Jesus got himself in some pretty interesting predicaments. Seems strange to me – He could walk on water and command the winds and rain, but He never could satisfy a bunch of legalists about why He performed miracles (miracles!) on the Sabbath.
“This can’t be from God. He didn’t keep our rules.”
Sigh… I just wish somehow… oh, never mind.
Anyway, on one occasion, Jesus healed a man who hadn’t walked in 38 years. It took place at the Pool of Bethesda and yes, it was on the Sabbath.
And yes, Jesus had to account for his tawdry behavior. Here’s what He said: [click to continue…]
A cathedral in Europe was famous for the large, magnificent, stained‑glass window that was located behind the altar and high above the sanctuary. One day a violent windstorm shattered that beautiful window into a thousand pieces. The church custodian was hesitant to discard the fragments, so he put them in a box and stored them in the basement of the cathedral.
Shortly after the storm, a man who had heard about the damage asked for and received the broken pieces of glass. About 2 years later, he invited the caretaker to visit him in a nearby village. When the custodian arrived, the man explained that he was an artisan and that he had something to show him. When the craftsman unveiled his work, the visitor was astonished to see a lovely window fashioned from the broken fragments. It was even more beautiful than the original.
You can be, too.
Like the shattered window, sometimes we live in the wake of a painful experience that threatens to leave us broken and scarred – an unrecognizable leftover of what we once imagined ourselves to be.
Abundance? Hardly.
Joyful? Are you kidding?
I heard a beautiful reflection on that a couple of years ago from a TV show, of all things: [click to continue…]
If He carried the weight of the world upon His shoulder,
I know my brother that He will carry you.
-Scott Wesley Brown
It was on an old four-propeller Lockheed Constellation airplane, on an 18-hour-long flight from Tokyo to San Francisco. It was the mid-1950s. Carol Willis was just a baby and had a severe earache. To try to comfort her, her dad walked her up and down the aisle of that old plane throughout that long night. If you’ve ever traveled with ear-sensitive children, you know exactly what I’m talking about.
Over the years the family nightmare became something of the family joke. Harlan – my father-in-law – would say, “I walked all the way across the Pacific Ocean carrying you in my arms.”
But the family joke also became the family prophecy and the family legacy, and it was a part of Carol’s emotional DNA. Carol spent her growing up years in Thailand, where she and her family traveled across that ocean again to take the gospel of Jesus Christ to a nation they love to this day. [click to continue…]
For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime!
Weeping may last through the night, but joy comes with the morning
(Psalm 30:5, NLT)
Until we experience the promise of a home where there is no more night, we all will encounter seasons that feel as though dawn is forever an hour away. It’s not a matter of if , but when the shadows grow long and dark. And no one, regardless of their faith or pedigree, is immune from the seasons when darkness comes.
When darkness comes, “tired” takes on a whole new meaning. Every fiber of your being aches for rest, but rest remains taunting and elusive. Even the simplest of routine tasks feels like labor to exhaustion when darkness comes. [click to continue…]
The inhabitants of a small third-world village were understandably alarmed. An earthquake was literally shaking every corner of their world, and they were terrified.
All except for one elderly woman, that is, who remained completely calm throughout the whole ordeal. When things had settled down, one of the villagers asked her, “Weren’t you afraid during that earthquake?”
“No,” she replied, “I wasn’t. You see, I just rejoiced to know that I have a God who is powerful enough to shake the world.”
Needless to say, she had a “peace that passes all understanding.” I wonder if I do. I wonder if you do.
I was speaking on this at a retreat over the weekend and I recognized something really important about the peace that is every Christian’s birthright:
Peace isn’t the punch line of a beauty contest joke or the passive purview of those who breathe deeply and chant. Peace isn’t for sissies. It’s the result of a conquest. It is an expression of the God of Heaven going to war to protect our thoughts and minds.
Read these two well-known verses again and look for the traces of battle: [click to continue…]
Dave was going through a rough season. Looking back on it now, the load seems pretty mind-numbing. He was being viciously verbally attacked by other people, including complete strangers. His casual acquaintances were keeping their distance, but he had that feeling you get when all eyes are upon you.
He was physically impaired for a while, and his health looked pretty grim at one point. I would say his life flashed before his eyes, but in Dave’s case it was more like his life grabbed him by the ankle and started dragging. Dave was understandably terrified.
Then to make matters worse, one of Dave’s closest, most trusted friends betrayed him. And for some time Dave had dealt with the anguish, disbelief, and downright bitterness that comes with that kind of pain.
But through it all, Dave learned a powerful lesson. And you can read all about it in Psalm 55. The lesson: [click to continue…]
Q – I am really backsliding in my relationship with God and I’m not really worshipping like I used to. What should I do? Please help.
There is more to life than trusting Christ as your Savior and waiting to die so you can show up in heaven. He has designed a journey of growth, love, and intimacy that allows you to make choices today that will serve you in this life (the future) and the next (your eternal home in heaven). It’s also possible, however, that you can waste your life and its opportunities for intimacy with the Lord. That’s the basis of this question.
Every believer deals with this issue – what to do when we find ourselves drifting away from that connection with the Lord. If somebody gave merit badges or degrees in this, I’d be at the front of the line! Here are some things I have found to be helpful in reconnecting my life with God, reordering my priorities, and renewing my spiritual life. [click to continue…]
Be the fly on the wall for this conversation…
It’s not that life here is so bad right now.
Okay.
It’s that life is so busy. Urgent all the time.
I can relate to that.
And not even that it’s urgent, but that I don’t feel as though I am responding well to the urgency I do have.
What do you mean?
Nothing ever gets completely done. Or so it feels. My weekly schedule is pretty busy as it is. Then factor in anything else that has been added to the schedule lately, and I’m having a hard time breathing.
I think I know what the problem is.
You do?
Yep. Your Urgency Response Index is low.
My what?
Your Urgency Response Index.
Sounds serious.
It can be. [click to continue…]
When the burdens overwhelm me
And the floods begin to rise
When I see the circumstances
Through lonely, helpless eyes,
There’s a place to go for refuge
And a place to be restored.
And when the storm has passed away,
I’ll be stronger than before.
It’s a place called Higher Ground. David referred to it as a “rock that is higher than I” (Psalm 61:1). “Take me there when my heart is overwhelmed,” he prayed.
Growing up on the Gulf Coast, it was fairly common to hear small craft advisories and warnings of approaching storms or hurricanes in which people in “low‑lying areas” are warned to move to higher ground. The danger for them is that the storm can literally overwhelm them.
In Psalm 61, David finds himself in a situation in which he is under such pressure of heart that he doesn’t think he can deal with it by himself. He’s in a “low-lying area” spiritually and circumstantially. Can you relate? [click to continue…]
What do you do when you come to the edge of something you want but can’t get there? How do you handle it when you have a clear sense of who you want to be, what you want to be able to do, or what you want to have… but only come away frustrated and defeated? What do you do when you want so badly to push past your limitations and weaknesses, but can’t ever seem to find a way?
You do the one thing you actually can do. And if you’re like most people, you probably won’t, because it sounds so simple.
Check out this snippet of conversation: [click to continue…]
Jesus got himself in some pretty interesting predicaments. Seems strange to me – He could walk on water and command the winds and rain, but He never could satisfy a bunch of legalists about why He performed miracles (miracles!) on the Sabbath.
