Ruminations

Benaiah. Lion. Pit. Snowy day.
Thanks to Mark Batterson, many know the story.
It wasn’t an accident; he didn’t fall into the pit that held a lion. It wasn’t an attack; the lion hadn’t come after him. The circumstances surrounding the event were simply that, circumstances; the snow, the pit… they were merely the settings, not the [...]

I just received an email that bothers me greatly.
It seems that we are in dire straights here in America. People losing their jobs, homes being foreclosed left and right, the federal government spending billions on pork at record levels when we’re all tightening the belt trying to figure out how we’re going to make it. [...]

Sometimes, listen to the verbage coming out of people’s mouths about Christianity, it sounds just like this:

Why is it we have to talk in “code?” Should we be amazed when the world doesn’t listen?

I’m finding it interesting to see how our environment so colors what we read in the Word.
We tend to interpret our world based on our experiences. While that works relatively well in our normal environment, it typically works poorly in a foreign environment. I learned that the hard way many years ago on my first [...]

You cannot meet the Creator of the universe and remain the same. If the God who is all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-present comes to dwell within your soul, you would expect at least some minor disruption. I think there’s a problem when people talk about meeting God or knowing God and yet remain unchanged by God. [...]

The things that are out there…

WELLINGTON, New Zealand – Biblical citations inscribed on U.S.-manufactured weapon sights used by New Zealand’s troops in Afghanistan will be removed because they are inappropriate and could stoke religious tensions, said Thursday.
Markings included “JN8:12,” a reference to John 8:12: “Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, ‘I am the light [...]

Last night I sat in a gathering of people from several different area churches. Hosted by Lifepoint, there were people present from Rock, Horizon and River of Leland. There were probably others; I talked with folks from each of these.
We’d gathered to pray for Haiti.
The interesting thing is that while Haiti was the focus of [...]

It saddens me to see believers living beneath themselves.
I’ve read news reports about people living in abject poverty who, after they’ve died, it was discovered that they were millionaires. They weren’t millionaires who decided to live on the street, they were street people who had hoarded every penny they were given and found, saving it [...]

Have you ever had a sense of expectation that was so strong that you could actually touch it?
I’ve had that sensation on several occasions: getting married, the birth of a child, moving to Brazil, experiences that were anything but common place and marked a momentous change in my life.  These are events that you can [...]

It was Christmas morning, and the three wise men and the Virgin Mary stared down at the bare floor at the Westfield Valencia Town Center. Baby Jesus was nowhere to be found.
He’d been kidnapped!
A fitting description for the state of the faith?