Life a Weblog for Young Adults

There seems to be a general fascination about the end of the world, maybe now more than ever before. It’s certainly an interesting time to go to the movies. Maybe an even more interesting time to go to church.

Sure, there’s no place like home. But you can make new memories with your family of friends. The first time we spent Thanksgiving away from home, my brother and I started planning the menu weeks before. We needed to buy a turkey, obviously, but how big? What brand was best? How do you make gravy that isn’t lumpy? There were many serious and overwhelming questions that only one person could answer: our mother.

God’s been teaching me a lot about grace in the past few weeks. Like many of you, I’ve been tricked into setting impossibly high standards for myself, resulting in an overwhelming and ongoing sense of failure. In this mind-set, I never allowed myself to receive God’s grace because, of course, I wasn’t good enough for it yet. It sounds like a personal problem, I know. However, God has shown me clearly that if I don’t receive His grace for myself, I lose the ability to give grace to others. Ouch. I was OK hurting myself, but I never meant to hurt anyone else …

As we mark the one year anniversary of the election of the first African American president of the United States, here is a brief report of what happened during President Obama’s trip to Africa in July. Regardless of political leanings, the election and trip remain significant historical moments for our nation.

Now that you’re thinking of all those people you wish to thank, here are additional ways to show appreciation. And anytime you say “thanks,” be sure to tell that person specifically what it is you appreciate about him or her.

G.K. Chesterton once said, “I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.” Expressing gratitude by saying “thank you” is a profound and simple act, but has it become a forgotten art?

As Christ-followers in the United States, we tend to feed ravenously on every passage of Scripture that refers to the blessings we receive from God. While we gorge ourselves on those verses, we by and large give very little time to the many passages that speak of self-denial, service, sacrifice, suffering for the sake of the gospel, and sharing in the misery of others.