The Better Response
We get in trouble. We respond by wanting to see Yahweh’s power. We get in trouble. We respond by wanting to know Yahweh’s ways. One of those is much better than the other…
Who Are You?
Your identity can be expressed in two ways: your relationships and your work. My name is not my identity, even if it describes me perfectly. My father and mother, my spouse, my children, my friends; these are part of what makes me uniquely describable. My work is something that only I can leave in the earth as a heritage or […]
Fearless
Just one thing: live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. Then, whether I come and see you or am absent, I will hear about you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind, working side by side for the faith of the gospel, not being frightened in any way by your opponents. […]
Orderly Meetings
But everything must be done decently and in order.(1 Corinthians 14:40 Holman Christian Standard Bible ©®) That sentence has been used by many people in my hearing to try to control the amount of investment that can be made by “folks in the pew” in a meeting. Various invocations of it have produced different rules, like these: • 1 prophetic […]
Working Hard
I have come to believe that the hardest working people in the earth are those who have rights and those who have jealousy. When I live in a place where I must judge every event based on whether I have been defrauded or misjudged or offended, I will never find an end to the work I must perform to achieve […]
A Death Has Taken Place
Now the Messiah has appeared, high priest of the good things that have come. In the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands (that is, not of this creation), He entered the holy of holies once for all, not by the blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood, having obtained eternal redemption. For if the […]
This, Too, Shall Pass
This phrase is a Persian adage that can be good news or bad. If my leg is healing from a compound fracture, it would be good for me to remind myself that the pain and immobility are only temporary. If I am having a wonderful time with a dear friend, it would be sad for me to remind myself that […]
Stupid on Purpose
We all do stupid things by accident. Ideas float in and out of our minds constantly. Our environments attempt to provoke us with events and pictures and words and fears, hoping we will let them master us constantly. When we wake up to that bad influence, though, and find ourselves floating downstream with bad ideas, we can get out of […]
Weakness and Wickedness
Wicker is a style of furniture that requires twisting green stems of plants into woven shapes that, when dry and hardened, are strong. The wick of a candle is a twisted piece of material that burns slowly because it is surrounded by the wax the candle is made of. Wicked would sound just like picked if we were not using […]
Fertilizing in Love
I have both killed and allowed death to take many plants. Some, I killed on purpose, like devil’s walking cane or volunteer wild cherry trees. Others, I gave too much water or not enough. Some, I left out in the cold, others I left out in the heat. Too much fertilizer, no fertilizer, etc… If I take care of a […]