Sometimes we need a sledgehammer to break up our hard or fallow ground. Throughout my life, since I first picked up the small book Knowledge of the Holy when I was a high school student, a virtually unknown Chicago pastor named A.W. Tozer has been that for me. Tozer did not travel far from his… Read More Prayer is no substitute for obedience
Ever been in a gathering (or one on one) when someone starts sharing pain from their story, whether personal or group related? Or has that person ever been you? What usually happens? Well, quite often one or more people listening will feel compelled to share their own story of pain, however dissimilar, hoping somehow that… Read More Why do we have to ‘identify’ when someone is sharing their pain?
In the art of blogging, (which I’m still learning!), the pros say that having a provocative headline question can gain readers. Did it work? Does this headline cause you to feel a degree of pushback, especially if you are from the USA? Some may immediately disagree, wanting to say how friendly and polite the nation… Read More Is the United States a Cruel Nation?
I’ve been thinking lately about kindness. Actually about how unkind we are in our public and political discourse. I’m writing this post in the USA, but it is certainly true in other nations as well. Yesterday, with the graves of the Normandy D-Day invasion in the background, the US President in an interview savaged his… Read More How low will our public discourse go? The importance of kindness.
Being in-between destinations, not part really of either one, has a special pain to it. Another word for it is transition, and transitions can be of durations as short as a day to ones lasting many years. Living in the in-between space is living in the margins, hoping that somehow there is hope ahead and… Read More The Pain of In-betweenness
In three days a new year will start. Time for fresh grace, fresh opportunities. Leaving behind the regrets of 2018, taking stock of life anew. This coming year is a milestone one for me: turning 60 years old, celebrating 30 years of marriage, and 40 years in the mission I serve with. Arriving at 60… Read More How would you like to receive a blessing from a 101 year old Genocide survivor?
Humpty Dumpty’s great fall resulted in a whole lot of broken pieces. And as the English nursery rhyme goes that first appeared in the late nineteenth century, “All the King’s horses and all the King’s men, couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty together again.” The image of broken Humpty Dumpty at the bottom of a wall has… Read More Humpty Dumpty and the broken pieces
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