Responding to Fear with Faith Another clap of thunder cut through the steady drumbeat of unrelenting rain. Record-breaking rains had settled over our region. Lightning and thunder frequently accompanied the incessant showers and their irregular occurrences...
Troublesome Obedience Have you ever obeyed God, only to have the situation backfire? Does it feel unfair when obeying God lands you in hot water? Or when obedience appears to cause more trouble than disobedience? Trusting Christ as Savior does not solve all our...
The Power, Responsibility, and Blessing of Abiding What comes to mind when you hear the word vine? We might think of a vine as an ivy that clings to bricks or concrete. We may picture a twining vine, such as wisteria, that climbs by encircling a pole in a...
Living Rent-Free Who or what is living rent-free in your head? I recently read a news article about the growing trend of trespassers occupying vacant homes whose owners are away for extended periods. If the trespassers stay long enough, they may be able to...
Is Salvation an Insurance Policy? Life can throw us curveballs. Unexpected events. Crises. Natural disasters. Broken pipes. Once-in-a-hundred-year storms. And we do our best to hedge our exposure. Which leads us to insurance policies. Home, renters’, flood, and...
What Habits Are You Locked Into? “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Jesus said this to His disciples when they failed to stay awake while He prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane prior to His arrest. Fast forward two thousand years. All too often my...
An Impossible Standard? Has God set us up for failure? It might feel that way when we read some of the commands in the Bible. Some standards seem impossible to attain. Love your enemies. Do good to those who persecute you. Take up your cross. Don’t be anxious for...
Blessings in Disguise Ever hear about a guy named Jabez? He was all the rage 25 years ago, or at least his prayer was all the rage. I’ve been praying a tweaked version of that prayer for years. And it centers around redefined blessings. Jabez and his now-famous...
Funeral of My Independence So many funerals in the past several months. Funerals commemorating the end of physical lives. The end of hopes and dreams. And the end of relationships that leave a hole in our hearts. Funerals acknowledge that physical death is a painful...
Pause, Pray, Ponder, Proceed We’ve all experienced times when life throws us a curveball. Have you ever adopted the four P’s—pause, pray, ponder, proceed—in those situations? A friend shared this practice as a biblically wise method of approaching bumps in the...
Responding to Fear with Faith Another clap of thunder cut through the steady drumbeat of unrelenting rain....
Troublesome Obedience Have you ever obeyed God, only to have the situation backfire? Does it feel unfair when...
The Power, Responsibility, and Blessing of Abiding What comes to mind when you hear the word vine? We might...