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It has recently become very easy to jump on the bandwagon of lament, crying, “The world is so divided!” While the lament may be true, getting stuck in lament is not helpful. As a follow-up to my last contribution to this column, “A Different Conversation,” today I’d like to go beyond lamenting. To begin, let’s name a big problem we tend to participate in: dehumanization. We dehumanize one another so often, we don’t even realize we’re doing it. When we so easily use words like “hate” to describe our feelings for someone, we have already made t...
In my articles I have been looking at the attributes of God. These are the characteristics of Who God is and how the Lord relates to us. The holiness of God is mentioned abundantly throughout the entire Bible. At the same time, the attribute of God’s holiness is difficult for us to wrap our minds around. The challenge to grasp God’s holiness is actually because this attribute shows us the extent that God is beyond you and me. That God is holy means He is perfect and pure but more than this God...
Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? To answer this, Christ gave us one of the most influential parables ever recorded—that of the good Samaritan. I love this parable. We all know it…here we have a Priest, a Levite and a Samaritan who all responded in their own way to a traveler who was stripped, beaten and left for dead. When I first was taught this parable, I understood that the lesson was to become more like the good Samaritan. While comparing our lives to that of the good Samaritan is not a bad thing to do, today I invite you...
“The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.” (Genesis 12:1) My wife and I are privileged to travel a lot and have been fortunate enough to serve on the African continent over a dozen times. Occasionally I hear stories from people about their fear of surrendering their will to God because, “God might send me to Africa or something!” But as we grow to know God more and trust in His character, it’s not a fearful thing to say, “Here am I Lord, send me!” He is a God who i...
And no, I’m not talking about the extra pounds I put on over the Easter holiday...rather I was reflecting on the verse from Chapter 4 verse 10 of Paul’s second letter to the church at Corinth, “We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.” The thought that occurred to me as I read this verse was that the reality of my life is that, too often my life is more often a reflection of me, of my human nature and not often enough a reflection of Christ and His nature. I have found o...
“And (Jesus) went out from thence and came into his own country; and his disciples follow him....And He could there do no mighty work, save that He laid his hands upon a few sick folk and healed them.” The first question that usually gets asked when reading this verse is “why.” If Jesus is truly God, why would He not be able to perform miracles, “mighty works”, here? Part of the answer is that He was in fact more than able but there is more to be considered. There is a story of a young child who was once given a toy train. Immediately...
I am in the middle of listening to the audio version of the book “The Road to Wigan Pier” written by George Orwell and published in 1937. In it, Mr. Orwell describes in detail the living conditions of thousands of common working class men and families living in northern England in the years before World War II. I have not finished the book yet but my time listening to and considering it have led me to share a couple of thoughts that have been sparked in my head by it. 1. I have nothing to complain about! If I gain nothing else from the boo...
Many, many moons ago on an early spring day, I ventured forth on one of my many trips to Alaska to cut timber. Up into Canada through Banff I drove singing and rejoicing in the Lord for my new life in Christ. Only those who have experiences this passing from death into life know how I felt. Looking onto those impressive Canadian Rockies reminded me of the last time I drove this way late at night. The stars all shined friendly and then the magnificent aurora – “the dance of the spirits” as the Cree call it. It was a sight to behold it was....
For many, using GPS (Global Positioning Service) is a helpful convenience to find directions in the car with very little hassle. For a reasonable cost, users can connect with multiple satellites in their cars to be directed all over the world. However, this is not reliable for everyone…especially for Australia. Australian GPS information was last updated in 1994 and the entire continent has moved approximately five feet since then. For drivers locating someone’s house or a store to visit, thi...
How could we forget the fires of 2017? Ranking #1 in the nation in any category was bad enough. We ranked #1 in fire and #1 in worst air in recorded history. To add insult upon injury, if you lived east of Highway 83 here in the valley, you were asked to evacuate. Where to go when everywhere was on fire or had bad smoke conditions? What could possibly be a ray of sunshine among such tall timber of despair? Well, we experienced some of the finest examples of service in our little valley. When you had to leave your home, was there someone that...
I believe we can all agree that the truth is a very elusive commodity in this day and age. It is rare that you get the same story on TV, newspapers, internet or radio as most of the stories seem to be slanted toward a particular agenda or thinking. It’s called “spinning the news” by omitting pertinent facts or statements that don’t allow the receiver to get the whole story. You know what I mean. We all experience this every day. Truth is often defined as “that which conforms to reality, fact or actuality” but this definition leaves many questio...
Have you ever wondered why a world in such obvious trouble would choose to resist good? In the midst of a world which is filled with misery and dysfunction, does it not strike you as odd that we seem to look in all the wrong places for answers to the problems which beset out culture today? Some years ago I was looking at statistics on our schools to see if there were any correlation between the removal of the Bible and school prayer from our schools. On June 25, 1962 the Supreme Court of the United States decided in Engle versus Vitale that...
Amsterdam in 1697 was the richest of all European cities, with by far the biggest port, and famous for the finest built ships anywhere. It was all within one of the major powers of the world at that time, the Dutch Colonial Empire. If you would have been walking the docks at the building yards in the late summer that year, you might have seen a carpenter emerging from his housing unit after cooking himself and his fellow workmen a traditional breakfast to start their day or later having a simple lunch with them seated on a nearby log, talking a...
