Almost every week I come into contact with people who have been misled, thinking that success depends solely upon talent or brilliance or education. But the list doesn’t end there. For some it’s getting the breaks, pulling the right strings, having the right personality, being in the right place at the right time, knowing the right people, playing their cards right.
Read MoreTag Archives: Hebrews
Mortality
Life is so short. We really don’t have many years. And to spend them doing dumb stuff seems like such a waste. I was intrigued several years ago when reading about some ghost towns littered across the plains of Nevada. The writer pointed out that there was every indication between the middle and the end of the 1800s that these towns would flourish forever. There were people by the thousands.
Read MoreJesus Understands
For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. —Hebrews 4:15 (NASB) Do you know how Jesus learned obedience? Through lessons taught severely. Critics’ words, people’s actions, six illegal trials, unfair treatment, mocking, scourging, and, […]
Read MoreOf Parrots and Eagles, Part One
We are running shy of eagles, and we’re running over with parrots. Content to sit safely on our evangelical perches and repeat in rapid-fire falsetto our religious words, we are fast becoming overpopulated with bright-colored birds having soft bellies, big beaks, and little heads.
Read MoreAn ”Affair,” Part Two
In Part One, we acknowledged that our society has embraced a subtle lie about affairs, believing that not only is the grass greener on the other side, it’s acceptable to hop the fence. What’s more, believers are just as likely as nonbelievers to do the hopping. But infidelity isn’t an “affair,” remember; it’s adultery. And it’s deadly to a marriage. Robert J. Levin and Alexander Lowen noted three specific ways.
Read MoreWho Cares?
Who really cared? His was a routine admission to busy Bellevue Hospital. A charity case, one among hundreds. A bum from the Bowery with a slashed throat. The Bowery . . . last stop before the morgue. Synonym of filth, loneliness, cheap booze, drugs, and disease. The details of what had happened in the predawn of that chilly winter’s morning were fuzzy. The nurse probably shrugged it off.
Read MoreResentment
Leo Held was a paragon of respectability. He was a middle-aged, hard-working lab technician who had worked at the same Pennsylvania paper mill for nineteen years. Having been a Boy Scout leader, an affectionate father, a member of the local fire brigade, and a regular church-goer, he was admired as a model in his community. Until . . .
Read MoreInsight
Are you ready for a surprise? You blink twenty-five times every minute. Each blink takes you about one-fifth of a second. Therefore, if you take a ten-hour automobile trip, averaging forty miles per hour, you will drive twenty miles with your eyes closed. I know a fact far more surprising than that. Some people go through life with their eyes closed.
Read MoreA Midwinter Poem
AS WE MOVE TOWARD the close of this year, we must refocus our priorities. Here is an anchor passage for us as we end one year and begin another: Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise. Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. HEBREWS 10:23–24
Read MoreStumbling
Nothing damages our dignity like stumbling! I have seen people, dressed to the hilt, stumble and fall flat on their faces as they were walking to church. I have witnessed serious and gifted soloists, stepping up to the pulpit with music in hand, stumble and fall as the sheets of music sailed like maple leaves in an October breeze. I’ve watched a sure and winning touchdown by a fleet split-end—nobody within fifteen yards—foiled by a stumble.
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