Looking for an earlier Watchword?
- God’s Watchword - God’s Watchword: God‘s word, peace, is mentioned more than 400 times in scripture. . God‘s peace is the focal point throughout our reading of the word. To Mary at the tomb, the message from Jesus was ‘peace’. To the disciples on their way to a Emmaus, the message was peace. To those gathered in the upper room, confused and not knowing what to do, Jesus stood in their midst, and his message was peace. Peace is God’s powerful watchword, and peace should be our watchword, a message we live out and we share. Continue reading
- Who’s in Your Bed? - Who’s in Your Bed? Did you ever wake in the morning with a buzzing in your mind; discouraging and negative thoughts that belie a good start for the new day? Whisperings of worry from yesterday, anxiety for what lay before you this day, concerns for tomorrow? It’s like a demon, fully decked out, had crawled into your bed prepared to cause you mental wrack and ruin. Satan’s little demons chirping at you about how bad you are. Our Lord tells us, when we run into those demon ‘chirpers’, to resist the devil and he will flee from us. I found that to be true especially with my morning time with the Lord. Continue reading
- The End of Faith? - The End of Faith: Years ago, I listened to a sermon by a Pastor whom I revered. At some point in his sermon he made a statement that has stuck with me ever since; that in our eternal life there will be no need for faith because all will be revealed. The end of faith? Jesus' question “Do you love me?”, awakened in Peter the fact that at the very center of his person was a committed and devoted life to Jesus. There would never be another time when Peter would deny his Lord. A resurrection of the heart. Continue reading
- Do What He Tells You - Do What He Tells You: His ministry had started. Now they were on to the wedding party, and it was there that Mary’s instructions were instrumental in moving Jesus to act, keeping the wine flowing and the party going. There was something very similar in what Mary said to the stewards: “Do what he tells you”, words that echoed the words of God just months before, there on the Jordan at Jesus’ baptism: “This is My beloved son, listen to him.“ What do we make of this confirmation? In truth this is a guiding principle for Christian faith. Continue reading
- Moments of Surrender - Moments of Surrender: Do we often go sideways to God’s will? We enjoy the blessings of the graces that the Gift affords us, yet the following His will, we find difficult. Before long we find His will secondary to our own desires and behaviors. We get far away from what He has designed us to be, and we permit pride and self-interest to lead us. We know Lord, that the authority that we have been given through Christ Jesus is to build up, not to tear down, so help us get beyond ourselves and rest in you. Each of us could find a place in the lives that we have lived where we have alienated another, or for undefined reasons, there has been a falling out. A place of estrangement that needs healing and restoring. Continue reading
- Humble Yourself - Humble Yourself: Over the span of my Christian lives, we’ve heard of any number of scandals of high-visibility Christian teachers and preachers who have gone astray. Who put on a show of modeling the way of Christ, the way we should live, yet have been involved in scams, and we find out that when the cameras are off, and there’s no one to impress, they walk a completely different path. To be sure, there are any number of strong Christian preachers, teachers, and those who live as Christ would have us. We see them on television, in our churches, in our neighborhoods, and, no doubt, in our homes. Continue reading
- Pit of Despair - Pit of Despair: Have you ever been in the pit of despair? Maybe that’s too strong a word to describe discouragement, or dissatisfaction, or a mild sense of anxiety, and yet, sometimes it does feel like a pit, despite our best efforts to pull ourselves out. When I started writing Christian stories, many were set in Wyoming. When led by the Holy Spirit in the midst of a storyline, I would often refer myself to being "Lost in Wyoming", a good thing, a blessed thing. Continue reading
- Like an Orphan? - Corrie ten Boom, from Clippings from My Notebook: “Worry doesn’t empty tomorrow of its sorrows, it empties today of its strength.” Worry. We do, despite our Lord telling us “do not worry”, we just go right on worrying. Or do we? Some worry is not worry. Right? We look both ways, twice, before driving through an intersection. We use caution on stairs. Some of us check the ‘Use by date’ on foods, just to be safe. Is all that evidence of worry? Think of it this way: Pride says, what happens is up to me and this only creates more anxiety, worry. Humility says, “Lord, everything that concerns me is in your hands.” This is the beginning of peace. When you worry, God says, “You’re my child. Why are you acting like an orphan?” Continue reading
- Gifts and Graces - Gifts and Graces: Think about that and about the gifts or talents given to each of us. Every person has the task of releasing angels by shaping and transfiguring all those raw materials that lie within into our life, artistic works, careers, etc. We chip, and scratch, and file away at our raw material to discover our gifts, and the transformational process begins. When we talk about being ourselves -- being the person we are intended by God to be -- we are talking about gifts. We cannot be ourselves unless we are true to the gifts and graces that flow to us from His hands. Continue reading
- Truth and Grace - Truth and Grace: On matters of truth and grace, it occurs to me that we may not know the full definition of either one of those ideas. I have read essays that talk about what is truth, but when it comes to the matter of grace, I wonder if we fully understand. Do we see Grace as a ‘get out of jail free card’? You know that’s partly correct. Grace is God’s way of delivering us from what we really deserve. However, there is a condition in there.In The Cost of Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer draws a fine distinction between cheap and costly grace. The short version – Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, or repentance. Costly grace confronts us as a call to follow Jesus. Continue reading
