Tagged: hope

Somehow just doesn't sit right with me. Today we find ourselves on the tippy-top of the mountain, hump-day, round-the-corner day, Wednesday. (By the time you read this, we will likely be heading down the hill to Thursday.) I do not usually post on Wednesdays, but in times like these, I think we could all do with a little mid-week encouragement. I have been stuck on an old phrase lately, and you might get stuck on it too. We will make it through this season, not somehow, but triumphantly. It is said that the wonderful expression "not somehow, but triumphantly" gained popularity among Christian missionaries in the prisoner-of-war camps of Japan during World War II. Day after day, they rose, fixed their eyes on Jesus, and gathered… Read More

for Erick George Floyd, you were caught trying to buy a pack of cigarettes with a counterfeit $20 bill, according to the news reports. As you placed that bill on the counter in hopes of getting one more drag from a cigarette you had no idea you stood on the razor-fine edge of a precipice, your life an inflection point for an entire nation. You had no clue you would soon ignite an honor outcry. I wonder if you’d known, if someone asked if you had it in you to change the world, what your answer would have been.  Not many of us think we have the power to change the world. World-changing, history-defining moments often happen in an unplanned instant to common people. Our… Read More

You who are my comforter in sorrow, my heart is faint within me. Jeremiah 8:18 I sit by the water, watching a leaf trickle through the air on its journey to the rippling surface. The sky is blue and the clouds’ edges are so sharp they look frazzled and irritated. The perfection of their silhouette against brilliant azure seems to frustrate them. They want to frizz out a bit and break the blissful facade. Kind of like my naturally curly hair I work so hard to straighten. The wind kicks her heels, threatening to upend my coffee cup as if she agrees to help. Two people sit nearby and make me mad. I want to be alone. I don’t want to hear another human voice. I… Read More

When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”John 8:12 From the sixth hour until the ninth hour darkness came over all the land.Matthew 27:45 After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb. There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow.  The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that… Read More

He will restore us in a very short time; he will heal us in a little while, so that we may live in his presence. Hosea 6:2 How strange, apocalyptic, it must have been for the people who entered our home and boxed up all our belongings after the fire. Room by room, they picked up every salvageable item and placed it carefully in cardboard boxes to be cleaned and restored. We were plucked up and removed from our life, as it were, in an instant. We did not know that morning when we threw the covers back to face another day that we would not be in our home that night to snuggle down again into our comfortable beds. Or for many, many long… Read More

My counsel to you is simple and straightforward: Just go ahead with what you’ve been given. You received Christ Jesus, the Master; now live him. You’re deeply rooted in him. You’re well constructed upon him. You know your way around the faith. Now do what you’ve been taught. School’s out; quit studying the subject and start living it! And let your living spill over into thanksgiving. Colossians 2:6-7, MSG School’s out. Families are clustering around dining room tables sorting how to do school at home and everyone’s wondering… can I just sleep in every day? The Coronavirus has brought a new level of suffering to the home, the neighborhood, the city, the state, the nation, and the globe. Life as we have enjoyed it until… Read More

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.2 Corinthians 4:7 For many years I read this passage with one clear image in mind. Terra-cotta, reflecting the earth’s rich hue, thick, rough-hewn earthen jars just the right size to hold in two hands. Their purpose, to be filled with whatever is needed and poured out in service. I imagined them brimming with freshly pressed olive oil, warm water for washing tired feet, or frothy goat’s milk newly squeezed. Such mental images came to life in my travels through South America and East Africa as I discovered countless vessels created to hold something useful and aid in service.  I thought deeply about the… Read More

We are experiencing trouble on every side, but are not crushed; we are perplexed, but not driven to despair; we are persecuted, but not abandoned; we are knocked down, but not destroyed, always carrying around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our body.2 Corinthians 4:7-10 “What can man do to you? Much every way. Like a small thing unsheltered, like a mimosa in a thunderstorm—stems, leaves, flowers, involved in a common distress—that is how you feel till you remember God. And then what happens? …you prove that the spirit of man energized by the Spirit of God can defy the natural, and need not be, as it would naturally be, destroyed when… Read More

“Sir, we would like to see Jesus.”John 12:21 The Greeks who asked Philip to see Jesus were devout worshippers of the one true God and had come to Jerusalem to worship at the feast. They joined in the meetings in the temple as far as they were allowed, being Gentiles.  Now they wanted more; they wanted to see Jesus. They had made their choice to worship God, but something about the man who healed the sick, gave sight to the blind, and raised the dead stirred a deeper desire to see clearly. They wanted to get right up close to Him, to speak to Him, to look in His eyes and have Him look in theirs, to communicate and discern who He really was. His… Read More

For you have not yet come to the final stop and inheritance the Lord your God is giving you (Deuteronomy 12:9). “Mommy, I think lately God has been trying to tell me something.” Her big blue eyes stared deeply into mine. The air in the room, so still and quiet a moment before, quivered like a pool disturbed by a noiseless earth tremor.  “He is telling me that He is coming soon. Jesus is coming with lots of people to take us all up to heaven with him,” she continued, her face filled with glowing certainty. “And I just can’t wait to go. It will make me so happy.” I continued listening, my heart caught in my throat.  “I had a dream about it, you… Read More