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"God used sinful, wretched, sick-hearted people, the lowly and lesser, people just Leah, Rachel, Jacob, and like us, to bring His son to the Earth, the ultimate atonement. I often laugh in amazement at the mysterious and backward ways that God works. The way that His ultimate plan and love for us is still seen to fruition and never foiled, although we make horrendous choices and throw every possible sinful wrench in the way, His Grace is plentiful, abounding, and unconditional, and comes up like fresh, fragrant flowers enduring the conditions of unhealthy and rough soil."

“Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies”- things have felt heavy lately. Sometimes the brokenness of the world feels so weighty. As a family we have been processing a friend’s unexpected divorce, another friend’s mom has been diagnosed with breast cancer, a firefighter Stephen worked with shockingly took his own life last week. And I am left trying to wrestle through the realities of our fallen world and the goodness of God. But, this hymn lifted that weight, “Heav’n’s morning breaks” and reminded me that the Lord’s goodness and character shines through all this gloom."

"At the end of the story, we are left with the younger son reconciled to his father while we are uncertain as to the status of the older son; though the sins of the younger may have been more severe, the ultimate reconciliation of the younger son to the father made any gradations of sin irrelevant in light of the category of being in grace. And this, then, is the principle: in the consideration of my sin, I must humbly consider whether I have been reconciled to God through the work of Christ. If not, then being reconciled to God is of utmost importance."

"Many of God’s promises, fulfillments of prophecy, and visions sent to his people were completed within the wilderness. Our God is a God of descension. He has shown time and time again that he is present in the wilderness. When we are in communion with God the wilderness is no longer a place of fear, but a place of renewal and strengthening. We may often exist in a desert place, but when we trust in God, according to his promise, the desert place becomes God’s place."

"Maybe I’ve been so frustrated with Jacob because I’m so much like Issac, attempting to pull the grift over on God because I’m so attached to my way of thinking. I’m caught up in my expectations, those expectations that have been shaped by my culture and how my world might view me, that I ignore the possible bigger picture the Lord is working through His unconventional ways."