A LIFE LIVING AFTER GOD


I was a high school student when I first met Nicole Unice at the church my family began attending, and I instantly liked her. Whether she was sharing announcements on stage at church, mingling with churchgoers in the concourse, or leading summer student ministry gatherings, it was evident that she was somebody who loved Jesus deeply, had a joyful and genuine spirit, and possessed a real and transformative faith in God. I can confidently say that Nicole is every bit as genuine, joyful, faithful, and wise as she first seemed to me so many years ago.

Getting better at life, stronger in faith, and free from the stuff keeping you stuck released this August, and I had the honor of sitting down with her the day before it launched to ask her all about it. It resonated with me deeply and felt fresh, relevant, helpful, and encouraging. That is a really challenging message in our culture. People in the last ten years of course can segment and categorize their choices in a way that I think is really deceptive.

The first is the struggle that we identify with, that changes in circumstances and seasons. Then there is the capital-S Struggle which is actually the narrative that God has put forth about what it means to be broken in the world and what the Gospel is for.

Korn - Got The Life

You talk about the difference between the struggle and suffering. How would you define or explain the difference between the two? I was choosing to define my own reality. Even though I love the Lord and know Scripture pretty well, I was choosing to define my own reality. I would read those verses about joining in the suffering with Christ and I would be like ew. Who wants to do that? You kind of glaze over that. I am not afraid to ask others around me to help me see blind spots or trouble areas in my life. I have nothing to hide.

What is the good life that God is inviting us to? How do we choose to enter into that invitation to the good life?

  • 5 Ways to Live the God-Centered Life.
  • Accelerants: Twelve Strategies to Sell Faster, Close Deals Faster, and Grow Your Business Faster?
  • Caught in the Act.

The Good Life Inventory is lifted from Scripture. I found it really refreshing when I did that, because it really is the kind of person I want to be. I think a lot of people separate the idea of a healthy, fruitful, whole, joyful person from the Bible , but the Bible is actually designed for you to experience that kind of living.

We are fully aware of who we are, and we experience compassion for people who have hurt me, and we sincerely ask for forgiveness from my friends and family… these things that actually are really freeing is what the Bible says is the good life. A lot of the book talks about the idea that we have to retrace some of the wiry roots of struggles to where they began so that we can experience a rewrite in life. Otherwise, we will just repeat patterns. If you sowed in deception, or sowed in some miserable patterns, or there is generational sin, you will keep repeating that.

So what would it look like tangible or practically to go back to those places and enter into a rewritten, transformed story?

Frequently bought together

What do you do when you go there? What would it look like to try to find a new way of living? I think a lot of it is practicing solitude and silence. You can trust people! God actually heals us. We can go back. We can be in chapter 8 of our life and God can go back to chapter 2 and change your memory.

Serving God

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Living Stream Ministry retains full copyright on all these materials and hopes that our visitors will respect this. I thought, I have a choice to make right now. Post was not sent - check your email addresses! Are there other ways you would encourage people to create space to hear from God, especially in the midst of struggle or suffering? Get fast, free shipping with Amazon Prime.

You talk about learning to hear from God and how we create space for that, and how it often includes sitting in solitude and silence. Can love bloom over The Princess Bride and a game of Scrabble? A Vampire, A Werewolf, and a Hunter go into a bar, but it's no joke. Review Will Blythe Esquire A revelation Pocket Books; Reprint edition March 1, Language: Related Video Shorts 0 Upload your video. Inspiring, liberating, otherworldly, magical, surreal, bizarre, funny, unique Songs to New York.

Being pulled in a million different directions? Overwhelmed with all you need to be? Read this powerful story how Rachael got herself together. How hard could taking of a team of sled dogs in the Alaskan wilderness be? Will Donna survive what nature in all its ferocity has to offer? Try the Kindle edition and experience these great reading features: Share your thoughts with other customers. Write a customer review.

How do I live in a way that is pleasing to God alone?

Read reviews that mention coupland generation douglas collection lives age religion writes meaning thoughts format pages raised feelings sometimes title human secret culture art. There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later. This brief collection of well written episodes, reflections, and images was included on a list of literary works that were said to promote serious thought about religion. Must admit the injunction to remove the dust jacket before reading the book gave me cause for pause.

