Tag: planning
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Rubble and Ruin
Psalm 142; Amos 9:1–4; Acts 23:12–35 I don’t know about you, but I’m a little jaundiced about earthquakes. I grew up in Northern California. Earthquakes were…normal isn’t the word…to be expected. So much so, that the first earthquake my wife experiences was in the middle of the night. She woke me up in a panic,…
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We Love Talking About It
It is the motive behind our use of money that is the point of tithing and giving. God created the world. God already has the money (as if God needed it). God wants our heart.
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Change of Plans
Judges 2:16–23; Acts 13:16–25 There is a saying that you are probably familiar with: repeating the same thing and expecting different results is the definition of insanity. When it comes to practice, that isn’t the case. When it comes to many other things in life, though, it is very true. In manufacturing (where I work…
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Ready! Set!
Luke 5:1–11; Luke 6:12–16; Luke 9:1–6; Luke 9:28–36; Luke 24:44-49; Acts 2:14 (read online ⧉) What’s your 6-month plan? What’s your 12-month plan? What’s your 3-year plan? What’s your 10-year plan? Some variation of this question is often asked of high school students, college students, recent graduates, job interviewees. In this particular time of COVID-19,…
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Stone to Grace
Exodus 28:15–30, Ezekiel 36:24–30, Luke 3:7–9, Luke 19:37–40 “I’ve done too much.” “God would never forgive me.” “I would be [struck by lightening/catch on fire/combust/die] if I walked through the doors.” “If you (or God) knew what I had done…” Have you heard any of these statements from people? It is so completely human to…
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What God’s Will?
Genesis 37:16–27, Deuteronomy 30:15–20, Matthew 12:46–50 One of the most heartbreaking things taught by certain Christian traditions is that God wills bad things to happen to people. One of the reasons they draw that conclusion is that we are able to look back at stories like Joseph’s and say, “God knew/planned/designed this to happen.” For…
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Holy Monday
Ecclesiastes 8:8–15, Psalm 51, Mark 11:12–18 When the writer of Ecclesiastes notes that no one has authority over the wind, he had no concept of the wind power generation farms we have. We may have harnessed the wind to provide power for us, but we have no authority over it. We put the wind farms…
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Third Tuesday of Lent
Psalm 84, 1 Chronicles 28:1–29:9 When we speak of legacy, it is usually about what we leave behind. In Shakespeare’s play Julias Caesar, Anthony says, “The evil that men do lives after them. The good is oft interred with their bones.” That sad truth is that often the bad that people do (even if simple,…