Imitators of Those

“And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.”

Hebrews 6:11-12

Author: Dónal

  • The World As I’ve Seen It

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    Dónal
    in

    Dealing With Doubt – Part 3 I’ve seen too many facesAll shining like the sunI’ve seen too many skies on fireLike the face of the Holy One I’ve seen too many eyes wide openThat once were so blindAll burning with the beauty of the same loveThe same love that opened mine. This is the final…

  • The World as Best it Could Be

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    Dónal
    in

    Dealing With Doubt – Part 2 When John Bunyan, writer of The Pilgrim’s Progress was facing an intense mental struggle, a verse came to his mind that comforted him immensely. For over a year he tried to find this obscure little verse, until at last he realised that it was not in fact from the…

  • The World as it Ought to Be

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    Dónal
    in

    Dealing With Doubt – Part 1 The three loads of ammunition that I will lay out in these next posts touch on three different aspects of doubt, for it is a multifaceted beast. We will look at “The World as it Ought to Be”, “The World as Best it Could Be“, and “The World as…

  • The Darkness of Doubt

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    Dónal
    in ,

    Darkness. Utter darkness. The anguish of a completely unsettled spirit compunded by the weighty shame of unwillingly facing doubt. I hadn’t chosen this. I’ve had other friends who walked into doubt over the faith because of deep-rooted sin in their lives that they just didn’t want to let go of. This wasn’t that. This had…

  • A Better Inheritance than Stability

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    Dónal
    in ,

    As I write, the warm glow of the fire fills the room. Through a crack between the curtains I can see the dark outside. As is to be heard on the lips of many an Irishman at this time of year (amidst other colloquialisms regarding the general discontentment with whatever weather patterns exist on a…

  • Visa Delays and Kingdom Readiness

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    Dónal
    in ,

    It was surprisingly mild for a September night at 2am as I walked down the country roads in the eerie, yet serene, silence of the “wee hours”. Darkness, our old friend, does have a sound of silence. It has a way of simultaneously stilling us with its abrupt ending to our vision, focusing our attention…

  • The Danger of Ordinariness

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    Dónal
    in ,

    “Remember, he is not, like you, a pure spirit. Never having been a human (Oh that abominable advantage of the Enemy’s!) you don’t realise how enslaved they are to the pressure of the ordinary. I once had a patient, a sound atheist, who used to read in the British Museum. One day, as he sat…

  • A Call for a Holy Imagination

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    Dónal
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    Imagination. For some, this can be a touchy word in Christian circles. Not all appreciate the tales of Lewis and Tolkien that bring Christian truth to bear on our lives through use of imaginary stories. Others are wary of an imagination that runs wild in the things of Scripture, putting forward more conjecture than fact.…

  • The Sacrifice of Sending

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    Dónal
    in

    Sacrifice is a foolish thing. To the uninitiated it appears to be a frivolous expenditure of the best, with nothing to show for it. From humble shopping to high-end business transactions, a deal may be good or bad depending on the return on investment. But even the most clueless investor would laugh at the idea…

  • The Wisdom of God in Movement

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    Dónal
    in ,

    Recently I did three posts on responses that people have given to our leaving for the foreign mission field. Namely regarding: risk, sacrifice, and prayer. Having mulled over things, I’ve decided to add one final response. And while others have expressed the following sentiments, it is something that has elicited the strongest pushback from another…

  • Strengthened in the Lord

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    Dónal
    in

    Destroyed plans are deadly. Confusion comes. Bitterness. Maybe even anger. When the idea of what we had hoped in doesn’t materialise it can put a pressure on our soul, which, when squeezed, can spew out all manner of responses. Dashed hopes administer a crushing blow to our confidence in the way forward. They can stop…

  • A Striking Example of Patience

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    Dónal
    in

    “For who ever dwelt even for a short time among you, and did not find your faith to be as fruitful of virtue as it was firmly established? Who did not admire the sobriety and moderation of your godliness in Christ? Who did not proclaim the magnificence of your habitual hospitality? And who did not rejoice over your perfect and well-grounded knowledge?…