Life Update

Life is a strange and mysterious creature. There are many highs and lows and everything in between. Many are crippled by the lows. Life can seem as if it just isn't worth living anymore. But I have hope. A hope that exist beyond myself. A hope that rest in the sovereign God of the universe. I have learned that there is joy to be had in life regardless of circumstances. This joy is only available through Jesus who gives freely and to all. You can have joy in life if you only look to Jesus. He is greater than your pain or circumstances. He is still in control. It is Jesus who also allows me find more pleasure in the things that I have been blessed. It is Jesus who allows me to love my wife at a higher level because of love. Food taste better, sleep seems more restful, pain less painful, movies more enjoyable, jokes become even funnier, life becomes worth living. Jesus has allowed me to enter into such an amazing point of my life. My wife will soon deliver our first child, Sawyer Reid Beckworth. My ministry is in a season of bearing much fruit. I have sweet relationships with friends who love me. It is this joy that allows me to face tomorrow. What will I do if all these things are stripped from me? I must say that my hope is in the Lord. He is good. He only does good and I will praise the God who gives and takes away.

Love on the Line

I love the words of Eugene H. Peterson as he comments on Romans in The Message//Remix. We’re told that, “…..God put his love on the line for us by offering his Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to him.” What a beautiful concept. God put his love on the line. I sit in my office and I ponder what it would look like if you and I put our love on the line. Perhaps I am just crazy, but I feel like the whole world would change. It has to change. We no longer live in a world where people flock to churches for identity or truth. We no longer live in a world where students and youth run to church for answers. If something is going to change, we must put our love on the line. Students don’t want pizza parties or games. They want truth. They want answers. They want hope and help. They want to know that someone really does love and care about them. They simply want someone to put their love on the line for them. I encounter so many broken and hurting students who just want to feel love. I believe that God looked down from heaven and saw a broken and hurting world that needed to feel love. A world that needed to see real love in action. Love on the line.

Current Reading: The Message//Remix

Current Listening: Rehab by Lecrae

-Daniel