Janie had an appointment with God. And the Lord didn’t show up. He’d always been pretty good at keeping the times Janie had set for Him – mostly in the little things like daily blessings and answered prayer. But this was a big one, and the Lord didn’t keep His end of the bargain.
See, Janie just knew that God was going to give her a husband, and she knew who it would be. Chuck was obviously God’s choice for her… how else could she explain all the little coincidences, the magic feeling in her heart, and even those confirming verses she read in scripture.
Apparently, however, the Lord forgot to clue Chuck in on the plan, and the big guy had plans of his own.
Janie was devastated. And more than that, she was bewildered. She had been so sure in her heart. But somebody missed God, or God missed somebody. And the result? Janie’s appointment with God ended up as a dis-appointment.
Same thing happened to Chuck with regard to his career, though he wouldn’t call it that. To Chuck it was more of a calling. [click to continue…]
Wanna get away? Want some great in-flight entertainment? Just take a trip with your favorite three-year-old. And try making a list of all the questions you hear. Here, hot off the press, is a partial sampler from a flight we took this past Friday.
What’s amazing is how many of the questions are the same when we’re 33 or 55. We just develop questions behind the questions as we get older. The rest of this is written by Mr. Cohen Thomas (he just doesn’t know it yet)…
Why are we not going?
Are we going down?
[After passing through the clouds] Where is God?
Are we almost to Disney Wouwd? (World)
What’s that button for?
Why are we not going to Grandma and Granddaddy’s house?
Are we almost to Disney Wouwd?
Why are we going to be there tonight?
Why? [click to continue…]
I will sing a new song to You, O God;
Upon a harp of ten strings I will sing praises to You,
Who gives salvation to kings,
Who rescues David His servant from the evil sword.
This comes from a victory song.
David celebrates victories he’s won to this point.
What now? [click to continue…]
It starts out innocently enough. You dutifully climb into the attic and start hauling out the boxes of decorations. Once again the house is tricked out with stockings, twinkling lights, and the scents you save for just this time of year.
You ask the familiar questions: Do we go with same-old same-old, or try something completely new and different? Are we staying home, or traveling, or both? Who’s coming and going? What’s on the calendar between here and there? And of course, what should be get for [fill in the blank] this year for Christmas?
But here’s the tricky part – other than Black Friday, nobody’s giving you any extra time to make all that happen. You still have a job to go to (hopefully), 21 meals a week to account for, meetings to attend, bills to pay, promises to keep.
So how do you make it all fit together? You hurry. You scurry. And sometimes you worry that it never quite seems to all get done.
Truth be told, sometimes sacrifices have to be made to get it all in. And therein lies the rub… because the one thing that Christmas is all about often gets lost in the flurry. [click to continue…]
The other day my son-in-law and oldest grandson had this little exchange:
Cohen: What does that sign say?
Curtis: Pedestrian crossing. Are you a pedestrian?
Cohen: No. I’m a Christian.
Super funny at face value. Typically profound as children’s funny things can be when you dig deeper.
Everybody knows what pedestrian, the noun, means, right? “Walker.”
Or in more recent days, “somebody who texts without a seat belt.”
But as an adjective, “pedestrian” means something different. The dictionary definition:
“lacking inspiration or excitement; dull.”
Synonyms include words like dull, boring, tedious, monotonous, uneventful, unremarkable, tiresome, wearisome, uninspired, unimaginative, unexciting, uninteresting, and uninvolving.
Are you pedestrian?
No. I’m Christian.
Wouldn’t it be awesome if being a Christian really was the opposite of being pedestrian? Wouldn’t it be amazing if somebody said, referring to one of us, “He’s too much of a Christian to live a pedestrian life”? [click to continue…]
Dear Friends,
I am very excited to announce that for the next five days, The Twelve Pathways to Christmas, available exclusively through Amazon.com as a Kindle book download, will be available to you and 5,000 of your closest friends absolutely free.
For the next five days, Friday, November 29 through Tuesday, December 3, interested readers may download this title from Amazon absolutely free. Click here to download.
