Like An Anchor

“The Runaway Bride” Book Review

3 March, 2020

I’ve been a Jody Hedlund fan for some time now, and I was thrilled to receive a copy of her newest book The Runaway Bride to read and review before its release. This is the second book in her Bride Ships series. You can click here to read my review of the first book, A Reluctant Bride.

England in the 1860s was not a good place to find a husband. By the early part of the decade, there were about 600,000 more women than men living in the country. And when employment options are limited, especially for women of noble birth, and marriageable men are hard to come by a 25-year-old spinster doesn’t have many options. Especially when her stepmother wants her out of the house. That’s the situation Arabella Lawrence finds herself in when she agrees to marry her father’s employer. The man is old enough to be her grandfather, and he turns out to be anything but gentlemanly.

Fleeing what would certainly be an abusive marriage, she takes passage in one of the Columbia Mission Society’s bride ships bound for Vancouver Island and British Columbia, where men outnumber women approximately 10 to 1. Their need for respectable, Christian wives is Arabella’s chance at a new beginning. Upon arriving, she instantly attracts suitors with her compassion, charm, and fiery red hair. The most persistent are two very different men — Lieutenant Richard Drummond, a gentleman and naval officer, and Peter Kelly, the local baker. (more…)
Growing in the Wisdom from God

29 February, 2020

We just wrapped-up a series of posts going through all the characteristics of “the wisdom from above” that James writes of in his epistle. That’s not all there is to say about Godly wisdom, however. I already wrote an introduction post to this series that’s about God’s definition of wisdom, but today as we conclude this series of articles I want to narrow in our focus on wisdom as it relates to Jesus Christ.

My dad’s the one who pointed out to me that Paul says “Christ Jesus … was made to us the wisdom from God” (1 Cor. 1:30). God — both Father and Son — are the starting point for true wisdom. It seems, though, that God the Son plays a special role in giving this wisdom to us, and I think that’s worth looking at more closely.

Glory in the Wisdom from God

One of the things Paul does in his writings is reference scriptures from the Old Testament as support for what he’s talking about in his letters. He doesn’t always quote the referenced passage in its entirety, though, leaving it to his readers to familiarize themselves with scripture and recognize the connection. That’s what he’s doing here in 1 Corinthians. He’s talking about God choosing the foolish, weak, lowly, and despised things of this world and then he says,

Because of him, you are in Christ Jesus, who was made to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption: that, as it is written, “He who boasts, let him boast in the Lord.” (1 Cor. 1:30-31, all quotes from WEB)

This phrase that Paul says “is written” comes from Jeremiah.

Yahweh says, “Don’t let the wise man glory in his wisdom. Don’t let the mighty man glory in his might. Don’t let the rich man glory in his riches. But let him who glories glory in this, that he has understanding, and knows me, that I am Yahweh who exercises loving kindness, justice, and righteousness in the earth,
for I delight in these things,” says Yahweh. (Jer. 9:23-24)

Paul talks about God choosing people who are the opposite of wise, mighty, and rich to make a point. None of us have room to glory before God based on our own merits. (more…)
How Do You Know If You’re Talking with an Intuitive or a Sensing Type?

25 February, 2020

Once you find out about your own Myers-Briggs® personality type, it’s usually just a matter of time before you start to wonder what other people’s types are. You can ask them, of course. It’s actually not all that hard to work the question into a conversation.

“What are your hobbies?”

“Oh, I like x, y, z, and Myers-Briggs types. Have you ever taken one of those personality tests?”

Pretty simple. They might not remember their result, though, or might not have taken the test yet, in which case you can pull out your phone and direct them to Personality Hacker for what I think is the best free test on the internet. At that point it could start getting weird, though, so you might need to drop the subject if they’re not interested.

There are also ways to guess someone’s type from having a conversation with them. It’s not always possible (I’m still not 100% sure what my own mother’s type is), but in many cases you can get a pretty good idea of at least a few aspects of their personality from a conversation or two. In today’s post, we’re going to look at how to tell if you’re talking with an intuitive or a sensing type.

Before we begin …

Quick word of advice: if your primary goal in a conversation is to guess someone’s type there’s a good chance you won’t actually get to know the person. Myers-Briggs® types simply describe how our minds work and there is a huge amount of room for individual variation within a type. If you want to get to know someone, you need to listen to them and ask them about themselves. Figuring out what their type is should be a secondary goal after getting to know who they are. (more…)
Wisdom Without Hypocrisy

22 February, 2020
I dare say we’re all familiar with the problem of hypocrisy in the church. For most of us, it’s something we’ve had close experience with. We’ve found ourselves disgusted with others who we identify as hypocrites and we may even have caught ourselves doing hypocritical things.

