Ever had one of those mornings when you woke up just not quite ready to face life? That was me recently. It had been a hectic week with too quick of a pace and too many challenges, and I was on the verge of a melt-down --- maybe not Three Mile Island, but still. So I grabbed my trusty Bible, hoping for some inspiring words and a tasty personal tidbit to get me through the day. Perhaps a lovely promise, or comforting verse to soothe and uplift me. I got wrath and woes. I started in Psalms, often a great place to find solace, and landed on Psalm 78. That particular one happens to be a Continue Reading
How Are You Hiding From God? — Part 2
We were talking about how God knows your ways intricately, and that is nothing to fear. Let’s look at the other side of this coin, though. It is possible to exasperate and even anger God. Know how? By refusing to know his ways. Talking about the ancient Israelites, the writer of Hebrews quotes additional Scriptures about how they rebelled against God and tested him to the point of provoking him. They had seen all the ways he had taken care of them. He led them, fed them, and saved them from their enemies, yet they continually questioned and grumbled against him. In his Continue Reading
How Are You Hiding From God?
My cat Gizmo was deathly ill one summer, so he hid inside the ginormous juniper bush we had in our backyard. He nearly died of dehydration because I couldn’t find him for a couple of days. When I was finally able to coax him out and get water down his throat with a dropper, he got well. In Psalm 139, and in Hebrews 3 and 4, a comparison is made between how well God knows our ways (infinitely and perfectly) and how well we know His (maybe not so much). David lists this eloquent description of all the stuff God knows about us, like when we sit down, when we get up, what we think, where we Continue Reading
Why You Can’t Skip the Prep
Have you done any house painting lately? We tackled our living room and dining room this spring. The finished product looks fantastic, but I learned something in the process. Eighty percent of a job well done is in the prep work. I was really eager to start rolling “Nutty Beige” onto the walls, but before we could do that, we had to purchase supplies, move furniture, clean off walls, tape edges, spackle holes, and lay down drop clothes. This took the better part of a day. Once we started cutting in and rolling, the job didn’t take very long. Consider how that’s what parenting is like. Continue Reading