It happens often, as I sit with God, listen, pray, and write my heart out, that He gives me an outpouring of ideas, creative and poetic phrases, even songs. But it rarely stops there, because something inside of me urges me to give it all back to him. When I do, I feel like a…
Tag: Jesus
The Three Who Stayed
The phrase, ‘the twenty who stayed’ keeps scrolling across my memory, those students who loitered in the presence of God at the end of the Asbury University chapel service, unable to do anything else. One said, she thought it was twenty minutes, but it turned into three hours. Worship, prayer, songs of deliverance, freedom for…
Asbury Revival-Please Read Now!
It’s Saturday afternoon, and I’m at the café down the way, seated among a throng of younger people, some alone and brooding, and others smiling in conversation. I’ve just tuned into the live feed of the revival going on at Asbury College, now for the past week and a half. I’m participating from a vantage…
Laura’s story
The doctors had signed the paperwork. Officially, she was gone. My younger sister Laura had come to the hospital with a burst kidney, and during surgery her heart had stopped. This is Laura speaking: “I found myself kneeling before a figure wearing sandals, and I knew it was Jesus. In that moment I felt a…
Finding A Rest, That Rests-Part II
BEATING WEARY WITH LOVE Most of us would have to admit we rarely if ever find ourselves completely rested, though all of us long for it. We long for a child’s energy, waking up ready and raring to go, skipping to breakfast! Instead, we substitute deep rest for a preoccupation with over-filling our day. We…
A Sow Named Gertrude
There’s a sow who lives on my daughter Brianna’s farm named Gertrude. Because of her trim figure, she has avoided being a pork chop, and become a pet. A while back dogs attacked her and ran off with her ears. Yea, that’s right, her ears! Oh, don’t feel too sad for Gertrude, she’s still one…
Love Carries A Saw
My friend Bob used to remind me that God comes as love, carrying a saw. When he was 19, Bob and his brother crashed into a telephone pole, and walked away unscathed. But Bob stumbled going up the embankment and his arm touched a down power line. He said during his six month’s hospital stay…
Three Questions…
Another one in the books. Another 365 days, the slow grind of a year, that now glancing back, feels more like a runaway train. Today I take pause before the train leaves the station of 2023, and ask myself three questions. Perhaps one of these will resonate with you. Did I view myself as God does?…
A Moment with the Trinity
The Lord has given us boundless imaginations. Join me as I picture a moment with the Trinity. I see them ion’s ago; the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, sitting down at the far side of the universe to decide which one would interpret love to the soon coming human race. Each one of equal worth,…
Contemplative Prayer-Seeing the Son of Man
On the day after my first son was born, I stood at the discharge counter; only KJ wasn’t going home. We needed to transfer him to the children’s hospital trauma center. The night before a kind doctor had explained to us that our son was a very sick little boy, needing 3-4 operations the first…
Contemplative Prayer-In Whose Arms?
For contemplative prayer to be grounded, it relies on two movements of faith. The first happens when we reach for the person of Jesus Christ in his invitation to “come.” In my mind’s eye I see his arm stretched toward me, the same way it was stretched on the cross and nailed in place. His…
Contemplative Prayer-On whose terms?
After 42 and a half years learning every aspect of prayer, I’ve decided contemplative prayer is the key to opening up vast spiritual understanding, deepening my love for God, and prying open a door to mystery which builds love between lovers, the same way secrets do between those in whom we share them. Unless we…
To Sir, with love 