I cannot imagine anything more boring and less desirable than being poured into the mold of predictability as I grow older. Few things interest me less than the routine, the norm, the expected, the status quo. Call it the rebel in me, but I simply cannot bear plain vanilla when life offers so many other colorful and stimulating flavors. A fresh run at life by an untried route will get my vote every time—in spite of the risk. Stay open-minded for a moment and I’ll try to show you why.
Read MoreCategory Archives: Christian Living
Staying Alert
Your mind is a muscle. It needs to be stretched to stay sharp. It needs to be prodded and pushed to perform. Let it get idle and lazy on you, and that muscle will become a pitiful mass of flab in an incredibly brief period of time. How can you stretch your mind? What are some good mental exercises that will keep the cobwebs away? I offer three suggestions . . .
Read MoreComparison
Odious . . . disgusting, detestable. If you want to be a miserable mortal, then compare. You compare when you place someone beside someone else for the purpose of emphasizing the differences or showing the likenesses. This applies to places and things as well as people. We can become so proficient at this activity that we sustain our addiction through an unconscious force of habit. Inadvertently, the wheels of our thinking slide over into the ruts of this odious mindset. Comparison appears in at least two patterns.
Read MoreModeling God’s Message
Hosea started a scandal in the parsonage. Why? Hold onto your hat—he married a prostitute. Talk about gossip! His name became a byword for “fool.” Respect for him dropped to zero. His reputation was suddenly null and void. “Small wonder he is listed first among the minor prophets,” some sneer . . . “He must have been some kind of a nut.”
Read MoreGod’s Control
The bitter news of Dawson Trotman’s drowning swept like cold wind across Schroon Lake to the shoreline. Eyewitnesses tell of the profound anxiety, the tears, the helpless disbelief in the faces of those who now looked out across the deep blue water. Everyone’s face except one—Lila Trotman. Dawson’s widow.
Read MoreDirty Water, Prohibition, and the Bible
Water is life. It is also death. For much of human history, whether because of humanity’s ignorance or inability to dispose of and treat sewage, or because of animal dung and rotting corpses in rivers and streams, water-borne pathogens such as cholera, dysentery, and malaria resulted in epidemics and mass deaths. The city of Ephesus, […]
Read MoreThe Broken Wing
It is quite probable that someone reading my words this moment is fighting an inner battle with a ghost from the past. The skeleton in one of yesterday’s closets is beginning to rattle louder and louder. Putting adhesive tape around the closet and moving the bureau in front of the door does little to muffle the clattering bones. You wonder, possibly, “Who knows?” You think, probably, “I’ve had it . . . can’t win . . . party’s over.”
Read MoreDon’t Be Afraid . . . It’s Just Your Future
The hour of 1:00 a.m. comes every night, but there’s one 1:00 a.m. I’ll never forget. While you were likely sound asleep, I was wide awake . . . talking to God like mad! I was aboard a small twin-engine plane with a seasoned pilot, rapidly descending through a foggy, dense overcast at 200 miles […]
Read MoreMy Life’s Defining Moments
For 63 years, I have started nearly every day the same way. My wife, Cynthia, and I get up at 5:00 a.m. We have done this for so long that we don’t need an alarm clock, no matter what time we went to bed. First thing, one of us turns on the coffeepot that I […]
Read MoreFailures
Snake River Canyon coiled up, rattled its tail, and sank its fangs into its would-be captor. On a sultry Sunday afternoon its l,700-foot jaws yawned wide as it swallowed a strange-tasting capsule prescribed for it by Dr. Robert C. Truax, the scientist-designer of Sky Cycle X-2. Starring in the show was a guy some people tagged Captain Marvel, who looked more like Billy Batson unable to remember the magic word. But before we label him a showman or a show-off . . . I suggest we consider the outcome of this showdown.
Read More