“Do not become overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” Romans 12:21 This morning my kids and I were having a conversation about resilience. We had just finished an excellent biography about Dr. George Washington Carver. George was born a sickly slave and when he was about two weeks old his mother was stolen […]
Have you ever felt stuck? I mean really stuck. For whatever reason, you found yourself trapped in a life that you knew full and well wasn’t all that you wanted it to be, but felt powerless to change it. Joseph (from the book of Genesis) may have felt exactly that way. Things couldn’t have gotten […]
“The Lord was with Joseph.” (Gen. 39:2) Those five words are the hallmark of the Biblical character Joseph’s life. Aren’t they so comforting? Any of us would want our lives to be punctuated by the fact that the Lord is with us, wouldn’t we? Remarkably, those words were first written about Joseph after his brothers […]
Everybody loves Adeline. My third grader has always been my easiest child. She is sweet and smart, responsible and continually willing to help. However, we always laugh because as sweet as she is, when she is over-tired and something happens that really upsets her, she will register her grievance about the present problem and then […]
Our church has a program that I really love. The program allows students from fourth grade up to volunteer in the Sunday School classrooms of younger students. They interact with the kids, help with crafts, sing songs, and basically just assist the teacher with whatever he or she needs. My two oldest kids both volunteer. […]
I once heard about a minister who was worried that his low salary prevented him from purchasing medical insurance for his family. He worried a great deal about the problem, conflicted. He knew that he had been called to that particular ministry, but he worried about his family. What if someone became sick or injured? […]
King Darius was vain, short-sighted and self-absorbed, but if there is anything that we can admire about him, he certainly had a lot of faith. After being tricked into throwing his friend and trusted adviser, Daniel, into a den of hungry lions, King Darius might well have just walked away sad that the experience had […]
Daniel chapter four records a remarkable letter from King Nebuchadnezzar to his people that starts out something like this: “You guys, I have the best news ever! I lost my mind.” Hmmm…that doesn’t sound like fantastic news. The king went on. “No, really! For seven years I lost my mind. I started eating grass like […]
Whenever I read the story of the Widow of Zerephath in the book of First Kings 17 I always wonder if the prophet Elijah was at least a little bit embarrassed when he met her for the first time. After all, there had been a drought going on for some time and people were literally […]
Sometimes God makes it clear that it is time for something new. I don’t know about you, but I am not in love with change and most major changes in my life (outside of having kids- which I relished) have been accomplished despite me dragging my heels, kicking and screaming. No matter how much we […]