The sleuths were on the job before seven this morning, trampling up and down the house in safety glasses and sun hats, peering through magnifying glasses for clues, and waiting beneath the attic door for robbers to emerge. They were not quiet. The other morning it was music: drums, shakers, tambourines, and an untrained pianist.…
Five Minute Friday: lift
He holds up his dimpled hands, and I bend to hoist him over the bump that is his brother. Sometimes recently, with post-COVID fatigue and an irritated pregnant hip, it’s a struggle to lift myself, let alone a thirty pound toddler. But he buries his face in my shoulder and squeezes his arms right around…
particular rain
The rain is falling all around, It falls on field and tree. It rains on the umbrellas here And on the ships at sea. —Robert Lewis Stevenson Children watching rain. I hear them in my van’s back seat wondering at how the drops travel up the windshield but down their windows, and I remember the…
Five Minute Friday (on Sunday): fix
Fix. verb [with object] "fasten (something) securely in a particular place or position." All my life, I dug in my heels, clinging, white-knuckled, to whatever my "now" happened to be. That place, that age, those people. Change caught and tore me away, again and again, and I mourned each fresh transition, seeing always endings rather…
The law of the world
A counter-psalm The law of the world is imperfect, wearying the soul to death; the testimony of the world is false,establishing fools in their folly;the precepts of the world are wrong,grieving the heart;the commandments of the world are impure,blinding the eyes;the fear of the world is filthy,swiftly passing away;the rules of the world are altogether untrue and…
broken bowls
It had already been a long day when I stretched up on tiptoe to shelve a bowl from the dishwasher. Somehow its glass lid slipped down, ricocheted off a stack of other dishes waiting to be shelved, and landed, shattered, on my usually forgiving linoleum tiles. I didn't cry, but my disappointment must have been…
Unboxing God: Implications III
Which leads to my last implication: If these things are true, then we as Christians should value and honor the Bible. Jesus is the Savior, but he is also the Lord (Acts 2:36). God is the only one who can make authoritative truth claims. Therefore, if we want to be people of the truth, then…
Unboxing God: Implications II
A second implication to these truths is that we must have a commitment to God as he reveals himself to be. God is not an abstract idea, he is a person. We must submit ourselves to God as the ultimate authority. I have heard recently that it is popular to use the phrase, “I don’t…
Unboxing God: Implications I
The implications of these last two chapters (see Who is God? and Who Are We?) are massive. How we relate to God in light of what we now know is of first importance. As we see God and ourselves correctly, we are faced with a sober reality: God is good, and we are not. God…
Unboxing God: Who are We?
The phrase “know thyself” is an incredibly important statement. We must first know ourselves if we are ever to understand how we should relate to others, our surroundings, and ultimately God. We have already answered how we can know these things, but I think it bears repeating. We are tempted to think that we are…
Between Blue Rocks 