Paul Prins

Technology, Nonprofits, and the Arts from a Bi-Vocational Pastor

hope

My Heart is Weak

By Leave a Comment

My heart is weak. Yesterday a man overcome by evil killed scores with a truck in Nice, France. I’ve grown tired of being surprised, shocked, or acting as though the attack was unexpected. This is a sad reality of our world today. That a 24-hour news cycle hunts for tragedies affecting a group of people to grab daily attention, and that they have no trouble finding them.

bastille-day-eiffel-towerAs I stood watching the fireworks cascade off the Eiffel Tower last night for Bastille Day I was struck in a new way that I really live here. That the millions of people in Paris are closer to me now than the family I grew up with. I felt pride for the French, and love that I am here with them. I left the park with over a hundred thousand others making our way to the metro to head home. Once home we saw what happened in Nice and waited for more news to trickle in before heading to bed. [Read more…] about My Heart is Weak

In Solidarity with Us

By Leave a Comment

solidarity-with-us

It’s almost incomprehensible that the cosmic God of all things could allow evil to be inflicted upon others. As bombs explode, buildings crumble, seas rush in, or bullets tear through streets we ask questions of a God who seems disinterested and distant. We’ve been told that we’re exceptional in Gods eyes and have taken this to mean that evil will pass us over, but we know it does not.

Darkness marches forward violently confronting light everywhere. [Read more…] about In Solidarity with Us

The Life of my Discontent

By Leave a Comment

Life of my Discontent

Hope is contingent on discontentment. Though every aspect of life attempts to content me. Telling me that if I just do X, achieve Y or buy Z then some/all of that discontent will be taken away. But what if we were called to live into our discontentment so that we might long for an audacious hope beyond reason, means, or reality.

To look back upon the gospels and realize that Jesus had the ability and means to render any outcome possible in any situation yet almost never did so. He preferred to allow people a glimpse of heaven breaking in and gave them a choice. To ruin your life with the hope that heaven will break into our midst but once more, or to seek contentment in the XYZ’s of life. To be ruined is irreversible, and places hope along side discontentment in the core of my spirit.

Have you been ruined for the next glimpse of heaven and the kingdom being made real before your eyes?

Photo Credit: steveberardi

Hope Abounds for those Bound in Fear

By Leave a Comment

Living Beneath the Waves

A hope abounds for those bound in fear, born from a love that chooses to dwell in the midst of fear and uncertainty. It is unknown to those who insist in the face of the mountain of life that they are capable and able to climb. It is unknown to those who suppress their knowledge of themselves. It is unknown to those who seek escape from the feeling that something is not right with the world, with their world.

There is a hope that exists for those who choose to rest in the chaos of their own soul. Discovering the peace that exists right beneath the waves, we find ourselves in the company of Jesus who likewise chose to be crushed and broken. To know him, and those like him who have willfully accepted the broken heart of God and find themselves with a heart breaking for more than before.

Our world tells us that a life without brokenness or pain is the goal. My experience with God tells me that the goal is to be true to every broken piece of glass that has pierced my being, allowing some to be tenderly removed while others stay painfully present. Those points of pain that remain become cherished intimate points where our heart knows God’s.

The world may never understand, and the beautiful thing is your soul and heart won’t care. What once felt like living beneath the waves is inexplicably transformed into resting tranquilly upon a mountainside. The secret is to dive in, and give yourself over to what God is doing in you.

Photo Credit: SergioTudela

Of the Monster Within Me

By 1 Comment

A-Monster-Lives-In-All-Of-Us

One of the hardest truths to accept is that a monster exists within me. It’s difficult because this monster hibernates most of my life. Nearly every step I take is done in my right mind during sane moments. There are moments when the monster feels as though it doesn’t even exist. As my heart is wrenched with compassion or overflowing with love it becomes incomprehensible this beast is there, slumbering.

Yet there – dormant and waiting – is darkness and violence with me, within all of us. Its my ancestral baggage hidden and pressed down into the deepest and most obtuse corners of my being. The further down it is pressed the more refined I see myself, and the more I believe I have overcome the monster within me. At any moment the tables could turn, and a situation I find myself thrust into, awakens this monster I believed never existed.

When I see this monster let loose in others upon the world I must remind myself to be careful about that which slumbers within me, and all of us. Taking a moment to know that there is good in the face of evil and that there is space to forgive those overtaken by that which slumbers. I must remember that if my monster ever awakens there are people who excel at coaxing monsters back into hibernation, and in seeking help there is no shame.

The only shame is to lose ones self to hate, and that shame all too often turns to tragedy.

Photo Credit: FailedImitator