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- Jesus Speaks I - Part 1: I have a weird mind, it plays out scenarios, some of which just turn up and I make them into meditations. Hello, here’s one now: I am sitting in my office (i.e. spare bedroom), at my MacBook, writing deathless prose, of course, when Jesus walks in! I knew it was him, now standing right there, beside me, smiling. I was shaken…I was awed…I was speechless. I fall from my chair onto my knees. He reaches out…lifts me to my feet and says: ‘Do you love Me?’ I stammer out a ‘Yes, Lord’. Then He utters those awful words: ‘Follow Me’. My mind is suddenly in a whirl, I panic. I say, Master, I love you. Every morning I give the day to You. I read Your Word. I ask You to lead Me through all that I do. He smiles, and says again – ‘Stanley, do you love Me?’ Yes, Lord, You know I do. ‘Then come and follow Me.’ Continue reading
- Suddenly, He Was There! - Thanks to an amazing scientific breakthrough of time travel, I had this inspiring experience: I was curious as to what happened after the Resurrection. Oh, I know how the Resurrection anchors our faith. But, what I wanted to know was what happened the few days after the Resurrection. So, I time-traveled back to Tuesday, April 7, 33 CE, and met this guy, this physician follower of Jesus, Luke. Let me tell you, he was so on fire and excited! He was telling a number of people, there, outside the Great Temple in Jerusalem, what he had seen and heard two days before, in Capernaum, there on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. This is what he said: “Suddenly, he was there! Jesus. I mean, he wasn’t dead! He actually said ‘I am here, touch me, do not doubt’. “Can you imagine? I saw him dead. I was there! I helped prepared him for burial. I was standing there, on that beach in tears, I had no words! Continue reading
- Because He lives - Because He lives, I can face tomorrow. Yes, and today is that ‘tomorrow’ that you can face because He lives! He is in your life to love, to heal and to forgive. How does that make you feel to know that He holds your future and that you have no need to fear; not today, not the next tomorrow, or the next? Rejoice! Jesus speaks to us: Dearly beloved, “when I give you no special guidance, stay where you are. Concentrate on doing your everyday tasks in awareness of My Presence with you. The Joy of My Presence will shine on you, as you do everything for Me. Thus, you invite Me into every aspect of your life. Through collaborating with Me in all things, you allow My Life to merge with yours. This is the secret not only of joyful living but also of victorious living. Continue reading
- Easter Sunday, April 12 - Meditation and Prayer: Happy Easter, everyone. It is a Happy Day. It’s a day to remember important stuff: The Easter bunny. The decorating of eggs, the hiding of eggs and the thrill of children searching for those eggs. Baskets with the green shredded paper in which nestled jellybeans, those choice... Continue reading
- Sacred Saturday - A Friday That Was Good? On Good Friday, we might have omitted from our thinking Psalm 118:24, This is the day the Lord has made, we will rejoice and be glad in it. Maybe because of the reality of that day, back then, or maybe the reality of our day now. It might have slipped our minds, in the midst of our ‘woe is me’ thinking, or our loneliness, or our discomfort. That can happen. But, that really doesn’t change the fact that we, who believe in the Resurrected Savior, have every reason to rejoice. So, did you rejoice and were you glad in it? Are you rejoicing? I hope so. In Jesus Calling for this morning, He admonishes us to “To begin the day with open hands of faith, ready to receive all that I am pouring into this brief portion of your life. Be careful not to complain about anything, even the weather, since I am the author of your circumstances.” Continue reading
- Good Friday? - Meditation: Good Friday? Friday – All through the night Jesus has been locked in the dungeon of Kishle Prison, the Citadel, Jerusalem. Early this morning he was brought before Pilate who transferred his case to Herod. Herod sent him back to Pilate, who, sometime in the middle morning, bowed to the... Continue reading
- Maundy Thursday - Sometimes missed in all that was happening, are Jesus words, ‘I call you friends…’. So, what is a ‘friend’? How do consider that quality, that title, that word? It was Wednesday, October 11, 2000, was when I first heard this story (I had to google it), then I heard it again on Monday of this week in an episode of West Wing, on Netflix. “A man walks down the street and falls into a hole. He cries out, ‘Someone help me!’ A doctor walks by, looks into the hole, hears the man’s cry, writes out a prescription and throws it into the hole, then walks on. A priest walks by, hears the man’s cry, looks in the hole. Writes out a prayer, throws it into the hole, and walks on. A friend walks by, hears the man’s cry for help, and jumps into the hole! The man says, Friend, what ae you doing? Now we are both here. The friend looks at him and says, ‘Yes, but I’ve been here before, and I know the way out.’ Continue reading
