Most of the time, I associate this Psalm with funerals. I don’t like to read this Psalm because it brings to mind sadness and pain. And yet, this Psalm is all about peace.
Crossroads: Awestruck
March 20, 2023 by Leave a Comment
Have you ever been awestruck by something? Perhaps a sight that took your breath away? For me, those times come most often when I am standing on top of a mountain, gazing out into the distance at the creation God has formed. Depending on the season, creation is either lush and green, or alive with color, or waiting in the darkness to spring back to life.
Crossroads: Guilty
March 6, 2023 by Leave a Comment
When I was in the first grade, I couldn’t seem to keep my mouth shut. I wanted to tell everyone everything all of the time. So being asked to be quiet wasn’t easy for me. One day we had a fire drill at school and our teacher instructed us to walk quietly outside. Honestly, I tried.
Crossroads: God Hears Us
January 16, 2023 by Leave a Comment
I had a tough year when I was in the sixth grade. One of the hardest parts, though, was not having any close friends at school. I prayed and I prayed for God to help me. And God heard my prayers.
Crossroads: Music
November 21, 2022 by
The election is this week, and for the past several months, life has felt out of control…. And in the midst of all of this name calling, mudslinging, and other awfulness, the world is at war.
Crossroads: The Lord Watches Over You
October 24, 2022 by
It’s almost Halloween, and this time of year tends to be a bit scarier than normal. People decorate their houses to look scarier, scary movies come on TV, and some people wear scary costumes on Halloween.
Crossroads: The Lord is Faithful
October 3, 2022 by
When I was a kid, my stepdad promised he would take us to Europe. Years went by and eventually he and my mom got a divorce. And in that whole time, he never took us to Europe. He didn’t keep his promise. He meant well when he promised to take us, but he couldn’t make it happen.
Jesus’ Use of the Psalms
May 10, 2022 by
For ordinary Christians who experience opposition and negative feelings, we are invited to bring the full breadth of these experiences into the realm of God.
Crossroads: The Lord Has Done Great Things
April 11, 2022 by
“The Lord has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy.” There are many times I can name when God has done great things for me. When I was in the sixth grade and I didn’t have any friends, God sent me a friend named Jessica.
Crossroads: Thirst
March 28, 2022 by
We went to camp one summer in the middle of July in the middle of Alabama. And man was it hot! The heat index was about 100 degrees every day.
Crossroads: Waiting on the Lord
March 14, 2022 by
I find myself anxious a good bit of the time. I worry about what will happen, whether or not something will actually occur, and if things will turn out okay. It seems like Psalm 27 was written for worriers.
Crossroads: How Big Is God’s Love?
January 17, 2022 by
I can remember saying “I love you this much!” as a child, with my arms open wide. I’m sure you’ve seen children do this before: they open their arms as wide as they can and say “I love you this much!” Or they give you a bear hug and squeeze and say the same thing.
Crossroads: Who Is the Lord?
November 29, 2021 by
I tend to feel God’s majesty most when I am in the midst of His creation. I feel awestruck when I stand next to the crashing waves of the ocean. When I look out at those waters, I am amazed at the beauty that God has created.
Crossroads: Thanksgiving
November 22, 2021 by
This is a time when families gather together around a table filled with food, and remember all of the things for which they are thankful. Some years it’s easy to remember the blessings you’ve been given. But other years, it seems as if nothing has gone right.
Crossroads: God Is Our Refuge
October 25, 2021 by
Last week our devotion was on times when it seems like God isn’t there. This week’s psalm is a reminder to us that God is always there and that God is our refuge.
Crossroads: Where is God?
October 18, 2021 by
When I was a child, bad thunderstorms used to terrify me. The rain was okay, but I was very afraid of the thunder and the lightning. Thunderstorms that happened at night were always the worst. There was no way I could sleep during them.
Crossroads: Small
October 11, 2021 by
Has nature ever just wowed you? Have you ever felt small when looking at the ocean or the stars? Talk about a time when you felt awed by something in nature.
