When my oldest nephew was born, Bill and I rushed over to the hospital to meet the tiny little addition to the family and to visit my brother and Jen, who were both obviously exhausted. As I held my sleeping nephew, my brother said to me that obviously I inherited all the faith in the … [Read more…]
If you want to encounter God, the essence of what is Holy, you don’t have to go searching in the depths of spiritual places. You only have to look at other people. We are constantly told in the scriptures that God is in the people that we meet, the people that we help, and the … [Read more…]
This week we look at the idea of devotional time. For many people devotional time congers up very specific practices like daily prayer time or those little books I have out for people at the holiday times. But devotional time is not that specific. It is anything that we do that shows our commitment to … [Read more…]
In graduate school, many years ago now, I was home visiting my parents. I loved running out by my parent’s house. It is so rural out there and just so beautiful and peaceful. Running was where I could lose the world around me, listen to some music, and talk to God. Having not grown up … [Read more…]
Back when I was in middle school, it was still mandatory that all students take a technology education class and in the seventh grade it was my responsibility to build two projects. The first was a wooden balloon powered car and the second was a bottle rocket. I hated tech ed. I was not good … [Read more…]
One of the hardest things about maintaining faith in God is the seemingly unanswered prayers. We all have what seems like unanswered prayers. And it only gets harder as those unanswered prayers seem to come when we are praying for dire things. When I was young, I was bullied quite a bit in school. I … [Read more…]
Trusting in a God that we cannot see is possibly the most difficult in times of change, when it becomes easier to rely on the old familiar idols to bring us comfort. Our idols may not be golden calves or bulls, but we do have our idols. They just come with different faces. Sometimes it … [Read more…]
Last week, we discussed remaining hopeful and using our life experiences for the work of God no matter how challenging they may be. However, I understand that is easier said than done. Paul and Silas make it look so easy to just pray and sing and remain hopeful amid beatings, slander, imprisonment, and possible death. … [Read more…]
I had a close friend in seminary that was going through some challenging times in her life shortly before entering seminary. In one year, she and her husband lost everything they had in a fire, her dad died, and she lost her job. Anybody experiencing what she did would have been more than a little … [Read more…]
When I was a child, my brothers used to get together with some of our cousins to go to one of the family fields to play baseball, or to go camping, or to go help my father and uncles in the wood lot, or to go fishing. I remember that I always wanted to go … [Read more…]
