Some Blogs I think you'll Enjoy

1 Adrian Warnock produced a list of the world’s top 100 Christian bloggers, ranked by Twitter followers.

I was pleased to be in at #59, and it’s a measure of my lack of sanctification, that on the whole, I would rather be on Adrian’s list than Archdruid Eileen’s parallel  list of The Most Humble Christian Bloggers, who I gather are those who missed Adrian’s initial list—and didn’t care!

2 Blogging changes your life—even if you are successful even in a v. very small way. It has had an immense, and hugely positive influence on my own life, and I’ve only blogged for 29 months.

The most-read Christian blogger in the world, Tim Challies, reflects on how 10 years of blogging has changed his life.

It was ten years ago that this all began. I certainly never could have guessed that it would be such a formative influence in my own life, the place where I would work through so many issues, where I would rediscover Reformed theology, and where I would find that I just plain love to write. It would open up opportunities to attend conferences and to write books and even to discover that I am capable of public speaking. Best of all, it would introduce me to Grace Fellowship Church where I would first meet the pastors, then become a member, then, several years later, be called to the ministry.

Registering a domain name, such a simple and insignificant thing, was one of those little acts that set my life on an entirely unexpected trajectory. I wouldn’t know how to think about this, how to interpret it, if I didn’t believe in the quiet hand of Providence that continually directs events, that knows the end (and the middle) long before the beginning. I look back on these ten years with quiet wonder and profound gratitude. 

3 Nicole Cottrell, Modern Reject on overcoming promiscuity

“I know now how much sex outside of marriage–before marriage–can affect sex within marriage. We are not meant to physically share ourselves with anyone but our spouse because in doing so we create emotional bonds that are not so easily broken.

But here is what else I know–God forgives. The moment I asked for His forgiveness I was washed white as snow. I was a virgin in His eyes. No shame. No guilt. No condemnation. I was free to stop sinning. I was empowered to stop sinning.”

4 Mouse Avatars

Animal research generally makes me hysterical, but this is cancer research is very interesting. Your tumour is implanted in several mouse avatars, who are subjected to different drug regimens. The drug cocktail which is most effective in shrinking the tumours of the mice is then chosen—which often isn’t the one the physician may have chosen.

5 Just discovered Shauna Niequist who has taken the brave decision to be a lover, not a fighter on the internet.

In the last few years, I’ve been hurt by careless and unkind words about me & my books online. But way before all that, I was a pastor’s kid, and I heard people say terrible things about my parents and their friends, people who had given everything they had to do what they believed God was calling them to do. Sometimes reporters were unkind. Sometimes authors and professors were unkind. But the pastors were the worst.

These days I will physically get up from a table of pastors or bloggers or anyone at all when the conversation turns to other pastors or people in public life. I had more than enough of that conversation before I could even drive. 

It’s worth asking about who you’re taking down, in the hopes that your snark and wit will go viral. I think it's worth asking about what happens over time to your insides when you decide to be a hater, when you decide to be the police of the internet, crusading for something or other.

There are enough haters. There always will be.

And right at the same time, there will always be enough beauty, enough hope, enough good, if we decide to be people who are always on the lookout for it. I want to use my voice to bring light and hope and beauty. I want to search for what’s good, and shout about that.

When I get all wound up--when someone trashes someone I love and I want to get into the fight, when I disagree so vehemently that I want to use all caps to illustrate my point, when someone's political views make me insane, I remember my rule, that I've committed to love, to being a voice for love and goodness.

It's especially hard work during election season, but if we're going to make it through the fall with relationships intact, maybe we should all think about being lovers instead of fighters. 

I'm not telling you what to do, but this is what I've decided: when it comes to the internet, I’m a lover, not a fighter.