Picturepocket's Blog

Category: life

  • 2 Corinthians 5: Happy Campers

    In Chapter 5, Paul, a tentmaker by trade, starts referring to his body as a tent, a fragile structure, where his soul resides until it can go to its eternal dwelling in the heavens. He says that we groan, longing to shed the suffering in our current situation for a more complete, perfect one that…

  • 2 Corinthians 3: Proof of Life

    In the third chapter of Second Corinthians, Paul asks what letters of recommendation he needs to prove himself. His recommendation is written by their relationship, inscribed on his heart, “not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God.”  Before Paul’s conversion, he was carrying papers that condemned the early believers to jail or…

  • The Check In 

    It’s still January of 2026. At the beginning of 2020, I wrote about all my hopes and dreams for the decade. Now it’s all whipping by like a car with no steering wheel and a brick on the gas.  In a few hours, I will pack up the kids and drive them two and a…

  • 1 Corinthians 15: Seeds of Life

    In this chapter, Paul first affirms the bodily resurrection of Christ. He lists all the witnesses in order beginning with Cephas (Peter), then the disciples, the larger group of 500 followers, James, the apostles and then himself, counting his vision of Christ. He acknowledges himself the least of the fellowship because of his participation in…

  • Home

    I had a reoccurring dream last night. One of the classics. It’s where I am running in slow motion. It’s not a nightmare, and I am not struggling get away from something, but trying to get back to something. The locations I am slo-mo traveling through are old neighborhoods of places I used to live…

  • Jump to Recipe

    While making telephone calls at work, sometimes I gently scroll the Internet, looking at recipes to make for our evening meal. Here are three features in a recipe that catch my attention. Number one. It has to have a great photo. Number two. The ingredients have to be affordable and accessible. I order from Walmart…

  • Dreams & Goals

    Christmas eve this year, I sat on the bed wrapping gifts and chain-binging Christmas movies. One was a Hallmark story where a big city gal goes to back to her Southern hometown for the holidays. While the characters were awkwardly churning through lines that someone spent five seconds writing, the romantic lead said he was…

  • I Corinthians 6: Take Care

    In this chapter, Paul calls out the Corinthians’ litigious ways and to kick their unhealthy habits. Apparently, they were often running to the secular courts to sort out their conflicts rather than dealing with in the community of faith. He is telling them they’re going about it wrong, because the saints will judge the angels.…

  • Romans 11: Grafted 

    Paul asks and answers his own question, is God rejecting his chosen people? He reminds the reader that he too an Israelite, descended from Abraham and Benjamin, just like Jesus, with a personal stake in this debate. God is not rejecting his people, even though as a group they have acted against his ways many…

  • Romans 5: The Undeserving 

    In this chapter, Paul shows the way faith runs opposite of our natural instinct. He encourages us to rejoice in our hardships and suffering we face because the difficulties produce endurance, which produces character, which produces hope. That hope doesn’t produce shame, but welcomes the love from the Holy Spirit. So, instead of running away…