Mike Browning

Tag: Bible

  • Probably Even Worse Than You Think

    Probably Even Worse Than You Think

    But remember who’s in charge.

    It’s not uncommon today to hear young adults talk about not wanting to have kids. Laying aside the ones that are just being selfish (without always realizing it), there’s usually a couple of main reasons for it.

    One is that they feel they should wait until they are more financially stable. Which at least shows some forward thinking, though I think most people who waited to have kids will tell you they wish they started sooner. It turns out there’s never a “good time” financially, and you tend to figure out how to make it work.

    Not to mention when you’re younger you have more energy to chase the little bundle of joy around.

    The other big reason is that the world is in such a terrible state now, they want to be able to act noble for not “bringing another life into a fallen world.”

    They aren’t wrong that things are in a sorry state. You can’t turn on a TV or look at your phone without seeing that, and it only seems to be going in one direction.

    If anything, what we see probably doesn’t even really show us how bad things really are. There’s almost certainly depravity going on that’s even worse than what we are told about. It’s enough to make anyone want to curl up in a ball and not do much of anything.

    But it’s always been this way.

    Terrible wars as far back as we want to look. People mistreating each other. The holocaust. The brutality and decadence of the Roman world.

    All the way back to Sodom and Gomorrah, it’s never been particularly good.

    But here’s the other thing, God was in charge then and he’s in charge now. If we only know two things for sure, it would be these: that we are closer to the end now than we ever have been, but we don’t know how close. And that everything will be reckoned and brought back to order. We don’t have to know how or when to trust it will happen.

    If you were sick, and a doctor told you he had a 100% cure but it would require a period of extreme discomfort, you could withstand it because you know what’s on the other side.

    So when God has told you that things will be worked out but there will be tribulation in the meantime, know you can withstand that too.

    And get to listening for what God wants you to do, and do it. Because you can.

    P.S.- If you’d like to read through the Bible this year, you can join us at His Word Together.

    No commentary. No telling you what to think. Nothing to buy. Nothing fancy.

    Just steady time in the Word.

    Check it out here.

  • You’d Think I’d Know Better By Now

    You’d Think I’d Know Better By Now

    And I do, except when it comes to the action part.

    You’ve probably read this in a hundred places: It’s good to learn from your own mistakes. It’s better to learn from somebody else’s, because theirs are cheaper.

    Fine advice. Works pretty good on the small stuff. Watch someone touch something hot, and it’s a pretty safe bet you won’t do it yourself.

    Unless you’re me, then you’re going to touch it immediately to see if it really was as hot as the other guy acted like it was.

    Kidding. Sort of. Either way, when it comes to important things the “other guy’s experience” thing doesn’t seem to transfer at all.

    Think about the last time you got a new vehicle. Or moved into a new place. Or had a commission come in bigger than you’d figured on.

    It feels good. For a few days it feels like more than good, like things have finally settled into their right spots, and you catch yourself thinking some version of okay, now we’re fine.

    Then it wears off. Nothing dramatic about it. It just quietly stops being new, and you’re the same man you were before it showed up, sitting in a better truck.

    I’ve run that cycle more times than I care to write down.

    I have gotten better at one part of it. Now I generally know going in that it isn’t going to work. I can see the whole thing coming, before I ever start.

    And I do it anyway.

    Because maybe this time is going to be the one where it all works.

    But if you’re going to borrow a man’s experience on this particular question, you may as well borrow from the one with the best data in history.

    Solomon had more money than anybody. Scripture says he made silver as common in Jerusalem as stones. Wisest man alive on top of it, people traveled in from other countries just to hear him talk. Built the temple. Built himself a house that took thirteen years. Planted vineyards, made gardens and pools, bought herds and servants, hired people to sing to him. Says plainly that he refused himself nothing his eyes wanted.

    Never been a better example to study, and never will be.

    His answer was vapor. Chasing after the wind.

    He wasn’t guessing and he wasn’t broke when he said it. A man who never had “eff you money” saying money won’t satisfy is easy enough to wave off. Solomon had every bit of it and filed the same report.

    And here’s the part that makes it worse. Solomon didn’t have any better luck acting on what he knew than the rest of us do.

    He walked away from God anyway. Wisest man who ever lived, God appeared to him in person twice, and he still finished up with his heart somewhere else.

    Knowing better wasn’t his problem either. Doing better was.

    That’s worth thinking about when we tell ourselves we’ll make the right decision later.

    Wednesday night the Powerball ran up over a billion dollars.

    A billion. With every bit of what I’ve just written sitting right there in my head, did I buy a ticket?

    You bet I did.

    Somebody won it. Wasn’t me. Which is probably a mercy, though I’d have liked the chance to confirm it for myself.

    It was never a shortage of evidence.

    Solomon had the evidence too.

    P.S.

    If you’d like to read through the Bible this year, you can join us at His Word Together.

    No commentary. No telling you what to think. Nothing to buy. Nothing fancy.

    Just steady time in the Word.

    Check it out here.

    PPS.

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