Isn’t it funny how following Jesus keeps you on your toes? In my years of knowing Him and walking with Him, my personal testimony is that He has never brought me to places I expected Him to. When I look back at my whole life– born and raised on Long Island, sent to the mission field in South Africa, moving as a newlywed to coastal North Carolina, and most recently, transplanted clear across the country to the mountains of Oregon– there are twists and turns God has set in motion that I could never have anticipated or foresaw myself going in His name.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise Him all creatures here below. Praise Him among ye heavenly host. Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. These words start and end multitudes of church meetings every week, as Christians meet to praise the Lord and fellowship together. The hymn is so popular, it has come to be called simply, “The Doxology,” a word meaning an expression of praise to the Lord.

I grew up in the early days of the internet, when you still connected using dial up. You couldn’t use the phone when someone was on the web. As a kid, the internet was used for fun and games, but as I became a teenager, the draw became AOL Instant Messenger. That means I was part of the generation that abbreviated everything: LOL, G2G, TTYL, and probably the most commonly used OMG! Somehow, that turn of phrase became so embedded in the way I think and talk, to the point where I don’t even realize I’m using it sometimes. Lately, Sam has been correcting me more about it. “We have to start being aware of the language we use, because Piper is going to start mimicking it.”

If the first commandment is about holding God as supreme over our lives, not having any idols or distractions that take precedence over Him, then it might seem at first glance that the second commandment is a little redundant. Sure, the second commandment talks about not making images and bowing down to them. In ancient times, those ideas were closely linked. The Egyptian gods all had likenesses and images. Each god had animals that incarnated and represented each of their deities. As such, these animals were considered sacred, such as the cat which represented Bastet the goddess of protection, pleasure and good health, or a jackal which embodied Anubis the guide to the underworld and protector of graves.

This Christmas, I was gifted a book that lists out 150 popular hymns, their sheet music, and a bio of where the hymn was inspired. I picked it up over the past few days and I’ve been leafing through it; finding the hymns I have sung all my life and reading the backstory on where they come from. I have to admit, there are so many hymns that I don’t know, and yet the words to them are sincerely profound and beautiful. This past weekend, I found myself singing “It is Well with My Soul” over and over again as I did housework, so I decided to look it up in the book and find out the inspiration from the song.

In every good marriage, there’s a worrier and someone who is not easily rattled. In mine, I take the position of the worrier, and Sam is the one who is always telling me to let things go. Even if you’re not married, you probably know whether you’ll end up being the worried one or the other half who will constantly be telling your spouse to take a breath and change their perspective.

Have you ever stood in front of nature and been completely in awe of the awesomeness of God? For me, I was a teenager standing on the Maid of the Mist, a little boat that launches out of the New York side of Niagara Falls and sails into the horseshoe at the bottom of the falls. Standing at the bottom of this huge waterfall, water hurdling over the edge and crashing with such force into the river below that it ricochets into a hazy mist that drenches everything.

Is Jesus precious to you? Don’t just knee-jerk answer that. Don’t just give it the answer you think makes you look good to other people. Really think. Do you value Jesus as precious every moment of every day? Do you treat him the way He deserves? Do you regard Him above all else in everything you do?

Dear God,

Thank you for being everything I’ve ever needed. Thank you for being my friend when I am lonely, my heavenly father when I need guidance and direction, the lover of my soul when I need to be held and seen, my shield when I need to be protected, and my defender in times of fear and uncertainty. You have never let me down or given me a reason to not trust you.

If you’ve been with me since the beginning of this little devotional site, you’ll know that every year, for five years, I’ve tackled the Christmas story in the weeks after Thanksgiving leading up to the big day. This year, I pondered how I could make my Christmas devotions different from what I’ve done in the past. So what is something about the Christmas season that can immediately put a person in the seasonal spirit? For me, before we put up the tree or bake the cookies, before we wrap the presents or decorate the house, we all do one thing: turn on Christmas music. To me, Christmas carols can instantly get me into the Christmas spirit, bring all my childhood memories to the forefront of my mind, and help me remember that our Savior, Jesus, came to be with us in the flesh.

Hey Pops, It almost seems unreal that it could be 2022. Somehow, as a child, you think about what being grown will be like, but it’s hard to actually realize it. It’s almost like we take things for granted, whether it be our youth or being blessed enough to live long enough to step into the unknowns of life. There’s something about a new year that feels like standing on the edge of a pool. There’s no doubt that you will plunge in, but when? How? Once you’ve committed to a plunge, gravity takes over and there is no going back.

We’ve all done it. Maybe it’s the Sunday scaries, with a new work week looming on the horizon. Maybe it’s our family or the plans we’ve made for our weekends. Maybe our own personal workload between balancing a clean house, social lives, love interests, whatever it may be.

CANCELLED. That’s never a word you want to see next to your flight number at the airport. This past weekend, my husband and I flew up to New York to watch our friends get engaged. We flew in Friday night, hung out this weekend, and the plan was to fly back home Sunday night to be back in time for work on Monday morning. But clearly, we were in store for other plans.

Just put yourself in this story for a moment. This passage is found in Exodus 12, which is the passage where God gives Israel instructions on the first Passover. So imagine, for just a moment, that you have been a slave all your life. You’ve broken your back building cities and monuments to kings and people that have abused and mistreated you. This slavery has been going on for generations… well before you were born. At this point, there is no before. This role and existence is all you’ve ever known.

Sometimes, when I read scripture, I am so blown away by the deep and burning desires of people to praise God and glorify Him with all their being. That’s something that I know I grow complacent in at times, but I think with the way the world is in 2021, those deeper burnings to honor God become less and less genuine.

Last week, we began discussing the problem of taking our civil liberties for granted and how we have become privileged– expecting to have things that scripture never promises us, the idolatry and dormant faith that occurs when we try to live the Christian life dependent on our government, and constitutional freedoms. And though what we see today in America is not at all what the rest of the globe sees and cannot be compared to the sufferings of the early Church of Acts, the question we must ask ourselves is: what if it DID get to that point? What would that mean for the Church, and how would I pursue Christ through that?