Today is my 25th anniversary! I can honestly say that it has been the best 25 years of my life and I thank God every day for giving me a godly, wonderful, intelligent, beautiful wife who loves and respects me, and sacrifices herself to take care of her family. Our oldest daughter got married just over a month ago, so between that and our 25th anniversary, it seemed fitting to write some brief thoughts about marriage. What is the purpose of marriage? God created marriage (see Genesis 2:18-25), and ultimately, everything God created is for the...
Of this there can be no doubt for in the Good Book in Mark 10:16 Jesus took the children in His arms, put His hand on them and blessed them. It should trouble us all to hear how many children are abused and neglected. The little ones are denied the joy, love, security and correct discipline that childhood deserves. What troubles my soul is Planned Parenthood and their lack of compassion for the unborn. The callous way they sell baby body parts makes Hitler look like a day care provider. The last year I could find was 2014 - 926,000 helpless...
Just then a religion scholar stood up with a question to test Jesus. “Teacher, what do I need to do to get eternal life?” He answered, “What’s written in God’s Law? How do you interpret it?” He said, “That you love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and muscle and intelligence—and that you love your neighbor as well as you do yourself.” “Good answer!” said Jesus. “Do it and you’ll live.” Looking for a loophole, he asked, “And just how would you define ‘neighbor’?” Jesus answered by telling a story. “There was once a man travel...
When Jesus taught the Sermon on the Mount, He began with the Beatitudes. These are the ‘blessed are the’…verses found in the fifth chapter of Matthew. These describe the Christ-like attributes that I imagine He is asking us to develop—He being perhaps the perfect example of each. When I read “blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth’, I feel a bit confused as it appears to be somewhat of an oxymoron. I am confused because I don’t think of Christ as being meek—at least in the sense that I understand it today. We have a tendency to...
Early in his life after he had taken over as King from his father David, God said to Solomon, “Ask what you wish Me to give you.” (1 Kings 3:5) Solomon replied that because he was young he wanted wisdom to discern between good and evil to be able to act as a judge for his people. God being pleased with his answer gave him great wisdom along with riches and honor that he had refrained from asking for. 1 Kings 10:23-34 says, “So King Solomon became greater than all the kings of the earth in riches and in wisdom. All the earth was seeking the p...
A friend once told me that when he had invited a neighbor to church, the neighbor’s response was, “Why would I want to go to church? They’re all just a bunch of hypocrites.” My friend responded jokingly, “Don’t let that stop you, we’ve always got room for one more.” The reality is that non-believers often misunderstand Christians. The misunderstandings are generally based on false assumptions or false impressions. First, they may assume that Christians seem to act superior (and certainly that is an impression we might leave) assuming that t...
“Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?” Ezekiel 33:11 When it pertains to God and His Word, there are two basic groups: those who do accept Him as their Creator, and those who don’t. No one forces this choice upon any of us but the consequences of either are real nonetheless. We live now in a society where the very word “sin” is seen, at best, as anachronistic. More...
It’s shortly after the dawn of another new year, and I just thought I would share a few thoughts with you. Its always good to reflect on the past, being thankful for what God has done, and look forward to the future, being thankful for what He is going to do. This last year, every one of us who lives in, visits, has family living in, or is somehow associated with the Seeley, Swan, and Ovando valleys, can be thankful that we were spared from catastrophic damage during the fire season. I am thankful that God has given me another year to enjoy l...
A great conversation unfolded within my weekly study group of The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren. This week’s topic: Developing your friendship with God. The crux of the chapter is that you are as close to God as you choose to be. The way you get closer is by intimate desire, time and energy. But as the chapter goes on, it has a heavy emphasis on how we need to learn what God cares about and then do the same… The group of nearly a dozen talked about the widow and orphan – and the homeless person flying a sign on the street corner. As that...
Listen! It’s the voice of someone shouting, “Clear the way through the wilderness for the Lord! Make a straight highway through the wasteland for our God!” [Isaiah 40:3] The biblical image of “the wilderness” is a mixed bag - neither inherently good or inherently evil. It seems to be a neutral place, full of possibility and potential. It is often a metaphorical place we enter to discover something about ourselves, the world, God or all of the above. The Israelites wandered around in the wilderness for 40 years. God gave them this time to s...
A widely accepted adage says, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” This statement tries to get us to accept that as time goes on, it’s too late to make a change. Many enjoy the Discovery Channel show, “Mythbusters”, which takes on widely believed assumptions and attempts to disprove them. One of my favorite episodes challenges the above-mentioned adage head-on. The hosts found an aging pair of Alaskan malamutes who didn’t know a single trick in the book. Malamutes are also known for the...
Bible (King James version) John 17:3: And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. The most important thing we need to do in this life is to know the only true God and Jesus Christ, for this is life eternal or eternal life with God. To know the true God, we need to know the truth of God. What is True? www.merriam-webster.com defines True as: (1): being in accordance with the actual state of affairs (2): conformable to an essential reality Truth means, how things actually are. No...
