Have you ever had to write a bio for yourself? How do you give someone a sense of who you are without opening yourself up to being radically misjudged, all because the joke you agonized over putting in sentence #3 doesn’t actually land? I think writing a bio is the worst. Forget bios—what about social media? Could someone scroll through your Instagram or Facebook and really get an accurate sense of who you are?

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Fasting is a common theme in the Bible when it comes to prayer. Traditionally, fasting is to go without food, for a period of time, to show sacrifice and to rely only on God for sustenance. In the modern world I have seen people fast specific things, such as soda, coffee, social media, and tv shows–things they feel hold precedence in their lives. However, fasting was intended for so much more than that.

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There’s a sign painted under the overpass I drive under on my way home. It’s positioned at a bend in the road, so I drive straight towards it. It’s impossible to miss. There is no context or attribution, no artwork, pretty colors or interesting font. But this simple sentence challenges me every time I drive past.

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Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith (1 Peter 5:8-9a, NIV). The apostle Paul warns of Satan’s attack (Ephesian 6:13-18) and he lists the defensive armor of God that we should be using…

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The past few months I’ve been making a new effort to take my speech seriously. My efforts originally came from making sure I was only contributing Christ-honoring speech if a conversation I was part of turned to gossip, judgment, unkindness, etc. But after thinking about it, it only became more relevant as I thought of how we speak to one another day to day amid hostility that has seemed to increase over time.

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Anointing is a biblical practice of smearing or pouring oil on someone or something to symbolize God’s choice, presence, or favor. Thinking about how this applies to us today, I wondered who we would consider “anointed’ in our world; who represents God’s choice in our lives? Hmmm.

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