It is my great pleasure to feature Stephen Garner for the first time. I hope you enjoy my father’s unique blend of biblical insights, illuminating anecdotes, and punny repartée. Our numerous hikes together over the past decade have then a powerful connecting force during my young adult years. Read more of his work at https://hikerdude.wordpress.com/. […]
beauty
My 7 Favorite Free Prayer Tools
Do words fail you when you pray? Are you ever not quite sure what to say? Do you ever get distracted? I can honestly answer yes to all three, and I think I’m not the only one. Using a guide/resource when you pray doesn’t make you any less spiritual. Here are some tools that help […]
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Why You Don’t Pray: 4 Truths You’ve Forgotten/Missed
Would you like to have a better prayer life? Do you need motivation to carve out time against your maxed-out, packed-out schedule? Here’s four scriptural reasons to keep first things first in your relationship with God. 1. It’s the most important question When the disciples of Jesus saw his miracles, they had only one question. […]
My Infatuation with Miss Mystery
“What I think you really want is God,” my friend said to me. What a slap in the face. No, I want the girl! The protest nearly made it out of my mouth, but I caught it when it was still in the back of my throat. Surprised at me? I wasn’t talking about my […]
Africa 2017: A Day in the Life
6:50am. Wake up. I prepare my bucket shower. I go to the bottom floor of the house and fill up the electric tea kettle with water. Put it on for a few minutes, and it is boiling. Pour it into the plastic basin that I have in the downstairs shower/bathroom. In the areas of the […]
A Guy’s Take: Beauty is a Choice
I am going to marry the most beautiful woman in the world. Just watch me. Who is it, you may ask? Well, I can’t tell you. Why? Because I don’t know who it is. How can I be so confident I’ll get such a beautiful woman? Now that is something I can tell you. First, […]
A Guy’s Take: Beauty is Not
Can’t we just give the ladies a break? I live and work in what is perhaps the Middle East’s capital of consumerism. I can’t go a single day without driving by numerous billboards of flawlessly airbrushed models promoting real estate and all manner of clothing brands. Every time I walk through one of the city’s […]
Jesus: Go Watch Some Birds?
My apartment smells like sweet potato fries with adobo and curry seasoning. The kitchen is half cleaned and hot. I walk outside to the cul-de-sac that rounds our apartment community. It’s unseasonably cool for a fall Georgia day with a glassy grey sky behind brown, bare tree limbs. I look into the tree and see […]
Shouts, Stairs, and Tear Stains
“Where’s my phone? . . . Ugh, I left it in my car.” Relief would elude me a little longer at the end of this 11 hour day of teaching and a trip to Whole Foods. Having just gotten back to my apartment, I turned right around and exited the door. There was a racket […]