- Holy Wednesday - There’s something proper, if that’s the word, about these dark days of isolation, with its promise of renewal. In the middle of Holy Week, with a betrayal, a trial, torture, crucifixion still to come, maybe our mind prefers to skip all that and jump to Sunday, Easter, the resurrection, the rebirth. We don’t like to dwell on the horror of the details leading up to that shining moment. Where is our focus? Is your focus on that shining moment when all this will, ‘poof! go away like magic’? Or, do we view this time, as we should, as a time of renewal and rededication. When the ‘old normal’ may not be good enough. When the way it was, may not be what we want, at all. Continue reading
- Via Dolorosa - The Way of the Cross comprises 14 Stations. What did arriving at the final Station’ look like? Maybe something like this: “Barabbas heard a cry and looked. There, two crosses holding men, recently crucified, crying out in their pain. He did not want to be here. He needed to leave. But, before he could move, there was a commotion behind him. When he turned, it was that other group, and he saw a man staggering up the hill toward him, a heavy wooden beam across to his shoulders. He had been flogged, his back a mass of bloody flesh. It was the same man that had stood beside him with Pilate. Jesus, the man from Nazareth. There were thorns still around his head, like a crown, blood streaked down his face. There was blood on his torn tunic. Continue reading
- Fresh and New - Six years ago, I wrote and posted this essay on my Blog. Today, Monday of Holy Week, it seemed appropriate to share, it again. I entitle it, “Holy Week – Fresh and New”: “Here we are in the midst of Holy Week, that important time for the Christian Church between Passion or Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday. A solemn time, commemorating the events of Christ’s journey to the Cross and the Easter Sunday celebration of the Resurrection. We listen to readings from Matthew or Luke recounting the arrival of Christ in Jerusalem, and the growing fear on the part of the Pharisees leading to an assassination plot. Symbolically, we join fellow Christians and Jews in the Passover or the Last Supper, the ceremony of the Seder on Maundy Thursday. Continue reading
- Rejoice Greatly - The crowd that had been with him when he raised Lazarus from the tomb, had gone on ahead and spread the news throughout Jerusalem, about this Prophet, this worker of miracles, this king of Israel, and that he was coming to the city. So, they gathered in large crowds, lining the streets, and greeting him with great cheers, throwing their coats on the cobblestones of the street, for His donkey to tread upon. The Pharisees watched with fear for he seemed a threat to their authority and their learning. The Romans also watched with fear, for they saw in the division between those led by Jesus and those that were strictly following the Mosaic law, a real threat to maintaining peace. The Sanhedrin was called into special session and there was much arguing as to what must be done with this, this Carpenter from Galilee, from Capernaum, of all places! Several cried out calling his message blasphemy, tearing at the very words spoken by the Prophets. Others urged calmness, and debate. Continue reading
- Thy Will - These days, how do you pray? Do you pray as Jesus did: “If it be thy will, take this cup from me”, or do you skip the first part, about ‘thy will, and go right to the second? Take this cup, this isolation, this fear, this uncertainty from me. Lord, it’s uncomfortable. Help me. Murray Bodo has written a story, entitled The Widows Son, where tells the story of a young boy who is left alone each day by his working mother. They live in a house high on a bluff, overlooking the ocean. Each day, after the mother goes to work, the boy, fascinated by the ocean, gets closer and closer to the cliff that drops down to the water. The story goes: “Then, one day, the boy reaches the bottom of the rocks and stands facing the sea with his large brown eyes. He undresses and jumps into the shallow water letting the gentle waves play with him”. Continue reading
- If We Had Known - Paraphrased from Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest: Jesus entered Jerusalem triumphantly and the city was stirred to its very foundations, but a strange god was there -- the pride of the Pharisees. What is it that blinds us to the peace of God in this our day? Do we have a strange God -- not a disgusting monster but perhaps in unholy nature that controls our lives at this moment? More than once God has brought us face to face with that strange God in our lives, and we knew that we should have given it up, but we didn’t. We may have gotten through the crisis, but just barely, only to find ourselves still under the control of that strange God. “If you had known…” God’s words cut directly to the heart, with the tears of Jesus behind these words which imply responsibility for our own faults. God holds us accountable for what we refuse to see or are unable to see because of our sin. Oh, the sadness of what might have been. Doors of our lives close that will never be opened. Continue reading
