Relief: Nice Work if you can Get It

For true believers, God is more often found in art than science. You can’t see God in a formula. Our God is best appreciated in the context of our lives—like a relief sculpture carved on our hearts. Relief in the…

Beauty from Upheaval

If life teaches us anything, it’s that wants and needs are two different things. A child has many wants from a parent, but need boils down to the wisdom, strength and courage that come through a mom and dad’s faith,…

Rare Fruit from Our Family Trees

This post is dedicated to Dolores, my family’s lifelong friend and my surrogate mom. As one who is passionate about life, she has grown wise as its student. So it’s no surprise that one of Dolores’s passions is genealogy: the…

Seed Scattered and Sown

Many country/western songs are about the search for love, but their lyrics really explain why we misinterpret the true meaning of love—and therefore end up “lookin’ for love in all the wrong places.” This idea of needing love that’s requited…

Hope Sprouts from Scorched Earth

A crop of young faces sprouted at one of the main intersections of our town this summer. The faces belong to Independence High School’s Graduating Class of 2020, but they represent a generation of young people hoping to make their…

Shedding the Skin that Enslaves Us

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said many memorable things through his speeches. His last one, delivered the night of April 3, 1968—the night before he was assassinated—is famous for how it ended. He said “I’ve seen the promised land. I…

Balancing the Costs of Rent-Free Living

“Hanging onto resentment is letting someone you despise live rent-free in your head.” — Ann Landers, advice columnist Do a web search and you’ll find a lot of people have appropriated Ms. Landers’ quote and weaponized it into a meme. Bragging…

Our Autistic God

As the father of two sons with autism, and as a man who studies scripture, I can’t help but wonder: Could Jesus and the prophets have been autistic? As depicted in the Bible, Jesus and the prophets exhibit some autistic…

The Call to Be Holy Bacteria

Blood has been the cause of much solemnity this year—both its infection and its wanton spilling. And while we were sheltering in place for a few months, we had a lot of time to consider our blood relation to God.…

The Charge: Stiff-necked. The Verdict: Guilty

That’s us! We’re referred to as “stiff-necked” (stubborn as an ox) at least 18 times in scripture. Anyone with a family KNOWS it’s true. The worst offenders can be those closest to us. God Himself—although He loves His children—can barely…