Laughter is a gift from God. When we refuse to accept it, it makes Him want to take it back. Like the unicorns.
Are you married? Awesome.
Are you engaged to be married? Awesome.
Are you single and already feel like this post is irrelevant to you? Awesome.
Now that I’ve spoken directly to every possible group of readers, let me warn you about something no pastor warned me about before I got married.
(It’s guest post Friday! Here’s one from Stephen Pepper. You can read his blog here, or follow him on Twitter. If you want to write a guest post for SCL, here’s how!)
The Sport That God Loves The Most
When you’re a sports fan, you’ll often find yourself praying that your team does well–even if you’re not a person of faith.
Sometimes God doesn’t answer. Hockey fans, it’s not because He doesn’t like your team. It’s because He doesn’t like your sport and ignores all your prayers, no matter which team you support.
As for other sports, which one does God love the most? I think it’s quite clear that the answer is soccer. Here are the 7 reasons why:
I recently read John Eldredge’s “Beautiful Outlaw
One particular section stuck out to me: 
I have spent most of my adult years trying to find those keys that would enable people to become whole. Like an archaeologist raking for buried treasure, I’ve combed through the provinces of counseling, spiritual discipline, inner healing, deliverance, addiction recovery – anything that would help me help others get better. Like Schliemann when his shovel struck the buried ruins of Troy, the epiphany I have come to is this:
Jesus has no intention of letting you become whole apart from his moment-to-moment presence and life within you.
That described me perfectly and hit me like a ton of bricks.
If you’re looking for a new book to read, “Beautiful Outlaw ” is one that belongs on the list of Stuff (This) Christian Likes.
It’s Wednesday and the Presidential Election in America is over.
My friend Lisa in Oregon just reminded me, though, that there’s a law that says all Christian bloggers have to write one of the following two posts the day after an election:
1. If your candidate lost, you have to write:
God is sovereign and will provide. He is still in control. Everything is going to be all right.
2. If your candidate won, you have to write:
God is good and has provided. He is still in control. Everything is going to be all right.
Since both those things are true about God, and Wednesday will be a pretty busy day, I thought I would get my mandatory Christian blogger post-election entry out of the way.
God is sovereign. God is good. He will provide, and He has provided. Everything is going to be all right.
Razzle Dazzle
Jon
Dear IT,
First and foremost, allow me to establish a little geek cred.
My favorite book is Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time.
I knew what the phrase “Winter is coming” meant long before HBO did.
I occasionally say “Bazinga!”
I know SCRUM and agile and how to run a sprint for two weeks.
I grew up on Daredevil and like to pretend it was never turned into a movie.
Sometimes, at random moments of the day, I’ll think about Jar Jar Binks and get mad.
Now that we’ve got that out of the way, I need to confess something.
I say “yes.” What say you? (What’s a Jesus Juke? This.)
(It’s guest post Friday! Here’s one from Jeff Postlewaite. You can check out his blog here. If you want to write a guest post for SCL, here’s how!)
Fact-Checking the Pastor
I’m pretty sure John Wesley never had to worry about some smart-aleck college student saying “You know that story you told last week? Well, the interwebs say it’s a lie!”
I’ll say it—the internet has ruined the art of making up a good sermon illustration. Even into the early-90s, pastors could repeat heart-breaking stories with utmost confidence that their sources were sound. The intent was pure, the message strong, and the audience incapable of proving otherwise…and then along came Google.
As recently as a decade ago, the pastor knew his stories were safe until people could get home to their PCs, and even then there was a good chance that they would forget what to search for while waiting for Windows to boot. Now smartphones have given parishioners the ability to fact-check before the illustration is even complete.
I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one who is opening a mobile browser the instant I hear: “In 1859, a tightrope walker named Blondin…” But there are always prying eyes noticing that you have left the YouVersion app and are now speed-reading a Wikipedia article.
When I saw the Pez dispensers below at a Wal-Mart the other day I thought 11 things:
Recently a friend of mine started living for the Lord.
After a year of sharing his faith vocally, we had coffee and he told me something he found surprising.
He said that in chess, the pawn pieces are used to advance the more important pieces. They go forward and sacrifice themselves to create opportunities for the Queen, King and Bishop. He thought of himself as a pawn, trying to actively serve the needs of others and serve the kingdom, clear that life isn’t about him.
He said the biggest surprise though was that the more he served and lived a life for Christ, the more he felt attacked. But not by other people, by other Christians. He was confused because he’s never seen a King attack its own pawn in a game of chess. He’d never seen a Bishop take out its own pawn, but the more time he spent in church, the more he got attacked by the people who were supposed to be his fellow brothers and sisters in Christ.
I started to think about that because it’s an issue I keep seeing come up.
A pastor once said, “Nobody is as mean as Christians who are being mean for Jesus.”