02 | February | 2012 | Travels from Ur

Daily Archives: February 2, 2012

Answers

Posted on February 2, 2012 by Pieter Stok

There was a time

I had an answer for everything.

Theology, Life,

the “right” thing to do,

and I had an

“informed” opinion.

I was quick,

(now I say, hasty)

to bless others with

my astute and “learned” mind.

And then life came.

Real life.

With dilemmas and conundrums

grey areas,

tough and impossible choices.

And life came with

death, and pain,

sorrow and grief,

parting and separation.

My earlier answers didn’t fit,

or work

or fulfill.

The words just added to the

emptiness.

Now I find that

faith and hope

contentment and security

family and friends

outweigh

past certainties.

Childlike faith

outshines

adult arrogance.

Categories: christian, Christianity, Devotional, Faith, Poem, poetry, Uncategorized | Tags: Christian, Christianity, Devotion, Faith, Poem, poems, poetry | 2 Comments

Do You Feel the Wind?

Posted on February 2, 2012 by Pieter Stok

When I ride my bike there are occasions when I have to battle a fierce breeze and I need to force myself to go on. Then I turn a corner and the breeze seems to have disappeared. In reality it hasn’t. I just happen to be going with the wind at wind speed.

In western churches I believe we need to feel more of the wind – the resistance of the world around us. Our problem, too often, is that we are traveling in the same direction and roughly, at the same speed, that the world is.

The task of the church is to be counter cultural. That is, it needs to critique the society in which it lives (and itself) against the standards that God has given us in His Word. The church is called to show and live what a Biblical family is, what a Biblical view of work is, how to love the other as Christ would and so. If we were really doing that, wouldn’t we feel more of a breeze blowing directly, and fiercely at us?