Biblical Dinner
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The Unimaginable Greatness of Christmas
Imagine eternity. Imagine infinity—imagine absolute life and infinite power, with no beginning, with no end. Imagine infinite size, infinite mind, absolute knowledge, absolute holiness in being and motive—perfection beyond anything anyone ever dreamt—absolute power to create and destroy at will, with perfect absence of malice and perfect omniscient Justice. Such power—such absolute personhood—holy and just,…
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Toast for Thanksgiving
I confess have a favorite movie—Babette’s Feast*. Like Jesus, Babette made a feast for a village of Christian people who hated each other. The table was set with joy, mercy and reconciliation. I hope you’ll watch it someday. Near the end, Old Lorens, a surprising character in the story, offers a great toast… “Mercy and…
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A Walk on the Waves
“The secret of tranquility is the presence of Christ. When He is in the boat the waves calm themselves…if you and I are conscious of restlessness, interruptions of our tranquility by surging, impatient passions and hot desires within ourselves, or by the pressure of outward circumstances, or by having fallen beneath our consciences and done…
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Jerks for Jesus
“Jacob was a manipulator, Peter was impulsive, John had a temper, David had an affair, Noah got drunk, Jonah ran from God, Paul was a murderer, Gideon was insecure, Miriam was a gossip, Martha was a worrier, Thomas was a doubter, Sarah was impatient, Elijah was afraid, Jeremiah was depressed, Moses stuttered, Zacchaeus was short,…
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Happy St. Crispin’s Day, Coach Lombardi
“I firmly believe that any man’s finest hour, the greatest fulfillment of all that he holds dear, is that moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle—victorious.” —Coach Vince Lombardi And that was just football. We each have a calling from God—it’s rarely easy and…
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Frightened People
“The remarkable thing about fearing God is that when you fear God you fear nothing else, whereas if you do not fear God you fear everything else.” —Oswald Chambers Many people want us to fear what they fear—GMO’s, contrails, immigrants, politicians, global warming, mass extinctions, fluoridated water, FEMA camps, rogue planets, the timing of Jesus’ return—the…
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Bottom Layer of Ice
“Only God has the love we need—yet we’ve turned away from him, except to demand convenient instructions and cooperative help. So we manage every relational encounter with self-need as our ultimate value. We talk about topics we can handle. We try to build our mate’s self-esteem so we can feel good about ourselves. We pout so friends will…
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Treading Water in the Shallows
“A generation of Christians reared among pushbuttons and automatic-machines is impatient of slower and less direct methods of reaching their goals. We have been trying to apply machine-age methods to our relations with God. We read our chapter, have our short devotions, and rush away, hoping to make up for our deep inward bankruptcy by…
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Prayer on a President’s Desk
“O, God, thy sea is so great and my boat is so small.” —An Old Breton Fishermen’s prayer, from a plaque on President John F. Kennedy’s desk God can seem dark and vast, stormy, dangerous and overwhelming—like the churning sea. But like the sea, He’s also encompassing—unpredictable at times—but His love and grace fill the deep,…
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Beyond the Reach of Darkness
“There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tower high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him…
Jay McCarl 