Radical Grace in Life and Leadership

People of the Second Chance

BE BLOWN AWAY

Posted by Jud Wilhite:

On any given night, it is estimated you can see about 30 stars from downtown New York City, about 3,000 from most rural areas, and up to 30 billion with a large telescope. We do not know how many stars exist, but we know there are over 200 billion stars in our galaxy alone. One of the largest known stars has a diameter of almost a billion miles!

An explosion of energy on the surface of the sun, known as a solar flare, recently sent a magnetic cloud toward the earth at a million miles per hour. The cloud was over 30 million miles in diameter. Think of the size and speed of this cloud and remember that God is bigger and faster.

Richard Swenson writes: “If we witness a magnetic cloud thirty million miles in diameter moving a million miles per hour—is God bigger than that? Can He move faster than that? If the center of the sun has temperature of fifteen million degrees centigrade and pressures of seven trillion pounds per square inch—could God walk into the core of the sun, take a nap, and walk back out? Every impressive structure or event in the universe should remind us of a God who is greater than all his works.”

Maybe if I regularly spent more time beholding the vast expanse of the starry heavens—and meditated on the sovereign God who established them and upholds them—I would spend less time questioning his ability to control things in my life.

Maybe we all need to look up tonight at the stars and be blown away again?

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HEY ROOOOOOOOBBBBBBBBB!!!!!!

Posted by Mike Foster:

I dig this video.

I think it brilliantly demonstrates that “the game” isn’t nearly as important as helping Rob find his way home.

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GROUNDED BUMBLE BEES AND THE ART OF FLYING

Posted by Mike Foster:

Chris recently shared this cool POTSC nugget with me.

Bumble Bees are not supose to fly. In fact according to physics, science, and the laws of aerodynamics, it is impossible for them to become airborne.

Aerodynamic engineers have studied the yellow and black insect and have concluded that “theoretically” flight is impossible.

The bee’s puny little wings and its big fat body can only mean one thing…forever grounded.

Yet the bumble bee has overcome the “bad news” about its fate and has learned the art of flying!

So when the critic, naysayer, pessimist or your jerky friend points out why you can’t do something…BE THE BEE!

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MY FAITH IS TOO SHALLOW

Posted by Jud Wilhite:

Reading Augustine’s fifth century classic “City of God” just exaggerates how shallow my faith can be. In the first part of the book he describes Christians being killed, tortured and raped during the fall of Rome and addresses non-Christians who argued that this proves the Christian God is powerless.

Augustine systematically shows the foolishness of the argument, and as he does so he speaks of a Christian who does not “grieve if deprived in life of those possessions which he would soon have to leave behind at his death.”

Many were tortured to determine where they might have hid their gold or silver, but faithful Christians did not hope in money. They rejoiced in God even in their horrible situation.

Some of these believers starved to death and others were destroyed by horrible disease. Yet they remained steadfast in that there allegiance to God.

Augustine writes, “Death is not to be regarded as a disaster, when it follows on a good life, for the only thing that makes death an evil is what comes after death. Those who must inevitably die ought not to worry overmuch about what accident will cause their death, but about their destination after dying. Christians know that the death of a poor religious man, licked by the tongues of dogs, is far better than the death of a godless rich man, dressed in purple and linen. Why then should those who have lived well be dismayed by the terror of death in any form?”

Spending time in the City of God, I find myself asking forgiveness for my shallow clinging to the allusion of control in my life. I pray for the strength and courage of those in previous times. They lived with a profound awareness of life’s fragility and uncertainty that led to greater dependence and more radical faith. Suffering and even death was not something to fear, but rather an opportunity to bring glory to God.

Ever feel like your faith doesn’t stand up to the guts and courage of believers in previous times?

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NEW COMMENTING SYSTEM

Posted by Jim Gray

Hey everyone.  First of all I’d like to say thank you for being awesome! You guys have done a great job of commenting, interacting, engaging, and spreading the word.

And we wanted to help you participate  even better. Disqus will allow us  to easily spread the discussion all across the social web, driving new traffic back to the site in the process.

Every time someone leaves a comment, they can easily share the discussion happening on the  site to their friends and followers.

Here are a few screen-shot of what Disqus looks like.  The first shot shows all the features.

The second shot shows how you can reply to someone’s comment

The commenting system should be active early in the week.  We’ll be watching to see if there are any bugs in the process.

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