What's Your Impact Story?

The difficulties we face in life can leave us marked with bitterness, frustration and anger, but we can choose to not let that be our story. We will all go through different types of challenges and pain in this life. We have a choice between letting our struggles make our hearts numb, hard and cold or warmer than ever before. We can choose faith, trust and forgiveness in the midst of the challenges that come our way and come out on the other side more compassionate, warm and loving than before. The choice is in our own hands.


In this present world it's impossible to live a pain-free life but we get to choose what will be the end result of our challenges: more love or anger, bitterness and hate. The other side of the coin is that this life is also filled with blessings. We also get to choose what our blessings will do to us. When we receive the favor of God we can either let it make us selfish, arrogant and entitled or humble and loving. Both the challenges and the blessings in life come with a test. Will we choose to let both our good times and hard times in life make us better or more self-centered and prideful?


The key to be able to flourish in this life despite challenges and pain is having a close relationship with God. The key to being able to live a very blessed life without becoming self-obsessed, entitled and arrogant is to know God intimately. If we live our lives without knowing God it is natural for us to become self-centered, entitled and full of pride. Everything we do (or choose not to do) in this life matters. Pastor Holly Wagner from Oasis Church in LA teaches a great message in this video and mentions 3 simple things we can do to make an impact during this life:

1.) Be yourself

2.) Be salt

3.) Be light

Love in Action

On this beautiful sunny Thursday morning I started my day with a huge cup of coffee and by reading three chapters in the book of Romans. I wanted to share one of my favorite passages in chapter 12 called "Love in Action".

"Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with the Lord's people who are in need. Practice hospitality. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited. Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone." 
Romans 12: 9-18 (NIV)

These are beautiful words to live by, and every time I read this passage I become aware of how none of these things come naturally for me. I naturally want to hate those who persecute me, I don't want to bless them. When someone does something evil to me I naturally want to repay them with evil. "Live in harmony with each other", isn't that what we all say we want? We say we want peace on Earth but I don't think we rally mean what we say, because we don't want to honor other people above ourselves and give up "the right" to repay evil with evil. I think we all want peace on Earth, but do we ever think about what that really means?

I think most of us want others to do what is right, while we ourselves get to pick and choose and mix it up by doing a few things right and a few things wrong. I don't know about you but if I'm totally honest I do not want peace on Earth most days of my life. I like the idea of "peace on Earth", but I don't like what that will require out of me. A couple of weeks ago somebody hurt me deeply, do you think I wanted to forgive this person? The answer would be NO! What I wanted to do was kick this person in the stomach, and if I was 4-years-old that's probably what I would have done, but I knew the right thing to do was to forgive and move on. I've worked with kids for many years and we all know what happens when one child hits the other, the child will hit back. What happens next is that the fight continues until an adult gets involved. The question is: Do we ever really grow out of this behavior? We might stop hitting each other with our fists but we continue to act the same way with our words.

As a new Christian I had this idea that Jesus obviously had many wise things to say but that there was no need for me to follow everything that The Bible teaches. I liked the idea of picking out the parts that I liked and leaving the rest, like a nice buffet. I think most new Christians will start out like this, but what I realized over time was that the only way my life was going to flourish was if I applied the whole teaching to my life. Picking to follow only the parts of The Bible that I personally preferred ended up not producing much change in my life. I hear many pastors say: "Knowing The Bible won't change your life, the change comes when you apply it to your life." 

It would be awesome if we could continue to repay evil with evil and then get peace on Earth as a result of that, think about how much easier it would be to live like that! The truth is that peace requires us to give up what produces the opposite of peace, here's a few of those things: trying to get your own way all the time, cutthroat competition, all consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants, a brutal temper, an impotence to love or be loved, the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival etc. I love how the book of Galatians describes what happens when we choose to live life according to God's way instead:

"But what happens when we live God’s way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard—things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely."
Galatians 5:22-23 (The Message)

As I read Galatians 5:22-23 all I can think is "I want to live like that!" We don't have to teach our children to hit each other, they will do it naturally. I don't have to teach myself to be selfish, to hate or envy, these things come naturally, but I can choose another way to live. I want to choose the life of the Spirit.

