what would you have me do?

A misconception about the Christian faith that a lot of people (including Christians!) really struggle with is that forgiveness = no consequences for your sins. That's what people think Christianity preaches, and it is a major hurdle for them. They think that if a serial killer genuinely repents, that means that Christianity says they are able to get off scot-free with their crimes, or that it means they should be let out of jail, etc.

That is not true.

There are quite a few figures in the Bible who committed acts of evil, and repented for it. And God heard them! But oftentimes, their sins caused catastrophic damage to those around them, and they had to live (and die) with what they caused. The entirety of the Old Testament is a domino-effect of this happening over and over.

If someone genuinely repents before God, the forgiveness they receive from God is a perfect forgiveness. But we live in a fallen world affected by sin. Sin has consequences. Other people are often hurt by our sins, even if we aren't aware of it.

We have to live with the consequences of our actions in this world. Part of repentance requires accepting those consequences, otherwise it's not genuine.

Me at work (and everywhere else)

"I thank my God upon every remembrance of you" has to be one of my favorite verses in the bible. that's love

I joined a "conservative tradwife" group because I thought it would be funny, but half the posts on there just grip me with fear and dread.

It is so dangerous to enter into a "traditional lifestyle" with a man who is not committed to loving you as Christ loves the church. You're so vulnerable. You're at so much risk. You are prone to resentment and frustration because you're not following biblical examples of respect and submission - and you don't even know what submission truly is. It's genuinely terrifying to see.

Yeah, it's funny when an oldhead gets on there and tells younger women they shouldn't be playing house with men who haven't married them, and seeing the younger women recoil and seethe, but good Lord. This one woman had on ovarian cyst rupture and her husband? boyfriend? is badgering her about starting dinner at 4pm so it's ready when he gets home. When she tells him she's in too much pain to move, his response is, "well, I guess I won't eat then 🙄"

Help??? ????? ??????

Also why is every one of these secular trad husbands either addicted to porn and/or cheating. Wtf.

@rabbits-of-negative-euphoria queen you are so right

This is exactly the reason people argued against traditional marriage in the first place! These husbands are perpetuating the same problem feminists had with married life and obligation way back.

The problem to this isn't relieving the woman of her duties, its getting the man to fulfil his role. And as much as I don't like to throw stones at my own community, the church does a fair bit in skewing how it is actually supposed to be by sort of locking men and women into these roles and only pressuring the woman to always do the right thing and making her accept if the man is too lazy to step up and do his bit.

Marriage is a trade off of vulnerability and trust between both partners, NOT a power dynamic meant to lock men and women into dom/sub roles that can easily be abused. A man who doesn't want to step up and go out of his way to care for his wife doesn't deserve a wife, and a woman who doesn't want to step up and go out of her way for her husband doesn't deserve a husband, because both of these people will ineinevitably abuse the perceived benefits of their gender role in the marriage. Its how violent men get away with abusing their wives and controlling them by drawing on women being submissive and how violent and manipulative women abuse their husbands by either using them for their money or physically or mentally abusing them and getting them to stay quiet because of their perceived "power" over the woman.

Christian values provide a very good guideline to keeping a respectful and healthy relationship, but sooooo many Christians use this to cement gender roles into a category of "sinful" and not "sinful" if you overstep the line, or they use it as a way to allow one partner to not fulfill their duty to the other due to it being the "man's job" or the "woman's job".

I don't know who needs to hear this, but taking care of children and cooking may be primarily the woman's role in traditional marriage, but she cannot do it alone, and the husband doesn't just get a free pass for being a man. Cooking and taking care of kids is a gender neutral responsibility, as is being able to do basic things like shopping, handling finances and working.

Women are capable of working and handling finances just fine and shouldn't be forced by their husbands not to be able to do that, because its an abuse of his power.

No one should be controlling their spouse, its a misrepresentation of traditional marriage that the church continues to perpetuate and liberals and leftists are using it as a legitimate argument against traditional marrriage.

If Christian traditional marriage every becomes:

"This is my wife/husbands responsibility as a man/woman"

"My wife must obey me at all times and has no authority over herself"

"My husband must provide for me and have a stable job, or I'll leave him"

"My wife may not participate in x activity/dress a certain way/ like certian things because I forbid her to"

"My wife may not deny me sex if she isn't in the mood"

Is an abuse of power, and a failure of a traditional marriage.

