The flea market is often where you find the most spiritual people. For many years, my cousin’s father sold collectors’ knives at the local market. I remember going with Kyle to visit his dad’s stand one time. We leisurely wandered around looking at all of the lights, wall decorations, used furniture, antique stoves, classic video […]
Jesus
Hosted Amongst the Tribesmen: a Descriptive, if not Humorous, Anecdotal Recollection (Part One)
– Arrival. It wasn’t that I spent half the ride crammed in the back of a 4 x 4. It wasn’t that the dirt roads were bumpy. It wasn’t even that one of our vans got stuck in the mud and had to be winched out. It was that departure had been delayed several hours […]
Healing is not Your Job (Healing School 12)
God is sovereign. It’s one of the most comforting and most fearful aspects of our faith. It’s comforting for us to realize God’s will is going to get done, whether we succeed or fail. On the other hand, it’s discomforting to think that we can do everything we want or think we have to do, […]
Healing is Your Job (Healing School 11)
I must constantly remind myself that the tree of healing in my life grows in the soil of my understanding of God’s will, that he has put forth in his word his desire to heal me. Each day, the sapling must be watered by my confession – out loud – of the word of God. […]
Tend the Seed (Healing School 10)
I heard a thought-provoking sermon by Kris Vallotton recently regarding God’s promises and miracles. “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.” Proverbs 13:12 He argues the reason that desire fulfilled is a tree of life is because the promise comes in the form of a seed–one which […]
One Day at a Time (Healing School 9)
I think uncertainty is a gift when dealing with God's promises of healing. If you had told Abraham the day after he received the promise from God that he would have to wait 25 years to see its fulfillment, he might have given up then and there. I probably would have as well. I think […]
Prisoner of Hope (Healing School 5)
The first pale crack of sunlight peaks through iron bars. Your roll over and brush off the smudge of mud and dirt on your elbow, rising up to a sitting position. The air is stale and quiet. There was evening, and there was morning. The 1442nd day. Three – going on four – years you […]
7 Pets: A Story about Living with Intermittent Chronic Pain
Rev. John Watson famously wrote in the late 1800s: “Be pitiful [compassionate], for every man is fighting a hard battle.” This post is a little bit about my battle. First, I call this series Healing School, not Pain School, because the main thrust is not to describe the nature of my pain to you. Even […]
Healing School: Let the Journey Begin
Many of you know that over the past decade I’ve struggled with intermittent chronic pain in many different areas of my body. I’m writing about this not because my symptoms are gone. It’s because I’m currently in the healing school of Jesus, and I want to invite you into my journey.
Jesus: Don’t Judge? (pt. 2)
Okay, maybe judgment isn’t such a bad word after all. What, then, could Jesus mean by His words in Matthew 7:1? Well, first, who is Jesus talking to in Matthew 7:1? Check the context. Four verses later, He addresses his audience as, “You hypocrite.” Now, I will be the first to admit that I and […]
Jesus: Don’t Judge? (pt. 1)
“Do not judge, or you too will be judged” (Matt. 7:1). These oft-quoted words remain a favorite of Generation X and millennials, but what do they really mean? The term “judging” is used by my generation with an almost universally negative connotation. “Don’t judge.” “Only God can judge me.” “Don’t judge me if you don’t […]
Jesus Says NO to Self Defense?
There is plenty in Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount to wrestle with. Does he really mean, “If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and threw it away”? Does he really mean, “Blessed are those who mourn”? Wait … um, doesn’t the Bible also command me to rejoice? (See Philippians 4:4; Nehemiah […]