- This Present Crisis - Are we living in such a vital relationship with our fellow man? Consider our present circumstances, in our homes, with our neighbors, with our country. The present crisis (God DOES know when and how this will end, we don’t) as it touches us and others – are these things crushing us? Is our self-worry driving a wedge between us and Our Lord? Then let us call a stop! Resuscitate our relationship with God that our relationship to others may be maintained in prayer and active intercession, whereby God works His marvels through us. Continue reading
- Cup of Isolation - Jesus, the perfect God, the perfect human. Who among us has not wished “this cup of isolation away” from our lips? Yet, Your will, God, not mine. Amen. From Elisa Morgan, Our Daily Bread for April 1: Every coin has two sides. Christ’s prayer in the garden possesses two sides. In the deepest hours of His life, on the night before he died, Jesus prayed ‘Father, if You are willing, take this cup from me…” That’s the raw honesty of prayer. He reveals His personal desire, ‘This is what I want.” Then Jesus turns the coin, praying ‘not my will’. That is the side of abandon. Abandoning ourselves to God begins when we simply say, ‘But what do You want, God?’ Yes, Lord, I confess, I would like it back the way it was before all this, but not my will, but thine. I rest in your love, Precious Lord and Savior. Amen. Continue reading
- The Peace of Christ - It’s been a long time since I’ve been in the psychology counseling business, but I know that this isolation, by itself, is not a good thing for our mental or physical health. I’ve been listening closely to talking heads who have sterling advice to offer, and I think some of that is sound, and makes sense. We all have to stay active, in one form or another. You have to keep our minds active whether it’s through reading, crossword puzzles, jigsaw puzzles, or conversations with friends. We have to stay in contact with others. Set a goal each day of touching base with one or two of your circle of friends, relatives, or church community. Continue reading
- Do Not Fear - In times like these, it is easy to let fear grip our hearts and occupy our minds. What we heard last night in the latest news, garners even more fear, if we let it. You know, much of it is fear of the unknown. That kind of fear fills our mind, too much of the time. We need to remember these important truths: God is with us, God is for us, God is in charge and God loves us. His voice continues to instruct us: do not be afraid. Brothers and sisters, we are not alone. When the storm rages all around us, and darkness seems to close in, he offers us peace and refuge in the midst of it. He promises us hope and strength. Proverbs 3:5 is a true watchword: Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. Continue reading
- We Are The Church - Sunday morning, what is missing? Oh, yes, we are not IN church, but we are THE church. [...] Build Your Blessings List: How has God blessed your life? From Maury: In going through a lifetime of pictures to down-size, I was moved to give thanks and praise to God for all the Christian friends and opportunities to serve and to travel that the Lord has allowed an ole farmer to experience. It had to be His doing! The present blessing is the Wednesday morning Bible study. I miss you guys and the blessing of being together in His Word. How do you answer that question? Give it a thought and let’s post it here. Continue reading
- Dialog With Jesus - A Dialog with Jesus: And Jesus says, just keep in touch. Don’t worry about the Prayers, they will come. The important thing is the communication, it’s the human, I created, reaching out to Me. Don’t worry about the Prayers, they will come. In My own time, they will come. Stay tuned, always stay tuned to Me, the Lord and your fellow man. Do not lose touch. Don’t worry about the Prayers, they will come as inspiration springs from thoughts and calls and compliments and criticisms, from feelings, from isolation and loneliness, and even from a loss, for, My Child, I know all of this. So, don’t worry about the Prayers, they will come. Continue reading
- Drawing A Blank - I sit here at my computer wondering what to say this morning. Nothing comes to mind. I think about all those encouraging words that I’ve heard, over the years, from a variety of sources. Nothing. I want to pass something on to you, almost anything, even a silly song! Still nothing! Then my eye rests on a little picture frame that holds something entitled “Creativity and Inspiration” that I wrote two years ago, a little 3-point mantra that I have used almost daily. The last of the three points is this – What would you have me write, Lord? Then a whispered voice from the back of my mind tells me ‘share this from Thomas Merton’... Continue reading