Men are vile and women wicked

C.S. Lewis: “In speaking of this desire for our own faroff country, which we find in ourselves even now, I feel a certain shyness. I am almost committing an indecency. I am trying to rip open the inconsolable secret in each one of you—the secret which hurts so much that you take your revenge on it by calling it names like Nostalgia and Romanticism and Adolescence; the secret also which pierces with such sweetness that when, in very intimate conversation, the mention of it becomes imminent, we grow awkward and affect to laugh at ourselves; the secret we cannot hide and cannot tell, though we desire to do both. We cannot tell it because it is a desire for something that has never actually appeared in our experience. We cannot hide it because our experience is constantly suggesting it, and we betray ourselves like lovers at the mention of a name.”

Me *crying*: how dare you call me out like that staples-man

The Gray Havens: Have you ever missed somewhere / That you’ve never been before / Like there’s a memory there / Except you don’t remember anymore

Me: *grabs tissues* oh boy here we go again

with all due respect, how does anyone get married? how does anyone get to know anyone else on the deep emotional and rational level needed to form a sacred new bond, a partnership, a team, while also being physically attracted to each other? how does one find a person that understands them, laughs with them, cries with them, watches movies with them, works with them, talks to them, enjoys their company? how does anyone find that combination of factors out of all the people in this wide world?

(From “Getting the Love You Want,” by Hendrix & Hunt)

First of all, ouch.

Secondly, I do understand your point. Of course I know that one has to look first and that it takes work and it doesn’t happen overnight, and I’m of the belief that any two people can make a marriage work if they’re willing to cooperate and put in the work and put God first. But the fact still remains that you can’t marry just anyone, because not everyone is willing to put in the work. Not everyone’s goals align. Plus, finding someone who shares not just the big stuff but also the little stuff with you (sense of humor, taste, or hobbies) does make the job smoother. It makes it easier to put in the work, to spend time together, to give love and attraction (things I’m well aware can come later) the grounds in which to blossom.

The question is, can a person like that exist (even if, perhaps the quote you shared, they don’t yet)?

I think the answer is, only by the grace of God.

The issue on which everything hangs is not whether or not you like his teaching but whether or not he rose from the dead. -Tim Keller

To me, one of the most compelling arguments for both the resurrection and the Godhood of Christ is James.

No, not the disciple.

No, not the other disciple.

I mean James, the half-brother of Jesus, who wrote the book of James.

James was not a believer when Jesus was doing His ministry, pre-crucifixion. He grew up with Him. He knew Him as a member of his family. And that’s all he saw Him as for a long time. It wasn’t until AFTER the resurrection that he came to believe in and follow Christ. You mean to tell me that someone who knew Jesus PERSONALLY would be easily tricked into thinking his idiot, delusional brother was actually legit? No. If there had been a ruse, he would have seen past it. If Jesus’s weirdo rag-tag followers started saying “He’s alive!” you think he’d just take that as fact? No. No, something had to convince him, just like Thomas, just like the rest of them. He had to see that He was really there. James went from a non-believer to a believer to a follower to a leader. That doesn’t happen to someone who hasn’t been completely convinced.

Another important thing to keep in mind is that Christianity did not guarantee political power. This was not a movement that preached guaranteed success in this life. There was no “manifesting wealth” or anything like that. There was nothing to gain here. There was so much to lose. And those who believed in Jesus for eternal life - the true treasure - proclaimed the truth, anyway. In spite of the high potential for danger and virtually no guarantee for success. They proclaimed Christ because they had been convinced that this was TRUTH. And that truth has remained the same ever since.

I don’t tend to see Christians talk about this much, or in a very nuanced way, and I think it’s worth talking about. and that is that suppression and surrender are two different things.

suppression is the refusal to acknowledge feelings you’d rather not feel. it’s stuffing them down out of shame or guilt, or the belief that you’re not “supposed” to feel them, in favour of pretending that you don’t experience them at all. suppressing anger, for example, leads to long-term bitterness, grudges, and burn-out from pretending you’re a happy peppy optimistic Christian all the dang time. it is deeply unhealthy.

surrender is the active, honest acknowledgment of your feelings, desires, and temptations, without attaching undue shame to them, and then bringing them to the feet of Jesus and choosing to live by His Word anyway. it is not a dismissal of feelings but the very act of bringing them to light so He may show you what to do about them. 

