Essential Grace Blog

I have to be honest, being hurt by others sucks. Everyone can attest to this surely. When someone does something that you feel is so utterly wrong, it can be the worst feeling in the world. It matters less how you actually react to the hurt, it’s the being hurt that makes the difference. Imagine being struck by a heavy sharp stone that someone felt was appropriate to fling at you. It will do some damage, break some skin and/or leave a bruise. Usually the first reaction is one of shock, a numb dumbfounded shock at the injustice of it all. But after that initial reaction wears of, one may get angry or fearful or may engage in any number of defensive measures. One thing remains a fact though, a stone was flung at you and you got hurt. Nothing can change that. Also, nothing can change the fact that the broken skin or bruise you got as a result is actually quite painful. As stoic, unrelenting people who have no desire to reveal our true emotions; we deny there ever was ...

I heard a sermon recently by Chip Ingram where he was talking about the life of Paul the Apostle. His opening line was ‘the shortest distance between point A and point B is a zigzag.’ This is seems to be a rather unique way of looking at the calculus theory, a way that makes life rather complicated for people like me who love straight and uncomplicated lines. His message was on the life of Paul, who after being given a directive from Christ himself on how he was to live his life; went on to live a very eventful and often dangerous life. Paul may have expected his life to be filled with mission trips to the Gentile lands, sermon writing, planning and carrying out evangelism drives, meeting with new believers over a fellowship picnic, and plenty of other ‘normal’ things that a missionary would expect. However, this beautiful straight line he may have envisioned turned out to resemble a scribbled line connecting to points between his salvation and his death. Many ...