When I was nine, my father built a giant sieve to separate stones from the soil. He wanted a lawn back where the yard was still piles of rubble from a construction project. At dinner that night he asked me to help him shovel one of the piles through the sieve. At nine, my idea […]
Category: prayer
Calling the plumber.
Imagine arriving home at day’s end to find greasy black liquid spreading across the counter, running down the cabinets onto the floor, and soaking into the hallway carpet. A backed-up kitchen sink on the middle floor of a forty-storied apartment building is neither peaceful nor relaxing. A quick call brought two men running down the […]
Described with thunder
Poetic metaphor is stealthy. Magnificent references can be mistaken for sleepy flourishes. Beware of this, for not all metaphors are meant to be delicate. Back in the day, we tacked Niagara Falls onto the end of too much vacation. Bad move. I still hope not to be remembered by my kids for that visit. Two […]
Prayer is the work
In his book Deepening Your Conversation with God, Ben Patterson observes: prayer is the work and ministry is the fruit. He’s right. Praying for others is the heavy lifting of wielding influence — especially when your advocacy involves searching Scripture and using God’s revealed will and reputation to make your case. As R. A. Torrey […]
What are citizens to do?
God is in charge of history. He asks us to work, to try, to pour ourselves out to make things better. But he is an actor in history also. He chastises and rescues, he intervenes in ways seen and unseen. Or chooses not to. Twenty-sixteen looks to me like a chastisement. He’s trying to get […]
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