(Scroll down to leave a comment on how you are resistant to the customs of this world.) Daniel 1:1–8 Daniel was keenly aware of the temptation to yield to the pressures of the culture around him. After all, he was a long way from home, and who would really know if he, for instance, changed his diet? Yet he chose to resist the pressures and not to give in to them. He drew the line. Note, however, that he went along with some things, nonessentials like learning the language or reading Babylon’s history. But Daniel resisted at each and every […]

Marriage seminars were never really “my cup of tea.” Not that I feel my performance as a husband is exemplary and does not need adjusting. Personal failures of both the witting and unwitting variety are sufficient to merit a closer look. Yet, the idea of sitting in a closed space with couples bearing their burdens for an extended period of time while a “trainer” provides helpful advice was not appealing to me. Of course, my stalling tactics fell on deaf ears and subsequently Julianne and I “agreed” to attend one sponsored by a friend. And, you know what? It wasn’t […]

Hope. Our hearts yearn for it. Our souls long for it. After a couple of years of chaos, caused largely by a global pandemic, the world is desperately seeking strength, joy and hope when the surrounding world seems to be crumbling. To find that sense of happiness, some have turned to a false sense of hope… to try to fill the hole that only a relationship with Christ can fill. Where are we looking to receive the sense of “comfort and joy” that we all desperately desire? There can be only one true answer, and it was revealed thousands of […]

2021 marks the 400th anniversary of a special American tradition. Four centuries ago, during the fall of 1621, the Pilgrims sat down with their new Native American friends and celebrated the first Thanksgiving in Plymouth, Massachusetts.  What a great tradition – where we gather together to recount the Lord’s blessings. I love the statement from columnist Mark Steyn: “Speaking as a misfit unassimilated foreigner, I think of Thanksgiving as the most American of holidays.” Consider its history as a holiday.    Pilgrims The Pilgrims were one particular congregation that was born in the Midlands of England, in the sleepy village […]

I am not a Facebook aficionado. Being both old and old fashioned, my preferred human interaction involves being able to smell the other person’s breath. I would much rather be “in your face” than on your Facebook. So it was somewhat out of character to open a message from Mike Garland, a former co-worker, to find a photograph of a sunrise taken from his ocean home in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. For some strange reason, my immediate reaction involved not so much the beauty of the shot, but rather the thought that since sunsets and sunrises look identical to the […]