surrendering to God’s way does not mean shoving feelings of anger or bitterness or anxiety into a dark crevice, or acting like you can brush off years of pain in a moment.

surrender is telling God you are hurt, letting yourself feel the pain of being wronged so that your pain may be healed by Christ’s tenderness and love. 

surrender is telling Him you are anxious, you are desperately frightened, and letting Him be present in your trembling, letting Him be peace and steadiness and unconditional love while you breathe and count and grounding-technique through the wave of panic.

surrender is allowing yourself to say you did not deserve the abuse, you will not stand for abuse, you will not return to your abusers, and working day by day to forgive your abusers and pray for them anyway. 

surrender is telling Jesus you are sorely tempted- to cheat on the exam, to cheat on your partner, to objectify your cute coworker, to talk shit about your boss- and allowing Him to lead you away from acting on it and into doing the right thing anyway.

surrender is the exact opposite of suppression.

I so often see this message online, explicitly and implicitly, that whatever you’re feeling is valid– and it is!– but then it just… stops there. if you’re angry, good, stay angry. you shouldn’t have to forgive anyone. you shouldn’t have to treat people with dignity if you don’t like them. nobody has the right to tell you to act in a way that doesn’t completely indulge your feelings. treat yourself. you do you.

I disagree. indulgence may seem like the right fix because it’s surely the polar opposite of suppression. but being a slave to your thoughts and emotions is no better than being a slave to shame. it is good to express anger. it is also good to place limits on your anger so you express it in healthy ways. it is okay to have a mental illness. it is also important to not let that illness define your very being, to remember you are more, to fight for recovery. it is completely normal to be tempted in a thousand ways. it is important to resist temptation and seek to do the right thing, and run to the grace and overwhelming love of God when you don’t.

true freedom in Christ comes when you are open with Him about all you are, and willing to let Him lead you through the maze. true freedom makes room for limits and boundaries, ones that will help you grow and flourish.

The Horrors are very big but God is so so so much bigger than the Horrors.

Honestly to me the “problem of evil” argument against God always sounds like somebody pointing to a shadow to prove that light doesn’t exist.

If this is just the way things are, why are we outraged by it? Why would we desire good if there is no good to desire? If we feel — rightly so — that evil is a contradiction, how can we deny that which it contradicts? You are showing me the shadow cast when light is blocked and telling me that it’s proof that light does not exist when you can only see the shadow because there is light.

*facedown in the carpet* GOD REIGNS

“God poured me out like milk and curdled me like cheese” sounds like a post you’d find on tumblr dot com, but it is in fact Job 10:10

actually God is very good and I will die on this hill

Good morning, the God of the Old Testament is Jesus Christ.

#faith#If you read through the Old Testament you actually see a LOT of God's mercies#People characterize the OT as really oppressive -- and to be fair a LOT is hard to read --#but so much of it is God reaching out to save a people from their own actions before it's too late#To discount the OT and its historical context does a huge disservice to the character of God

(Tags via @the-tiny-dragons-tea-roomtiny-dragons-tea-room)

#It’s kind of funny how when you look at the OT looking for mercy it’s all over the place#And it’s also easy to forget how much Jesus talked about hell if you look at it from the mindset of “he was all about love and tolerance ”#The Son isn’t a get out of jail free card from the Father#The Son is the way TO the Father

(via @lady-merian)

You can’t get through the “harsh” passages Isaiah or Ezekiel or Jeremiah or Job or Chronicles or Lamentations or ANYWHERE without tripping over 700 “If you will just turn BACK”, “if you will REPENT”, “if you will STOP THIS” then “God will bless you!!! Redeem you!! Take you back to your land!!”

What gave me chills is reading that at the point that Israel is captured and sent into exile, they had become worse than the Amorites they uprooted from Canaan. Worse than idol worshiping, worse than temple prostitution, worse than sleeping with your in-laws, worse than sacrificing your children to “gods”.

We really sleep on how detestable the Israelites became, so that even their own prophets mourned and despised them. And even when we manage to wrap our heads around that, we still have that desire to think ‘Well, at least I can’t sin that badly.”

One sin is as damaging as the centuries of sin that they committed. And you still think that the God, who repeatedly told those murderers, idolaters, thieves and oppressors He would accept them and give them a ready heart to obey if they turned from their sin, is evil?

Evil is trying to sell people on a Gospel message that leaves out the part you need to be saved from.

@pinestripe37

— Os Guinness