The Shepherd’s Voice
Since going through a difficult experience three years ago, I’ve battled subsequent bouts of intense anxiety and fear. Upon learning of my season of struggle, a dear friend encouraged me to memorize, meditate on, and embrace John 10. The passage, she explained, expounds on the Good Shepherd we have in Jesus and calls us to recognize and listen to His voice rather than voices of doubt, darkness, discouragement, and shame.
Hearing Loss
According to the World Health Organization, more than a billion young people are at risk of hearing loss because of personal audio devices and damaging levels of sound at some entertainment venues, where noise levels can top 120 decibels for hours on end! Doctors warn that a steady onslaught of loud noise, particularly through earbuds, is damaging the hearing ability of a generation.
Two-Winged Sun
For 5 years, an ancient clay seal remained in a dark closet in Jerusalem’s Institute of Archaeology. Dug up at the foot of the southern part of Jerusalem’s old city wall, initial examination failed to establish the true identity of the nearly 3,000-year-old object.
What Is God?
A pastor resigned because he wanted to press the “very edges of religion and faith and God.” As science discovers unfathomable mysteries and as society challenges traditional beliefs, it can become difficult to think about God as we always have. The pastor confessed, “I don’t even know if we know what we mean by God anymore.”
Four Views
St. Andrew’s Cathedral is a glistening church near the southern tip of Singapore. While exiting the sanctuary, worshipers can see four distinct and colorful images in stained glass above the front door.
Last Dance
Neuroscientists say our brains are flexible organs that harden over time. When one of our 100 billion neurons sends an electrochemical charge to another neuron, it opens a new path in the brain. If the neuron repeats this signal enough times, the path widens into a road and then a runway. The more we think about something, the more that thought becomes embedded in our brains. It might be easy to change our minds when experiencing a new thought. It’s more difficult when that thought has built a highway in our heads.
Greater
Howling winds, booming thunderclaps, and lightning flashes tend to make me nervous, even when I’m sheltered in a safe, dry place. Gentle rain showers I can handle. It’s the clamor and din of an intense storm that get me. So Jesus could well have been speaking to me when He asked His disciples, “Why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith?” (Mark 4:40).
Knowing the Deeper Things
As scientists have continued to search the Mariana Trench, which lies 26,000 feet under the Pacific Ocean’s surface, they’ve discovered a new species of fish never seen before—one which researchers describe as a mix between a puppy, an angel, and an eel. It’s mind-boggling and humbling to think that even after so much time and effort has been spent trying to understand this planet, there’s still so much that we don’t know about all that God has created.
Mortality and Eternity
Mortality motivates and eternity influences. These two things motivated and influenced Puritan leader Richard Baxter, who is credited with saying, “The face of death, and nearness of eternity, did much to convince me what books to read, what studies to prefer and prosecute, what company and conversation to choose. It drove me early into the vineyard of the Lord, and taught me to preach as a dying man to dying men.” Baxter’s mortality made him discriminating as to how to use his time. When we look at the Scriptures, it’s clear that they influenced his understanding.
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.
Courage Under Fire
We’re in that sweet season of hope and possibilities. No matter how difficult the year may have been, most of us hope for a better and brighter new year. At the end of last year, I knew I would be juggling my job along with the daunting task of handling the responsibilities of a colleague who was going on maternity leave.
not fiction
Recently a store that’s part of a huge retail chain labeled its Bibles as “fiction.” A pastor shopping for a gift came across the Bibles and saw “Fiction” written on the price tag. So he took a pic and posted it on social media with the comment: “[Name withheld] has Bibles for sale under the genre of FICTION. Hmm.” The retailer has since apologized, saying the Bibles were mislabeled and the mistake had been corrected.
a passion learned
As a second-grader at a mission school in Ghana, I didn’t fare too well. Our two teachers gallantly juggled lesson plans for students spanning seven grades. This academic effort took place in a two-room cinderblock structure with an aluminum roof that began to broil us by noon each day. Distractions waged war on my 7-year-old attention span, and they were winning—handily.
Is It Him?
When I began training my hunting dog, I kept him very close to me, issued only one command, and made sure to enforce the command, should he not understand or obey. Each time we had success, I would give him a little more freedom and then repeat the command, making sure he received a lot of affirmation and praise for his compliance. These days I can let him loose in the woodlands and be assured that all I have to do is call his name and then give a hand signal and he will do as I tell him without delay—most of the time at least! He hears my voice, he is listening all the time for it, and he wants to obey because he trusts me.
Today’s Verse . . .
My three sons have grown up and spread their wings, so I’ve become more and more thankful for texting. It’s one way I can stay in touch with them. Even though one lives an hour’s drive from me and another is 3 hours away, we can still digitally discuss the stuff of life.
