Godly Insights for the 21st Century Life

Last month, my church had Vacation Bible School, and this year's theme was Hero Central. Throughout the week, the storytelling team taught the kids about heroes from the Bible, and what each hero taught us about what it means to be a hero for God. Monday: (1 Samuel 16:1-13)  The first story of the week was about Samuel anointing David as the next king of Israel. King Saul was not following along with what God wanted him to do, so God gave Samuel the task of anointing a new king from among the children of a man named Jesse. So that Saul would not find out, God told Samuel to take a heifer to sacrifice and invite Jesse and his children to the sacrifice. Once everyone was assembled, Samuel had each of the children come in to see which of them God wanted him to anoint, but none of the six arrogant children there was God's choice. Samuel then asked Jesse if he had any other children, and he replied that the youngest was out in the field watching the sheep. Samuel asked Jesse to se...

"I'll celebrate the truth, His work in me ain't through, I'm just unfinished."-Mandisa, " Unfinished " Last month, I heard about the death of Amy Bleuel, founder of Project Semicolon, and I was shocked to hear that someone who was an advocate against suicide would take her own life. There were a lot of people who found hope from her story, and I wondered how many more deaths would happen  because they lost this hope, and I thought it was horrible that she had done this to them. However, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I shouldn't be condemning her. I can attest to the fact that even though I have defeated the temptation to commit suicide, Satan won't give up very easily, and keeps trying to lure me back to the place where I was 13 years ago. Life doesn't magically get easier just because a person shares their struggles. In fact, it can actually get harder because sharing our struggles, and especially how God get...