The Twelve Pathways to Christmas describes how the lives of twelve different ordinary people are forever changed when they embark on their own unique pathway to the true meaning of Christmas. Through stories that are part autobiographical, some reflections of others I have known, and some made up to make a point, you will find your own unique pathways to the meaning of Christmas in the brief encounters you have with these characters.
This book will help you discover in a fresh way why God invaded history in the person of a helpless baby in Bethlehem. Just as the first Christmas was experienced by real, excited, hurting, stressed-out, frightened, faith-filled people, so is yours. But those life circumstances – good or bad – can be pathways to breathtaking joy as you discover how greatly loved and desired you are.
The Twelve Pathways to Christmas is the first of a three-part series called the Twelve Joys of Christmas. And what greater joy can there be than to discover that your life is all part of a larger plan to give you a future and a hope?
Click here to download.
Why are you giving this book away for three days?
Two reasons. First, I want to share it as a gift to you for you to enjoy and be blessed by. Honestly, this isn’t the kind of book you’d take to read at your next Christmas party. But it’s a good resource for those times when you want to be still. To reflect. To hear the gentle whisper of God’s voice again. [click to continue…]
(A Conversation)
You’d think by now I’d have this down.
Have what?
Making decisions and finding God’s will.
Is that what you mean by “being at a crossroads?”
Yeah, I have some decisions to make, and it’s kind of a mixed bag. Some really good things and some really challenging things, either way I go.
Okay…
But I don’t want to just do what I want to do. I want to do God’s will.
As opposed to your will?
Yes. I know that he speaks through my desires. But even that’s mixed up right now.
And you need Him to sort all that out for you?
Yeah.
Sorta like those neon arrows on the highway at night that say, “Stop here?”
Boy, wouldn’t that be awesome? [click to continue…]
You wouldn’t believe it. Not unless you saw it with your own two eyes.
You wouldn’t recognize him. Not unless you were with that band of misfits that united under his leadership.
But here you are and there he is and My God, what has happened? This is the guy whose exploits they sang about. This is the Giant Killer. In one afternoon you saw him rally his own people and send an army of Philistines running in fear.
And now he and you are living like pathetic dogs in a cave. Dirty. Haggard. Weak. Exhausted. And there before your eyes the man you knew would be king is at the end of his life.
Why?
Because he’s at the end of his courage. [click to continue…]
(Sort-of-random thoughts on the anniversary of infamy and conspiracy theories and high-powered cold medicine, which doesn’t really go with the previous two subjects but can sure make you see them in a whole new way…)
So many years gone… I was only five at the time. Still I remember the solemn funeral, the haunting image of the caisson and that black, riderless horse, and Mrs. Kennedy standing behind the veil. I don’t remember much else of the time, except for the fact that we had a black-and-white TV with three channels available, and when the president was on TV, we could forget watching Captain Kangaroo or Tom and Jerry because he would be on all three channels at the same time.
Wow… how did I ever survive a childhood without Sesame Street, the Cartoon Network, or Nick Jr.? The “Disney Channel” of course! Which came on for an hour every Sunday night at 6:00 on NBC.
Okay, so – in case you missed it – I wanted to let you know that there are people who still believe that no single shooter could have ended the days of Camelot. [click to continue…]
We needed $370.00. That’s what I figured up after looking at the bills.
That was how much month we had left at the end of the money.
Why was this important on this day? Because I was leading a “praise revival” at a small church in north Texas. Because we were newly-married. Because we were short on cash. Because this was the last day of the conference, and the love offering check would soon be coming in.
I’ll bet you didn’t know that preachers prayed about such things.
Anyway, on this day, we needed $370. I could have asked the Lord for more; after all, it’s nothing to God to see to it I got $1,000, or $10,000 for that matter.
I could have asked for nothing, and said, “Lord, whatever your will is – that’s fine with me.”
But I sensed the freedom to ask – not big, but not small either. To pray specifically for a need. The need was for $370.00, so that was what I asked the Lord for. [click to continue…]
Janie had an appointment with God. And the Lord didn’t show up. He’d always been pretty good at keeping the times Janie had set for Him – mostly in the little things like daily blessings and answered prayer. But this was a big one, and the Lord didn’t keep His end of the bargain.
