Mark Batterson's Blog, page 17

So Far So God

When Ebenezers was being built, I was invited to speak at a community meeting on Capitol Hill. I was nervous because I knew we needed the community’s backing to get our property rezoned. I was also concerned that people would think of us as a Christian coffeehouse rather than a legit coffeehouse.

After sharing our vision for Ebenezers, I fielded questions. Someone asked me what Ebenezers meant, and I said that it basically meant “so far so good.” But that isn’t what it meant. And I knew it. I su...

The Tribe of the Transplanted

Several years ago I had the privilege of attending the National Prayer Breakfast held annually at the Washington Hilton Hotel. The breakfast is a bipartisan gathering of leaders from all branches of government and both houses of Congress as well as delegations of leaders from foreign countries. The speaker that year was Bill Frist. Prior to his tenure in the U.S. Senate, Dr. Frist performed more than 150 heart transplants as a thoracic surgeon. During his remarks, he talked in reverent tones abo...

Happily Forever After

One decision can change your life in dramatic ways. One wrong decision can ruin a reputation you’ve worked a lifetime to build. One wrong decision can end a marriage or end a career. Like David’s decision to pursue another man’s wife, many of us look back on a wrong decision with deep regret. We beat ourselves up over a lapse in judgment. We ponder our missteps and wonder, What if? We wish we could turn back time and undo what we’ve done. But we can’t. We cannot change the past. But we can learn...

Tomorrow is Today

On Good Friday, 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested for a nonviolent march that violated an injunction against parading without a permit. The next day, eight white clergy published an article criticizing King’s actions as “unwise and untimely.” Dr. King responded with a letter from a Birmingham Jail, which he wrote on pieces of toilet paper and margins of newspapers. That letter is a modern-day epistle. Dr. King said, “You deplore the demonstrations that are presently taking place in B...

Seek the Shadows

Sometimes you have to die to the dream God has given you so that God can resurrect the dream in its glorified form. And by glorified form, I simply mean pursuing the dream for God’s glory. When you stop living for selfish purposes, the pressure comes off. And that’s when your destiny comes into focus.

We try so hard to manufacture opportunities, but anything that is manufactured by human effort doesn’t come with God’s warranty. We try so hard to impress people, but our attempts to impress are ut...

Crazy Mirrors

Mirrors come in all sizes and shapes. Sometimes its a prophet who helps us see the blind spots in our lives. Sometimes its an epiphany that pulls back the veil and reveals the glory of God in new ways. But the greatest mirror, the mirror that gives us the truest reflection of ourselves, is Scripture.

The best form of self-examination is simply reading Scripture. Or maybe I should say, meditating on Scripture. After all, the Bible wasnt meant to be read. It was meant to be meditated upon. And...

The Valley of Heartbreak

The post The Valley of Heartbreak appeared first on Mark Batterson.

God’s Needlepoint

Its not our experiences that make us or break us. Its our interpretation of and explanation for those experiences that ultimately determines who we become. Your explanations are more important than your experiences.

There are lots of different explanations for the same experience. The tough part is choosing the right one. And thats where we need the holy hindsight to see the purposes of God in our pasts.

One of my heroes is Corrie ten Boom. During the Nazi occupation of Holland in World War...

The Valley of Dry Bones

The post The Valley of Dry Bones appeared first on Mark Batterson.

Dual Destiny

As you may recall from a high school biology class, you have forty-six chromosomes. Twenty-three are from your father, and twenty-three are from your mother. And its that unique combination of chromosomes that determines everything from the color of your eyes to the number of hairs on your head. Your identity is part heredity. And so it is with the image of God. The image of God is both your heredity and your destiny.

The mathematical probability that you would get the exact twenty-three...