Long before the “miracle on ice” in which the 1980 United States hockey team beat the powerful Soviet Olympic machine, there was David and Goliath. The Bible gets a lot of its reputation from the stories of little people who won against big odds. But what if we are one of the countless underdogs who […]
Long before Jesus entered our world in the body of a Jewish infant, he left his fingerprints and signature all over monarch butterflies, horses, oak trees and salamanders. Ages before Jesus turned water into wine and spoke peace to the churning waters of Galilee, he painted color, life, and ecological balance into a stunning interdependence […]
While visiting some of our co-workers outside of the US, I had an experience this week that I assumed was similar to what I’ve had traveling in the States. Woke up in the middle of the night to hear pounding on hotel room doors. Heard voices moving quickly up and down the hall. But couldn’t […]
Life can seem like a maze. Within its walls we have limited vision, and choices that sometimes seem to go nowhere. In narrow passages that make us long for wide open places, we often have more than we need and less than we desire. Sometimes our choices take us in a circle, or to one […]
Jesus used the promise of his return to comfort his friends and to warn his enemies. On that his followers agree. It is at this point, however, that the Body of Christ divides over several prophetic scenarios. While many of us disagree among ourselves about whether current events are setting the stage for what Jesus […]
Only hours before his death, Jesus told his followers that he was leaving them. Then he said, “Let not your heart be troubled . . . . I will come again and receive you to myself; that where I am, there you may be also” (John 14:1-3). Years later, a follower of Christ by the […]
Someone has said that wise parents give their children two lasting things: (1) roots and (2) wings. I’ve noticed over the years that our Father in heaven seems to follow a similar pattern with us. As time goes on, he “carries” us differently in our spiritual adolescence and adulthood than He did in our infancy. […]
Last Wednesday, the front page of our local newspaper declared, “In the Fed we Trust…bailout of insurance giant aims to stabilize quaking global economy.” Then came the bad news. Behind closed doors, Washington lawmakers got enough of a wake-up call to prompt a rare bi-partisan agreement. All said that without urgent Federal intervention, national and […]
One of the best teachers I’ve ever had likes to say, “Something is not true because it’s in the Bible. It’s in the Bible because it’s true. My first impulse was to reject the idea. It seemed like a subtle insult to the best measure of truth we have. After all, I thought, in my […]
For the last couple of days, we’ve had a healthy, though difficult, discussion about whether forgiveness is meant to be conditional or unconditional. Not surprisingly, along the way, we’ve agreed and disagreed. There are good reasons for the push and pull of our conversation. Sometimes the Bible, itself, calls for forgiveness based on a change […]
