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So You Want to Follow Jesus? Grab Your Muck Boots
Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? Isaiah 43:18-19 A welcomed change to the weather creeps into West Michigan. Hopes of an early spring dance in with sunshine and balmy (35 degrees plus, balmy is relative) temperatures. Hats are left indoors and snow boots are exchanged for muck boots. If you reside in a warmer, dryer climate perhaps this does not resonate, the need for muck boots. But if you live in West Michigan in March, it will click. The promise of spring does not initially reveal itself with peeking purple…
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Trading Jesus; Missing Out When We Get What We Want
Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:6-7 I am stuck, early in this walk, bartering with Jesus. I cannot seem to move past what I want and the lengths I will go with Him to get it. I take a queue from the persistent widow in Luke 18, and I ask repeatedly. I mean, I ask repeatedly. I quote to Him in my prayers, “ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it”…
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Digging Out; Where Does Your Help Come From?
I lift up my eyes to the hills – where does my help come from? My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth. Psalm 121:1-2 The boy’s day starts long before his sister or I consider waking. Winter brings challenges to our West Michigan home, primarily in the form of a relatively long driveway built on an incline. There is a slight curve in the middle, identifying those who belong to this driveway and those who do not. Experience is required to navigate both an entrance to and an exit from the home that sits atop the hill, experience or a four-wheel drive vehicle. The boy’s…
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He Loves Me, I Loved Him Not
And Jesus, looking at him, loved him. Mark 10:21 And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. (Mark 10:21-22) I want to know the rest of the story. What becomes of this young man who so earnestly ran and knelt before Jesus, referring to Him as the “Good Teacher” and asking how he could earn eternal life (Mark 10:17). Will he lose what he desires to gain what…
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For Glory and Beauty; The Unlimited Goodness of God
You shall make them for glory and beauty. Exodus 28:40 Snowflakes are falling in West Michigan. Walking through cold January air I find myself captivated by their fleeting beauty. One in particular catches my eye, landing on my mittened hand. I study the intricate detail and wonder how many there must be stacked upon the ground and floating in the space around me, touching cold against my face. So much beautiful encapsulated in such a tiny package. As I walk, the lyrics of Gungor’s “Beautiful Things” roll through my mind. You make beautiful things, you make beautiful things out of the dust. You make beautiful things, you make beautiful things…
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Choosing Something from a Landscape Cluttered with Nothings
Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things; and give me life in your ways. Psalm 119:37 I find myself living in the midst of superfluous options, like one who sits and eats from a box of chocolates. Chocolates that come packaged in a flat white cardboard box, lined in neat rows. A box once opened reveals a homogenous landscape of too sweet, too many. I am in the middle, surrounded by flimsy brown papers, reminiscent of a Shel Silverstein line drawing (complete with a slightly cynical but true rhyme) with my pigtails askew, cheeks and tummy puffy, holding a partial box of carrageenan filled chocolatey choices. Partaking fully in…
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Weariness; When Inadequacy is a Gift
But Moses’ hands grew weary, so they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it, while Aaron and Hur held up his hands, one on one side, and the other on the other side. So his arms were steady until the going down of the sun. Exodus 17:12 Somewhere between “Moses! Moses! Take your sandals off your feet” (Exodus 3:4) and “there has not arisen a prophet since in Israel like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face” (Deuteronomy 34:10), we find a man desperately inadequate doing a mighty work for God. Reality confronts Moses in Exodus 17. His people are grumbling, blaming him…
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Hopemonger; Living with Unhindered Belief in the Promises of God
Blessed is she who has believed that what the LORD has said to her will be accomplished! Luke 1:45 In a world of fake news and manipulated messaging, what if there is something true? What if the number one best selling book of all time is the written record of absolute truth? What if the story recorded in Luke Chapters 1 and 2 is the beginning chapter of a serious nonfiction book, an autobiography of a universal force wrapped in skin and born from the womb of a woman, destined from words spoken in Genesis 3:15. What if that universal force has a voice that speaks nothing into something as…
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Be Still My Anxious Heart
The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and I am helped. Psalm 28:7 As you sit and read these words, the earth is rapidly rotating on its axis at a speed of 1000 mph, while suspended in space, held in place by something called gravity. Perhaps you are able to almost remember the explanation of gravity learned a lifetime ago in a high school or college science class. Perhaps, like me, you need a quick google minute and once googled, you will wonder if what you are reading is true or made-up. Either way, it is very unlikely that you are currently concerned about…
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If Only To Be Seen
So she called the name of the LORD who spoke to her, “You are a God of seeing,” for she said, “Truly here I have seen Him who looks after me.” Genesis 16:13 I love the stars, the planets. Rare, if ever, do I step out into the night without immediately looking up. It never gets old, searching for the familiar shine of the planets, Venus stunning and bold, Mars, just shy of bright orange, Jupiter, faithfully shining in the south. Saturn, Mercury to be found based on their proximity to the bright ones. I know only the most common constellations, but the satisfaction of finding them does not disappoint.…
