Monthly Archives: May 2023

I will call her Amelia though that is not her real name. She was invited to our church in Indianapolis by a friend at her public high school when she was a sophomore. Her life had been rugged, to put it mildly, reared in a “hard” religion household and a life where genuine affection wasContinue reading “Making a Difference”

New York Yankees legend Yogi Berra, addressing graduates, once said, “Your future’s bright, even though the future is not what it used to be.” The poet Martha Snell Nicholson wrote of the future: “I stood with God on the edge of the world, and my hand was in His hand. I looked down the roadContinue reading “Congratulations, Graduates!”

Chapter 2 of the book of Lamentations might well be titled, “The Purposeful Punishment of God’s People.” It begins with the same word as chapter 1, “How!” It is a word of utter amazement, the only word the prophet could think of as he surveyed the devastation that God had brought upon His people, HisContinue reading “The Despair of a Disciplined Nation”

Believe it or not, pastors and those who are in “full-time,” vocational ministry sometimes go through discouraging times and need to be encouraged by others. We who preach to others need to hear preaching; and we who exhort others need to be exhorted! A Church in Mississippi wanted to encourage its pastor by placing aContinue reading “Encourage Him”

At some dark corner, life will screech to a halt for just about every one of us, when, like David, we are told that our dearest and best friend or family member has come into the icy clutches of death. It was on the infamous day that Saul and his son, Jonathan, died in battleContinue reading “Grief”

“Deep within her breast of clay, filled with love from day to day;All for you from life’s first start, is your mother’s holy heart.Heart of passion, peace and prayer; heart of mother’s daily care;For her children one and all, should they stand or should they fall.Heart endowed with God’s own love, filled with goodness fromContinue reading “A Mother’s Heart”

Dr. Harry Ironside told a story at a conference about a prominent English preacher who, while speaking to a group of fellow-pastors at an association meeting, shared the following incident: “One evening as he was about to retire, there came a knock at the front door. Upon answering it, he found a poor little girl,Continue reading ““Get My Mother In””

Recently, our local police department dispatched a couple of SWAT teams to the east side of our city after receiving a call from a frantic young woman. She had escaped from a house where a sadistic male had held two young women hostage for several days. A tipster reported that there was a girl chainedContinue reading “How! (Pt. 2 on the book of Lamentations)”

Like every first Thursday of May since 1952, today is the National Day of Prayer. And, Paul exhorted Timothy to pray for “kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.” (I Tim. 2:1) So, I invite and encourage you to joinContinue reading “Day of Prayer!”

The book of Lamentations consists of five poems that mourn or lament the fall of Jerusalem in 586 B.C. to the Babylonians. It is filled with more emotion, feeling, and heart-cry than any other portion of the Word of God. The author of the book is universally considered to be none other than the “weepingContinue reading “How!  (Pt.1 on the book of Lamentations)”