Have you ever had one of those moments where you realized that what you want is so not where you are? When you look at your life and you think to yourself, "how did I get here?" I just had one.

Have you ever looked at something and thought, "man, that's going to cause me pain and heartbreak. It's going to require repentance and discipline, and not just one time. Probably more than I care to know?"

Have you ever stared that straight in the face and realized that brokenness leads to wonder, pain leads to pure joy and repentance and discipline leads to humility? And then, as you step back and look even closer, you realize that heartbreak is not over what you give up, but what you've already missed out on in your own arrogance.

But we rest on grace.......... that alone makes it bearable, but it will not ease my pain, for I know what I've missed. This isn't a beat up on myself, but it is a refreshingly honest look at my life. Praise God for His word.

Why is it that the church only seems to stand against things? I got to thinking the other day how I can't remember the last time that the collective church rose up in Canada to stand for, instead of against something.

We speak of a God of love, justice, a God who cares for His creation, a God of second chances, mercy, grace, forgiveness, but we as the church, more often than not, condemn. I'm tired of the excuse that Jesus stood for truth and expects us to do the same. It's a crutch we are using and the way that we are implementing that command is a joke and an insult to Jesus Christ.

I'm for standing for truth, but part of standing for truth means that we stand for the pro-active heart of Christ and not just the reactive. Why are we not working to alleviate poverty as a church, or hunger, or any other huge problem in the world today? We have a world that is passionate about the environment. Well, we were charged with taking care of the earth as christians. What an opportunity to share Christ with the world. We live in a world where advocacy is in style. As followers of christ, were we not called to bring hope to those who are hopeless, to liberate the oppressed? Were we not called to these things?

I dream of the day that we stop calling implementing those things the "selling" of Christ. It's not selling Christ by meeting the world, it's the truth of who Jesus is and has been, from Old Testament to New, and when we finally start doing these things, we will have influence and our opinion will no longer be judgmental, but respected.