• Bio
  • Blog Summaries
  • Pottery
  • Soul-Warming [to me]

All That Thrills My Soul

~ practicing & perfecting walking with Christ

All That Thrills My Soul

Monthly Archives: December 2022

Journal | The Gospel for our Post-Christian Age

Featured

Posted by Tari Williamson in Personal Aha Moments

≈ 1 Comment

Hello Lord.

Writing that makes me smile today. 

Reading that John the Baptist was in lonely places until his public appearance makes me think that is where I am as well these days.  Not that its completely isolated – yet, I do tend to love the solitude more than socializing these days – I’m becoming awfully fond of waiting

and healing

and growing in Your grace and goodness.

I notice more and more — when I listen to secular podcasts, movies, and YouTube — that your ways are no longer an option

 and certainly not popular –

Perhaps this is what it means to be in a “post-Christian society?” –

I watch as humanity reinvents ways of satisfying their restless souls –

And think that they have forgotten that true peace is found in You.  Perhaps they never knew this? I was raised knowing it.

But.

John’s message started with repentance.

In order to find true shalom that comes from You, we need to forsake our shadows and addictions.  Funny too, how I can even glamorize sin. I think that’s what I just did by relabelling it “shadows & addictions.”  Sounds like I’m becoming a byproduct of my culture. Cringe.

But.

Lord, I know it is willful disobedience to your ways.  May I be utterly dependent on You for my life.  Because I know that Your ways lead to joy and peace — even in the midst of suffering and hardship.

What is found in You is lasting. 

Lead on O King eternal. 

Blog Aside: 

These thoughts and prayers were also generated because I watched Stutz (Netflix) last night.  My cousin was watching too and asked my take on it.  My take is this: There were moments of gospel truth in the film (i.e. practicing gratitude and working on your dark side) yet it was devoid of the Gospel. My favorite part of the film was the intimacy between Stutz and Hill. I love a good friendship. They had it.

Furthermore…

In my year of healing

and perusing YouTube messages and podcasts,

I find this to be the theme among professing agnostics:

They have some truth, but it’s incomplete. 

Complete truth is found in God.  While you can still find that Truth in the Bible (I recommend starting in the New Testament), I also recommend some theologians who help me make sense of this Truth in light of our present age. They are all over YouTube. 

I recently rediscovered Tony Campolo – a favorite of mine from the 80’s.

But, who tops the list this year for me is Tim Keller.

Frances Chan’s book on unity was fabulous. 

All three have come under attack from their own camps in recent past –

perhaps that’s one of the reasons we are now seen as post-Christian. 

Even Christians can’t seem to get their act together.  

We love bashing more than binding. 

We love being right more than loving our neighbor. 

We love circling the wagons more than inviting in the “whosoever wills.”

Bottom line for me is this:

I continue to know that my Redeemer liveth –

and I take great delight in Him.

And when I recognize an unattractive divisiveness emanating from such a ones . . . I run.

Journal – The Road Less Travelled

Featured

Posted by Tari Williamson in Personal Aha Moments

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

C. S. Lewis, Suffering

12.3.2022 | Saturday

Hello Lord.  

Just writing that makes me teary for some reason. 

Last night I watched a more accurate version of the C. S. Lewis and Joy Greshem story.  It made me ache for them – yet they are no longer aching and haven’t been for years now. Surely time stopped in some form when they laid eyes on one another again.  To find a soulmate like that – other than You – is quite a beautiful thing.  

Thank you for my own beloved who I had 37 years with. In some way, I feel as though I shouldn’t stop counting the years – because his love for me continues today.  How blessed I was and am.  

I am not sure how to make sense of your ways – they seem unbearably hard for some – and quite easy for others – yet I know that the ones who have it the hardest – such as Amy Carmichael, C.S.Lewis, Colene &.Will Norton, Sherry MacKenzie, Paul Long, Elisabeth Elliott, Frances Chan – who come to mind – have done extraordinary things for you.  Do I still have a chance to make that list in my own mind?  Do I even want to be on that list?

I have always chosen the easy, pain-free, comfortable path.  Breaking my ankle has showed me just that. 

But the places You have taken me in the past year – more discovery of such a ones who have shown me a grander picture of Your ways, has been glorious.  Not that I’ve minded all those reformed men out there who have brought me along in my previous four decades – but could it be that their own focus (harpings) have helped cause much of the distress I see in the world? Could it be that they have forsaken the things that mean the most to You and chosen to split every theological hair to their own understanding and by their own presuppositions that come about from living in this present age? Of course, I sit with an opinion about this question but I can’t say for certain I know the answer … Your answer.

Dare I say I’m ready for more?  More inspiration from such a ones that spur me on to love others? The YouTube well is a bit dry these days – and perhaps it is time for me to give up on my pondering and walk my neighborhood. 

Lead on O King eternal.

Subscribe

  • Entries (RSS)
  • Comments (RSS)

Archives

  • December 2022
  • December 2021
  • June 2021
  • October 2020
  • April 2020
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • July 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • March 2016
  • October 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014

Categories

  • Becoming His
  • Breath Taking
  • Decluttering
  • Lessons Learned
  • Personal Aha Moments
  • Pleasure
  • Practicing & Perfecting
  • Prayer
  • Soul Satisfying

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in

Blog at WordPress.com.

  • Follow Following
    • All That Thrills My Soul
    • Join 53 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • All That Thrills My Soul
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar