Far Before Us
Though it has been weeks since my last post, it seems like content for a hundred posts has occurred in that time. I need this blog because it refocuses me in the face of resistence. See, I have been getting a taste of my own medicine after preaching out of John 9. In that passage, Jesus encounters a blind man. And what was the reason for his blindness? "This came about so that God's works might be displayed in him" (John 9:3). When I get hurt, when my car goes to the salvage yard, when the bank account is bone dry: I trust that these circumstances "came about so that God's works might be displayed" in me... And they have. One cross to bear when doing life with real people and rough people is the day-to-day conflict resolution. We took some teens over to the City Life Center on Tuesday, and three of them were about to throw down near the end of the night. I pulled one aside, and he didn't mince words: "I'm about to put a bullet in his f***i