Map and Compass | Aligning Our Lives with the Will of God

There is plenty of opportunity to look at the world and despair. How do I find a foothold for hope when all evidence mocks it? Only Jesus can invent hope. To try without him is living in make believe. In this episode we follow Jesus along the path of every good story, with things going bad to worse, then in twist to hope reclaimed born from sacrifice to happily ever after.

I AM called to “take a knee.” Not because I am proving my solidarity or earning atonement. My sin is atoned for and I stand, then kneel without condemnation. From there, I serve the hurting and bear sorrows not my own, not from guilt but in gratitude for Jesus’ amazing grace.

Amidst the smoke and stench of injustice and social turmoil how do we find our way? Jesus knows, and He is the true revolutionary. Let's join His march.

What do we really want? Because that is exactly what we get. And if we desire the best that God offers it's ours for the taking. CS Lewis says, "It would seem, that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak." So we are Jesus-followers, not Stoics or Buddhists, with God inviting to a life of abandoned passion and adventure... If that's what we want.

What do we do when the storm hits and we’re blown off course, as we have been in this time of massive disruption? God never moves to Plan B; he creates a new Plan A. In this episode we’ll explore how we partner with Him to innovate new paths for our lives in times of crisis.

Where have you been? To know our path forward we have to know from where we've come. Into today's episode of Map and Compass, we'll talk about how to read our own history for signs of God's purposes. Mark will share his own recent miraculous recovery from cardiac arrest and how this has shaped his view of the future.

In today’s episode we begin – this is our inaugural podcast – stating our plight: We are lost and we can’t find our way. Even as Jesus-followers we find ourselves immobilized in a fog bank, unable to navigate more than a step or two ahead. And we’ve never learned, or we have quickly forgotten how to orient our lives to find our way out and onto the specific path God has set for us. Today, in Way-finding 101 we’re going back to basics, to introduce foundational disciplines we’ll explore in depth in future episodes, disciplines that will bring us on a life path of purpose and progress pleasing to God. There is a map – God’s Word – and there is a compass – God’s Spirit and with them we can find the Way. But we have to know how to orient.