It seems to me that we give credence to ideas simply because we have heard it so many times we assume it to be true. Western culture has made us lazy thinkers. Fake news is swallowed like a careful scientific study, peer-reviewed! Read more…

If you tried to repay me for a gift I gave to you, that would end up as a silly thing for you to do or an offense to me. Likewise, if I gave you a gift and you threw it against the wall and defiantly exclaimed that you didn’t want it and had no intention of using or keeping it my heart would break. Read more…

If you work and live for Jesus opposition will likely arise. Indeed, my counsel to the faithful I have met whose mission for God ended with religion’s brakes or agents of the devil’s shattering blows is simply that only when your faithfulness reaps a harvest does a target appear on your back. When a successful mission gets ripped away from you the message for you to hold close reads, “You had it right”.

If life throws a vicious curve at you, and temptation pulls hard at you to give up, plan revenge or live angry, take a lesson from Joseph. Read more…

“Then he [Jesus] said to them, “I can guarantee this truth: Unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes like this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3-4 God’s Word).

But Paul said, “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, thought like a child, and reasoned like a child. When I became an adult, I no longer used childish ways” (1 Corinthians 13:11 God’s Word). Read more…

Over the years I have heard many stories about how parents compelled their children to behave “in church”. Anything from a little pinch on the bottom, taking them out for a good “talking to” and including threats made at home about what will happen if they don’t behave.

I do wonder. Read more…

Truth often explodes out of fiction, and Jean de La Fontaine (July 8, 1621 – April 13, 1695) rates high. In his A Hundred Fables one finds the fable, “The Wolf Accusing the Fox”. The monkey acts as judge and makes this ruling:

“And hence I fine you both -…
You wolf, in short, as bringing groundless charges.
You fox, as guilty of it.”

I choose not to count how often innocent people have suffered terribly at the hands of false accusers Read more…

Our Circle didn’t get together today, the day we remember the crucifixion of Jesus. And so I was not part of any ritual.

A part of me misses that because some parts of the ritual have emotional impact. Some parts I don’t miss, the fact that it repeats in identical (or at least very similar) routine year after year, for instance. Read more…