I spent 2020 assessing my faith. Here are some of the questions I asked myself: How many of my beliefs are actually based on what’s in the Bible? How much of my faith is rooted in my own concept of Christianity? How much is born out of my culture or my life experiences? It was…
“Return home and tell how much God has done for you.” So the man went away and told all over town how much Jesus had done for him.” (Luke 8:39 NIV) As I sat in the church pew with my head bowed in prayer, I heard a voice reverberate so thunderously in my heart that it…
Dear God, I shoveled my elderly neighbor’s stoop this morning. He was angry that a closer neighbor, one he shares a porch with, never does his side. I shoveled the other neighbor’s side too, and it made the elderly neighbor angry. He said his neighbor didn’t deserve it. I told him nobody deserves anything. And…
During graduate school, it took an embarrassing amount of encouragement and cheerleading from my friends and family for me to complete my degree. While I’d been a big fish in a small pond as an undergraduate, I was now a tiny, very naïve fish in a rather large lake. I regularly wanted to quit, even…
Recently, while studying the Book of Ephesians, it occurred to me that the apostle Paul wouldn’t be any more popular now than he was in his day. Sure, he had his converts. Yes, Christians were turning the world upside down. But there has never been a time when the majority welcomed what he called good…
Our flatlander family vacationed in the mountains for the first time this year. My prairie children, at home in the endless grass and fields of our North Dakota farm, were stunned at the height and majesty of the mountains. They exclaimed over the steepness of the trails as we hiked. Mom couldn’t exclaim; she was…