Wade Poe

Aren't families interesting?  Ever met or visited in the home of a family that was very different from the one you grew up with?  Ever wonder why they were so different?  It's a pretty normal thing to happen. Back in the 70's, it was pretty common for my mom to buy a LOT of a certain kind of fabric and make everyone in the family clothing that matched.   Or maybe you went to someone's home and found out that they cleaned or cooked "the wrong way" - wrong because you weren't used to that way Or maybe they had a whole lot more or a whole lot less than your family had in terms of possessions or money.  And as a result, they lived differently than your family - maybe a little or maybe a lot differently. Families do that.  Families often develop their own unique culture which might overlap and extend to communities or other families they are close to - from the average to the strange. Churches and religious groups are like that too. They have their own characte...

I'm no longer surprised by people who assume God is mad at them. It's part of the religious culture that many, at least in the culture I see, assume is true. A lot of people will say that it "feels like" God is mad at them. Maybe their life circumstances make it feel like they aren't being blessed and they assume the lack of blessings and the normal struggles of life are sign that God is withholding good from them. Or maybe it's what they're actually told when they "go to church" or when they went to gatherings of believers in the past. Well intended believers sometimes feel it's their job to keep others in line so they pass on the message that God is just barely tolerating you. Usually it's to warn you away from things they assume you struggle with or are tempted by because they struggle with those things or are tempted by them or some scenario like that. The only time you get the sense in the New Testament story that God is or was ...

  My favorite "Christmas" story... “I heard this folksinger was coming to town…between songs, he told a story that helped me resolve some things about God.  The story was about his friend who was a Navy SEAL...   The folksinger said his friend was performing a covert operation, freeing hostages from a building in some dark part of the world.  His friend's team flew in by helicopter, made their way to the compound and stormed into the room where the hostages had been imprisoned for months.  The room, the folksinger said, was filthy and dark.  The hostages were curled up in a corner, terrified.  When the SEALs entered the room, they heard the gasps of the hostages.  They stood at the door and called to the prisoners, telling them they were Americans, the SEALS asked the hostages to follow them, but the hostages wouldn't.  They sat there on the floor and hid their eyes in fear.  They were not of healthy mind and didn't believe their resc...

Does God speak to us directly?  I'd say yes to that. For most of my life, I was taught that God ONLY speaks through the scriptures and that you can apply it to yourself as a general message -- but don't get too specific otherwise you can go "too far". And I get that.  I've heard all sorts of things from people that I'd say were above and beyond making sense, especially when people would just make statements about things that aren't even talked about in scripture. For the most part, I still agree God doesn't "speak to you" in ways that'll disagree with ideas in scripture.  He's not gonna say, "Go steal from your neighbor who has those things you want" or things like that. And I would say, from my own experience, he's not going to part the clouds and speak like you see in pop culture -- like when God speaks to Homer Simpson or to Moses or things like that. But he DOES, again in my experience, show us things we want and/or ...