Finding Beauty In Your Pain
April 12, 2023
When fire swept through Laguna Canyon near our office one of the properties destroyed was a botanical garden containing more than two thousand varieties of plants and flowers. Known as the Hortense Miller Garden, the place was a veritable paradise of beautiful flowers and greenery. The fire, of course, blackened the hillside as it left its ugly scars. Disaster? Yes! That is what people called it, and that it was. Yet, just five months later, the hills were alive with the beauty of wild flowers, which had not been seen in the area for thirty to one hundred years.
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"I believe in God…" begins the affirmation of the Apostles' Creed. But does what you believe make much difference in how long you live, or even more pointedly, in the quality of the life you live? It does, contends a growing body of scientific evidence. The relationship between your belief system and your health is better documented every year. Dr. Harold G. Koenig, director of Duke University's Center for the Study of Religion/Spirituality and Health says scientists and doctors "have to confront it. They can't just say religion is irrelevant to health. It is relevant."
April 11, 2023
You have a problem and it's got to be solved! So, problem-solvers that we are by nature, we go to work on a solution. Occasionally, all of us feel the need for reinforcement, and that's when we inform God in prayer as to how He should handle the situation. I've discovered through trial and error, and more error than I would like to admit, that quite often my solution is at cross-purposes with God's solution.
April 10, 2023
How does a parent help an adult child? When your little boy or girl was small and fell down and hurt himself, you as the parent picked up your child and fussed over him smothering the scratched knee with kisses and love. Your loving care climaxed with the application of a Band-Aid put on with all the tenderness of a mother's love. But, what do you do when you have an adult son or daughter whose heart is breaking, and you desperately wish you could give him or her the same comfort you did when your child was four years old?
April 7, 2023
Some called it "the Protestant work ethic!" But it isn't, really. It is simply the application of several phrases found in Scripture which can be paraphrased, "If it's worth doing, it's worth doing right; so give it your best effort!" Four times in the Bible you find a phrase that says, "whatever you do" and emphasizes a relationship between you and God. The first is found in the Old Testament wisdom literature, specifically the book of Proverbs, mostly written by Solomon. "Commit to the LORD whatever you do," says Proverbs 16:3, "and your plans will succeed." In this same context, the writer says that we as mortals make our plans, but the Almighty, not simply our scheming, determines their outcome. That first "whatever you do" forges a link between your efforts, God, and success. Application: When you really take Him as your partner in life--whether it is business or a marriage--what some think of as luck, the Bible says is really the blessing of God.
April 6, 2023
Is it possible for you to embrace Jesus Christ as your Savior, but not really as your Lord? Put it another way: Can you take this whole business in stages, believing some things but not really becoming a radical? "After all," you may reason, "I want to go to heaven but I don't want to get fanatical about this whole business."
April 5, 2023
He is loved and venerated by Jews, Muslims, and by Christians. Though he lived over 4,000 years ago, his life is a refreshing study of what it means to live and walk by faith. Here was a man at the season of life when people are thinking of retirement, but God called him and said, "Abraham, I want you to follow me into a strange land which I will eventually give to you as an inheritance.
April 4, 2023
The ominous clouds of war were hanging over Europe in 1937. Claiming that he could turn the economy around and put people to work, Adolf Hitler began to strengthen his grip on Germany. Those who dared to oppose him were silenced as the detention camps were opened, eventually to be known as concentration camps.
April 3, 2023
Is it really wrong to worry? Who would deny that there is plenty to worry about--the state of the economy, our health, the Middle East, the domestic problems including feeding the hungry (which few of us really worry about unless we are on the hungry end of the issue), and a lot of other things? But can we help worrying any more than we can help our hair thinning out or what happens to our good looks after age 50?
March 31, 2023
"If I can just get through this problem, I'm sure that everything will be okay." Ever think that? So you grit your teeth and, sure enough, you get through that problem, only to find that several more have cropped up on the horizon. It's something like pedaling a bicycle. Going uphill is so slow and takes so much energy, while the downhill run so quickly turns into another uphill climb.
March 30, 2023
"Due to the current financial constraints, the light at the end of the tunnel will be turned off until further notice!" so reads a notice on a local notice board. How's that for contending for a gold medal in pessimism? Nobody can take away the power of hope unless you let him. Hope is as essential to life as oxygen is to your human body.
March 29, 2023
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Deeper With God: What is God Asking of Me?
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