A little theological digression here before we get back to Graziella’s story… How often in the follower’s life does the story turn on those words? But God. . . The case can be made that the thought embedded there is central to our identity. It is an affirmation that He is the creator, that He is sovereign, and—perhaps most important—that He is actively engaged in the lives of those He calls His own. This whole thing is God’s game, not ours, and He can suspend the rules and change the outcome as He chooses. David said it this way: ”Though …

Easy lesson here, but it is one we tend to forget. God can handle this, whatever “this” is. Every time I travel to Brazil, I am absolutely overwhelmed by the experiential faith of our kids and graduates. Experiential because it is faith based on a reality that has already been made manifest. They get this faith thing because they have seen the hand of God in their own lives. I have told you before about the impact our graduate church is having on the neighboring community. Our graduates see the drug addict sleeping in the weeds who believes he has …

Thanksliving I have to confess to never having heard the word before yesterday’s children’s sermon. And that first hearing was accompanied by a brief but vigorously engaged dispute between two six-year-olds about whether the holiday actually was Thanksgiving or thanksliving. Plenty of laughs in church yesterday. Thanksliving.  I kind of like that. It is a lifestyle I have seen over and over again with our kids in Brazil. They get it. Theirs is a deep, profound gratitude. A gratitude that humbles and graces when encountered. A gratitude that absolutely bankrupts any attitude of entitlement. A thankfulness for life itself. Those …

As I write this, I am sitting in my comfortable East Tennessee home. My reality is safe, secure, well-fed. But when I travel to Brazil, I encounter a far different kind of reality. Poverty beyond my comprehension. Kids who know a life I can never understand. Twelve-year-old boys with death warrants against them from drug lords. Girls taught since early, early childhood that their only value in life is in the depraved pleasure they can bring others. A very different reality… Yet somehow I am supposed to believe that God loves them as much as he loves me. Rich and …