There’s an interesting side story in the book of Genesis where Abraham and Sarah really dodged a bullet, so to speak. And the thing is, at the time they probably had no idea. When Abraham and Sarah set out from their home in Ur to follow God, they took their nephew Lot with them. Particularly […]
Holy Anticipation (Genesis 1)
Welcome to 2021! What a welcome sight the turning of the calendar page was this year, wasn’t it? Every year when I open my Bible once again to the first chapter of the first book of the Bible to read it all over again, a tingle goes up my spine because I know that I […]
Where’s the Peace on Earth? (Luke 2)
Have you ever been disappointed in God? Over the past few days I have found myself fighting this feeling because something that I prayed really hard for (and wasn’t even for me) didn’t happen. It was big, it was important, it was in line with scripture and the ramifications for it not happening the way […]
The Silent Years (Intertestament Period)
While teaching a history lesson to my kids recently, I was trying to explain something that happened in the 1600’s and they were having a hard time grasping how long ago 400 years was. Was it before the Revolutionary War, one asked? What kind of clothes did they wear back then? My son wanted to […]
Bridge Burning Days (Haggai 2b)
Have you ever had a bridge burning moment? You know, the kind that you know will radically alter your life forever? Amy Carmichael, a young missionary woman in India, had just one of those moments. She had been very busy doing her regular missionary work when a frantic knock came at her front door in […]
Perspective is Everything (Haggai 2)
Perspective is everything, isn’t it? For example, my siblings and I were raised in Oregon, but my sisters and I have all been moved to other states because of our husband’s jobs. I moved to Alabama and my four children are as Southern as fried chicken. My next sister moved to Alaska and her kids […]
From Survival Mode to Divine Mission (Haggai 1)
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 […]
Yes, You Can! (Jonah)
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 (Jonah 1)
“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 […]
God Came Down (Exodus 1)
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 […]