Good evening, friend! This week, we are basking in one of the great biblical ideas: hope! In 1 Corinthians 13:13, the Apostle Paul lists the supreme Triumvirate of Christian qualities: faith, hope, and love. Of course, “Love” ends up being the number one draft pick, but hope is right up there! And who couldn’t use […]
Sleep on This: Dum Spiro Spero (April 20)
Good evening, friend! How is your soul this night? I trust it’s well in part because we worshipped together yesterday! It blesses me to see your names and greetings popping up in the comment section of our YouTube Channel. Not the same as sitting next to each other in church, of course, but still a […]
The Golden Rule
On Easter Sunday afternoon, our neighborhood had an Easter parade. I might say more of this in another forum, but suffice it to say, it was a delightful, unprecedented event in which many of us left our homes and walked through our streets…six feet apart, of course…greeting those who chose not to walk but were […]
Sleep on This: Character (April 17)
Good evening, friend! How is your soul this night? We have now completed three weeks of these nightly check-ins (or pastoral tuck-ins, as one reader described this blog—I liked that!) I asked Bekah in our communications department to analyze the response to the Sleep on This nightly blog. To my amazement, she told me that […]
Sleep on This: hupomone (April 16)
Good evening, friend! I’ve noticed one of our hummingbirds hanging around lately. Hummingbirds flit; darting from thing to thing, snatching quick sips of fortifying nectar. It works for them, apparently. But there are times when we need to loiter. And the passage of scripture I’ve introduced this week is not “flittable;” it deserves loitering. The […]
Sleep on This: God the alchemist (April 15)
Good evening, friend! Do you remember the meaning of “alchemy” from your history lessons? It was a medieval forerunner to chemistry in which the practitioner sought to turn common metals such as lead into a precious metal such as gold. Of course, it was quackery but that didn’t stop them from trying. Delightfully, God is […]
Sleep on This: Wasting pain (April 14)
Good evening, friend: How is your soul? Whatever its state, it cannot but have been helped by these gorgeous, gorgeous days. Drink in the beauty of God’s creation as you continue to live into this new pace of life. For me, one of the most captivating verses in the Psalms is found in Psalm 56:8. […]
Sleep on This: Easter Monday and my lousy lawnmower (April 13)
Good evening, friend! I have a lawnmower that I pretty much hate. I paid $85 to tune it up and sharpen it up. And still, after running smoothly for about fifteen minutes…enough time to do one half of my lawn…it begins to sputter and cough. (I think it has Corona for lawn implements.) When it […]
Read More… from Sleep on This: Easter Monday and my lousy lawnmower (April 13)
A safer way to the empty tomb
I have led 10 groups to the Holy Land. Every journey ends the same way: a visit to the Garden Tomb where we celebrate the day that changed forever: the resurrection of Jesus. This is always a meaningful way to close out our pilgrimage. But 2015 stands out, by far, as my most memorable visit […]
Sleep on This: April 10 – Good Friday
It is perhaps the most ironic of names. “Good” Friday. Because, in so many ways, it was so bad. So, so bad. Jesus in all his bloodied dignity standing courageously before Pilate. Crowds, stirred up by a few mouthy rabble-rousers— (there are ALWAYS a few mouthy rabble-rousers in the crowd; it takes such courage to […]