Posts Tagged "faith"

The white metal sign looked so lonely, its faded yellow trim standing out in a field of brittle grass and flowing weeds. Once upon a time it had been an important warning marker to approaching boats.  At some point in the past it had served a purpose, had helped travelers avoid danger by not letting them float too close to the jetty that would likely bring their boat to a bitter end. But that was a long time ago. Now the sign was abandoned and irrelevant.  The world had moved on, leaving only echoes and memory of a past when the sign served a purpose.  To pay attention to it now would just be silly, because the danger of which it warned had long since passed. Sometimes we live our lives like that. Once upon a time we set up walls and gates to protect our...

  Four minutes in, I discovered the truth: small children are terrible at picking strawberries. There we were, two families with kids and a single guy, exploring a “U-Pick” strawberry patch on a sunny Sunday afternoon.  The air was cool and dry and the sky was clear with a bright sun overhead, streaming down on fields of ripe, red, ready-to-eat strawberries just waiting to be picked. Then there they went, the two-year-old and the six-year-old, ready to try their hand at field work and eager to fill their buckets with the juicy delights of (almost) spring. The older one did great.  Her six-year-old eyes quickly distinguished the good fruit from the bad, and her nimble fingers had no trouble separating stem from stalk.  The younger one…...

Do you ever find it hard to just “hang in there?” We heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven.” -Colossians 1:4-5 Sometimes it’s hard to have faith when the world around us is so disappointing. Often it’s truly hard to love others, because let’s face it: sometimes people just make themselves hard to love. Yet, something happens when the heart begins to dwell on the hope of the glorious future Jesus promises His people.  We look to a life and a world with no more pain, sorrow or suffering, no more disappointments or letdowns or betrayals, and that hope has a way of strengthening the soul. If I know deliverance is coming, then I  know I...

I subscribe to an excellent free resource from an organization called Koinonia House, the ministry of Bible teacher Chuck Missler.  It’s called “K-House eNews” and it’s a weekly e-mail update that includes brief news highlights from around the world and medium-sized articles on Scripture and life.  If you’re interested, you can subscribe here. The past two issues have featured an EXCELLENT series on “Faith and Miracles” that blessed me very much, so I thought I’d share it here.  There are six articles, each about a page-and-a-half long. Enjoy! — Pastor Phillip Faith and Miracles: a six-part series of articles from Koinonia House Part I: Faith in What? “Have faith,” people will often say when...

It’s hard to love someone you don’t trust. “Do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness, when your fathers put me to the test, and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work.”  -Psalm 95:8-9 The foundation of every relationship is trust, especially our relationship with God. Time and again the children of Israel had seen Yahweh provide, prepare and powerfully deliver them, yet they continued to demand more proof of His goodness.  They did not trust Him, and you cannot truly love one whom you do not trust. So it is with us, with me.  If I harden my heart and close my eyes to all the ways God has cared for me in the past, if my attitude is one of doubt, then I am saying to Him, “God, I...