The former chapel dean at Duke University tells about a recruiter coming from Teach For America, an organization that strives to place talented graduates as teachers in some of the lowest-rated public schools. She described the schools in the program and how two of their teachers were killed on the job in the past year. After surmising that none of the students would be interested, she closed the meeting, mentioning where students could find brochures. Students rushed to grab the... Read more
Does thinking about Heaven fill you with joy and excitement? How much thought do you give to Heaven? How often do you and your church and your family talk about it? We’re told how to get to Heaven, and that it’s a better destination than Hell, but unfortunately, we’re taught remarkably little about Heaven itself. (If you lack a passion for Heaven, I can almost guarantee it’s because you have a weak, deficient, and distorted theology of it.) If you’d like to... Read more
Note from Randy: Here is another gem from Nanci’s journal she kept during her cancer years. She wrote this while anticipating some bad news about her health, and about our dog, Maggie. When someone survives an accident or gets a negative biopsy report, we sigh in relief and say, “God is good.” We’re right to give heartfelt thanks. But God remains just as good if the person dies or the biopsy report brings bad news. God is good even when we can’t... Read more
Because we’re finite and unique and because we’ll never know everything, we may not agree about everything in Heaven. We’ll agree on innumerable matters and wonder how we ever thought otherwise. But we’ll still likely have different tastes in food and clothes and music and thousands of other things. We will have discussions, perhaps even debates, about things we won’t yet understand. Of course, there will be no personal attacks, no ill-informed biases, and no prideful refusal to grant a... Read more
How we think about suffering will radically affect how we see God and the world around us. If you believe God should always bless you and your loved ones with material abundance and good health, you are setting yourself up to lose your faith. Actually, you should lose that faith, because it’s false. Replace it with true biblical faith. Trials are an opportunity to jettison false ideas about God and ground ourselves in who He reveals Himself to be in His Word.... Read more
Nanci and I watched the Super Bowl together every year since we met in 1969. She loves Jesus, people, dogs, and football. And I think she would enjoy the videos of a strong Christian athlete and his family I’m linking to in this blog. (No offense intended to fans of the Kansas City Chiefs, a great team and great organization that has its own share of believers. The Purdy story is simply unique in so many ways, and I found the... Read more
Our lives are so brief, they may seem like pebbles dropped in a pond. They create ripples for a moment, tiny wrinkles that smooth out, then are gone forever. Abandoned tombstones with names no one remembers are stark reminders of our eventual anonymity in this world. What do you know about your great-grandparents? What will your great-grandchildren know about you? Our brief stay here may appear insignificant, but if we spend our lives honoring Jesus and being generous, thereby storing... Read more
Psalm 23 was the first passage I memorized as a brand-new Christian, at age 15. I remember loving those words. I am amazed at how much more they mean to me now because of the suffering and grief I have both witnessed and experienced since then: 1 Yahweh is my shepherd, I shall not want. 2 He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside quiet waters. 3 He restores my soul; He guides me in the... Read more
Recently I shared this on Facebook: In all my hardest times, God has been there. He’s been faithful to me when I had to resign as a pastor, had issues with church leaders, went through lawsuits and public scorn, was restricted to minimum wage, and faced disease and depression and the deaths of close friends and family members, including the death of my beloved wife and best friend, Nanci. I don’t understand why everything has happened, but I have seen a... Read more
One of the things I love most about our ministry is that our staff take the time to minister and talk to people who contact us. One of our EPM staff, Amy Schafer, shared about a wonderful conversation she had with a customer who called to order Heaven booklets: She has one booklet already that she was able to read daily to her mother who had Alzheimer’s, and it was such a comfort and always brought peace to her mom (and her).... Read more
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