On Sunday, I was taking my daughters downstairs to their Sunday School class when I passed a couple of women on their way up to the sanctuary. One of the two women was looking down; the other was holding her arm and whispering into her ear. It seemed odd to me, but I was most concerned that the visitors feel comfortable; and I just assumed that the woman looking down had a disability or something. She didn’t.
Back in 2008, I followed the advice of a dear friend and interviewed a few people about the impact my life had on them. The interview questions were designed to illicit mostly negative responses, and boy, did they ever.
One time when I was a kid, I went to this church lock-in, and for whatever reason – I don’t remember – I was being so negative about everything. I was criticizing the building, the food, the people; if it had something to do with the lock-in, it was a target for my put-downs.
I am not known for raising my voice in frustration – at least not by my coworkers and friends. Apparently, it’s a different story with my family.
I had someone whom I refused to forgive for years. The odd thing was that I was sure I had forgiven them. I had prayed about the hurt they caused, told others I had let it go, and even made a point to build a relationship with them.
My wife and I are in the process of moving to Washington, DC, right now, and I’ve got to tell you, one of the most freeing things about moving is purging.
A significantly modified version of this post appeared at the Boundless Blog. You can find that here. (I like them both.) I was sitting in the church service when I heard the preacher say something that made me cringe: “If you can’t remember the day you gave your heart to Jesus, then you probably never were saved in the first place.”
This weekend, my family and I were at a restaurant when my four-year-old started having a meltdown at the table because she couldn’t cut her sausage. I recognized that it had the potential of becoming a prolonged cry-fest, so I went over, picked her up, and took her over by the bar, where there were fewer people.
Dear Honey, I know it’s a little weird when people fawn all over their spouses on social media – it’s like, what are they trying to prove? But hey, I can’t judge – Lord knows I’ve done my share of Facebook declarations of love for you, so why stop now?
One day when I was in seventh grade, I was playing out in the rain when a pickup truck screeched to a halt just a few yards away. Corey Parrott jumped out of the passenger’s side. I froze.
Most of my childhood and teenage years, I grew up without a father. My dad left our family a handful of times, and even when he was home, he usually had a job as a truck driver, which meant he was on the road most of the time.
When you look around at Christians, it’s so easy to judge. Believers get it wrong all the time – they get behind the wrong causes; they do a poor job living the truth; and they frequently serve Jesus in selfish ways. You wonder why Jesus didn’t just stay here and do the work of loving the world Himself. Using all of these messed up believers seems so inefficient.
I used to judge people with small children pretty harshly. Their children ruined my dinner, made my flights miserable, woke me up, and made for poor house guests. Why don’t they do something with those kids? I wondered with contempt. As if they weren’t trying.
This post is a continuation of “The Thrill of Dishonoring My Father.” I tried to confront my dad about his failures one time when I was a sophomore in college. It didn’t go well. We were getting to know each other again after being estranged for three years. Because he lived 12 hours away, we talked over the phone, building an awkward, on-and-off, long-distance relationship.
The story about my dad and the police car chase was the one that always got people’s attention. “That’s crazy,” they would say. I would suppress a smile and gin up some spiritual-sounding reason for bringing it up.
Joshua Rogers 