Is the author a control freak, or does he have a sense of humor? The characters are all coping in their own ways with disappointment in life, love, and mortality. The disillusioned narrator's halting analysis of himself vaguely suggests an unfulfilled human need for relationship. From the fragments, it appears that the narrator wants to believe in God maybe even Jesus and salvation but religion is simply not part of everyday life. He may ultimately find some sense of God by meeting a stranger in the desert as well as in confronting the beauty and harshness of nature Memory and a reawakened imagination seem to help, too.

Although Coupland identifies the disillusionment of the narrator and his friends with one generation Gen-X? To me it feels something like Beat Poetry with a touch of Emerson. That falls far short of Christian hope, but it's sort of a step in the right direction. Douglas Coupland is one of my all time favorite authors. I have all his books and while I was going through the Nerd Cave and decluttering I became a bit nostalgic and wanted to go back and read the books that meant the world to me growing up. I decided to read this book because I have this permanent memory of this book speaking to me during a certain phase in my life.

I have not touched this book in over 10 years easily if not more. After reading this book I don't know that it is always a good idea to read a book again.

10 Daily Practices for a More Godly Life

Being godly means living a life that pleases God—acting justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with him. The key, though, is the walking part. It's only when. Sometimes when we read about the people in the Bible, their lives feel incredibly distant. What could they have to teach us? But that's not the.

I feel like this book was part of a moment in my life that should not have been tampered with. The second reading of this book did not speak to me the way it once did. I am married, have three kids, love my job and life. I don't feel lost in a society where I am trying to figure out who I am and what I want to become. That was an earlier self.

During that time this book connected with me through the stories. I did not connect to it this time because I am in a different place and different time. This does not deter from the greatness of the book. I still read it in one sitting. I cannot wait for his new book and will probably go back and reread his other books just because I love this writing that much. It is perhaps not a book designed for those who are not lost souls.

He has always been rendered as the Salinger of our generation. Everyone has to grow up sometime. I have done that, but the book will always hold that special place in my mind. I just did not need to hear the words again. The common theme running through all the stories is of life without the certainty of the existence of God. In various ways the author grapples with the implications of a world without God through telling stories of the people struggling to find meaning and purpose in various, and sometimes very strange, situations.

This book is a lament for something lost with comfortable modernity, but it poses no answers and there is very little certainty between the covers of this little book.

Living Stream Ministry

I found myself devouring the pithy, but often beautiful prose as I stumbled with the characters through shattered inner landscapes amid malls, airports, cubicles, and family homes. I haven't read something so melancholy and true for a very long time. As you read Coupland's struggle will resonate with you on several levels.

Publisher of Watchman Nee & Witness Lee

You'll see yourself, your friends and loved ones, and our culture at large. Even though this was fiction it was honest in a way that most writing isn't. So, read this and think deeply about our loss. What will become of a world without God? Coupland doesn't know, and doesn't give any indication that he believes in God. Let me close with a quote from the book that sums it up nicely without giving too much away. I need God to help me give, because I no longer seem to be capable of giving; to help me be kind, as I no longer seem capable of kindness; to help me love, as I seem beyond being able to love.

I'll admit I bought this book because of the song by the Ataris--one of my favorites.

How do I live in a way that is pleasing to God alone?

What I got was a jewel of a collection of short stories, not a medium I am often exposed to. What I found were stories about people going through existential crises and though the story felt very Generation X-focused and had lingering notes of the mids, the stories are still apt in today's hyperconnected world. Often times I felt the stories to be a natural continuation of the themes and tones of works such as The Catcher in the Rye or other celebrated stories about self-realization. And for anyone born after the end of the Cold War, this book is worth "The Wrong Sun" alone if you want to understand what it was like to grow up with the specter of nuclear weapons hanging over your head every day.

One person found this helpful. Read the whole damn book in a few days after a rough break up. It's about a few different people all questioning life and having mini existentialist crisis.

Faithfulness in the hidden

Doesn't really touch on anything deep and the multiple story lines have nothing to do with each other, but it was an easy read. After I distinctly remember finishing it and feeling a little bit better actually. Not so much because the reading matched the title though. Kindle Edition Verified Purchase. It seemed once that life was such a personal endeavor with an outcome solely fashioned by what experiences we chose to shape it with. Coupland has written what surely is the story of many lives.