- Healing vs Miracles - Healing vs Miracles:Ask any doctor and they will probably tell you that our bodies are designed to heal. It’s more than ‘take two aspirin and call me in the morning,’ and maybe you will feel better. Is that a miracle, or is the aspirin what causes the healing? Your child falls while climbing a kid’s apparatus and breaks their arm and although the doctor puts the arm in a cast, the body of your child works to heal the arm. Miracle or nature? There’s a part of our intellect and part of our common sense that can make some kind of a clear cut separation between a miracle and a healing, and yet I would submit that everything in the universe bears the “fingerprints” of our God. His nudges, his words, his voice is constantly active in our lives. In our lives, God has given us the tools. Continue reading
- The Power of Small Things - The Power of Small Things: Do we realize that when we do what could be considered small acts of kindness for others, in the name of Jesus, we are glorifying his Holy Name? When we express genuine concern for hurting people, give to worthy and helping causes, our generosity and compassion are seen by the All-Seeing, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!’ Continue reading
- The IF of My Faith - The IF of My Faith: We keep running into conditionals and transitionals as we read God’s word. Sometimes it’s "therefore", sometimes it's "however", or "although", or it’s any number of other words that provide a contrast or a cause-and-effect, or a transition. When reading God's Word, we run into a lot of “if’s”, setting up the condition which follows, i.e. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit. We’d like the Lord to grant us our every wish. But it doesn’t work that way. Along comes the “If” condition that God sprinkles into our yearnings, our greatest desires. Continue reading
- Psalm 46 - Psalm 46: Martin Luther had a great saying about Psalm 46 when he was in great distress. He said, “Let us sing the forty-sixth psalm in concert; and then let the devil do his worst.” Look at the passage, Psalm 46, broken into four pieces, and each piece has a familiar ring to it, on its own. Here the poet begins with God’s provision. He looked to God for help in difficult times and found it. He will not fear, even as he faced difficulties in his life that seemed overwhelming. There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the Most High dwells. Now there is a verse that really preaches. Streams of living water making glad, even joyful, all those who worship the one true God. Continue reading
- Ash Wednesday - Ash Wednesday: Lectio Divina? What is that? First of all, the phrase is Latin. You can probably figure this out, especially if you have any Catholic leanings. Divina would be divine or Holy. Lectio looks like the word lectionary, or reading of the Word. So, Lectio Divina means “divine reading”, or Holy Reading in Latin. It is actually more than a simple reading, it’s a meditative way of reading the Bible in which we let go of our own agendas and open ourselves to what God is saying to us, the focus of Lent, beginning with Ash Wednesday. Continue reading
- Every Good Thing - Every Good Thing: It’s hard to realize that this song, this Psalm 34, was written by David at a time when he had fled for his life out of the clutches of Saul and the Philistines, and took refuge in a cave where many other desperate men had joined him. The Message version of this passage reads like one giving their faith testimony to others, maybe those who gathered in the cave. He is also speaking to us when we’re confronted with trouble, adversity, sadness, and tells us to be joyful, to call on the Lord, to give him a hopeful smile, and to realize that we belong to Him. Continue reading
- Box of Rocks? - A Box of Rocks? We think we’re so smart. We think we’re so reverent, so dedicated to our Lord. Perhaps we work ourselves into exhaustion, doing our good deeds. We tell ourselves we are working for the Lord, and fashion our own direction and purposes. In my imagination, I see God of the Universe, sitting on his throne, watching over us, ruefully smiling and shaking His great head, and thinking our loud -- Dumb as a box of rocks! They think they’re doing my will but they’re missing the point. They take my Word, the rock of their salvation, and then take their chisel of their own desires and comforts to fashion what they think is my will. Come to think of it, I wonder if a box of rocks is smarter. I’ve got more teaching to do. Continue reading
- Hypocrisy - Hypocrisy: When someone brings up the matter of hypocrisy, does our mind wander to other people, our acquaintances, maybe we look around the congregation. As we look to others, do we consider our own maybe prideful mind and, in honesty, conclude that there are times when that label has fit. The mirror is very revealing, and the truth is hard to duck. Could it be said that in our Christian walk we are sometimes critical of those who don’t seem to be responding as we understand how Christ would have us respond. Are we judging? Continue reading
- Really Good Reads - Really Good Reads: Want a good read? I mean a really good read, one that stretches you, that opens your faith. I know you read all different kids of books for entertainment, for knowledge, to gain information for a project you are working on. I know because I’m in one of those people. However, I’m talking about really good reads, I would define as ‘faith-blessed’. Really good books that might be recommended by your pastor, when you asked “What are the great classics of Christian literature? I came across a list of faith reads that was compiled in 1989 by a group of us attending a weekend retreat. Continue reading
- Sing a New Song - Sing a New Song: Ever have your heart so full of joy that it seems you can’t stop singing, or humming or even dancing? You want to shout, “I feel goooood!” You can say that you were happy, but it’s more than that, far more than that. The Psalmist tells us to sing to the Lord a new song. I think at the very heart of our joy is the knowledge we have been invited to come to Him and he gives us rest. How do we do that? How do we lay down our worries, our fears, the sense of uncertainty about the future, and replace it with a light burden, that brings gladness to our lives, which is what our Lord has promised? Continue reading
