Today I want to talk about God as both male and female. To begin, here’s a recent well-known quote from prominent complimentarian preacher John Piper:

“God revealed Himself in the Bible pervasively as king not queen; father not mother. Second person of the Trinity is revealed as the eternal Son not daughter; the Father and the Son create man and woman in His image and give them the name man, the name of the male. From all of that I conclude that God has given Christianity a masculine feel.”

When we create, it is the art, the writing, the poetry, that comes from the deepest, truest part of us that tends to be the most powerful. It is difficult for any of us to create something if there is not an element of ourselves in it.

What we create in essence comes from deep within us, it is part of who we are.

Think of all the art, stories and poetry that has moved you most. It is the work that is true, authentic. Something of that person which connects with all of us.

Now we are all created in the image of God. So by definition we are all in part a reflection of who He is.

Though the rest of creation – animals and plants and everything else – may reflect something of God, fact is Continue Reading…

We all desire freedom. We seek and pursue it. We cheer for individuals, groups or nations fighting for their freedom, and rightly so.

All of us want to be free.

We want to be able to make our own choices about how we live and what we do, where we live and who governs us.

The opposite of this is total control and domination. No choice. Everything decided for us, everything done for us. Imposed on us from outside.

This, we know, is not good.

There is something inside of us which understands this instinctively.

We fight against regimes like this.

They do not last. Eventually, they all fall.

Because to be human is to desire freedom – and eventually freedom wins out.

However, although there are many benefits and blessings from freedom, there is also a risk which comes with it. Continue Reading…

I recently heard a story about a Christian couple. They had been married several years and had two children. They were part of a thriving church. All good.

But the husband then decided he was a woman. He began dressing like one, putting women’s clothes and makeup on. He decided he was going to have the operations so he could fully become a woman physically.

The wife desperately tried to talk him out of this and convince him otherwise, but she could not. She still loved the man she married and they had been happy together. She loved their children. She would not leave him, and didn’t think it was right to do so.

You’d think this was hard enough for her. Sadly not.

The worst thing was how her church reacted. Continue Reading…

Barack Obama this week spoke publicly on the subject same-sex marriage. He made clear his endorsement of same-sex marriage and championed the push to make it legal.

It’s a big issue being discussed in popular culture and the church right now.Different people both in and outside the church are taking stands on opposing sides – and there are some very cruel and unloving words being said by some, on both sides.

The thing is, all of this discussion on the rights and wrongs of same-sex marriage completely misses the point.

It’s not the right discussion to be having in the first place.

There’s a much bigger and more significant discussion we should be engaged with. One that goes to the root of the issue.

A discussion on what marriage is. Continue Reading…

Last time we discussed how the profile we present in the digital space can be merely a representation of the social self we display in the physical realm.

This leads into a bigger, wider question though.

Are all the interactions and spaces in the digital realm merely an extension of what happens in the physical realm?

I would argue that they are. That is why they are real.

For example, most people are not at their most vulnerable when they interact with people in the digital realm. If they ever are it is through private messages, which no one but that individual will ever get to see.

Kind of like taking a friend aside and confiding in them about something, or asking their advice or support.

Social media is not a place we generally go to make ourselves vulnerable – and neither do we make ourselves vulnerable to all in the physical space, do we? Continue Reading…

We all have a social self. A self the world sees, the part of us that we like everyone to know, the best parts of us. The words we use to interact with those around us, the image we present to the world.

The social self is merely an image projected by us, which we control, which ensures that people don’t see the darkest, most shameful or vulnerable parts of us. It’s the self we let people see, that interacts with people on a daily basis. We don’t generally let most people past this self – only those closest to us tend to get beyond it.

In many ways this is the self which protects everyone else from seeing what’s really going on inside, from who we really are.

The interesting thing about this is, that this is an exact, word-for-word description many use of the digital realm, the world of social media, the self that exists on Facebook or Twitter. Continue Reading…

In the last year or so I’ve become more aware of the work of Jeff Goins. He is a writer, successful blogger and soon-to-be published author. I published a two-part interview of him for this site earlier in the year and I recently wrote a guest post for his site.

He’s just written a new e-book, ‘You Are a Writer‘, and I’ve had the privilege of getting an advance copy to review. There’s also a great website related to the book, which you can find here.

I don’t often review others’ work, but Jeff is a compelling, challenging writer and it’s no understatement to say his work could be life-changing for you. Even if you don’t think of yourself as a writer,  wait and give this review a read – then go and get this book.

Trust me, you won’t be disappointed.

Jeff Goins is a writer.

In his new e-book, he makes clear you can be one too.

In this relatively short but powerful e-book, he calls us out to embrace who we can be – to stop dreaming of being writers, stop waiting to be picked and to start calling ourselves writers – and teaches us how to be writers.  Continue Reading…

I recently went to the birthday party of a good friend. I only knew one person at the party – the person who’d invited me.

By the end of the evening I’d chatted to at least 5 or 6 new people in depth – and made two new Facebook friends. I’d also managed to grow my own self-confidence into the bargain.

Somehow, being around people, physically interacting with them, made a difference to me. I have new friendships in the digital realm now, but there was a connection made in physically interacting that couldn’t have been made otherwise.

It works in reverse too.

For example, the day before the party above, I met and had dinner with someone in London. A friend who I had chatted to on both Twitter, Facebook and Skype. Someone who I had built up a good friendship with and talked to about some important issues only in the digital realm.

A person I considered a good friend, but who I’d never met in the flesh before that day. Continue Reading…

Our lives are all a journey aren’t they?

Like many journeys, along the way we often get disruptions – like death, end of a relationship, people moving away, illness – which are almost forced upon us. We don’t choose them, they simply come upon us when we least expect them, and nothing at all can prepare us for them. They are painful, overwhelming, emotional and a real struggle.

Valley experiences. Losing my mother was one of those for me. You may be in your own one right now.

But there are other valleys we walk too. The ones we choose.

Jesus chose a valley when He chose the cross. He didn’t have to do it, it wasn’t forced upon Him, it wasn’t a complete shock – and He could have escaped it.

He chose instead to surrender Himself completely to it – and fortunate for us that He did.

About 14 months ago I was sitting in a pub with a good friend. We were talking and one of the matters that seemed to come up was the issue of me trusting God. Those who know me well know that trust is always a struggle for me, because of my background being bullied, coming from a broken home and losing a parent at young age.

But this was God. Continue Reading…

Today I’m going to be going back to the topic of social media . In the time since I last blogged on the subject I’ve decided that this topic is far too big to merely have a short-term series on it.

The issue of social media is so significant  and there are so many areas to cover that we need to devote time to it, and so from now on it’ll be one of the ongoing discussions/themes of my blog.

I recently decided to take some time off from social media. I’ve always believed it important we take regular sabbaths from social media  – but I’d always struggled to really lay it down and actually do it.

Which is a good sign that I really needed to stop.

So with the help of a couple of accountability partners, I decided to spend 48 hours out of the digital realm.

Cut off. No Facebook, no Twitter, no Google + or e-mail, for 48 hours. Continue Reading…