TwelveTwelve: The Leader Blog of North Wake Church

Do you remember getting a driver’s license and how nervous you were during the driving test? If you were like me, the learning had just begun. The rules of the road and the car’s behavior were all theoretical items on a written test until I had experience driving. Some of those safety fundamentals didn’t sink in until I hydroplaned on an Interstate highway in a rainstorm. Everything I had learned about choosing a reliable car, keeping the interior cool, and what colors had the best resale value were useless information compared to the safety of my daughter and

Read: Colossians 1:24-2:5 I love a good argument. Not so much a confrontational argument, but a well laid out and developed argument of reason that shows why a person believes, thinks, or acts in a particular way even if that way is contrary to my own beliefs. Pauline letters were always hard for me until I began to understand that Paul is building arguments. They are arguments with the longest sentences I have ever seen but arguments nonetheless!  For example, if we picked up with just these few verses from our passage this week where Paul talks about what

Read: Colossians 1:15-23 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. 17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. 19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

Read Colossians 1:9-14 In the movie Dan in Real Life (a personal favorite), the main character Dan is a columnist who writes about childrearing and other family-related musings. He is thunderstruck when his 15-year-old daughter “falls in love” with a boy she’s only known for three days. The boy shows up at their family vacation home and Dan finds the two teens snogging by the beach, so naturally, he sends the boy home. Dan tells the boy there’s no possible way the teens feel love for one another when they’ve only known each other for three days.  The boy’s

Read:  Colossians 1:1-8 In the summer of 1996 I went on my first international mission trip to a small town in the heart of Poland. I went with about 60 of my closest friends and our mission was to help a small Baptist church reach out to their community by helping them run their vacation Bible school in the mornings and then performing concerts in public squares and auditoriums during the afternoons.  I had never met or spoken to any of the people of Tarnow Baptist Church, but by the end of that week, I had formed lifelong friendships.

In the 1964 book Notes on the Synthesis of Form, architect Christopher Alexander describes how good designs are made of self-contained systems; you don't want interdependence for everything in a building. For example, the structure of the kitchen shouldn't determine the layout of the bathroom above it. Instead, the kitchen and the bathroom should be independent. The shape of the front door is unrelated to the layout of the living room: they are independent of one another.  This book that encourages independent design elements has been influential on generations of designers and engineers.  As individual humans and Christians, we love our independence as well. The vocational work you do doesn't directly affect me. We can spend

Read: Ruth 4 Today was a hard day. It was a day full of emotions: grief mixed with joy, anxiety mixed with anticipation, and others I don’t even know how to label. Yet, in the face of everything, all I can do is try my best to trust and obey my Heavenly Father. I can obey what the Lord has called me to and trust that He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He will deliver me through. As I sit here writing this, I am reminded how obedience and trust aren’t achieved or obtained quickly. It is a

Ruth 3:1-6 One day Ruth’s mother-in-law Naomi said to her, ‘My daughter, I must find a home for you, where you will be well provided for. Now Boaz, with whose women you have worked, is a relative of ours. Tonight he will be winnowing barley on the threshing floor. Wash, put on perfume, and get dressed in your best clothes. Then go down to the threshing floor, but don’t let him know you are there until he has finished eating and drinking. When he lies down, note the place where he is lying. Then go and uncover his feet

Read Ruth 2 Ruth’s story is so charmingly simple and beautiful — a tale of kindness and connection, family and faithfulness. The thing that stands out to me the most, however, is the blessing that comes from living a simple life of faithfulness and seeing how God often shows up in it. Ruth is out in the fields working alongside the men. She’s in a foreign land. She’s a young widow trying to work to take care of her mother-in-law who is also a widow.  And as you enter into her world, not having read the book of Ruth before,