The Joy of Scripture
When I reflect on the times in my life when I’ve been most devoted to digging deeply into Scripture, I’m struck by the joy, courage, contentment, and confidence in God that resulted. For example, when I was in high school, I seldom went anywhere without a pack of index cards on which I’d handwritten Bible verses. I was a competitive distance runner at the time, and as I logged many long miles I carried the verses with me and committed passage after passage to memory. As I meditated on Scripture the miles flew by and my life, faith, and attitude were renewed, shaping a heart and mind bent toward God.
Living Truth
Ever wanted to live like a monk? Thirty-four young adults did, accepting an offer from the Archbishop of Canterbury to embrace a countercultural, monastic way of life for ten months. From varied nations and denominations, the group formed a community that studied the Scriptures, prayed, and served together. At the end of their time, one participant stated, “We’ve spent time growing in intimacy with God, learning from Jesus and listening to the Holy Spirit.”
Source of Truth
Often, when I search for something on the Internet, I’m not sure I can trust the information I find. If I type a topic into a well-known search engine, I may end up on a website that features unverified information. Disclaimers warn that experts haven’t reviewed the content and so there’s no way to guarantee that it’s accurate, complete, or unbiased. No matter how authentic the material might seem, I know it’s unwise to trust it.
Ears to Hear
Joanne Milne experienced the world as a soundless place. Deaf for the first 39 years of her life, everything changed after she had cochlear implant surgery. The procedure enabled sound vibrations to rouse her auditory nerves. A nurse’s voice was the first noise she heard, and the experience brought her to tears. She said, “Hearing things for the first time is so, so emotional, from the ping of a light switch to running water. . . . I can already foresee how it’s going to be life-changing.”
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.
Knowledge by Touch
Thanks to journalist Swagat Thorat, India has a newspaper for its blind citizens. An estimated 24,000 visually impaired people read the biweekly braille publication. Thorat believes that the ability to read articles about current events is important. He named the newspaper Sparshdnyan, which means: knowledge by touch.
Drawing Alongside
After scaling a 350-foot rock wall, my climbing partner and I came face-to-face with a massive ice formation—thick, solid, and vertical. Too good an adventure to pass up, we began crunching into the solid wall of blue-green ice with our ice axes and the spikes of our climbing boots.
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.
hard conversations
Have you ever been asked to do something you didn’t feel qualified to do—something you felt that God was asking you to do? I usually feel this way in the midst of a hard conversation. The moment truth-telling becomes necessary or when I feel compelled to speak to someone who has hurt me, I especially sense the nudging of God. I feel unqualified to do what He wants—to speak the truth in love in the hopes of winning the other person back (Matthew 18:15; Ephesians 4:15).
Rest Assured
A Japanese composer was hailed for a time as a “modern Beethoven.” He was credited with creating hits such as “Symphony No. 1, Hiroshima.” Despite being deaf, the man once said, “If you trust your inner sense of sound, you create something that is truer. It is like communicating from the heart.” After his hearing-impaired status came into question, however, he confessed that another musician wrote his most famous music.
truth from on high
Albert Einstein challenged long-held views of science with his theory of general relativity— a complicated idea that defied comprehension. Virtually no one could understand it. For instance, in 1919, mathematician Sir Arthur Eddington was asked if it was true that only three people on earth understood relativity. He replied, “Who’s the third?” Good question!
faulty premise
Good morning,” the flight attendant said cheerily. “Welcome to Flight 0000 to Greenville- Spartanburg.”
what is a koala?
I recently read an article that lists 12 common half-truths many of us have accepted as facts. Here are a few: peanuts aren’t really nuts (they’re legumes), a palm tree isn’t a tree (it’s a plant), a koala bear isn’t really a bear (it’s a marsupial), and a penny is actually worth more than one cent—costing about two cents to make. Whether they are of consequence or not, we find ourselves swimming in half-truths.
mixed reviews
A recent spate of God-related movies led to surprising success at the box office. Reviews, however, were decidedly mixed.
whose word?
Whether it was the 10-hour TV series The Bible or the movies Son of God and Noah, the world has watched a lot of stories based in varying degrees on the Bible in the past few years. But what do people truly believe about God’s Word?
