Foretastes of the Kingdom
When I was 10 years old, Baskin-Robbins opened a new ice cream store in my neighborhood. It didn’t serve the icy, generic brand of sweet treats that my mom occasionally bought at the grocery store. This was good ice cream—thick and creamy!
Next Gen
In 1993, Bill and Susie Mosca founded an essay contest. The winner received the couple’s bed and breakfast facility. Janice Sage’s entry took first place and she acquired the Center Lovell Inn and Restaurant. After 22 years of hosting guests, maintaining buildings, and managing finances, Janice wanted to retire. Because, as she said, “There are a lot of talented people that . . . . just can’t go out and buy an inn like this,” she also decided to give it away to a worthy person through an essay contest.
Praise in the Pain
Kim Nguyen was preparing for her doctoral exams in Old Testament when she learned that she would need surgery on her eyes. She should have recovered in 2 weeks, but 6 months later she still couldn’t see. She feared that her dream of teaching the Bible was slipping away. How could she write her dissertation if she couldn’t see? How would she find work to pay back her student loans?
Empty
Author and psychologist Madeline Levine once met with a 15-year-old girl who was “bright, personable, highly pressured by her adoring, but frequently preoccupied . . . parents.” Levine recognized the girl’s “cutter disguise”—a long-sleeve T-shirt pulled halfway over her hand with an opening torn in the cuff for her thumb. When the young girl pulled back her sleeve, Levine was startled to find what the girl had carved into her forearm: “EMPTY” . . . sadness and confusion personified.
Is Mary Really Right?
When I was in seventh grade, my math teacher showed me two separate lines that had arrows at their ends. One had the arrows pointed inward like this: >-<. The other had the arrows pointed outward like this: <->. My teacher asked me which of the two lines was longer and I answered that it was the one with the arrows pointed inward. He took out a ruler and measured them, showing me that they were identical in length! I took another look and—despite my teacher having just proved that they were the same length—stubbornly clung to the belief that my answer had been the right one.
Adopted
Pastor Adrian and his wife, Antoinette, had two biological sons and then adopted baby Rosie several years ago. For most of Adrian’s life, he has dealt with nose bleeds—an affliction his sons have inherited. One day, little Rosie ran into the house holding her nose and grinning from ear to ear as she said, “See, Daddy, my nose is bleeding—just like Mark and John!” For Rosie, a nosebleed was another way of identifying with her adopted family.
Holy, Holy, Holy . . .
Theologian R. C. Sproul once wrote, “When the Bible calls God holy it means primarily that God is . . . separate. He is so far above and beyond us that He seems almost totally foreign to us. To be holy is to be ‘other,’ to be different in a special way.”
Genuine Life
During a conversation with friends, several in the circle took turns recounting their early experiences with certain words in the Christian vocabulary. One person said, “Whenever I heard the word life mentioned by a Christian or in the Bible, I always thought it was only talking about heaven. I never thought it had much to do with me right now.” Most everyone nodded in agreement. “Yeah, it was difficult to know what there really was to be excited about,” another confessed. “I imagined playing harps somewhere in the clouds, and I felt guilty when the whole idea just didn’t excite me too much.”
Unplanned Change
Flying back from a weeklong trip to Brazil, my husband and I received an unexpected text. The message from the church’s financial secretary revealed that a certified letter from our county’s board of education had arrived. Having planted a church that met at a local high school, we knew the letter had something to do with our rental agreement. For more than a year, it had been the place our church family called home each Sunday. Our dismay grew when we received the contents of the letter—the board wasn’t going to renew our lease for the building past the end of the year, just 3 short months away.
Loving Correction
In an interview on a popular website, an author was asked about her divorce and remarriage. The divorce had devastated her and her ex-husband, she said. She had believed marriage was a lifelong commitment and still did, and she had sought pastoral guidance as to whether remarriage to her new husband was right. I finished the article and scrolled down to the comments section.
Discerning Truth
In the Shakespearean play Othello, the main bad guy is named Iago. He pretends to be Othello’s closest friend, offering counsel and advice, but all the while he’s plotting his friend’s downfall behind the scenes. The play is carefully constructed so that it’s impossible for even the audience to grasp the underhanded deceit of Iago until the very last scene. He’s plausible right up until the end, and if his part is acted well, the audience will often gasp when his true nature is finally revealed, for the character’s deception is convincingly hidden by his words and actions.
The First Witnesses
Who was the first group of people to be invited to see the Christ-child? Who was the first eyewitness of the resurrected Christ?
Dead or Alive?
I recently received news that the cancer I’ve been battling off and on for 12 years has returned for the fifth time. So now my wife and I are prayerfully considering treatment possibilities. The therapy employed last time included a bone marrow transplant. And now with that normally last line of defense crossed, my doctor tells me we’re in “uncharted territory.” My lymphoma has continued to threaten to take my life. That’s why I’m glad I already was dead—but am now alive in Jesus.
Stand, Don’t Fight
Cameron, a friend of mine, didn’t share my spiritual beliefs. He openly opposed Christianity and some of its moral tenets. One day in my previous workplace, he led a seminar on domestic violence and used it as a chance to bash the Bible. His “correlation” was illogical and inappropriate. The book that tells husbands to “love their wives as they love their own bodies” and instructs fathers “Do not provoke your children to anger by the way you treat them” does not condone violence in the home (Ephesians 5:28, 6:4).
How Can I Help You?
Well-known seminary president Haddon Robinson was meeting with a wealthy donor to seek a sizable contribution. (I assume that it was for a ministry project.) When Robinson asked for a specific amount, the donor said something like this: “I was prepared to give you much more if you had asked.”
