Sing To The Lord
It's as though a sinister stranger comes knocking on your door. You must let him in, for he knocks insistently and will not go away. He is sorrow personified.
Broken Cisterns
Picture yourself swinging a pick, digging from dawn to dusk, chiseling a cistern out of the hard, unyielding stone. You stay on the job, working through the biting cold of winter and the blazing heat of summer.
Growing Old; Growing Up
Old age is the season when we can give ourselves to "soul-making," as the Quakers say. We can concentrate on getting to know God better and cultivating character traits that make us more like Him. Age breaks down our strength and energy and strips us of our busyness. It's God's way of getting us to slow down so we'll take more time for Him. We can think more deeply about life, about ourselves, and about others.
Shooing Satan
Down in Texas where I was raised, the standard way to respond when someone sneezed was to say, "Scat!" It was common practice, but I never knew why we said it. Now I know. It's an old custom dating back to ancient times, when folks believed that sneezing expelled the devil. You said "Scat!" to shoo him away.
Have A Great Day!
I was in a convenience store one day, standing in line behind a man paying for his groceries. When he was finished, the clerk sent him off with a cheery "Have a great day!"
Short & Full Of Trouble
Jacob's life was full of trials. And as it was for the old patriarch, so it is for us. Life buffets and restricts us, makes demands on us that we do not want to bear. Yet even the most unjust, undeserved, and pointless suffering is an opportunity for us to respond in a way that our Lord can turn us into His own likeness. We can take joy in our trials, because we know that adversity is working to make us "perfect and complete, lacking nothing" (James 1:3-4). But this takes time.
Our Very Best
Chilean poet Pablo Neruda was a lonely and unhappy child, with no siblings or friends. One day he was investigating the backyard of his home and discovered a hole in the fence surrounding the yard. Suddenly a small hand reached out toward him from the other side of the fence. Then just as suddenly the hand was gone. On the ground was a small toy sheep.
