Mission Faithwalk

               On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice,  “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink.   Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.”   By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified. (John 7:37-39)           The night before last, I shared a video in which the center verse of this passage was quoted. At the time, I had an epiphany. I would use this verse for today’s blog post. I knew at the time that I should have written it immediately, but I was busy working on something else, so here I am, staring at the computer screen and wondering what to write. No other verse comes to mind to write about either.    ...

  But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.” (Luke 1:30-33)           Good news, Mary! The thing that good Jewish girls hoped and prayed for – that they would give birth to the Messiah – she’d been chosen to do. Exciting…in theory. But what was she to tell Joseph and her parents? Joseph knew he wasn’t the father. By rights, he and her parents, and her neighbors, should have demanded to know who the father was, and then stoned both of them. She was bringing shame and guilt on herself and her family.           The baby was born away from their home, and after a couple years, they went ...

  F or to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.  (Isaiah 9:6)              Yesterday, we considered the meanings involved in the names above, and I said we’d return to the Prince of Peace: Sar-Shalom today. That’s because on the website where I found a discussion on the Hebrew term of Prince of Peace, it discussed how the definition of peace differs from the definition of shalom. It notes that peace tends to refer to an absence of conflict or a sense of rest. I’ve described peace in terms of one’s agreement. Peace isn’t you go your way, grinding your teeth while I go my way emulating the state bird of Pennsylvania (Ruffled Grouse) and we do our best to pretend that the other doesn’t exist.           According to Names of God Bible , ed...

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.  (Isaiah 9:6)             We’re coming to Christmas. I haven’t been sharing verses associated with the holiday because I am reluctant to address the same verses we hear every year. It’s not that I don’t love the story, but what can be said that hasn’t been said every year? My own emotional ups and downs, and the ups and downs of people around me and around the world – these things provide fodder that may also be the same old, same old, but they’re felt in our lives and seem to crowd out Christmas. My history of difficulty with Christmas probably has something to do with it – and my feelings of guilt that I struggle with Christmas, too.           But today, I find myself ...

          Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God. (Psalm 42:5) Jesus replied, “Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done  to   the  fig tree, but also you can  say   to  this  mountain , ‘Go, throw yourself into  the  sea,’ and it will be done. (Matthew 21:21) If you read between the lines of some of my recent posts, you may get the idea that I’m a little anxious, worried…the real problem is the sense of being out of control. It’s not that I’m freaking out, it’s the fact that I do not have control over everything. There are some questions coming to mind that aren’t really issues, but I’m making mountains out of molehills. When I do that, it tends to be Olympus Mons (two and a half times as tall as Mount Everest from sea level.) It’s not just a mou...

  Do not say to your neighbor, “ Come back tomorrow and I’ll give it to you”— when you already have it with you. (Proverbs 3:28)   Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today. (lots of people, including Benjamin Franklin)             I don’t know whether the people who have said the second proverb knew anything about the first. They may have learned from the school of life, but that’s rather the thing about Biblical proverbs. They are focused on life as it is, not life as we think it should be. I’m struggling with this one. It’s so much easier to dump a jacket, the dog lead, the flashlight, or whatever other stuff I bring through the door on the chairs just inside the door. The dog doesn’t care, so why should it matter? I’ll put them away later. Procrastination 101.           One of the good decisions I’ve made is to try to procrastinate about procrast...

  I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my loving eye on you. (Psalm 32:8)           Today’s passage is one that I need to return to often because I tend to be anxious about directions. It seems to me that I get lost so easily, even with a GPS. Long before GPSes were available, I wanted one. It was supposed to start a mile out with “turn left in one mile,” and work its way down to, “You missed the turn, stupid.”           September 2015 was a hard month for me. I knew I was supposed to quit my job and come with Dad to Florida, but for me it was like God telling Abram to leave his home and to go a land he didn’t know. Last year was similar, because I returned to Florida without Dad, and had to figure out what to do. I got the place I’m in, and I’m starting to make it mine, but my resources are limited and I’m still trying to...