The Eowiggle

1. Advent The Advent season is now in full swing. I don't know about you, but sometimes I get this panicky feeling when I realize that Christmas is just around the corner. There is so much to do: shopping for gifts, innumerable Christmas parties to attend at school, sport clubs, church, getting organized for out-of-town guests, etc. This hustle and bustle seems to fly in the face of what the Advent season is all about: waiting. It used to be a season set apart for expectant waiting on the coming of Jesus at Christmas. 2. "Wait a minute!" But waiting is not restricted to Advent and the Christmas season. Waiting is a universal phenomenon. Ethan, my then six year old, was standing at my side while I was typing at the computer. He questioned me again about something he wanted. Honestly, I cannot even remember what it was about. "Wait a minute," was my answer to him. Upon hearing this he retorted: "Does 'wait a minute' always mean never, M...

I will never forget our first Saint Nicholas day here in Berlin. We invited our neighbors over for a nice Saint Nick's coffee time. They came dressed up in as Saint Nicholas and Knecht Rupert, his servant. Saint Nick was wearing the typical Father Christmas garb, and carried a sack of gifts. But Rupert was actually scary. He came dressed in brown, wearing an ugly mask and carrying a sack of coal and a whip. They both asked the kids whether they had been good or bad...Our kids were terrified and didn't know what to say! Before Saint Nick would give them anything, they had to answer that they had been good. "According to tradition, Knecht Ruprecht asks children whether they can pray. If they can, they receive apples, nuts, and gingerbread . If they cannot, he beats the children with his bag of ashes.   In other (presumably more modern) versions of the story, Knecht Ruprecht gives naughty children useless, ugly gifts such as lumps of coal, sticks, and stones, while we...

  Lust... Though men are not animals at the mercy of their sexual desires, it still remains a battle for them to keep their gaze and mind pure. But what about women? Are they off the hook? Turning the tables in a one-to-one comparison doesn't do anyone any favors because men and women struggle in different ways. Albeit, there are women who struggle with lust over mens' bodies, or even women's bodies in a same sex attraction, but I would venture to say the majority of us women, especially married women, don't think we struggle with sexual lust, endowing us with a perceived moral high ground over men. Our thinking goes like this: "How could men struggle with lusting after other women? I don't lust after the bodies of other men!" 1. The woman's struggle with lust When a beautiful woman walks in the room or is flashed on a screen or billboard, all eyes are transfixed. This includes the gaze of women. Whereas the sinful   lustful inner dialogue...

Shock After a few months on "our" mission field, a post-communist, dead, atheistic region, my family and I were reeling from the shock. No, not culture-shock, though there was plenty of that. It was the shock of coming face to face with demonic forces beyond our comprehension. Numerous strange events had transpired: liters of urine poured into our stroller, blood splattered on our apartment door, a small hole had been drilled into our front door indicating a planned break-in (the hole is used to insert a small probe camera), much sickness, poor sleep for us, and even sensing an evil presence in our bedroom. At first we thought we must be imagining things, but the horrid climax was the nightmares that tormented our two-year old son. For many months he’d wake up screaming bloody murder and we could not settle him back down easily. At two and a half, he was finally able to verbalize what he’d been dreaming about for the past few months. One of his most vivid dreams was a...

Why is it that God does not instantaneously make us holy at the moment of our conversion? Why do we find ourselves repeatedly battling the same sins, often defeated, and seemingly making little progress? These are some of the tough questions that Barbara tackles in her book. She approaches the topic of indwelling sin, sanctification and grace through the lens of John Newton's writings. She clearly has a deep personal understanding of grace, anchored in solid biblical exegesis, the Reformed confessions, as well as her own experience, one shared by John Newton. She explains the different stages of Christian growth, as observed   by Newton. The new believer begins the Christian walk with great excitement and believing in the possibility of overcoming all sin. However, once the realization sets in that certain sins are not going away quickly, in spite of real effort, a crisis of faith often ensues. If God is sovereign, why would he let me struggle and fail so much? The ma...