In the woods near our home, some wild lilies make an appearance each spring. They don’t send out engraved invitations, notify their fans by email or Facebook, or send a text...

It’s not hard to turn away from something we don’t deem essential for our lives. It’s hard to welcome this “unshakable essential” when we’re taking care of things just fine. After...

While a life with God welcomes free choice, once a commitment is made, some essentials cannot be refused, ignored, or misplaced. We must accept them as God’s gifts, whether welcomed or...

Is there any doubt about the fact that Jesus came to shake things up? He called people who heard this word for the first time and those of us who read...

The church I serve is eight decades old, and I am the fourth Senior Pastor. The cloud of witnesses here, like in most churches, are the shoulders on which we figuratively...

Martyrdom is not a comfortable contemplation. The passage for the day needs to come with the familiar warning that some of this content may be disturbing—stoned to death, sawn in two,...

All those who are named in the passage today—Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel—did great things. All also stood in need of forgiveness. Perhaps chief among the sinners was great King...

The psalmist shares his heartfelt cry as one who believed God’s way was one of restoration: “Restore us, O God; let your face shine, that we may be saved!” A few...

Before reading the entire psalm, we must focus on its beginning, “Stir up your might, and come to save us!” It is hard to read this lamenting psalm without mourning the...

In these verses from Isaiah, God is portrayed as a farmer who prepares the ground for a vineyard and plants grapes in hopes of yielding sweet fruit. Instead, God gets wild,...