Looking back on 2019, we launched this blog together after posting on our own blogs for a while. It’s been fun for us. We hope that what we’ve written has been a little helpful for you too.
The most-read posts of 2019 are quite different from each other. Let’s take a look:
Christel’s Top Post of 2019:
John Newton, Marie Kondo and Reflections on the 10-Year Challenge
Christel summed up the conflicts of Instragram-produced comparisons when she said:
I see this John Newton quote cycle through social media every so often. Each time I see it, my scrolling finger is forced to stop because Newton’s words resonate so deeply. They express a healthy understanding of how both sin and grace inform Christian identity.
I am not what I ought to be,
I am not what I want to be,
I am not what I hope to be in another world;
but still I am not what I once used to be,
and by the grace of God I am what I am.
For those of us who feel our “ten-year challenge” photos aren’t up to Instagram standards, all is not lost. If we have grown in godly character, the deeper lines on our face are not something to mourn. We are a decade closer to who we ought to be and want to be. By God’s grace I am what I am and His grace is enough (1 Cor. 15:10, Rom. 8:1).
Clint’s top post of 2019 was a little different:
The Gilded Glory of Canada as a “Moral Leader”
Here is an excerpt:
The result of this immoral leadership is that Canada has the ignominy of standing in defiance of the 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights of a Child (UNCRC). According to the website, WeNeedALaw.ca, the UNCRC preamble states, “Bearing in mind that, as indicated in the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, “the child, by reason of his physical and mental immaturity, needs special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection, before as well as after birth”.
With no abortion law, Canada refuses to protect the most vulnerable people in Canada – the pre-born.
Is it cowardice or just some combination of ideology and pragmatism?
There are many reasons why Canada’s glory is merely gilded. The pastor in me thinks that the absence of any abortion law is a Canadian way of psychologizing an atonement for our sins.
By not even talking about the slaughter of the innocents, Canada can be at peace. To speak about the sins is to deny the psychological atonement that is held onto so desperately. Canada, therefore, is reconciled with itself, blotting out of its collective mind any of its sins. But it cannot remain good.
Any such leadership is propaganda at best and tyranny at worst.
…[I] wish to thank God for his grace to Canada and his mercy. It is evident how God has blessed Canadians with people of warmth and welcome and lands of expansive beauty. How long will God withhold the application of his just verdict against our sins?
The only moral hope for Canada is in the blood of the Lamb slain for sinners like us. In His goodness alone can we be truly good.
You can read the whole thing here.
Thank you to all of our readers, those who pray for us, and those who have shared our content through social media for the benefit of others.
May God bless you all in 2020!
Faithfully,
Christel and Clint
