It has been pretty tough around here trying to walk in the footsteps of Jesus when the everyday stuff of life includes: — Physical challenges: Near 100° temperatures at the time when trees need the hard ground around them tilled up so they can receive precious, fruit-producing nutrients; minor surgeries Read more
I am not talking about the choice to forgive. There are plenty of voices calling us to forgive…the Holy Spirit, our consciences, Christian writers; even people with no connection to God know that hanging on to bitterness when offended is not a good plan: ulcers, high blood pressure, adrenal fatigue. Read more
It started with the death of a lizard – a gecko, actually. We have bugs in our house. The big kind you can hear coming, or the kind that try to sing you to sleep at night. My tendency is to smash first and think about the consequences later. This Read more
Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be yours as well. — Matthew 6:33 So…about those leaf-hoppers… My current theory (or insight) is that the tiny, sap-sucking things are very like the “secret” critic that often infests the places that Jesus means me to live Read more
It had been a terrible morning. I had not dealt well with a child in the throes of the “terrible twos.” I had gotten very angry, lost control, been very harsh…violent, even. My intention had been to attend a gathering were my guilty, angry, wounded heart was fed truth and Read more
On the twelfth day of Christmas my True Love gave to me… twelve gates of heaven! This twelfth gift is one that bears more consideration that we tend to give it, unless someone dear to us is at the brink of death. Heaven! The place where no one cries or Read more
Following Jesus in the everyday means living a life characterized by faith. Guys like Abraham demonstrated their confidence in what God says by packing up and leaving their homeland. I haven’t been asked to do that…at least not yet, but I have been invited to declare my citizenship in a Read more
I am more like Jonah than I often recognize. He sat under a volunteer vine, glad of its shade and God’s apparent favor, waiting for God to “keep His word” and destroy the city of his enemies. How quickly he had forgotten his own experience of God’s rescue of him Read more