How to find peace when life is hard (Jeremiah 29)
Jer 29:1-32 When my husband and I decided to move to New Zealand, it was originally my suggestion, but by the time the Lord opened the way, I was less than convinced that I could make the adjustments needed. In…
How to recognise God’s voice (Jeremiah 28)
Jer 28:1-17 A month or two after I started my first job, a colleague from another department visited our office. It was the first time I met him, and he said to me that he saw a great opportunity in…
Submitting to God’s will or not? (Jeremiah 27)
Jer 27:1-22 Despite modernity’s conviction that religion and belief in God would eventually disappear, many today seek to reconnect with a spiritual reality. However, spirituality seems mostly to be a desire to have some personal experience of the divine or…
Knowing how to respond to God’s Word (Jeremiah 26)
Jer 26:1-24 At a retreat with my church shortly after I came to faith, I received a verse of Scripture. The leaders wrote different ones on cards and handed them out randomly at the end of the conference. They sincerely…
If God is love, should He take vengeance? (Obadiah)
Obad 1:1-21 Many struggle with the idea of a vengeful and angry God and even Christians feel uncomfortable reading about judgment like the oracles against various nations in the Old Testament. We are much more comfortable talking about a God…
Ways to cultivate a life of joy (Psalm 100)
Ps 100:1-5 There are some Christians who radiate an inner peace and joy, so that those who meet them walk away refreshed and reassured that somehow all is well with the world. It is not that they manage to evade…
How do God’s will and our choices fit together? (Gen 35:16-36:43)
Gen 35:16-29; 36:1-43 If the Lord is sovereign and what He chooses and decides happens, then does it really matter what we do? This question of God’s sovereignty and our responsibility is one of those conundrums that is difficult to…
How to take spiritual stock (Gen 35:1-15)
Gen 35:1-15 Moving house is often a time to take stock and decide what to keep, what to let go of. It is an opportunity to sort through those boxes that have not been opened since the last move and…
The temptations of this world (Genesis 34)
Gen 34:1-31 Shechem Biblical stories are rarely didactic telling us exactly what to think. Rather, they describe a complex reality of people’s actions and motivations and encourage us to develop a nuanced way of thinking about God’s truth. Thus, the…
In the world but not of it (Gen 33:18-34:7)
Gen 33:18-20; 34:1-7 In this post, I tackle the rape of Dinah in Genesis 34. If this is a difficult topic, please feel free to skip the post. One of the hard questions of the Christian life is how we…