God recently revealed to me how we try to hold on to seasons, events, circumstances, moments in our lives and want to camp there. We do this with all kinds of things. We experience something that seems successful or that makes us happy, and we want to preserve it, systematize it, institutionalize it. We can, …
Years ago, we patronized a bakery outlet that sold day-old bread at a discount, and we’d stock our freezer with it, to feed our dozens of children. (OK, there were only six of them, but it seemed like a lot.) One day I got the mother of our hungry horde a bread-making machine. Which bread …
I walked in the kitchen recently and was greeted with a most unusual culinary sight: three encyclopedias precariously perched on an upside-down bowl atop a slow cooker. My wife is quite creative in the kitchen, but this cooking contraption was somewhat unprecedented. Turns out the turkey breast she had in the slow cooker was just …
“Thanks a LOT.” Perhaps this phrase is uniquely American, but if you’ve heard this sentiment spoken the way it’s written here, delivered without any hint of a smile, what vocal expression might you imagine accompanying it? If used in response to an obviously undesirable occurrence, the tone was probably sarcastic, right? One can say, “Thank …
Out of curiosity, have you ever counted how many Bibles you own? I just took a walk around our home, and found over two dozen Bibles and New Testaments. That doesn’t even touch my digital Bible collection, or the scores of translations accessible online. My most recent visit to Christian Book Distributors’ website listed over 11,000 …
If you are reading this, chances are you have electricity and indoor plumbing. If you live in a detached house, you likely have a lawn as well. Underneath that green turf (or brown turf, if you fail to water in Colorado) run an assortment of pipes and wires supplying water, sewer, natural gas, sprinkler systems, …
Sometimes . . . OK, often, I get caught up with “doing things right” or following rules I make for myself. Just the other day I caught myself once again getting up in arms about “the principle” of a thing. As intermediary in someone else’s financial conflict, I was wrestling with the other party’s unjust …
Early in my technology career in marketing support, I was at the end of a long day of computer demonstrations at a General Motors plant in Michigan. I’d found the facility’s immensity impressive—we’d been transported by vehicle from one part of the building to another. Our driver zipped past showers of sparks and gigantic manufacturing …
A devotional entry I recently read gave me reason for pause. The writer suggested that all your life could basically be training “for one moment, crisis, or opportunity.” He was trying to encourage his readers, no doubt, with the idea that “Your time will come. God will put you in the right place at the …
More than once, I’ve taken a moment to thank God that He didn’t just make a monochromatic, black-and-white world. Do colors delight you, too? Their vibrant hues probably motivated me to collect rocks, minerals, seashells and postage stamps growing up. Another love of mine has always been butterflies, iridescent beetles, and other fascinating insects that …
