life | Heartstone Journey

Why All The Questions About Ferguson Are Perfectly Answered Through Jesus Christ

If you turn on the TV or do any surfing on the Internet you will run into a story surrounding the events in Ferguson Missouri. The nation watched as many in the town of Ferguson reacted with outrage and disappointment, when the prosecutor announced that officer Darren Wilson would not be indicted in the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown.

I am not weighing in on the justice or injustice of the events surrounding Ferguson, I am writing about a deeper issue of humanity.

Honestly, I never understood how the color of someones skin defines that person. Never understood the anger of the Black Panthers in one direction and the anger of the KKK in the other. While the modern race problem has economic, political, and social implications I believe its primarily a moral and spiritual problem.

Jesus loved without discrimination, without looking at our worthiness.

—Tim Keller

Parsing through all the news narratives and ambient conversations on social media, I wanted to highlight the words New Orleans Saints tight end Benjamin Watson shared in the national conversation on race, racism and policing in America.

In a thoughtful commentary that was liked on his Facebook page more than 800,000 times and shared more than 450,000 times as of November 30th, Watson explained that he chose to write down his thoughts on the Ferguson decision after news broke Monday night.

Here are those thoughts and more…
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3 Universal Desires Of Men Revealed by King Arthur

Some of my favorite movies include Braveheart, Gladiator, 300, Lord Of The Rings, Last Of The Mohicans and Lone Survivor. Another honorable mention to this list is the 2004 remake of King Arthur.

Here is a short summary shared by Claudio Carval. In 400 AD, the Roman Empire extends to Britain and the Romans become impressed with the fight skills of the warrior Sarmatian people, which are spared, but have to send their sons to serve Rome in the cavalry for fifteen years. Only after these services, these knights are free to return home. King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table have their last mission before achieving their freedom.

I chose this summary because it ends with a powerful word that is not always connected with authentic manhood and that is “freedom”. This theme ebbs and flows all through out history in narratives of the men who fought in the Revolutionary War and the movies mentioned above. Of course there are endless realities and tales of the bravery of men fighting for the cause of freedom, but I want to stay with this for a minute…for the men of today.

Why is this important for the men of today?

The Shocking Truth Of Settling For Less Than God’s Best

Why is it that most of us become spiritually lazy as we accept and embrace a passive existence stumbling through the shadows of life looking for love and acceptance? Have you ever noticed that we actually go out of our way to stay off the rough roads of life? It seems that our primary objectives become securing a peaceful retreat from the world, thinking only about ourselves, and finding a hiding place from the turbulence of life. We all seem to find it so much easier to simply go along with the status quo, which over time actually leads to a life of heart-numbing mediocrity, and we settle for something less than God’s best.

Does God share with us in His word some thoughts about this? I think He does. Consider the story of Moses. God heard the cries of the oppressed Israelite slaves, and He enters history to deliver them from the tyranny of Pharaoh and the bondage of Egypt. After the captives have been set free from Egypt, God meets with them in the wilderness to make them His people. They enter into a covenant with God promising to love and to serve Him in response to His gracious acts of deliverance. God then promises them a land in which they could be His people.

God actually hangs out with these people wanting to connect with them in a loving relationship. Can you imagine that? That would be awesome! If that happened to us, we would be convinced! Convinced for life!

Wouldn’t we?

Well, let’s see what happens…

How Miserable Christians Can Get “Life” Back In Their Lives

Have you noticed people around you (or maybe its you) who call themselves Christians are some of the most miserable people on the planet? What happened?

It seems that our relationship with God fades over years because we simply misinterpret life, who we are and what our purpose is. Because things don’t go our way, because we don’t get what we want, our selfishness becomes a heavy cloak of contempt and the relationship dies a swift death. It’s like a married couple who once loved each other running for the escape hatch of divorce.

When we understand our calling, it is not only true, but beautiful—and it should be exciting. It is hard to understand how an orthodox, evangelical, Bible-believing Christian can fail to be excited. The answers in the realm of the intellect should make us overwhelmingly excited. But more than this, we are returned to a personal relationship with a God who is there. If we are unexcited Christians, we should go back and see what is wrong.

—Francis Schaeffer

How do we get past ourselves and posture our life in such a way that we can live life courageously from our hearts?

Why Choosing Life Is Braver Than Ending It!

It was a beautiful Autumn day in New England as I started my daily commute up Interstate 89 in New Hampshire. Pulling out of my local Cumberland Farms to fuel up on some coffee, I decided to tune into some morning talk radio. Hitting the dial landed me right in the middle of a conversation about Brittany Maynard.

Brittany Maynard is 29 years old and was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer, just a little over a year after her wedding. After a diagnosis of six months to live she decided to move to Portland Oregon, which is a state that allows euthanasia in certain circumstances, to get a prescription that would allow her take her own life at a time of her choosing.

On November 1st of this year, a few days after her husband’s birthday, Brittany Maynard plans going to kill herself. With the help of a doctor and a suicide pill, she is going to end her life.

“I will die upstairs in my bedroom that I share with my husband, with my mother and my husband by my side, and pass peacefully, with some music that I like in the background.” -Brittany Maynard

As heartbreaking as this story is, suicide is not the answer!

Taking another sip of my now lukewarm coffee, I remembered a time in my life when I was at the very edge of giving up on life. My place of desperation was not from a terminal disease, but from falling into a dark depression of life’s failures and loosing everything.

I remember the moment well. Here is an excerpt of that moment from my book Heartstone.

Why All The Questions About Ferguson Are Perfectly Answered Through Jesus Christ

3 Universal Desires Of Men Revealed by King Arthur

The Shocking Truth Of Settling For Less Than God’s Best

How Miserable Christians Can Get “Life” Back In Their Lives

Why Choosing Life Is Braver Than Ending It!

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