You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Psalm 23:5 You and I have a natural desire to run from danger. We’d rather our enemies stay at a nice safe distance, preferably out of sight where we can convince ourselves they don’t exist. And we […]
He brought me out into a broad place; he rescued me, because he delighted in me. Psalm 18:19 It’s amazing how God can be so intimately personal, even in a crowd. Last year I attended a conference with a few leaders from my local church. The invitation had come in a season of tremendous weariness […]
For many, God’s love remains a theory. We’ve heard about it. We quote Scriptures about it. We may even try to will ourselves to believe in it. But John invites us to move beyond blind faith in God’s love. He challenges us to see it.
He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. 1 Peter 2:24 We all long for love, and we think we understand it. We’ve felt its pull binding our hearts to another and think we know. We […]
And those who went before and those who followed were shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! 10Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in the highest!”Mark 11:9-10 We come alive in pivotal moments. Our souls sense the rise of a changing tide and are quick to […]
See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland. Isaiah 43:19 NIV Hello, dear one. It’s been five months since I last opened the Scriptures with you. I can hardly believe that time has flown so quickly! I’ve missed […]
So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his. Hebrews 4:9-10 Two years ago, after a women’s conference at my home church, I had the opportunity to share a word of encouragement with the speaker. […]
“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” Matthew 7:7 I. Love. Cheese. Passionately. Cheddar. Asiago. Parmesan. I’ve always lived by the mantra that cheese makes everything better. Especially when melted. Until recently, that is. A surprise autoimmune diagnosis this summer after […]
Blessed is the one who always trembles before God, but whoever hardens their heart falls into trouble. Proverbs 28:14 Sometimes life just gets hard. Particularly when you have to watch people you love suffer. We hurt when they hurt, and we don’t like it. So when people or circumstances inflict pain, our hearts get a […]
We need each other. As much as we may like to think we can handle things ourselves, scripture teaches that we need one another. God Himself declared His thoughts on the matter in Genesis 2:18 after forming Adam from the earth’s dust. Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should […]
