Lavish Friday
Unconditional, eternal, lavish I was reading about how God loves us unconditionally, eternally and lavishly. Unconditional, I get…
367 days after re-entry
Ten years ago, a lady named Debbie asked me if I was studying Spanish because I wanted to be a missionary in South America. At the time it was a seriously long bow to draw - I in fact had no better reason for studying Spanish other than Age of Empires and the Spanish national football team.
Once I started learning the language, I discovered how beautiful it was to the ear, the mind, the tongue. But even then I didn't have any particular interest in Latin American culture. I had even less interest in becoming a missionary.
Debbie and I are unlikely to cross paths again, but what she said turned out to be rather prophetic.
How to grow ambition
I grew up with a lot of positive reinforcement and believing in Jesus has both shrunk and supersized that.
On the one hand, ambition can be a bad word because it implies arrogance. I have become less self-effacing, more confident, over the years, but I doubt anyone I know would describe me as ambitious.
There is still this idea that ambition is a cut-throat attitude, seeking to elevate yourself regardless of the cost to others.
Um ... not me.
But y'know what, I am ambitious.
And I'm going to start owning that.
The worst thing about unemployment
Now that I'm more than a month into my current unemployment, I’m starting to find it all a bit overwhelming. But not for the reasons you might think.
It’s 10am on a weekday and I’m sitting in a café, sipping my on-the-whole-pretty-decent large flat white, writing this. It’s not a bad life, really.
Defrag this
In the days before I converted to Mac, defragging my PC was a standard part of my life. I…
Coincidence vs Providence
I have a friend who used to say that there's no such thing as luck, only statistics.
It's all just a matter of chance and probability. What we're really saying when we say something that happened was bad luck is that the improbable (but not impossible) negative outcome happened. What we're really saying when we wish someone good luck is that we hope probabilities work in their favour.
Then there are those moments when you really see how the stars have aligned. Yes, it's still probability at play - but I don't believe statistics preclude God's involvement; indeed I believe God can work with probabilities and against them.
B, one of our clients, was diagnosed with cancer and given a 60-70% of responding to treatment and a 40% chance overall of recovering. Hospital A doesn't generally provide chemotherapy. They were going to send B home to free up a bed, and put her on the three-month waiting list at another hospital. It's Monday.
Ecuador vs Bolivia, and losing the Missionary label
Lately I’ve felt the unspoken question of why I decided to go back to South America but not…