Forgiveness
March 17, 2024
Twenty-three years ago, my soon-to-be wife gave me the greatest gift a person can ever experience. She taught me the importance of forgiveness. True, lasting forgiveness.
All of us have been wronged and hurt by others. Sometimes it’s an ex, a wife or husband, a child, a parent or other family member, or a friend. Whatever the situation may be, it leaves wounds and they don’t always heal on their own. Sometimes the person knows what they did and sometimes they don’t.
At the time, I felt justified in not forgiving someone that hadn’t asked for it. After all, God only forgives our sins after we confess them and seek forgiveness. Or, at least that was what I was taught.
Christmas 2020
December 25, 2020
This has been a year that has stretched all of us to the breaking point. It started with an impeachment, then really got rolling with covid-19, shutdowns, protests and riots across the country, more covid, more shutdowns, and the past several weeks we’ve lived through all the election drama. Frankly, it has been a blur. Time flying by and yet passing too slowly. Not content to go out like a lamb, as I write this on Christmas Day, we all awoke to news of a bomb being set off in Downtown Nashville.
In light of all that, I’d like to share a different story for Christmas. In Matthew 12:18–21, we read a prophecy from Isaiah:
Behold my servant, whom I have chosen; my beloved, in whom my soul is well pleased: I will put my spirit upon him, and he shall shew judgment to the Gentiles. He shall not strive, nor cry; neither shall any man hear his voice in the streets. A bruised reed shall he not break, and smoking flax shall he not quench, till he send forth judgment unto victory. And in his name shall the Gentiles trust.
When Easter and Creation Collide
April 12, 2020
The Bible is incredible even when viewed as simple a story. It starts off like a great, galactic space opera, “In the beginning…” with the “heavens and the earth”, the creation of the very universe and it ends with a massive battle, everything in flames and nearly destroyed, the long promised king returns, and by the finish everything is set right, the world is restored and there is huge, magnificent wedding feast filled with celebrants as diverse as the world is wide. In between, there are conflicts, massive battles, love and romance, and the fight for the very soul of man.
The lights go down and the camera zooms in through the darkness to a single, small world that’s the focus of our story. A beam of light splits the darkness and we see Earth drawn out of the waters. Land appears, as grass, herbs and trees begin to spread across the face of it. The camera pans upward, stars twinkle into existence, the Sun and Moon begin to shine. Like some great James Cameron movie, days begin to pass by in rapid succession with the Sun setting and rising as the camera turns and plunges beneath the waters of the ocean and seas, which begin to teem with life. Great whales swim by and a voice is heard saying,
Be fruitful, and multiply…