Author: kevingdrendel

I am sixtiesh, an English Literature major in college and an attorney by profession. Faith informs my life, and this blog is about my faith journey.

What is Hidden Will Be Made Known

What will the movie of my life be like? Will I be proud? Or ashamed? Will my good deeds outweigh the bad?

kevingdrendelLeave a comment
A strange suspicious confident hacker standing with a hoodie and leather jacket in front of sepia brown urban concrete wall concept
depositphoto Copyright: ra2studio

For nothing is hidden that will not be made manifest, nor is anything secret that will not be known and come to light. (Luke 8:17)

Shakespeare was right. We strut and fret our hour upon the stage.[1] But who are we performing for? Our friends and family? Neighbors? The public? Do we perform for ourselves alone?

We have but an hour. Rather, it is more like a minute, a second… a millisecond in the scope of time, on this stage of space/time in the very small act we call human history. According to Shakespeare, our lives are “an idiot’s tale, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”.

That may be so if there is no God and no life beyond this brief, strutting hour. It would all be meaningless, an idiot’s tale indeed, if this universe is not the work of a Creator and we are not His image bearers.

Continue reading “What is Hidden Will Be Made Known” →

It is Well with My Soul: The Story

kevingdrendelLeave a comment
Photo by Steve Holland
Photo by Steve Holland

This story has inspired many over the decades. It is one of most read blog posts on this site. Sometimes songs we know have so much more meaning and power when we know the story behind the song. The song, It is Well with My Soul, is known by most people who have attended protestant church. L…

Source: It is Well with My Soul: The Story

Justice and Mercy, and How We Measure Our Own Relationship With God

kevingdrendelLeave a comment

depositphotos Image ID:40565079 Copyright: atholpady

I don’t see anywhere in the teachings of Jesus a statement that we will be judged by the degree to which we have achieved justice for the wrongs that have been done to us. God is just. In fact, he is perfectly just, but He didn’t leave us any instruction to that effect.

We may think of God’s justice in the context of an eye for an eye.[A]  Where there is a wrong, perfect justice requires recompense. We don’t feel this any more keenly than when we have been wronged ourselves by others.

But there is a flip side to God’s justice. The flip side of God’s justice is God’s mercy, and God desires mercy more than God desires justice.[B] God desires to extend relationship to people rather than assign punishment. Our own relationship to God also can be measured by the quality of our relationships with others, to the extent it is in our control.

Continue reading “Justice and Mercy, and How We Measure Our Own Relationship With God” →

Conflating God with People

We can’t judge God by the conduct of the people

kevingdrendelLeave a comment

ed-sheeran-concert

I have an old friend who is “disgusted” that many Christians supported Donald Trump and were a significant factor in Trump winning the election. She, like many women (and men), cannot get past the infamous words that Trump spoke how about a woman reporter. I won’t repeat them here. They are too vulgar for polite company.

My friend has been so turned off of Christians and “the” Church by the fact that many Christians voted for Trump and were a factor in electing him, that she no longer goes to church at all after decades of being a church-goer.

I don’t want to get into politics here. That isn’t the issue I’m focused on.

I have family and friends who say that they can’t believe in God, or can’t believe in the Christian God, because Christians are hypocrites. This is what leads me to write this piece.

Continue reading “Conflating God with People” →

Music that Resonates

kevingdrendelLeave a comment

until-i-die-ill-sing-these-songs-2

The following songs resonate most with the longing in me that CS Lewis aptly described:

“If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or to be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that country and to help others to do the same.” (Mere Christianity)

“Now, if we are made for heaven, the desire for our proper place will be already in us, but not yet attached to the true object, and will even appear as the rival of that object.

….

“Almost our whole education has been directed to silencing this shy, persistent, inner voice; almost all our modern philosophies have been devised to convince us that the good of man is to be found on this earth.” (Weight of Glory)