Godly Insights for the 21st Century Life

"Those here without the Lord, how do you cope? For this morning we don't mourn like those who have no hope." ~ Newsboys, " Breakfast " "But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope" ~ 1 Thessalonians 4:13 Most of the time when I'm asked what my favorite song is, I tend to say the name of whatever song is speaking to me at that time. Christian music is full of so many great songs, and it always seems that another great song is released several times a year. It's almost impossible to choose just one to be an overall favorite, but a few years ago, that's just what I did. That song is the very one quoted above, "Breakfast" by the Newsboys. So what about this song makes it my all-time favorite? Yes, it's incredibly goofy, which some people don't like about it, but it also has some deep theological truth interspersed among all t...

"The time has come to make a choice, and I choose joy."~" Joy "-For King and Country Ever since I got a link to the music video for this song, I loved it. Not only are the costumes and setting of the video fun, but the song itself is as well. I sometimes struggle to be joyful when I hear about all the things happening in our world, and this song was great at encouraging me that it is not only possible, but also freeing. In pursuit of the kind of joy mentioned in the song,  I joined the Faith Gateway Defiant Joy online bible study led by Candace Payne (aka Chewbacca Mom) and Mandisa. Each week of this six week study had a Joy Lab, which contained one or more activities to do to help cultivate joy in our lives. These challenges ranged from finding old pictures of ourselves to carrying around rocks for an entire week. (The pictures were to remind us of times in the past where we were joyful, and the rocks were to represent the struggles we face that weigh us down a...