About a month ago, a young woman came by our church to ask for help. We sat down to talk and she shared with me that she and her boyfriend had been living in his car for the last several nights. They had lost their apartment and were trying to scrape up enough money to […]
Poet and educator Archibald Rutledge once told a story about the time he caught a baby mockingbird and tried to keep it for a pet. He put it in a small cage outside. On the second day in the cage, the young mockingbird’s mother flew to her baby with food in her bill. Rutledge said […]
In his second letter to the Corinthians, the Apostle Paul writes about experiencing what he called “a thorn in the flesh.” We don’t know exactly what that was, but most scholars believe that Paul was most likely dealing with some physical ailment. The word Paul uses for torment, means excruciating pain. Three times, Paul pleaded […]
Several years ago, I invited a congregation I was serving to complete the following statement in writing: God, you were with me even when… Many were willing to write their responses and have them read in worship. I’d like to share some of these with you now: God you were with me even when: I […]
There is a story about a young girl who was sitting on her grandfather’s lap as he read her a bedtime story. From time to time, she would take her eyes off the book and reach up to touch his wrinkled cheek. She was alternately stroking her own cheek and then his again. Finally, she […]
There is an old story about two friends who loved baseball so much that they were not sure at all they wanted to spend eternity in heaven unless they could play baseball. They had an agreement that the first one who died would find a way to get a message back to earth, letting the […]
Yesterday I reflected on the resurrection and life beyond life. I do have to acknowledge that there can be a legitimate critique of Christianity in that regard. And that is that we might reduce our faith to simply getting into heaven when we die – like it’s a magic ticket to someplace else. The truth […]
I’ve talked a lot about the cross this month. On the other side of this is the resurrection. If you think about it, it is a pretty bold claim. It is a claim that most likely will never be proven. It is not easily explained… It is, at its heart a mystery that deals in […]
Psalm 139 is one of my favorites. I love it because when we pray it we are reminded that we are the work of God’s hands. I love the imagery! The Psalmist claims, “You knit me together in my mother’s womb.” I can almost picture God weaving the strands of DNA… The Psalm then continues: […]
There is an old Dennis the Menace Comic in which Dennis’s friend Margery is scolding him as he’s talking to another friend. She says, “Shame on you! Don’t you know God hears everything you say in this room?” In the next frame, Dennis says to his buddy, “Let’s go into the kitchen.” Most of us […]
