I was young and now I am old, yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken or their children begging bread. They are always generous and lend freely. Psalm 37: 25, 26 Are you thinking of retiring? If you are, please don’t. Let me explain. The older I get the more I “get” that a little more rest, a slower pace, and a more reasonable to-do list is in order. After all, every living thing under the sun... Read more
A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling. God sets the lonely in families. Psalm 68: 5-6 Before I received that ominous telephone call, I can tell you plainly that I couldn’t have cared less about the national divorce statistics being in excess of 50% failure rate. All I cared about was that my best friend feared her marriage was over and it broke my heart. I still remember the evening... Read more
I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you and watch over you. Psalm 32:8 I once read that as we age there will come a time when we have nothing left but Jesus. As I get older, I can attest to the fact that we continually have to relinquish control over more and more of what we value most. Physical strength. Mental sharpness. Friends and loved ones who... Read more
Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. Psalm 73: 25 Money. Money. Money. We can’t live without it and most of us don’t know how to live with it successfully. Let me rephrase. Most of us don’t know how to live lives not confined by money (and what it can buy.) I’ve seen this operate over and over again in my own life. Ever since I took my first job... Read more
How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth! Psalm 119: 103 “Talk is not cheap because interpretation is not cheap. The way we interpret life determines how we will respond to it.” Paul David Tripp Speak To Influence In Love Sometimes specific conversations stick in our minds because of the emotion they evoked. Other times, we remember someone’s words because they were able to state what we have been feeling but unable... Read more
Joy is Not Only Possible, It is Promised You make known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand. Psalm 16:11 In the last year, our family made the heart-wrenching move from our church home of eighteen years to a new church fellowship; our beloved nephew took his own life; I was handed a cancer diagnosis along with several potentially debilitating physical diagnoses;... Read more
Surely God is my help; the Lord is the one who sustains me. Psalm 54:4 Some years ago, I answered the phone only to hear my almost always emotionally level friend, (a trait I was somewhat envious of through the years…) dissolving in tears at the other end of the telephone line. Picture this scenario. My single mom friend with her three teens is asked by her elderly parents to sell her home, help them (the elderly parents)... Read more
“It is God who arms me with strength and makes my way perfect.” Psalm 18: 32 It’s been said that up to 80% of working men and women hate their jobs. I believe it. From where I sit, this statistic is one of the saddest commentaries in life. To think that the setting where most people spend the bulk of their hours and days is a place they despise is, well, unthinkable. But oh so common. Reflecting back... Read more
I cry out to God Most High, to God, who fulfills his purpose for me. Psalm 57:2 Earlier this week I saw my dentist and during the examination he pressed his thumb into the side of my neck. Hard. Feel that? Ahhh…yes. That’s the “little ball of hate” and you have to work at diffusing it. He continued, “every day work your hands over this nerve and try to knead out this area and your jaw will feel... Read more
Teach me knowledge and good judgment. Psalm 119:66 Some years back I experienced one of those, “I never saw it coming scenarios,” when I felt betrayed (and played) by someone pretending to be my friend. Looking back, I should have seen it coming but I wanted to believe that this person would never do to me what I’d observed her doing to others. As naïve as it sounds, I honestly thought that if I was straightforward, honest, and... Read more
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