The Bible is often taught through filters that make the people of God into heroes, who did spectacular things, with experiences far removed from ordinary life.  By making David, Moses, and Peter (to name a few) into legendary heroes we… Continue reading

Watching my daughter and our grandson interact yesterday reminded me of the joy that a child finds in a loving mother. Giovanni fully trusts his mother and is completely dependent on her.  Without her (or someone to care for him)… Continue reading

When we moved to our present home on a country road where there are no streetlights, one of the first improvements I installed was a light fixture  on the front of the garage! Coming home from many evening meetings, I… Continue reading

We all have moments when life turns inside out, when nothing is going right.  We are tempted to wonder, “Have I done the right thing? Did I make a fatal mistake?”  Crisis can shake us down to the foundations of… Continue reading

When missionaries showed up at our little church in Iowa, it was always a special Sunday for me!  Their stories about far away place, the things they laid on the table at the front of the church –  pottery, animals… Continue reading

Do you ever find yourself wondering, “why him, not me?” It is a common sin called envy.  The dictionary defines envy as “a feeling of discontented or resentful longing aroused by someone else’s possessions, qualities, or situation.”  It creeps up… Continue reading

There is no replacement for hope.  Despair, and its cousin, depression, grow like weeds in modern minds because of a lie that is told and retold in our time. In our songs and our science we are told that only… Continue reading

Americans are a competitive lot, always comparing! We love lists: winners and losers, the 100 richest people, the worst-dressed, the best-dressed, who’s hot, who’s not. So, what’s the matter with that? It is destructive to all that is good, whole,… Continue reading

Every Christian is urged to “Read your Bible.”  Most of us own several of them.  I carry 8 versions in my pocket all the time; on my phone!  But … getting the most out of the Scripture is no easy… Continue reading

Don’t we love being an ‘’insider?”  Getting the scoop, owning privileged information, is something that started when we were kids in school.  That ‘secret’ that is whispered on the playground does not stay a secret for very long, however.  Everybody… Continue reading