Won’t you be my neighbor?

I was recently taking a standardized test where, before the actual exam, I was asked to provide general information about myself. It was nothing too out of the ordinary, all standardized tests ask questions about your education level and that of your parents. But then I got to a very different question. One where I was asked to identify my ethnicity. I have always been confronted with this question. What do I mark? White or Hispanic? One or the other, not both.

Some background about me. I am ethically mixed. My…

“Be strong and courageous, do not be terrified.” Okay, yeah sure, easier said than done. But when push comes to shove, being courageous can seem unattainable, especially when we have suffering encroaching in on all sides, making bravery seem like a far-off concept that is all but impossible to grasp.

So, let’s break it down- first, to be courageous, we need to know the source of our courage.

Jon Bloom says:

“Courage is not an autonomous, self-generated virtue. Courage is always produced by faith, whether our faith is in God or something else. Courage is a derivative virtue.”

God is the source of our courage. The God who flung the heavens into place, created the…

For the longest time, I had this idea of God’s will for my life being like a balancing act on a tightrope. With each step forward, my body teetered back and forth, sweat dripping off my face. I had to focus hard on thinking, saying, and doing the right thing in order to stay up. One small mistake and I would soon find myself spiraling down to the hard ground below. I stressed over what God wanted for my life when really, I couldn’t move anywhere for a crippling fear of…

David was 30 years old when he began to reign over Israel. The latter half of that 30 years was spent trying to keep his distance from king Saul, the previous king of Israel, who was out to kill him. In this musing, I concentrate on the theological implications of a battle between David and the Philistines (or, better, God and David versus the Philistines), which happened early on in his reign over Israel. Open your Bible to 1 Chronicles 14, starting with verse 8: “When the Philistines heard that David had been…