Crossroads: King of Glory
July 19, 2021 by
The LORD Almighty is the King of glory. The earth is the LORD’s and everything in it. Praise the LORD! Sometimes we forget that everything is God’s and that God created everyone.
Crossroads: Our Guide
July 12, 2021 by
We recently finished Everest VBS. As the leader of Base Camp Sing and Play as well as Summit Celebration, I was known as a Sherpa. A Sherpa is an expert guide on Mount Everest whose job it is to guide climbers safely up and back down Everest.
Crossroads: Praise the Lord!
February 1, 2021 by
As I write this, my family is getting ready to remember several losses in our family. On January 25th, we lost my great-grandmother (my mom’s grandmother) and my aunt (my dad’s sister), two years apart.
Crossroads: God Is Our Refuge
January 25, 2021 by
I was terrified of thunderstorms as a child. The thunder would get so loud that I just knew something bad would happen to me.
Crossroads: Wonderfully Made
January 18, 2021 by
As a teenager, I didn’t always feel pretty or worthwhile. There were many times when I doubted myself, particularly as a middle schooler. I had braces and I had to get glasses in middle school, and it was an awkward time.
Crossroads: Waiting
April 3, 2020 by
The Israelites were waiting and watching for God. They were waiting for the Messiah to come, and with him, redemption. They waited for thousands of years, waiting and watching for God to arrive. And then, all of sudden, God was among them, in the form of Jesus.
Connections 03.15.2020: Rebellious Creatures
March 8, 2020 by
Machines with artificial intelligence turning against the people who made them is a recurring theme in works of science fiction. One example is the 2004-08 Battlestar Galactica television series.
Connections 03.08.2020: A Wide-Awake God
March 1, 2020 by
My daughter, who turns thirteen this month, has slept poorly for a few nights in a row. She says she has a hard time getting to sleep, and then she tends to sleep restlessly and wake up sometime after midnight.
Connections 03.01.2020: Replacing the Plug
February 23, 2020 by
It’s an image most of us are familiar with: the dropping of a stone into water produces ripples, which represent the ongoing effects of an action.
Connections 06.16.2019: Great Responsibility
June 9, 2019 by
“With great power comes great responsibility.” In Stan Lee’s original 1962 comic book Amazing Fantasy #15, a slightly varied form of this sentence appears as a caption below the last panel. In the 2002 Spider-Man film, Peter Parker hears these words from his beloved Uncle Ben.
When People are like Duct Tape
March 22, 2018 by
Duct tape is amazing. You can do so many things with it. Make a dress, reattach a car bumper, do some duct work. Duct tape is decorative and functional, durable yet flexible. It can fix just about anything. Its only problem is that duct tape isn’t a permanent solution.
Crossroads: The Wonders of Winter
January 1, 2018 by
Winter can be a dark, dreary time. But it can also be filled with wonders. I absolutely love snow. As soon as it starts falling, I want to go out in it and take pictures. And if it sticks, I wait impatiently until there’s enough to build a snowman.
Connections 09.24.2017: Somewhere between Heaven and Earth
September 17, 2017 by
David is feeling pretty good about God in Psalm 145. Unlike in other psalms, there’s no word about vengeance or swords or wrath. David spends the entire psalm, even through verse 21, proclaiming God’s wonder and nearness and faithfulness. What led him to write this psalm amid all the others so full of lament, fear, anger, and revenge?
Connections 09.17.2017: The View from Below
September 10, 2017 by
God is with us. Christ is present in us. These are, the Bible assures us, facts. But such talk can go to our heads. After all, if God is with us, shouldn’t we be able to look down on other people? And if Christ is present in us, shouldn’t we be able to pass judgment on folks?
Connections 09.10.2017: Praise…and Vengeance
September 3, 2017 by
Psalm 149 begins with joy, exuberance, music, praise. It sounds like the best kind of worship service, when everyone’s singing in unison—or glorious harmony—and all are feeling good and right before God. It’s how we want things to be when we go to church with our fellow believers.
