The Grand Weaver

That truth is what I want us to consider and ponder. If my very ethnicity and my disappointments make up part of God’s pattern for my life, then it stands to reason that so does my calling before him. He has intricately woven together my hopes, my dreams, and my vo

The Bible describes us as those who undergo trials and are tested so as to be refined like gold in a furnace (

The Christian’s walk involves all three areas of life — the spiritual, the practical, and the logical — which are not mutually exclusive. God is an immensely practical being who also guides us with reason and wisdom.

If we were to see the final design in prospect, we would find ourselves acting on the basis of self-love and pragmatism — and then, who would need faith? God often reinforces our faith afterwe trust him, not before.

As much as that retrospective look troubles us, however, it makes for a fascinating confirmation that without God, the thing never would have happened.

God trained Moses in a palace to use him in a desert. He trained Joseph in a desert to use him in a palace. Some come through winding paths, some through the nicely paved road of privileged birth or influential friends. Others come through the visitation of circumstances with wanderings and sudden signposts. Finding one’s calling is one of the greatest challenges in life,

Once you take these three steps — allow God to make your heart tender, strengthen your mind through faith, and make the cross the aortic valve of your life — the result follows. You see God’s pattern in you and

In the solitude of reflection, the heart and the mind come together to think of the cross. I

Why couldn’t God just make a simple pronouncement of forgiveness to all who sought it — a kind of blanket amnesty? This is precisely the way we look at suffering. Why does it have to be actual? Why not just have it as an idea? Such a wish, however, misses the very nature of reality by not seeing the physical side of the spiritual reality to which God points us.

I would like to take us to the third step — a step that involves the cross— to fully grasp what this means.