Wade Poe

One of the surprising things about deconstruction and rebuilding has been the impact of what you know, mentally, actually hitting your soul square in the face for the first time. We know a lot of things to be true cognitively - like educationally or what we learn in school or what we memorize for a grade. When those things "hit home" at a deeper level, it is an emotional revelation. You simply don't know until you know and feel in ways that are bigger.  __________ I remember the first time my youngest child had a soda. He wanted to try a Sprite with his meal instead of juice or milk, etc. It wasn't a moment I was expecting to be "a moment". He sipped the cold Sprite and immediately paused, closed his eyes, and audibly, in a whispery voice said, "Aaaaaahhh" for a long time, with a very pleased look on his face. He repeated this several times during the meal, almost as if he couldn't believe it was real the first time. Some things like that for ...

Prayer requests are one of those amazing things that bless people in deeply personal ways. And they're also a way to see where we are in our understanding of God, each other, and life. I used to like taking prayer requests at the beginning of a class time until I realized that, for some, it was feeding into an idea or view of God that wasn't healthy or helping.  That and it took almost half the class time before it was over each week. I'm pretty sure those two paragraphs are probably really offensive to some people.  Like, how dare you speak of prayer and praying for people with such disdain?  And I do understand the offense.  I get it. What strikes me is that through the New Testament, how little of that kind of language or talk exists, relatively speaking.  Their focus is WAY less on getting their personal needs met, to the degree it doesn't exist. When Paul or others actually talk about what they're praying for regarding the people they write, it's often very...