Say amen

Seems like I'm using this secondary blog mainly, at the moment, to share my writings across the Internet. But we'll get it figured out in a bit. Just in time for when the full features come online.

So for now, here again, a link, to yet another prayer: "Put Us on Our Feet." Common meter, but I hope, uncommon words. Three short stanzas you can say amen to.

Against the dominant thinking of your friends

To go against the dominant thinking of your friends, of most of the people you see every day, is perhaps the most difficult act of heroism you can perform. --Theodore H. White

Apply this to Paul in Acts 21, where, against the pleas of all his friends, he insists on listening to the Spirit and going on to Jerusalem, where imprisonment awaits him. Their thought was to save him; his only concern, to complete his mission.

The Courage of Conviction, Part 1

But, you see, the Apostle Paul never lived a day of his life, from the time of his conversion to the time that they cut his head off, he never lived a day, that I can find in Scripture, when he wasn't going somewhere to do something that was so consuming that he would die for it. He just traded one of those things in for another one. You see, it was a question of conviction, which precedes the acts of courage. And you can't just say to Christians, "Be courageous." They can run around saying, "I'm going to be courageous." Courageous about what? If you don't have an objective you never get into a situation where you have to be courageous. Nobody ever got courageous sitting on the bench in football. You don't get courageous there; you only get courageous when you get in the game. And a lot of Christians sitting on the bench wonder why they don't have any courage. Don't have any reason to be courageous; you're not doing anything. So there needs to be a goal orientation, an object orientation, you're going somewhere, you're accomplishing something.
via gty.org