Breakfast With God

I'm a champion at beating myself up. I don't need other people to highlight my shortcomings; they are glaring to me, and over-exaggerated in my mind.  I'm a lot better now, though, I have to admit. And that's because of a beautiful God who doesn't condemn me the way I do myself; who isn't shocked at or overwhelmed by my personal failures; who doesn't remind me of every thing I'm not doing right.  Yet still, lately I've been feeling like an extra crappy Christian. I don't spend as much time absorbing the Bible the way I'd love to. I haven't been spending enough quiet time with God, just talking or waiting or listening. And I've allowed other things and people to take centre stage, in all honesty (much as it hurts me to admit it).  Worse, I've whineeed about it for WAY too long. Because, all the while, I've had the power - with God's help and grace - to do something about everything I was unhappy with. And you

Diversity.  Nothing will kill the one-on-one time you spend with God faster than repetitiveness. One of our biggest challenges as Christians, who've been sold the lie that we have  to be a certain way to be accepted by God, is the failure to realise (and truly understand) that God has no interest in religious rituals. The minute the heart and soul of your worship is missing, you lose God's attention. Growing up, I used to believe alone time with God had  to be me getting up at the break of dawn, sitting down with a big, fat KJV Bible, reading words I didn't understand, singing songs I'd heard over and over that never really made sense to me, and saying overcomplicated prayers, throwing around words like 'sanctify' so that it was all more authentic. FAIL. Obviously, years  later, I'm way past all of that. I now understand that God treasures an honest, simple heart - and honest, simple worship - more than anything. And that now translates to every pa

How many times have you heard some preacher, motivational speaker, or life coach tell you that exactly what your life is missing is a little bit more gratitude? If your timeline is anything like mine, how many Instagram quotes on being thankful do you scroll past every day? Most of us understand the concept of gratitude; why it's necessary; all the things we even have to be grateful for - family, good health, work that we enjoy/at least, pays the bills, and all that goodness. We get it.  Lots of people, from just around the corner from us, to halfway around the world, don't have a quarter of what we do, so QUIT that whining right now! But the truth is, many times, it's very difficult to put thankfulness in practice. Because even though we are incredibly blessed with all these beautiful things, it's hard sometimes not  to focus on all that's missing in our lives - especially when we believe we deserve it! Turning a blind eye to what's going wrong is tough b