Failing to listen

When you dig into the Old Teatament you begin seeing that a common theme is the people of Israel failing to listen to God and His commandments. God does all these supernatural things for His people, Israel, from the plagues of Egypt, to the parting of the Red Sea, to...

Real or Fake?

Nearly twenty years ago, when I was a seminary student, I was invited by the pastor I interned for to go to a ministry conference. The conference featured the types of speakers one expects at such events: well-known pastors of large churches, most of whom had written...

How to Defeat a Lion

One of the first Bible stories most of us learned as Children, even if we didn’t frequent a church, was likely Daniel in the lions’ den. It is an amazing story both of Daniel’s faith and God’s faithfulness. Most of us would love to have the ability to stare down a...

Burning Anger

I concluded some time ago that I will almost certainly meet my demise in a fiery wreck of some sort. I can’t tell you the number of near-catastrophic crashes I’ve experienced in my car, on my bike, or on foot. These have ranged from rabid dogs to swerving...

When we want to quit

For me, one of the most surreal stories in all Scripture involves the prophet Elijah in 1 Kings 19. To understand how crazy this story is, we need to start in 1 Kings 18. After 3 1/2 years without rain, things came to a head in Israel. The King, under the strict thumb...