The Road and the Sword

Too often I forget myself. My pride swells like a Cracker Barrell-egg-shell-toy-dinosaur that has been left in it’s bowl of water too long. At times like these I’m gently and sometimes subtly reminded with a nudge by the staff of Christ to return to the sheepfold. This reminding is at best a slight, noticeable bump, but at other times it is a sword. A sword that cuts deep into the idols that I cling so tightly to. My grasped knuckles of pride and arrogance, disbelief and panic are as white as my woolen coat. The Shepherd wins, always.

As I walk the road that has been set before me, I seem to long more often for the destination than I ever have before.

Wild Things

       

         Wild Things

Do wild things know grief?
Are they familiar with the path of pain and fear?
A startled rabbit might bolt into the thicket;
A deer might wheeze and snort,
Leaving her nemesis with bounding blur of white.

…God Meant it for Good…

French Artist Gustave Dore’ Joseph and His Brothers

“You intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good. He brought me to this position so I could save the lives of many people.” Genesis 50:20 NLT.

When I was a younger man I struggled greatly with losing my hair. It started to thin when I was a senior in high school. By the time I graduated from college I was consoling myself with the fact that I shared this trait with both Officer John McClane and James Bond (well former James Bond anyway)…but then I remembered that saving 200 hostages and keeping international relations secure for all of the Western World gave them a bit of an advantage over a college graduate with 1000 hours running a backhoe and a class B commercial Truck driving license. Neither was I Bruce Willis nor Sean Connery.

Considering Rubbish

Friendship is truly a gift from God. We have some friends who live too far away and we consequently don’t get to see nearly often enough. Our hearts think of them often as they tweet their way into our thoughts and sometimes prayers. Their writing is encouraging and thought-provoking and I’m thankful to know them. Recently Amber has been writing on chains and as go our lives so go the links in the chains.

A Benediction

Jacob Blessing Joseph’s Children Shoshanna Brombacher 2008

Hebrews chapter 11 is sometimes referred to, throughout much of Christendom, as the “hall of faith.” The author of Hebrews is celebrating those who have, in faith, gone before us and who serve as a blessing to those who are still living out their faith in word and deed.

Jacob is mentioned, among others, for a seemingly non-productive act. The writer of Hebrews is recounting Genesis 48 where Jacob offers a benediction upon his grandsons, Ephraim and Manasseh. At the protest of Joseph, their father, Jacob begins his providential proclamation; an act of great faith. Faith, to a secular world, will seem non-productive but its foundation lies in the letting go of production while trusting in the faithfulness of God and not ourselves. Where we honor accomplishment and achievement, God honors trust and faith in the One who achieved what we never could. The Gospel is the good news of what Christ has done and not what we can or even could do. What seems foreign to man is right to God and what is right to God seems foreign to man. Don’t expect the gospel to make sense as we are chained down by worldly thoughts, structures, economies and beliefs.