"Since this is the kind of life we have chosen, the life of the Spirit, let us make sure that we do not just hold it as an idea in our heads or a sentiment in our hearts, but work out its implications in every detail of our lives. That means we will not compare ourselves with each other as if one of us were better and another worse. We have far more interesting things to do with our lives. Each of us is an original."
Galatians 5:25-26 (The Message)

It's a sad day today

It's a very sad day once again as the world mourns the people who lost their lives in Brussels and as we are reminded of how much evil there is in our world. My prayers today are for everyone who have been affected by this tragedy and who have lost a loved one.

Another sad fact is that every time an attack like the one in Brussels happen there are some people who speak up and say that we have to be tougher on immigration etc. It's understandable that the natural reaction is to become afraid, very afraid.

I think it's important that we all remember that fear has never solved any problems in the world, but fear has definitely created many problems. Fear will cripple us and hold us back, but if we resist it we can find the courage and willpower to push forward and get back to working on building a warmer, more inclusive and loving society together. Martin Luther King Jr. said "Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that." We need to remember that fear has nothing to do with love, but fear can easily give birth to hate. We live in a world with much evil but when we choose to resist fear and rather unite in love we will change the world together.

How Can I Resist Evil?

There are two different spiritual powers in the world, God and evil. We describe these two different sides in many different ways but nobody is denying the fact that they exist; God and evil, love and hate, positivity and negativity, love and fear, good and bad. Christians call these two sides God and the devil. We can't fight the fact that there is a battle going on in our world between good and evil. There are organized groups of people trying to make the world a better place, like churches and non-profit organizations for example. There are also organized groups who do the opposite of trying to make the world a better place, like criminal gangs or terrorist groups.


The battle between good and evil is nothing new, it has always existed in this world and it won't go away anytime soon. We see the battle between good and evil, between God and the devil, in many different forms. This battle is happening right now in the world around us, it is happening within our cities and it is happening within our own brains. You will always have a voice in your head that is against you, it tells you things like: "you aren't good enough the way you are", "you are a failure", "if you don't do this nobody will love you" etc.


There is also a second voice in your head, this voice is for you, but it is usually less loud. This voice will never yell things in your ear, it's a quiet voice that whispers things like: "you are loved", "you are beautiful exactly the way you are" and "you are forgiven".


The reason Christians are so excited about Jesus is that during the few years Jesus walked on this earth He changed everything. Through the resurrection Jesus disarmed the powers of evil, evil has lost to God's perfect love, but don't expect evil to go down without a fight. When the Nazis knew they were about to lose the second World War they destroyed everything in their way as they retreated. The evil in your own life, and in the world, will do the same. Jesus said the following about the devil:


"The thief's purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life." John 10:10 NLT

A Sad Weekend

It's been a dark weekend as the news of the terrorist attacks in Paris is on everyone's minds. Last week I also found out that a friend of mine who has been sick for awhile has been told by the doctors that he has max one more year to live. It's easy to end up feeling hopeless and angry in times like this.

We live in a world that is broken but although we are aware of this we don't think of it on a regular day. We know the facts; about 29 000 children under the age of five die every day around the world from preventable diseases, 27 million people are in modern-day slavery across the world. Yes, this world is broken. This world is not currently operating the way it's supposed to work. We know the facts but us who live in the safer parts of the world can easily forget about the reality, things like a terror attack is a painful reminder of the state of the world we live in.

When disaster strikes it's natural to become very angry and want revenge, but we have to remind ourselves that hating evil people will only give birth to more evil. It's given me a lot of hope to see many people take a stand for love, unity, openness and tolerance on social media after the Paris attacks. A world that stands united in love and refuses to fight hate with more hate is the only way to end the evil cycle. I love the quote by Martin Luther King Jr. that still rings true today:

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."
Martin Luther King, Jr.

Antoine Leiris in an incredible man, he lost his wife in the Paris attacks and has written an emotional text on facebook called: "You won't get my hate." Antoine refuses to hate although he is burdened with deep grief right now. Read about his story here:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/paris-terror-husband-pays-touching-tribute-to-love-of-his-life-in-defiant-message-to-attackers-a6737231.html