As we wrap up our study of how James talks about godly wisdom, we come to the last characteristic on his list. “The wisdom from above is … without hypocrisy” (James 3:17, WEB). In Greek, the words for hypocrisy and hypocrite have to do with someone playing a part, as if they were an actor on stage. They’re dissemblers, pretenders who simulate, feign, and pretend to be something they are not (Thayer’s dictionary, entries on G5273 and G5271). The opposite is what we find in wisdom — anupokritos (G505), something that is unfeigned, undisguised, sincere.

The Bible tells us “wisdom is the principle thing, therefore get wisdom” (Prov. 4:7, KJV). Wisdom is something God has in abundance and which He is eager to share with those who ask for it (James 1:5). As we grow in wisdom we will become people who are sincere, authentic, and live without hypocrisy.

Traits of the Hypocritical

Before we talk more about living without hypocrisy, let’s take a look at what a hypocrite is like. Jesus talked about this quite a bit in the gospels recorded by Matthew, Mark, and Luke (in fact, the word hupokrites, G5273, only appears in these three books).
- Hypocrites call attention to the godly things they do in order to be seen and respected by other people (Matt. 6:2, 5, 16)
- Hypocrites judge others before fixing up their own problems and repenting of their own sins (Matt. 7:5; Luke 6:42)
- Hypocrites have double standards when applying God’s law (Matt. 15:4-7; Luke 13:14-16)
- Hypocrites try to tempt others to sin (Matt 22:17-18)
- Hypocrites block others from getting closer to the Lord (Matt. 23:13-15)
- Hypocrites are greedy and have misplaced priorities (Matt. 23:16-19)
- Hypocrites get distracted by minutia and neglect the things that are most important to God (Matt. 23:23)
- Hypocrites appear righteous on the outside but are inwardly wicked (Matt. 23:25-28; Luke 11:44)
- Hypocrites play lip-service to God but their hearts aren’t committed (Mark 7:6)
(more…)
10 Things That INFPs Find Extremely Annoying

18 February, 2020

Have you ever wondered why something you thought wasn’t a big deal annoyed your INFP friend? Or why you, as an INFP, find certain things other people don’t even seem to notice the most irritating part of your day?

The Myers-Briggs® types are a tool for talking about how our minds work. They describe the mental processes that we use most comfortably, and these “functions” come together in unique ways for each personality type. Because of the special way our brains operate, each personality type has different things that they typically find annoying.

Of course, even if a group of people share a personality type there will still be plenty of individual differences. For example, some INFPs might not have a big problem with people who make assumptions about them or others. In general, though, most INFPs are going to find the 10 things on this list extremely irritating.

Photo credit: Mash Babkova via Pexels

1) Inauthentic People

This is the first point mentioned in a video made by an INFP from the UK titled “Things That Really Annoy INFPs.” It’d be a good video to watch if you’re interested in the subject of this post. Because INFPs place such a high value on authenticity in themselves they also find a lack of authenticity annoying in others. In fact, Personality Hacker’s nickname for an INFP’s preferred cognitive function of Introverted Feeling is “Authenticity.”

INFPs tend to approach the world from the inside-out (as do introverts in general). One thing I found very interesting about this video is the INFP who made it said that she thinks INFPs are annoyed when they see in other people things that they fear or don’t like in themselves. It’s not just that INFPs are annoyed with people who are inauthentic and hypocritical (though that’s definitely the case). They’re also annoyed when the inauthenticity of others forces them to confront something inside them that doesn’t match-up with the authentic version of themselves that they want to be. (more…)
Wisdom Without Partiality

15 February, 2020

Balanced, impartial, unbiased views are going out of style in our culture today. While we like to think that we act with fairness and have a balanced way of looking at the world, I don’t think most of are as impartial as we’d like to be. We tend to prioritize emotional arguments over facts and logic (or vice versa, depending on our personality). We may favor certain groups of people when making decisions. Or perhaps we think that what’s “fair” should always work out in our favor. We’re partial to certain types of arguments, certain types of people, and to our own self interests. Those are very human reactions. In contrast, James tells us that godly wisdom operates without partiality.

But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceful, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy. (James 3:17, all quotes from WEB translation)

Acting without partiality is a hard thing to do, but it is a godly thing and therefore worth doing. Part of growing to have the “wisdom that is from above” involves setting aside our automatic human reactions to situations and replacing them with how God would react.

Impartial Gift of Wisdom

Before we start looking at how we’re to be impartial, it’s important to note that God doesn’t show partiality regarding whom He blesses with wisdom. James writes, “if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.” If you meet the basic requirements — seek God and ask in faith (James 1:5-6) — then God will give wisdom regardless of your age, background, ethnicity, status, ability, etc. He is not a “respecter of persons” who shows favoritism or twists His rules based on who someone is (Deut. 10:17; 2 Chr. 19:7; Acts 10:34). (more…)