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God Wouldn’t Fly First-Class: 3 Surprising Reasons the Streets are Gold in Heaven

Imagine a city so loaded with gold and gems they become standard building materials. Add other precious metals and stones to the mix and just marvel. It’d be palatial, decadent, … God-like?

Hmmm.

“Streets of gold” is a phrase probably rooted in a bible passage on heaven: “… The great street of the city was of gold, as pure as transparent glass…” (Revelation 21:21)

But I don’t care if it’s true or not. The real question for me is: What good is all that Gold??

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No Strict Teachers in Heaven? Prepping Kids for the “Cruel” World or Helping Them Break It?

When school starts you hear stories of new teachers, tasks, and ways kids get others to laugh. Sometimes kids talk about new challenges like having “strict” teachers.

One story went like this:

Teacher A asked a question to class. Student B asked for it to be repeated. Teacher A makes example of Student B for not listening.

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Is Hell bigger than Love?

The gospel can be cut so many ways. “Good news” for a woman begging is different than for a rich Westerner, or trafficked boy. But concepts like unconditional love and freedom keep me busy.

I’ve heard many Christians stress about people needing to “convert” or “be saved” to avoid hell. Was it similar thinking that sparked the convert-or-die theology of the Crusades?

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To the part of me that keeps screaming [Poem]

To the part of me that keeps screaming

To the part of me that keeps screaming,
Or is it wailing and on fire?
No one sees or hears you,
but I’m the witness.

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Maybe that Mess was People, Not God?

Did you ever visit a church and something rubbed your heart wrong? Or maybe you experienced something from someone identifying as a Christian–maybe it was gossip, deceit, or some form of oppression, or maybe flat-out hate, or abuse? Worst of all, it may have been done with the support of bible texts.

If you thought: This cant be God—and if it is I want nothing to do with *Him– you may have been right. Maybe it was People, not God.

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God Loves Drum & Bass: Keep Calm, or Let Loose

[This post may be best experienced with speakers hooked up.]

Can we only experience God in a Cathedral or Sunday service? Do we need silence or meditation? If we’re searching with our hearts we might find *Him anywhere, but one powerful place is Music.

Let the Elevator loose! (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory)

Now, I want to tell you a secret. When I’m waiting at the bike light you’ll find me tapping beats on my brakes. Sure, it’s a normal sight, but you probably don’t imagine I’m exploding internally. Amidst the peace and silence “outside”, there’s rowdy beats and wild noise inside me.

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The Fourteenth Day: An Obscure Prophecy That Might Give Everything Purpose

I’m a bit bible nerdy and instead of skipping over peculiar texts, I sometimes dwell on them. It’s a quirk I’m trying to appropriate so here’s my take on a text you probably never heard preached in church: The fourteenth day.

It appeared during Moses’ instructions to Israel before the 10th and final, most gut-wrenching plague. Every first born was to be killed and this plague sparked the Exodus from Egypt.

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#GodSingsBieber? Hearing God’s Heart on the Radio

How can music banish a bad mood and transport us to a place where problems, cares, fear, sometimes even pain (and certainly time) don’t exist? For a moment there’s just that beat, or lyric line, or bass, or …plug in your own thing– it’s magic.  I’ll be feeling down but if a song comes on that rocks, something changes–and even babies know the feeling:

Melodies can spark our spirits, balm our hearts, mirror something of our soul, and sometimes floor us. Who needs Ecstasy when some tracks are flat-out orgasmic?

And Music also heals Socially…

Just think: when we rock to the same jam, things like Race, Gender, ‘Status,’ etc., disappear. Love takes shape in a sea of people grooving. Unity, peace, joy, no fear, no shame, No Problem.

Are these Holy Moments?

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If People are like Trees, Here’s to All the Weeping Willows…

The world puts people in boxes: you’re female so you feel like this, you’re Christian so you think like this, you’re American so you act like that…

God likes to mix things up to help break the social/tradition walls we build between people. Just consider the movie Hidden Figures (based on a true story) where we see brilliant, computer-like brains placed in– not just black, but black, female bodies– in 1960s America. LOL, God is such a rebel…

Hidden_Figures_movie still
Still from “Hidden Figures,” based on the untold true story of the women nobody knew behind the NASA mission everyone knew..  “Genius has no race.. Strength has no gender…”

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Racer X Like Jesus [Part 2]: Life with Passion and Purpose, Speed Racer Style

(warning, movie spoilers!!)

In Racer X like Jesus (Part 1), I shared how you can hear from God in unexpected places: timely counsel from a neighbor, that special song in the store, the wisdom of your kids, the breeze on your skin.. I got unexpected lessons from Frozen (5 Lessons I didn’t See Coming), so an encounter in Speed Racer should’ve been no surprise.

But once your spiritual antennae are up, movie dialogue touches deeper than simple script. Here were 6 gems I pulled:

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