Confession: I am playing catch up for the next several blogs. Eventually, my goal is to have the YouTube channel lined up with the blog postings on Fridays. In order to line up this schedule, the next few posts will continue to focus on the video content.  In the last post, I set up a framework for thinking about the concept of walking with God. It is as simple as riding a bike; literally just keep getting on the bike and keep riding, despite the many falls and crashes. Eventually the riding skills will be developed and riding will be simple coasting. It seems too simple for a concept as w ..read more

For the last year or so, some of my students have been discussing the possibility of me starting a YouTube channel in which I discuss and answer questions about Jesus. When the discussion first started, it seemed like a fun challenge to take on, but with teaching full-time and working on my PhD, there just was not time for it last year. I am excited to announce today, though, that I have finally started that YouTube Channel.  You can check it out here. Subscribe while you are there! The channel is directed mainly by the questions that subscribers ask (which is currently only my student ..read more

The gospel is confrontational. Just this week while having coffee with a friend, I was discussing the fact that there is never really a time when the gospel is not confrontational. Unfortunately in America, it is sometimes fairly simple to present a “gospel” message that seems harmless and is relatively easy to accept and claim. Americans tend to prefer comfort, some even expect it, but the gospel that Jesus preached rarely communicated comfort. Though, at its core, the gospel is the foundation of hope and love, no one can ever truly accept the celebratory parts of the gospel without first wal ..read more

I figured I would share one more little nugget from Louie Giglio’s Goliath Must Fall: Winning the Battle Against Your Giants before leaving it to your own reading. It is in fact a little nugget, too. It comes at the end of the book, and it was not even a significant statement on the theme of the chapter. It simply was a tiny inserted nugget of truth that stood out to me and is worth reflecting on. “God does not exist for us; we exist for God” (230). I was instantly reminded of reading something similar in John Piper’s Let the Nations be Glad years ago. I am pretty sure my copy is one of the o ..read more

I just finished reading Louie Giglio’s Goliath Must Fall: Winning the Battle Against Your Giants, and I thought I might share a few personal insights from my reading. I am also dubbing this blog as the very first Book Bite! Since I write about books often but not always, Book Bites are a new way for me to distinguish posts about books from other topics.   I heard Louie Giglio preach at The Highlands Church student Motion conference last summer, and it had probably been ten years since I last heard him preach in person. I was so privileged to be present at the very first Passion world tour con ..read more

The mood was set. The lighting low. The ambience up. The music softly playing in the background. Everything was in order for a night of worship and prayer and experiencing God. Except for my heart. Gathered in a room with other young adults in a moment of prayer and worship, I found my heart anxious and prideful and my thoughts focused on all the wrong things about that night. I was struck with conviction at the realization that my outward actions resembled a worshipper, but my heart was certainly not submitted to God or in a place of surrender. I was reminded of just how easy it is for even ..read more

I have this weird habit of carrying my Bible with me everywhere I go. It’s not because I am super spiritual. In fact, it is quite the opposite. When I first became a Christian, I viewed life in black and white in terms of what was right and wrong. The one thing that I knew better than anything else in those first few months was just how black my life was. I felt like my entire life was a contradiction to everything new I was reading in Scripture, and I needed some serious cleansing in every nook and cranny of life. I was also surrounded by people for that entire summer that were wholeheartedly ..read more

I hated to read growing up. I like to blame that on the fact that I am incredibly hyper, and sitting still long enough to read a book was too painful. I also often had to reread pages because I did not pay attention to what I was reading the first time through. My Reading ACT score was by far the lowest because I do not think I read any of the passages except for the first one… which I probably had to read several times just to get one solid read through. I always read what I was assigned to read for school (unlike the majority of my students), but the only book I ever remember enjoying was Th ..read more

I did not grow up in a family that took family vacations, so I cannot say that I have experienced an endless car ride with a child asking “Are we there yet?” every five minutes. I am absolutely positive that if I had grown up going on family vacations, I most surely would have been that kid asking “Are we there yet?” every five seconds. There is a reason that patience is one of the fruits of the spirit…because it does not come naturally. I certainly fall subject to impatience and the need to get things done and have instant gratification. I like to-do lists because I can continually check thin ..read more

I received some wonderful news today. I have officially been accepted into PhD school. Yes, I am actually excited about this. I have been thinking about writing a series on connecting literature and faith in the classroom. I figured today was a perfect time to begin this series being that I will officially begin work for my Phd in English in a few weeks. But first, a little back story… This blog has taken many different directions in its existence. This is the case partly because I am a textbook case of ADHD and tend to get really excited about many, many things, and partly because it has take ..read more