A.W. Tozer, in commenting on the difference between a yesterday and a today faith, wrote this:
We habitually stand in our now and look back by faith to see the past filled with God. We look forward and see Him inhabiting our future; but our now is uninhabited except for ourselves. Thus we are guilty of a kind of [temporary] atheism which leaves us alone in the universe while, for the time, God is not. We talk of Him much and loudly, but we secretly think of Him as being absent, and we think of ourselves as inhabiting a parenthetic interval between the God who was and the God who will be. And we are lonely with an ancient and cosmic loneliness.
Your capacity to believe God is the gateway to a life of power, usefulness, and joy. And yet during his earthly ministry, nothing caught Jesus by surprise more than the “people of God” or so-called “believers” not believing – living with that cosmic loneliness that Tozer wrote about.
“Where is your faith?” He would ask. [click to continue…]
Christmas 2004. I’m pretty sure it was the last time I made the trek to Deer Bluff. Pictures were the thing this year, and one day Joel wanted to go to Deer Bluff to take some. It was nice to be back there, this place near the family farm that has always captured my imagination.
At one point I was up on top of the bluff and Joel was down below taking pictures of the initials carved in the stone near the small cave. Meandering through the volcanic rock and fallen branches, I tripped over a log and fell with a thud on my stomach and shoulder. I also hit some sort of piece of wood, and cut a couple of plugs out of my fingers.
The fingers were the ugliest, but the shoulder was the greatest concern. Lying there, I wondered if something had been broken. Later, my biggest fear was that I had torn my rotator cuff. Finally, a year later, the MRI showed I had shredded the tendons in my shoulder and yes, I would need surgery.
Awesome. So that’s what a stumbling block is. And I was right in the middle of a stumbling zone. [click to continue…]
Bahar: You guys from around here?
Igal: Not exactly.
Palti: It’s complicated. Who wants to know?
Bahar: Name’s Bahar. My family and I are on our way to Jericho and I think we made a wrong turn back there at the watering hole. I thought maybe you could give us some directions.
Igal: Well if you don’t mind me sayin’, it looks as though you brought the whole caravan with you.
Palti: This isn’t a trip to see the in-laws, is it?
Bahar: No, we’re looking for a new home. There are rumors of a foreign invasion and I hear that Jericho is the safest place in Canaan.
Igal: Oh it’s safe, all right.
Palti: Biggest walls I’ve ever seen.
Bahar: So you’ve been there?
Igal: Not exactly.
Palti: It’s complicated. We sorta saw it from a distance.
Bahar: So how do you get there from here?
Igal: I’d try a camel.
Palti: My friend thinks he’s a comedian. [click to continue…]
It’s time to break the silence. So in a minute I’m going to tell you the most shameful, disgraceful thing I’ve ever done. Then I’m going to tell you the second most shameful, disgraceful thing I have ever done. I’m not proud of either (hence the terms “shameful” and “disgraceful”), but in the spirit of James 5:16, there is healing to be found in honesty and vulnerability.
More on that in a minute. But first, here are seven new half-baked ideas that are still baking up in my oven… [click to continue…]
by Andy Wood on September 15, 2008
in 100 Words
I live in a town that prays for rain.
Not with superstition or religious sophistry, but with humble, believing cries to Jesus Christ.
Averaging 14-plus inches annually, our ag-based economy depends on rain.
I also live in a town that educates students.
Lots of them.
Sometimes educated people scoff at people who pray for rain.
They’re embarrassed to live in the same town with such backwards people.
In this town, there is one place where the praying people and the educated people gather in the same spot.
Thursday it rained. More than six inches, to be exact.
Gimme a “J”!
