I drove down my old street where I used to live, and it made me sad. My street was more decrepit than I remembered. Awkwardly perched between the solidarity of winter and the freshness of spring, the trees and yards lay cold and bare and brown. Without their summer shroud of greenery, the houses stood …
Tag: prayer
Stop talking about “moral failure.”
Some years ago, I was sitting in my car waiting to pull out of an icy parking lot, when I witnessed a scene I never forgot. A business man dressed in suit and tie and carrying a briefcase was importantly striding down the parking lot. At the wrong moment, his polished shoe thwacked on a …
Navigating Adaptive Challenges
When I first read this paragraph from God's Country: Faith, Hope, and the Future of the Rural Church by Brad Roth, my mind leaped to a scenario exactly like Roth described: a community losing its missional bearings and directing its energy into constructing a recreational building. In the church, we so often favor the concrete …
How unrest leads to life
There's this thing called contentment, and I still have a series in the back of my mind that includes this subject, but sometimes "contentment" is taken too far. People cry from hearts bursting with emptiness, "What am I supposed to be doing?" and others say, "You can always pray!" "Do the best with what you …
As a roaring lion
"I've been waking up feeling depressed," I admitted to my mentors. Shifting in my rocking chair, I set down my drink of raspberry mint tea and sighed. "During the day, the yucky feeling goes away and I'm able to function. But it's hard to get up in the mornings when I feel so awful." Being …
Being Filled with the Holy Spirit (by Simon Fry)
In 1855, a young man was born again and gave his life in service to the Lord. He was fervent and zealous in his work, starting children’s ministries and preaching to thousands. He started a church and traveled to other countries sharing the gospel. Many were saved because of his efforts. He poured himself into …
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An Alligator Under The Bed
In Mercer Mayor's fun book There's an Alligator Under My Bed, the main character is scared and doesn't want to go to sleep, because he just knows there's an alligator lurking under his bed. He devises an elaborate scheme to escape the alligator and returns to lure it out with food he raids from the fridge. …
The Toad Beneath the Harrow
The toad beneath the harrow knows Exactly where each tooth point goes; The butterfly upon the road Preaches contentment to that toad. -Rudyard Kipling This poem has been running through my mind as some of our dearest friends are walking through a valley of suffering (and I have a few sorrows of my own, …
A Pinched-off Piece Of Clay
After Job's three friends finished their rebukes, a firebrand named Elihu gave his piece. Elihu was angry at the incompetency of Job's friends, and unleashed his own tirade. These words from Elihu caught my attention: Behold, I am toward God as you are; I too was pinched off from a piece of clay. Job 33:6 …
arabah rejoice 