.10.2021
Here we are just two weeks before Christmas. I wonder what you are experiencing. If you picked a movie to illustrate how you feel, would it be a Hallmark movie? How the Grinch Stole Christmas? Christmas with the Kranks? It’s a Wonderful Life? Or maybe something else entirely! What would you choose? I wonder if …
OUT OF THE CHAOS 12.09.2021
I struggled for many years with God’s love for me. I knew he loved others. I believe he loved the world. In the most general sense, I knew, in my head, he loved me. The distance from the knowledge in my head to the space in my heart aching to be loved unconditionally was strewn …
OUT OF THE CHAOS 12.08.2021
I, like many young people, wondered from an early age if I would marry one day. More than that, I believe my deepest longing was to be loved. Would someone love ME? Yesterday we discovered that before anything was created, God already loved humans and chose them to be holy in his sight. So even …
OUT OF THE CHAOS 12.07.2021
Sitting at the dentist’s office, I hear another advertisement for a reality show that toys with the idea of love before sight. Love at first sight is difficult enough to embrace, but love before sight? That seems a genuine stretch. Living in a world that, for the most part, rejects prearranged marriages, I wonder what …
OUT OF THE CHAOS 12.06.2021
ADVENT – WEEK 2 The focus of the second week of Advent is love. Today “love” refers to the feeling one has toward pizza, a good movie, the weather or a life partner. A bit overused, so perhaps the message “You are loved by God!” doesn’t hold much weight. But you are, in fact, loved …
OUT OF THE CHAOS 12.03.2021
I wonder today, as I finish this week of writing, how your week progressed. Did your thoughts turn to hope more often? Did you experience a greater level of confident expectation? I know that reading and writing about hope helped to refocus my attention on the foundation of my faith and refreshed my outlook. I …
OUT OF THE CHAOS 12.02.2021
HOPE: confident trust with the expectation of fulfillment. 20Against its will, all creation was subjected to God’s curse. But with eager hope, 21the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay. Romans 8:20-21 It is an interesting thought to me that all of creation waits …
Out of the Chaos 