Jesse Steele

Nothing lasting comes from borrowed steam. Just how no one should steal someone’s thunder, no one should loan steam. It’s a hard pill to swallow, even harder to prescribe.

You need problems. You need to be abandoned to fend for yourself. You need to grow stronger from the struggle. You need the credit, kudos, and valor that come with winning your own victory. You need to owe nothing to anyone after your own hard-fought revolution. You know how hard that is to hear.

You need to tell that hard message to others. Anything else cripples people into dependence on you.  · · · →

God is the God of what? Every moment, ask yourself how God’s character answers the questions in front of you. Who God is has more relevance to your situation, even now, than anything else anywhere.

Today, your life may know Him as the God Who Heals or the God Who Protects. You may be getting to know Him as the God Who Rescues or the God Who Raises Up and Tears Down or the God Who Gives and Takes or Who Teaches or Who Encourages.

Whatever becomes of your life, everyday, look to the different aspects of Who God is.  · · · →

In times of bullying and conflict, people tend to go crazy. The most avid defenders of rights and liberties melt in the face of fear. “We must join our oppressor,” they say, then add, “He’s too big to stop and we don’t want to lose anything more, but don’t call him an oppressor.”

This is the evangel of cowards. They don’t want to lose their comfortable lives. They fear what they might lose without seeing that they will lose it anyway. And, they never consider that siding with the invading oppressor is treason. They fear what matters least of all.  · · · →

Freedom of navigation exercises are ingenious. Where there are contested waters, but recognized internationally as international, a country may sail its warships through just to keep the habit of sailing in free waters whenever, wherever we want.

Exercising a right is one way of retaining it. If someone opposes, exercise the right more loudly and more often. Habit and familiarity enforce laws and rights without having to say why. Where there’s conflict brewing, sometimes the best way to preserve the path to peace is to keep the path beaten down by walking down it as often as we possibly can.  · · · →