In the past week have you felt… … inadequate? … overextended? … strained? … no sense of getting ahead? … swamped by your responsibilities? … that the odds were against you? … that there wasn’t enough time to get to everything? … like you were rushed? … like you couldn’t cope? … like you had…
Church Blog (Page 37)
When I was a missionary in the Philippines I learned to appreciate the jokes of my hosts and co-workers. I say “learned to” because their sense of humor is quite different from mine. Much of their humor is based on wordplay and therefore difficult for a non-Tagalog speaker to appreciate. For instance, one of their…
“Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up; it knows it must outrun the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up; it knows it must run faster than the slowest gazelle, or it will starve. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a lion or a gazelle-when the sun…
On January 26th, 1988, I had the opportunity to be on Sydney harbor for Australia’s Bicentennial celebration. It marked 200 years since the arrival of the First Fleet of British convict ships in Sydney in 1788. If you know any Aussies, they’ll tell you they take great national pride in their convict roots and celebrate…
Dearly beloved, Who are you hanging out with? Does it really matter? If you are a parent, are you at all concerned about your children’s friends? Years ago, I memorized this verse: “He who walks with wise men will be wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm” Proverbs 13:20 Wisdom in the Old…
Parents love to see their young children learning new skills – feeding themselves, reading “c-a-t”, or putting their own shoes on. When our kids got to be a certain age, they had a favorite saying. It came a little bit after some of their other favorites, “Mine!” and “No!”. The saying was, “I do it…
Do you like a good mystery? Maybe you would prefer a nice romance novel instead? Mystery: Something not understood or beyond understanding A piece of fiction dealing usually with the solution of a mysterious crime A religious truth that one can know only by revelation like the Trinity Something profound, inexplicable, or secretive quality or character Romance:…
Dearly beloved, Are you dying to live, living to die or both? Death is a daily occurrence in our world as 152,000 people took their breath yesterday. The same number today and every day! Do these stats surprise you, shock you or both? (They are our brothers and sisters.) “An estimated 100,000 Christians are killed…
Today you see more and more electric vehicles on the road. Since electric charging stations are fewer and substantially slower than gas stations, those drivers carefully think through each trip and how much battery power they have left over when they return home. It’s not like you can bring a “can” of electric power to…
If someone asks, “How ya’ doin?” (How are you doing?), the typical answer is “fine,” right? The reason for the vague answer is that it’s really just a way of acknowledging someone’s presence, not a genuine question of interest regarding the other person’s well-being. In the Philippines, a similar question is “Saan ka pupunta?” or…