In 1918, a chemical-fueled fire destroyed the inventor Thomas Edison’s factory in West Orange, New Jersey.. The flames consumed much of his life’s work, causing over two million dollars in damage. Yet...
God does for you what Bill Tucker’s father did for him. Bill was sixteen years old when his dad suffered a health crisis and consequently had to leave his business. Even after Mr. Tucker regained his ...
Matthew 5:4, Psalm 147:null, Psalm 34:18, Revelation 21:1-8, 2 Corinthians 1:3-12, Romans 8:18-28, John 11:null, 2 Thessalonians 3:16, John 14:27, 1 Peter 5:7, Daniel 6:, Psalm 46:, Psalm 23:, Job 1:, Job 2:, 2 Samuel 11:, 2 Samuel 12:
If you ever travel to Jerusalem and are looking for sites to see, beyond all the ‘must-see’ sites related to Ancient Israel, the Temple Mount, and the sites associated with Jesus, you might venture to...
Psalm 121:7-8, Romans 8:38-39, John 10:28-29, Psalm 91:14-15, Isaiah 41:10
Davon Huss tells the story of a boy who came home one hot afternoon, anxious to take a cool swim in the pond behind his home. He lived in south Florida, so taking a quick dip was a common way to cool ...
We probably got a bit too cocky about how well our lives were going. But after disability showed up in our family, we learned that life is not tame. It’s not here to align with our desires and plans. ...
One year, in the small cul-de-sac where my family lived in Illinois, three husbands in the four houses around us had heart attacks while still in their forties. This was Illinois, where the state bird...
Adversity is always unexpected and unwelcome. It is an intruder and a thief, and yet in the hands of God, adversity becomes the means through which His supernatural power is demonstrated.
On a daily basis we’re faced with two simple choices. We can either listen to ourselves and our constantly changing feelings about our circumstances, or we can talk to ourselves about the unchanging t...
Psychiatrist James Knight describes in graphic detail the experience that members of Alcoholics Anonymous experience: These persons have had their lives laid bare and pushed to the brink of destructi...
Romans 8:28, Psalm 119:71, Proverbs 19:20, Luke 22:61-62, Acts 9:1-9
I have learned throughout my life as a composer chiefly through my mistakes and pursuits of false assumptions, not by my exposure to founts of wisdom and knowledge.
Romans 8:28, Romans 8:31-32, James 1:2-4, 2 Corinthians 4:17, 1 Peter 1:6-7, Jeremiah 29:11, Psalm 84:11
It’s easy to label what we consider “good things” in our lives as gifts from God and to welcome them with gratitude. But when difficult things happen, we don’t look at them as part of God’s good plan ...
In her beautifully written memoir Unafraid, Susie Davis reflects on fear after experiencing a school-shooting as a high-school student. It was after this that Davis began to experience regular bouts o...
A life-threatening crisis came to my home when I was only 25. My wife suffered a near-fatal stroke and was rushed to the hospital, where doctors scrambled to keep her alive. Within hours, we were maki...
Hebrews 4:15-16, James 5:16, Matthew 11:28-30, Psalm 147:3, Romans 8:28, Psalm 34:18
What often continues to shape our stories (interpretations) are the implicit emotional responses to our wounds. We must be willing to attend to our wounds and address the emotions embedded in our woun...
While brokenness is difficult, it’s beautiful because it makes God look good. Your natural gifts draw attention to yourself while brokenness draws attention to your Lord. With this in mind, power is d...
The great danger is to always single out some aspect of God’s good creation and identify it, rather than the alien intrusion of sin, as the villain. Such an error conceives of the good-evil dichotomy ...
Almighty God, we have failed to trust you. Overwhelmed by the pains of life, we have taken charge and pushed you aside. O God, be gracious to us. Remind us of your daily mercies and redemptive power t...
I sometimes think that shame, mere awkward, senseless shame, does as much towards preventing good acts and straightforward happiness as any of our vices can do.
As the darkness began to descend on me in my early twenties, I thought I had developed a unique and terminal case of failure. I did not realize that I had merely embarked on a journey toward joining t...
Proverbs 3:5-6, Romans 8:37-39, Psalm 91:1-4, James 4:7, 1 Peter 5:8-9, 2 Corinthians 10:3-5, Matthew 6:9-13
We Christians must be armed and expect every day to be under continuous attack. . . . At such times our only help and comfort is to run here and seize hold of the Lord’s Prayer and speak to God from o...
Dawn grew up in a family in which she felt she had a fairly happy childhood. But in her adult years she struggled greatly with emotional, psychological, and physical maladies. She never felt a sense o...
The sense of Presence! I have spoken of it as stealing on one unawares. It is recorded of John Wilhelm Rowntree that as he left a great physician’s office, where he had just been told that his advanci...
Pastor: Let us then confess our sins to God our Father. People: Merciful God, we confess that too often we have failed to put on the armor You provide. We try to protect ourselves with th...
At university, I knew a guy called Captain Scarlet (nicknamed after the lead puppet in a cult TV series to which he bore a striking resemblance). The Captain was the only nineteen-year-old I’ve ever k...
Triumph and failure always go together in the wait of faith. They are the head and tail of the same coin. Show me a person who has had no struggle with waiting, whose faith has known no swings between...
Luke 10:41-42, Isaiah 55:2-3, Luke 10:38-42, Matthew 25:44-45, Psalm 46:10, Luke 2:7, Isaiah 9:6, Matthew 5:9, Luke 10:1-12, Romans 8:24-25, Luke 2:25-32, Luke 2:25-38, Philippians 2:10-11, Colossians 3:17, Luke 2:13-14
Holy Lord, in this time of Advent, we confess we often are distracted by the season’s busyness, by the stress of commitment, and even by putting our own traditions ahead of the true meaning of Christm...