Thoughts and Other Things

I use to think Peter was really privileged to have had Jesus personally pray for him in Luke 22 until I remembered that Jesus also prayed for me personally, well kinda, in John 17. Anyway as I was fascinated by Jesus personally praying for one of his disciples, I was intrigued by what He prayed. “ Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers. ” Luke 22:31-32 There’s so much to go by in these two verses. Firstly, the fact that Satan asked. This conforms with what we learn from Job’s story, that as much as Satan desires to do harm to the righteous, he can’t without God’s permission (see Job 1:9-12). It also goes hand in hand with what Paul teaches in 1 Corinthians 10:13 which says “ No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear . But when you are tempted, he will also pr...

Up front, I’d like to apologise to all my male readers for ‘shining on their shine’ as Sam would put it. I’m well aware that it’s men’s month and we love and appreciate you all for being our awesome dads, uncles, granddads, brothers, nephews, colleagues, boyfriends and husbands but this is yet another (lovely) post about women. (admit it, you guys have been in the spotlight for centuries, I’m sure you can give up two minutes of your time). I’m still reading that book about the bad girls of the Bible and I’m loving how it’s making me go back and study Bible characters I thought I already knew a lot about. While reading about the nameless woman at the well in John 4 something tugged at my heart. Besides that this is the longest recorded conversation between Jesus and anyone, I was drawn towards the fact that this woman had had 5 failed marriages. I wondered what that must have felt like. Whatever the reasons might have been, if she was anything like me, she must have felt like she wa...

My current read is by an author I had never heard about until I bumped into her book. I’m reading Liz Curtis Higgs’ “Bad girls of the Bible”. I won’t lie, the title had me from get go. I turned the book around to see the back and there was a quote that made me know that I was taking it home. “When she was perfect, beautiful, and innocent, I found no toehold where I could connect with Eve. When she was tempted by her flesh, humbled by her sin, and redeemed by her God, I could sing out, ‘Oh, sister Eve! Can we talk?’” These past few years, Christian women (especially on social media) have been fixated with the Proverbs 31 woman. The virtuous woman in whom fault we cannot find. She’s a responsible wife, a caring mother, an impeccable business woman, and a generous community member...she’s perfect. She’s everything I want to be. But she also intimidates me because I cant find the faults I find in me in her. She doesn’t struggle to love a husband who fails to appreciate her, she doesn’t ...