Have you ever felt that no matter how hard you tried, nothing that you did worked? I sure have! There can be a lot of reasons that this is the case, sometimes it’s just a season, sometimes we need to make a life adjustment. But as I was reading through the book of Haggai recently […]
The book of Jonah, in the Bible, does not name its author, however, many scholars believe that it was actually written by the prophet himself. Clearly, some of the details of the story, his prayer in the belly of the fish or over the city of Nineveh for example, could have only come from the […]
“Obey without delay.” This is a saying that I repeat over and over again to my children for three good reasons. First, not obeying right away could cause something really bad to happen. I might yell at my child to “stop!” just as they are about to run across a parking lot in front of […]
The book of Exodus dramatically opens with two unlikely female champions of a heroic resistance against the Egyptian government. When Shiphrah and Puah (midwives for the Jewish people) refused to kill all of the newborn Hebrew baby boys as they had been instructed by Pharaoh himself, they unknowingly ensured that their names would never be […]
This week I heard some bad advice from a very popular author and speaker in the Christian world. One of her followers said to her; “I just can’t reconcile your teaching on this particular subject with what I read in scripture.” The author answered: “Read a book.” The follower was right, the author’s teaching did […]
My family lives in Oregon, however, after college my husband and I moved to Alabama for about a decade. Every summer I would pack up my trusty Ford Escape with our Golden Retriever and however many kids we had at the current time (between one and four) and we would head out on the 2,500-mile […]
Fake News. Have you heard that term a lot lately? In fact, 82 percent of us admit that we have been duped by “fake news.” Before that term became a thing, the apostle Paul cautioned the church about fake news. Knowing that this would be his last time seeing his friends at the church in […]
A.W. Tozer wrote, “God will speak to the hearts of those who prepare themselves to hear; and conversely, those who do not so prepare themselves will hear nothing even though the Word of God is falling upon their outer ears every Sunday.” Have you ever heard God speak to you? My sixth grader and I […]
Some years ago, I read a book called Jesus Freaks. The book is a lengthy record of Christian martyrs to the present day and the torture that these men, women and children endured before their murders is staggering. I remember sobbing my way through the book wondering if I would ever have the courage to […]
Do you ever read through the Bible and wonder how such atrocious people somehow ended up being used by God? It’s remarkable, isn’t it? Take, for example, Jacob and Leah’s son Judah. What an awful human being! Here are a few highlights of Judah’s life. He conspired with his brothers to kill their brother Joseph […]