My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry. — James 1:19 “We don’t need you there.” A simple sentence. Five words. Five syllables. However, in my brain the interpretation of this sentence was anything but simple. It unleashed a flood…
A Loaf of Bread Just Out of the Oven
Taste and See God’s Community I peer through the oven’s glass window, coated with splatters from past meals, to assess the bread baking inside. More than anything, I don’t want the bread to rise. I wish I knew more about the finicky nature of this particular range, but this isn’t my stove. This isn’t even…
A Dad Who Really Makes a Difference
Folly is bound up in the heart of a child. — Proverbs 22:15 “Yes, I love you, and no, you can’t have your own way.” When my dad was two years old, the youngest of four children, his father abandoned the family. My dad’s single mom did they best she could, but they were extremely…
You Can Opt For God
You can opt for God. Pitching every other plan, you can opt for God. Thanks-but-no-thanks to every other deliverer, you can opt for God. Without having a clue how it works, you can opt for God. Without knowing the Old Testament from the New, you can opt for God. Not just for His help, but…
God On the Other Side of a Shipwreck
You’re Still Here The first things overboard when your ship wrecked were all the reasons you ever had for sailing. And when the life you knew is a life you know no longer, and the ship that took you on a thousand adventures before can no longer even keep you afloat, you are right to…
Being Honest with God
“I am angry!” she said to me. It was a strange way to start a conversation, but her emotions seemed to overwhelm her. I had just finished teaching, and I was signing a book for someone when this woman stepped between us. Asking her to wait just a second, I finished signing the book and…
God’s Broken Family
God’s Broken Family It’s tempting to freak out over the fact that our families are broken — to think that if we fix the issues of marriage, money, and faith, we’ll fix the future of our families, and voila! — all will be well. But in reality, broken families are not new. We all come…
Think About What You Think About
In her short thirteen years Rebecca Taylor has endured more than fifty-five surgeries and medical procedures and approximately one thousand days in the hospital. Christyn, Rebecca’s mom, talks about her daughter’s health complications with the ease of a surgeon. The vocabulary of most moms includes phrases such as “cafeteria food,” “slumber party,” and “too much…
Unashamed Brokenness
Unashamed Brokenness So do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord or of me His prisoner. Rather, join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God. — 2 Timothy 1:8 I get to lie right next to our baby girl every night. Sometimes we have to pull close, to…
Life-Giving Words
Reversing the Negative Verdicts I once saw a television interview with Mariah Carey, one of the most successful artists in the history of pop music, in which she said that if she hears a thousand words of praise and one word of criticism, that one criticism will eliminate the thousand praises in her mind. Can…