Timothy's Thoughts

T ears come. All throughout life they come. There’s always something to make us sad. Friends die. Plans fall through. Wishes are unfulfilled. That’s life. And yet, some people have this idea that if we really wanted what God wants then we would never cry. That sounds spiritual, but I’m afraid it is unrealistic. Even Jesus wept. He knew how things would turn out and he still wept. Sadness is part of life, so while we don’t like to be sad, let’s not something we can avoid. The fact is, this world is cursed. People die. Bad things happen. We desire things we can’t have. The end result is that tears come. But I think there’s more to it than that. God could wipe away our tears now, rather than later, but we learn from times of sadness. It is during the sad times that we learn to depend upon God. If things always went the way we wanted, we wouldn’t understand how much we need God. So he allows bad things to happen and we learn from those things. We may not understand why some things happen...

I ’m shocked sometimes by how lax Christians are concerning right and wrong these days. Now I realize that the Bible doesn’t out and out prohibit the consumption of alcohol, but the other day I was listening to a young man that I believe to be a Christian who was talking about plans for his brother’s bachelor party. He mentioned one idea which is what is called a “Grand Slam.” You know, of course, that a Grand Slam is a menu item at Denny’s, but this Grand Slam was quite different. The idea is that you go from bar to bar and eventually end up at Denny’s where you eat a Grand Slam, but you aren’t supposed to remember any of the bars you went to. I wasn’t in the conversation, but as I listened from some distance away, I couldn’t imagine why anyone would consider that fun. What’s the point if you’re so wasted that you don’t remember what you did? Not only that, but consuming that much alcohol is dangerous. Whatever your thoughts on Christians drinking alcohol, the Bible makes it very ...

I ’ve been working on a story lately. I love the concept and I think it will do well on the back cover. But I have a problem. I haven’t settled on the motive of one of the main characters. Unfortunately, that motive is central to the story. It not only drives the story, it drives the motives of some of the other characters. It defines who they are as characters, so the choices I make there could change who they are significantly. In this case, the character did something as a teenager that most of us wouldn’t do. That’s not to say that we might not have considered it, but if we’d gone through with it we would’ve come to our senses and realized that we’d made a bad choice. We would have turned around and undid what we did. But in this story, the character doesn’t attempt to undo it for fifteen years. She’s committed to what she has done. That means her motive has to survive even after she’s had a while to think about it. If I can find a great motive, I think this story will be good....

A t the beginning of every story, there is a point at which we realize that if something doesn’t change, the hero will die. Often, this is a figurative kind of death more than a literal death, but the hero also comes to the realization and makes the necessary change that takes us into the meat of the story. That makes for interesting storytelling, but so often we find that life isn’t that way. How often do we come to that point in life where we feel we have the weight of the world on our shoulders and if something doesn’t change we’ll surely die under the load. But unlike the heroes of our stories, we don’t often have the option of choosing to change things. It will surely kill us. But the thing about real life is that when you come to the realization that we’re on the verge of death and it is hopeless, we also come to the realization that death isn’t an option. Oh, death will come soon enough, but no matter how much junk life dumps on you, you don’t have the option of giving up. No ...

“ G odliness with contentment is great gain,” Paul told Timothy. Most people turn that around, believing that if they can gain a lot then they must be godly. I work in a corporate environment and all most people care about is what other people can do to help them advance their careers. That takes priority over the product. If producing a good product will advance their career, they’ll produce a good product, but what they really want is to advance their career. There are times that it’s hard to stay content in that kind of environment. People are always asking what you’re doing to advance your career or why you haven’t reached some level in your career. But I can’t help but think that another statement by Paul is very true in the corporate world as well. “For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.” Paul is referring to the fact that we can take nothing we gain in this world into the next, but there is some truth to that in the corporate world ...

“ D o you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ?” It’s a question we might ask a person we’re trying to share the gospel with, but would you believe there is a bad connotation to the concept of “a personal relationship with Jesus Christ?” In some evangelical circles, the personal relationship with Jesus Christ is viewed as the highest form of the Christian life. In other words, a person has a personal relationship with Jesus and they need nothing else. Jesus talks directly to them, so nothing could be better, right? Wrong. The problem is that most elevated relationship in the Bible is that of Jesus and the church, not Jesus and the individual. I’m sure that at this point, some of you are thinking I’m grasping at straws. After all, isn’t it true that all saved people are part of the church automatically and so the only thing we need to strive for is the personal relationship? No, that isn’t true. Aside from a few passages that could be taken either way, all of the references ...

O n my way to work one morning, I happened to hear John MacArthur on the radio talking about the importance of the church. In particular, he was talking about the local church, not the big invisible body of believes that some people believe everyone who has been saved is a member of. He got off on things like church membership and lettering members from one church to another, baptism and the Lord’s supper, all of which he is for. I won’t repeat all he said, but he also got off on the issue of parachurch organizations, which is any faith-based organization that works outside the church and/or across denominational lines and engage in social welfare and evangelism efforts. Perhaps to my shame, this is a topic I’ve avoided. This is partly because I have friends who either currently or sometime in their past worked for one of these organizations. It’s a difficult situation to be in when you end up saying something against the organization a friend works for, especially when it has the ap...