CoffeeBreak With The Word

People who decide to run marathons fascinate me!  The race is a grueling 26.2 miles and requires months of training. At the finish line, runners appear totally spent. Yet, thousands do it and claim to enjoy it. I am told that preparing and running a marathon requires discipline, engagement with a group who offers support, […]

On a trip to Israel, I visited both of that nation’s inland bodies of water.  One, the Sea of Galilee, is a sparkling gem, full of life.  The other, 30 miles downstream at the end of the Jordan River, is the aptly name Dead Sea. That lake is a fascinating thing. The water is so […]

How do you regard the passing of time?  Some ‘kill time.’ Others waste it. Some invest it, some spend it. Recently I read this thought. Imagine someone agreed to deposit $1440 in your account every day with only condition being that you were required to use each dollar within that day. If any of it […]

Emotions make my life so much richer.  The ability to feel joy and sorrow, love and hate, peace and turmoil give life color.  A shared moment of real laughter is renewing. An embrace releases a flood of happiness.  In the Pentecostal traditions that are my roots emotions are part of our worship gatherings. Tears are […]

Do you know any really generous people?  Most likely your immediate thought was about money. Generosity includes dollars, but it is a larger issue of the heart, a way of life that enriches the giver.  Stephen Covey, author of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, borrowed a Biblical concept and coined that phrase, “abundance mentality.” […]

I went to dinner last night and was served a good plate of nourishing food. When it was set in front of me, inwardly I critiqued the way it was prepared – ‘the meat is overcooked.’  In that moment, a thought came to me.  “Jerry, you are not really hungry. If you were, you would […]

Bev did not like to waste food so leftover dinner portions were packaged and stored … that one serving of lasagna, that single pork chop, the cup of rice … for that one evening each week when we ate reheated ‘leftovers.’  I was not a fan and still do not care for leftovers unless it […]

On this Monday morning,  I woke up with a stormy soul, troubled about the present world in which I live, seeing only sadness when I looked back, and feeling the unknowns of the future stalking me like wolves at the edge of my consciousness.  In those moments my first response is prayer. It would be […]

Turning people into objects, into things to be used, rather than beings made in the image of God, happens too often and it has awful consequences. Nations do it when they go to war. The ‘other side’ is turned into a country of caricatures, de-humanized with a series of demeaning adjectives. It is easier to […]

Priorities. We all have them, even if we do not think about them. There are those things that come first in our lives, things we treasure, people we prioritize. If our priorities are in order, we will live better lives. If we are putting our efforts into secondary issues which do not merit the place […]