Connections 09.03.2017: Participation Trophies
August 27, 2017 by
Sometimes kids get participation trophies. You know—if you’re on the team, you get a trophy. If you come in last, you still get a trophy. Why? Because you participated. The practice is controversial among some adults who argue that we shouldn’t teach our children that they’ll be rewarded for “only” participating.
Crossroads: Don’t Give Up
August 7, 2017 by
I love learning different languages. I took French for 7 years in high school and college and I absolutely loved it. I knew what I was doing and I was good at it. When I got to seminary, though, I had to take a semester each of Hebrew and Greek. I loved Hebrew and I was good at it.
God Deems Them Righteous
June 20, 2017 by
“God does not hear the prayers of Jews,” a prominent pastor proclaimed in 1980. His words created division among Christians and Jews alike. Who had the audacity to determine whom God hears? Psalm 34 tells us exactly whom God hears…
Crossroads: I Am Fearfully and Wonderfully Made
January 30, 2017 by
I didn’t always feel pretty as a teenager. I went through the usual gawky teen phase, with braces and acne and glasses. There were times when I wished that I looked like someone else.
After Election Day
November 9, 2016 by
Anyone ready to flee to the hills today? Do you feel the wicked have bent their bows, strung their arrows, and are ready to shoot those whose heart is right (v. 2)? Do you feel like the very bottom has fallen out and that a righteous person like yourself can do very little about it?
Crossroads: Do Not Fear
September 11, 2016 by
It has been fifteen years since September 11, 2001. For many of us, that was the day that the world changed. It seems like we lost something that day: a feeling of safety and that everything would be fine.
Crossroads: Celebrate!
May 9, 2016 by
I love birthdays. I love celebrating my birthday and celebrating other people’s as well. There’s something about a birthday. One of my favorite birthday celebrations actually took place at camp.
Crossroads: My Shepherd
April 18, 2016 by
Most of the time, I associate this Psalm with funerals. I don’t like to read this Psalm because it brings to mind sadness and pain. And yet, this Psalm is all about peace. It is also about being treasured.
Crossroads: Ash Wednesday
February 8, 2016 by
I always feel the weight of the ashes on my forehead on Ash Wednesday. It wasn’t until I went to a Catholic school in Middle School that I began participating in Ash Wednesday services.
Crossroads: Praise the Lord!
October 26, 2015 by
Our youth group had a saying that we used to end our meetings each week: “God is good, all the time! All the time, God is good!” Good is good all of the time.
Crossroads: Train Up a Child
March 23, 2015 by
I loved going to church as a child. I loved Sunday school, VBS, choir, worship, and everything else I went to. I wanted to be there every time the doors were open.
Formations 03.22.2015: In the Garden
March 15, 2015 by
In “a place called Gethsemane” (v. 32), Jesus prayed to be spared the agonizing death he knew was coming to him. In his prayer, he confessed faith in a God who could do anything: “for you all things are possible” (v. 36).
Crossroads: Ash Wednesday
February 16, 2015 by
I always feel the weight of the ashes on my forehead on Ash Wednesday. It wasn’t until I went to a Catholic school in middle school that I began participating in Ash Wednesday services.
Crossroads: Majesty
February 2, 2015 by
When’s the last time you stopped and looked at the wonders of creation? Things like waterfalls, caves, canyons, mountains, and more. One of my favorite parts of creation is the waterfall.
Formations 01.25.2015: Writers Decry Removal of Nature Words from Dictionary
January 18, 2015 by
More than two dozen prominent writers, including Margaret Atwood and Andrew Motion, have written an open letter to Oxford University Press expressing alarm with the publisher’s decision to drop a number of words associated with the countryside from its children’s dictionary.
Uniform 12.14.2014: Communal Noise
December 7, 2014 by
Advent is perhaps the most audibly rich time on the Christian calendar. Bells ringing, fires crackling, people singing—the sounds of the season prepare us for Christmas in a way that sights alone cannot.