Have you ever held so tightly to a belief that you refused to hear any other idea on the subject? I’ve personally dug my heels in a few times–like the years around age twenty when I thought I knew better than God on most things. I’d been taught the truth, but I no longer listened.ContinueContinue reading “Inhabit: God Dwells Among His People”
Author Archives: Shelley Linn Johnson
Inhabit: God Dwells With His People
We’ve been tracing some biblical history on this journey to see what it looks like to dwell, and a key component is the Fall. At one point, we imagined how perfect life was before the Fall–for Adam and Eve to live in a creation with no death or pain or sorrow–in the presence of theirContinueContinue reading “Inhabit: God Dwells With His People”
Inhabit: A Place to Dwell
I’m not sure what I felt, exactly, as I watched the scene through our bus window–a heap of concrete where a house used to be. A home bulldozed by soldiers acting on behalf of their government, ”officially” because the family failed to wait for approval before adding a room. But really because of their ethnicity.ContinueContinue reading “Inhabit: A Place to Dwell”
Inhabit: God Dwells in the Garden
Every once in a while you finish a book and somehow know it’s changed your life. Epic of Eden is that book for me. Five good friends took a chance one summer and read it with me. An Old Testament textbook used in seminaries, this tome intimidated us, but courageously, we did our best toContinueContinue reading “Inhabit: God Dwells in the Garden”
Inhabit: God Dwells in Light
Have you ever stopped to wonder why sunbeams shining through a cloud make us think of heaven? Photo by Timo Volz on Unsplash Every. Single. Time. I see the sun’s rays radiating through the clouds, and I imagine heaven breaking in. And, if I let my thoughts move further down that rabbit trail, my mind’sContinueContinue reading “Inhabit: God Dwells in Light”
Inhabit: God’s Dwelling Place
It turns out my word of the year, dwell, has a few meanings, so for this series we’ll focus on one of them: inhabit. The Hebrew word most used to mean inhabit is yashab, defined as to sit, remain, or dwell–as in to have one’s abode. Translated as dwell over 400 times in Scripture, yashabContinueContinue reading “Inhabit: God’s Dwelling Place”
This Year I’m Gonna Dwell
Choosing a Word of the Year might be a bit in vogue among Christians. There are, after all, websites created to help you find your word, Instagram posts that encourage your choices, and bloggers (like me) who mention it frequently. It’s true–sometimes we choose a word to keep us free of FOMO–that fear of missingContinueContinue reading “This Year I’m Gonna Dwell”
Behold: New
Scrolling through Instagram today turned out to be good for my mind, my heart–my soul. Kinda crazy, considering I rarely scroll for very long, but I did today because a friend’s post grabbed me. She did this clever year-in-review that captured their miraculous journey from positive pregnancy test to birth through the merriest of holidaysContinueContinue reading “Behold: New”
Behold: Joy
Today is a day for rejoicing! After all the festivities and frolicking and fellowship with family and friends, it is easy for us to crash into despondency and even disappointment the day after Christmas. So, instead, let us choose to set our minds on Jesus today–to look on Him with grateful hearts for all HeContinueContinue reading “Behold: Joy”
Behold: Messiah
After losses and what felt like lots of waiting, we finally held our newborn son. My heart loved him the minute we conceived him, but gazing at him somehow deepened that love. When my eyes connected with his, something changed within me–as if the bonds that held us together became more spiritual than physical. IContinueContinue reading “Behold: Messiah”