Isaiah 11:1-10 A stump speaks of what has been. A long time ago an acorn lay in the ground. It was buried under the leaves and other debris of the forest. It disappeared from sight until one day a tiny shoot came up out of the ground. It managed not to be stepped on or…
Isaiah 9:2-7 I was an Emergency Medical Technician during my years as a pastor in Ohio in the early 1980s. EMTs are trained to arrive at an emergency and stabilize the person injured or sick and then take them to the hospital. When there was an emergency, the siren went off and we were called….
Psalm 19, Philippians 3:12-15, John 17:18 When I was back in the US last month, I went on a two day prayer retreat at a camp in the northern woods of New Jersey. This camp had four hundred acres of land (177 hectors) with a lodge built on the edge of a small lake. The…
Deuteronomy 33:12, Psalm 131 Life isn’t safe. I was with my father this last month and dealt with the concerns of my five sisters that he will be unable to take care of himself now that my mother has died. He has a bit of a short-term memory problem. As he told me, “I can…
Malachi 2:17-3:5 For just about two thousand years the church has been expecting the return of Jesus. The early church expected Jesus to come soon. Generation after generation has expected Jesus soon. From time to time people have been so caught up in this expectation that they sold all they had and waited on a…