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Call for Help

By |2018-07-20T15:26:51-04:00August 31st, 2018|

After five deaths and fifty-one injuries in elevator accidents in 2016, New York City launched an ad campaign to educate people on how to stay calm and be safe. The worst cases were people who tried to save themselves when something went wrong. The best plan of action, authorities say, is simply, “Ring, relax, and wait.” New York building authorities made a commitment to respond promptly to protect people from injury and extract them from their predicament...

The House on the Rock

By |2018-07-20T15:18:08-04:00August 30th, 2018|

After living in their house for several years, my friends realized that their living room was sinking—cracks appeared on the walls and a window would no longer open. They learned that this room had been added without a foundation. Rectifying the shoddy workmanship would mean months of work as builders laid a new foundation...

You Love Me?

By |2018-07-20T15:14:25-04:00August 29th, 2018|

As a teenager, I went through the typical season of rebellion against my mother’s authority. My father died before I entered adolescence, so my mom had to navigate these turbulent parenting waters without his help. I recall thinking that Mom didn’t want me to ever have any fun—and maybe didn’t even love me—because she frequently said no. I see now that she said no to activities that weren’t good for me precisely because she loves me.

Learning to Trust

By |2018-07-20T15:08:54-04:00August 28th, 2018|

When I was a teenager I sometimes challenged my mother when she tried to encourage me to have faith. “Trust God. He will take care of you,” she would tell me. “It’s not that simple, Mom!” I would bark back. “God helps those who help themselves!” But those words, “God helps those who help themselves” are nowhere to be found in Scripture. Instead, God’s Word teaches us to depend on Him for our daily needs...

Serve Continually

By |2018-07-20T15:05:05-04:00August 27th, 2018|

When educational psychologist Benjamin Bloom, researching how to develop talent in young people, examined the childhoods of 120 elite performers—athletes, artists, scholars—he found that all of them had one thing in common: they had practiced intensively for long periods of time. Bloom’s research suggests that growing in any area of our lives requires discipline...

Unfrozen

By |2018-07-20T14:59:44-04:00August 26th, 2018|

At a roundtable discussion about reconciliation, one participant wisely said, “Don’t freeze people in time.” He observed how we tend to remember mistakes people make and never grant them the opportunity to change. There are so many moments in Peter’s life when God could have “frozen” him in time. But He never did. Peter—the impulsive disciple—“corrected” Jesus, earning a sharp rebuke from the Lord (Matthew 16:21–23)...

Generous Givers

By |2018-07-20T14:54:07-04:00August 25th, 2018|

After reviewing all God had already done throughout our church’s history, leaders presented the congregation with a proposal for a new gym to help us better serve our community. The leadership team announced they’d be the first to sign pledge notes to fund the construction. I initially prayed with a heart soured by selfishness, not wanting to offer more money than we had already committed to give...

We Would See Jesus

By |2018-07-20T14:41:29-04:00August 24th, 2018|

As I looked down at the pulpit where I was sharing prayers at a funeral, I glimpsed a brass plaque bearing words from John 12:21: “Sir, we would see Jesus” (kjv). Yes, I thought, how fitting to consider how we saw Jesus in the woman we were celebrating with tears and smiles. Although she faced challenges and disappointments in her life, she never gave up her faith in Christ. And because God’s Spirit lived in her, we could see Jesus...

An Enduring Happiness

By |2018-07-20T14:34:08-04:00August 23rd, 2018|

Often we hear that happiness comes from doing things our own way. That, however, is not true. That philosophy leads only to emptiness, anxiety, and heartache. Poet W. H. Auden observed people as they attempted to find an escape in pleasures. He wrote of such people: “Lost in a haunted wood, / Children afraid of the night / Who have never been happy or good...”

God’s Care for Us

By |2018-07-20T14:29:17-04:00August 22nd, 2018|

My young grandsons enjoy dressing themselves. Sometimes they pull their shirts on backwards and often the younger one puts his shoes on the wrong feet. I usually don’t have the heart to tell them; besides, I find their innocence endearing. I love seeing the world through their eyes. To them, everything is an adventure, whether walking the length of a fallen tree, spying a turtle sunning itself on a log, or excitedly watching a fire truck roar by...

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